Latest / Pod Save America / The First (and Last?) Debate

Transcript

The First (and Last?) Debate · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: If you're a regular Pod Save listener, you've heard us
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: talk about the partisan right-wing echo chamber that enables conspiracy theories,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: nut jobs, and, oh yeah, Trump. The truth is, we
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: should all get out of our bubbles a little more.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: That's why we have to recommend you add the Bulwark
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: podcast to your rotation. Tim Miller, my pal, and a
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: former Republican operative turned anti-Trump crusader, interviews a wide range
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: of guests, from celebrities to politicians to everyone in between.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: It's non-tribal news and opinion, not for Team Red or
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Team Blue, but for Team Democracy. He's also joined by
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: other members of the Bulwark crew like Sarah Longwell, Will Salatin,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: and former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger. Watch on YouTube or
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: listen and subscribe to the Bulwarks podcast wherever you get
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: your podcasts.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: What's up, Brooklyn? Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: I'm Stacey Abrams.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: That's a little insulting.
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Playing for the crowd there. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer. We have a great show for you tonight.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Strict Scrutiny's Melissa Murray is here to break down all
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: the latest Supreme Court decisions and non-decisions. Our pal Amanda Littman,
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: founder of Run for Something, is here to talk about
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: yesterday's primaries in New York and the amazing roster of
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: progressive candidates running up and down the ballot this fall.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: And of course, we are incredibly lucky to be joined
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: by Stacey Abrams.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: In her first appearance.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: As a Pod Save America guest host, what a dream.
• 2:01
  Speaker 5: Thank you.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Thanks for doing this.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Huge get.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Huge get.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Huge get. All right.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Before we dig into the news, we are here in
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: New York because it's publication week for our book, Democracy
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: or Else.
• 2:16
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: How to Save America in 10 Easy Steps. Raise your
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: hand if you bought a copy. All right.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Pretty good.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 2:25
  Speaker 7: Pretty good, by the way.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: The rest of you, what's going on? Raise your hand
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: if you didn't.
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: Raise your hand if you plan to, but he got
• 2:33
  Speaker 5: you a little early.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: There you go. All right. We are trying to get
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: this thing to the top of the bestseller list.
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: Hey, expectations game. On the bestseller list.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Somewhere near the top. I don't know.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry I did that.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: We're looking to do this not just to fill our
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: insatiable hunger for public affirmation. which is even more insatiable
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: for some of us than others. But because the more
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: people who see this book and buy this book, the
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: more money goes to vote, save America and 2024 campaigns
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: that are doing the real work to save democracy. So, uh,
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: and luckily, uh, Brooklyn's own green light bookstore is here
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: in the lobby selling copies. Stacey, uh, You're a best-selling
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: author of both political books and seven actual novels. You
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: got any advice for us?
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: Writing words down works. But I will say this. Having
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: actually had a chance to read a bit of this,
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: you should tell your friends because this is a book
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: that lets you read fast and look really smart. And
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: that's the best kind of book. I mean, if Dostoevsky
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: had figured that out, he may have made it some time.
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: But That's what this does. It is a fantastic primer
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: on what's happening, but it's an even better way for
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: us to feel good about what we can get done.
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: So I would just tell people that.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Best pitch I've heard.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: That's incredible.
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: I mean, Dostoevsky is rolling over in his grave, but for.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Us, good.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Thank you. All right, let's get to the news. I
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: don't know if you guys have heard. There is allegedly
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: a presidential debate Thursday night in Stacey's hometown of Atlanta.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: What?
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Most important moment of the campaign so far. The current
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: president versus the former president. Jacked up Joe versus Don
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: the con. It's a rematch that nearly 60% of Americans
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: claim they'll watch, even though 0% want to. And can
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: you blame anyone? Because this is what happened the last
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: time these two met up.
• 4:47
  Speaker 6: I look at New York, it's so sad what's happening
• 4:50
  Speaker 6: in New York, and I'm not sure it can ever
• 4:51
  Speaker 6: recover what they've done in New York. I want to
• 4:54
  Speaker 6: make sure... You graduated last in your class, not first
• 4:56
  Speaker 6: in your class. I want to make sure.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: That's the president.
• 4:59
  Speaker 7: Can you let him finish, sir?
• 5:00
  Speaker 6: He doesn't know how to do that. He has... You'd
• 5:03
  Speaker 6: be surprised.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: You'd be surprised.
• 5:05
  Speaker 6: The wrong guy, the wrong night at the wrong time.
• 5:07
  Speaker 6: My son... was in Iraq. He spent a year there.
• 5:11
  Speaker 6: He was not a loser. He was a patriot. And
• 5:15
  Speaker 6: the people left behind there were heroes. And I resent
• 5:19
  Speaker 6: Mike Hill.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Are you talking about Hunter? I'm talking about my son,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Beau Biden. You're talking about him. I don't know. I
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: don't know, Beau. I know Hunter. What do you want
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: to call him?
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: Give me a name.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Give me a name. White supremacist and right supremacist. White
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: supremacist and right supremacist. Stand back and stand by, but
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. Why didn't you do it over
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: the last 25 years?
• 5:36
  Speaker 6: Because you weren't president screwing things up.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: You're the worst president.
• 5:41
  Speaker 6: America has ever had. Let people know, we're senators. I'm
• 5:45
  Speaker 6: not going to answer the question.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you answer that question?
• 5:48
  Speaker 6: Because the question is, the question is, the question is.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Will you shut up, man?
• 5:53
  Speaker 6: It's hard to get any word in with this clown.
• 5:57
  Speaker 8: Woof!
• 5:58
  Speaker 7: Democracy is cool.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Democracy in action, folks. Who's excited for these two to
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: give it another go? Anyone?
• 6:07
  Speaker 8: No?
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: That clip makes me want to throw up, but I'm
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: also hearing Despacito, and I don't totally know why. It
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: just puts me in that headspace from that time. You
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: know what I mean?
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Did everyone else get the pit in their stomach when
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: they watched it? I got the pit.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Every time.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So this debate will be 90 minutes long. two
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: commercial breaks, two moderators, CNN's Dana Bash and the man
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: that Trump lovingly calls Fake Tapper. There will be no
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: opening statements, no pre-written notes, no talking to advisors during
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: the break, two minute answers, one minute rebuttals, and when
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: your time is up, your mic is muted.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sure.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Muted mics. Stacey, we have all talked, probably too much
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: at this point, about our experiences preparing candidates for debates.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: You're the first guest host to have actually participated in
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: a debate as a candidate. Can you talk a little
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: bit about what it was like, what your prep was like,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: and how much staffers like us annoyed the shit.
• 7:10
  Speaker 6: Out of you?
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: Given that some of them still work with me, no.
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: I will say I was resistant to the rigor of
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: debate prep, in part because I don't like sounding stupid
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: out loud in front of other people. And part of
• 7:28
  Speaker 5: debate prep is admitting all of the things you don't
• 7:31
  Speaker 5: know to a group of people who are there purely
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: to judge you. If I want to do that, I'll
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: go and look in a mirror. But I will say
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: part of what I learned about debate, and it was
• 7:43
  Speaker 5: the best debate advice I ever got, it was that
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: I wasn't debating the other person. It was an opportunity
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: to talk to the people. And it's hard to ignore
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: the person that you vehemently disagree with when they're standing
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: that close. When you can focus on telling people what
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: they need to know, it's a lot easier to do it.
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: But debate prep sucks. It is over and over again,
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: you're giving an answer and much as you're probably thinking,
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: shut up, slow it down, cut it off, and you're
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: trying to count in your head to 30 seconds, 90 seconds,
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: and did you remember that pithy phrase you were going
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: to use that was gonna make everyone tweet you the
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: next day? And if not, you just pretended you said
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: it anyway, so there you go.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: If you were in debate prep at Camp David, what
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: would you be giving Joe Biden in terms of either
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: advice or pharmaceuticals?
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: He's debated a lot more than I have. He has
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: acquitted himself well. I think I will say in grave seriousness,
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: the biggest and most important piece of this debate is
• 8:52
  Speaker 5: remembering that most people watching it already know what they want.
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: What they need is to remember why they want it.
• 8:58
  Speaker 9: Hmm.
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: We have selective memory in this country, which is why
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: we have to do this every four years, every two years,
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: trying to remind people to vote. But the challenge and
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: the opportunity that President Biden has is to tell people
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: that this isn't about just what has happened. It's also
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: about what can happen, not the fascist storm that is
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: heading our way, but he's put a lot on the table.
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: And I mean, I grew up in the South, so
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: he's planted a lot. Now it's time to let those
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: things grow. And I think if he talks to folks
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: about what's possible and why he's the person we want
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: tending the garden so I can completely butcher this metaphor,
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: that's the best way to get people to do this.
• 9:38
  Speaker 5: But as much as that clip was interesting, watching the
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: fisticuffs is not going to be what changes people's minds.
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: But what will get them motivated and engaged is the
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: belief that if they go and do something, things will
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: sprout and grow and life will get better.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good advice. Um, So Dan, a lot of smart,
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: well-meaning organizations from the left to the center left have
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: been releasing memos and polls about what they're hoping to
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: hear and see from President Biden tomorrow night. I'm sure
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: you've read every word, looked at all the numbers. What's
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: most persuasive to you in terms of the message that
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: Biden needs to drive at the debate.
• 10:23
  Speaker 9: Well, John, I have read every word of all the memos,
• 10:26
  Speaker 9: and you're not going to believe this, but just coincidentally,
• 10:29
  Speaker 9: their advice for what Joe Biden should say at the
• 10:31
  Speaker 9: debate lines up perfectly with the policy agenda of their organizations.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: That's amazing.
• 10:36
  Speaker 7: And what are the odds, right?
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: It's very weird.
• 10:39
  Speaker 9: Look, in all seriousness, there is good advice in there,
• 10:41
  Speaker 9: particularly around how the president should talk about immigration and
• 10:43
  Speaker 9: the economy. But I think that the best way for
• 10:46
  Speaker 9: the president to do this is to take it bigger.
• 10:49
  Speaker 9: which is the story that people leave here, leave the
• 10:51
  Speaker 9: debate with, is that every single day Joe Biden wakes
• 10:54
  Speaker 9: up and he's thinking about you. He's fighting for you.
• 10:57
  Speaker 9: What does Donald Trump do? Thinks about himself. He's running
• 11:01
  Speaker 9: for president to avoid going to jail, give himself a
• 11:03
  Speaker 9: giant tax cut, go back in power so he can
• 11:05
  Speaker 9: exact vengeance on his enemies. He's not thinking about you.
• 11:08
  Speaker 9: If he gets reelected, there's going to be no one
• 11:09
  Speaker 9: in the White House who's fighting for you. And that
• 11:12
  Speaker 9: is the right message because that is the most obviously
• 11:15
  Speaker 9: and essentially true message. Joe Biden's superpower is his empathy.
• 11:19
  Speaker 9: The most obvious thing about Donald Trump is he's a
• 11:21
  Speaker 9: narcissist who cares only about himself. What is so interesting
• 11:24
  Speaker 9: about him is that he is a grievance politician, but
• 11:27
  Speaker 9: the grievances are all personal. It's people who wronged him,
• 11:30
  Speaker 9: not people who wronged you. People who took your job away,
• 11:33
  Speaker 9: shipped your job overseas. It's about the deep state, and
• 11:35
  Speaker 9: the New York Times, and the CNN, and all the
• 11:37
  Speaker 9: people who go after him, and that is absolutely true.
• 11:40
  Speaker 7: Now, this part is.
• 11:41
  Speaker 9: Very hard for people like us who have spent over
• 11:44
  Speaker 9: a decade now screaming about how the press obsesses over optics.
• 11:49
  Speaker 9: But what Joe Biden says in this debate is less
• 11:51
  Speaker 9: important than how he says it. It is going to be,
• 11:54
  Speaker 9: does he come off as forceful, strong, energetic? Does he
• 11:59
  Speaker 9: answer the questions of, according to the New York Times
• 12:02
  Speaker 9: Siena poll that was released, hopefully, three hours before this podcast,
• 12:07
  Speaker 9: three-quarters of the country who think he's too old for
• 12:08
  Speaker 9: the job? Is he going to address that? Because that,
• 12:11
  Speaker 9: to me, is the whole kit and caboodle. That's what
• 12:14
  Speaker 9: this is about.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: This is why.
• 12:16
  Speaker 9: the Biden campaign wanted this debate this early on this
• 12:18
  Speaker 9: day because they thought this was their single best opportunity
• 12:21
  Speaker 9: to address that. Because once they address that, that opens
• 12:23
  Speaker 9: up everything else, right? It makes people listen to him
• 12:26
  Speaker 9: more on the economy. It makes people trust him more
• 12:28
  Speaker 9: to protect them and keep them safe. We'll trust them
• 12:29
  Speaker 9: more to keep the border secure or to pass legislation
• 12:32
  Speaker 9: that covers immigration reform because you have.
• 12:34
  Speaker 7: To do that.
• 12:34
  Speaker 9: And so you're going to get the right message out,
• 12:36
  Speaker 9: but how he delivers that message is going to be
• 12:37
  Speaker 9: more important than anything else.
• 12:39
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: And what people are like waking up worried about is
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: not necessarily Joe Biden's age. They're worried about cost of living, affordability.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: People are saying they worry about immigration, they worry about
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: abortion access, worry about democracy. And what they're looking for
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: from Biden is that he is strong enough that he
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: can do something about this. And that's where the age issue,
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: I think, comes in. And so I do think a
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: lot of strong value statements when he's up there is
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: going to be really important to let people know he's
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: going to fight for them. And when it comes to
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: the economy, really digging in on Here's what I have done.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: It's a down payment on what I want to do
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: for the next four years. And if you give me
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: another chance, we'll keep working in this direction. If you
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: go with this guy, he only cares about himself and
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: he's going to take us back.
• 13:26
  Speaker 9: The worst mistake the president can make at this debate
• 13:29
  Speaker 9: is to turn this into a defense of his record.
• 13:31
  Speaker 7: Over the last four years.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Just can't do it.
• 13:32
  Speaker 9: Because what you're doing, and I get it, right? This
• 13:35
  Speaker 9: is the mistake every incumbent makes. It's the mistake Barack
• 13:37
  Speaker 9: Obama made in that first debate with Mitt Romney in 2012,
• 13:39
  Speaker 9: is you're proud of what you did. You're not getting
• 13:41
  Speaker 9: enough credit. This other guy across the age room is
• 13:43
  Speaker 9: lying about what you did.
• 13:44
  Speaker 7: And so you want to defend it. You want to
• 13:45
  Speaker 7: do that.
• 13:46
  Speaker 9: But when you do that as the incumbent, you're accepting
• 13:48
  Speaker 9: the premise that your opponent wants, which is this is
• 13:50
  Speaker 9: a referendum on the past. So you've got to make
• 13:52
  Speaker 9: it about the future. But you can mention the things
• 13:54
  Speaker 9: you did, but as proof positive that you're going to
• 13:56
  Speaker 9: do this in the future. Because the best comparison with
• 13:58
  Speaker 9: Trump is not the economy during Trump's presidency and the
• 14:00
  Speaker 9: economy now. It's what they're going to do to the
• 14:02
  Speaker 9: economy over the next four years. And Donald Trump's going
• 14:04
  Speaker 9: to cut taxes to the rich people. He's going to
• 14:06
  Speaker 9: pay for it by cutting Social Security and Medicare. And
• 14:08
  Speaker 9: he's going to overturn the Affordable Care Act. That's his agenda.
• 14:12
  Speaker 9: Future agenda versus future agenda is a good place for
• 14:13
  Speaker 9: the president to be.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Tommy, you weirdly decided to re-watch the first Biden-Trump debate
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: from 2020. You guys did too. Without being asked. Well,
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Tommy and I flew here on Sunday. Our flight was
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: delayed five hours, so we spent the day at LAX.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: We did. We finally got on the plane, and it
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: was pretty late. And Tommy spent the flight watching the
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: first debate.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: It was a good time.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: And then now we all felt bad. So we all
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: started watching it today. And let me tell you, it's
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: not a fun watch. Tommy, what were your takeaways from
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: that undoubtedly enjoyable experience?
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Yes, we had a great time on the plane. Biggest takeaway, unfortunately,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: it's an optics one, which is Joe Biden looked a
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: lot younger. And I know no one wants to hear that,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: but he looked younger and he sounded younger. And so
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: I totally agree with what Dan is saying, that there
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: is a threshold question about his age that he has
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: to answer that we saw in the New York Times
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: poll were 68%. voters were concerned about his age and
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: fitness to do the job. So I think what he
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: says might be, at some points of the debate, less
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: important than how he says it or the vigor with
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: which he sort of prosecutes the case. The flip side
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: of that was Trump was so much angrier and redder-faced
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: and angrier. He was so enraged in that moment. And
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: I'd almost forgotten how just caustic and nasty he was.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: And of course, we did later learn that he had COVID.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: And he wound up in the hospital. So I guess
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: on some level, it's like kind of an impressive performance,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: you know, to get out there and just rage for
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: 90 minutes with COVID. He played through it.
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: He's like, he's like Michael Jordan in that game. The
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: one fact about sports I know.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: That was good.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: The flu game.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The flu game. Jordan flu game.
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: It was like the flu game.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Good for you.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: And then poor Chris Wallace was just a drunk guy
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: at a bar holding onto the mechanical bull. Like you
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: agreed to the rules, but, um, so we'll, we'll see
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: how this goes. I mean, The takeaway was Trump is
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: going to attack from the very first second until the
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: last second. So you have to be prepared for that,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: but also parry and respond and get him on defense
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: and get that version of Trump, this angry, raging, red-faced man,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: back on that stage. I don't think he has learned
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: discipline in the last couple of years, but we've seen
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: a more disciplined campaign, so it is a concern. I
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: think Biden has to look energetic, as we discussed. He
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: has to be sharp. and be on top of things.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: And then the one thing it really did make me
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: rethink was this question about the muted mics when they're
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: not speaking and the impact. Because I do think muting
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: their mics when the other is speaking is good for
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: the republic. Because I think most people watch a debate
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: like that, and they shout over each other. And the
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: response is not to blame one or the other. It's
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: just to be like, politics is awful. ESPN is a
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: channel away.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: What are we doing here?
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: But I do worry that A muted mic could save
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Trump from himself and the ugliest side of him coming out.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: So it made me a little anxious about that.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because I remember watching that first debate and when
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: they were yelling at each other, it was like, oh,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: this is just bad. To Stacey's earlier point about the
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: most important thing you can do is talk directly to
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: the people, I do think to the extent that Biden
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: shows anger or passion... you always want it to be
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: like anger on behalf of the American people, passion on
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: behalf of the American people and not anger at Trump.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Like when Trump tries to needle him in a personal way,
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: let that stuff go. When Trump tries to say something
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: that you can then come back and be like, look,
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: you know, in 2020, you tried to throw people's votes away, right?
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: You took the right to decide women's health care away
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: from them. You tried to take 20 million people's health
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: care away from them, right? Like, get angry about things
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: that affect people. Don't get angry about whatever Donald Trump
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: says about, you know, you graduated last in your class,
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: which he seemed really obsessed with in that first debate.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Love it. One topic DC is yapping about ahead of
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: the debate has to do with fact-checking. CNN's political director
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: said the debate is, quote, not the ideal arena for
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: live fact-checking, and that Dana and Jake will be, quote,
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: facilitating the debate between these candidates. They will not be
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: participants in that debate. There's some reports that this has
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: annoyed the Biden camp. Trump then posted that nobody's as
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: loose with the truth as Crooked Joe and accused him
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: of lying about his golf handicap. What do you make
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: of this? How much, if any, fact-checking should the moderators do?
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, look, we're a couple fact checks away from
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: having this whole thing locked up. Get a couple more
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: Pinocchios out there. We can all get a good night's sleep. So, yeah,
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: I saw these stories. And look, I love working the refs.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Let's work the refs.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Great.
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: But we were just talking about what Joe Biden has
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: to do. Joe Biden has to defy right-wing caricatures of
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: his performance, assuage people's concerns about his age. while at
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: the same time reminding people of everything they dislike about
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: Trump as a narcissist and how extreme he is. The
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: moderators can't do that. The moderators can't help him do
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: either of those things. Only Joe Biden can do that.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: And that would be true if the moderators weren't Jake
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: Tapper and Dana Bash, who are, I think, two reporters
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: who are going to follow up. They're not going to
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: just roll over. But we've seen them interview both of
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: these people in the past. And not only that, how
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: does Joe Biden do both assuage people's concerns about his age,
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: and remind people of the threat Trump poses by beating
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: Trump in a debate.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: That's how he does it.
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: He will prove that he is up for the job
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: by proving that Trump is not up for the job.
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: And so I am less concerned about whether or not
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: Dana Bash says actually inflation is technically down or Jake
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: Tapper jumps in and says actually murder rates were higher
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: in 2020 than than I am about any circumstance in
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: which Joe Biden is just standing there and all of
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: a sudden Jake is arguing with Trump and then down
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: a bash comes down with a fucking folding chair on
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: top of Trump's head. And Joe Biden is just an observer.
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: Like I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in that.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What are you talking about? I'm talking to myself
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: into it. I'm talking to myself into it more broadly.
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: Like, There's a lot of reasons to be concerned about
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: misinformation about Joe Biden's age, about the ways in which
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: the media kind of has normalized Trump. But man, this
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: debate is about Joe Biden answering the concerns that Americans have.
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: And really, I think any conversation about the moderators is
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: a side joke.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Stacey, if the moderators don't fact check Trump, how much
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: fact checking do you think Joe Biden should do?
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: He should only fact check as a way to talk
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: about the future. It's this is what should actually be understood.
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: This is how we talk about it. Rule number one
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: in misinformation is you don't repeat the lie. And so
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: using the lie as a way to show his strength,
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: to show his future vision, to avoid Dana getting up
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: with the.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Chair, those are all.
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: He could be doing a lot of services both for
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: America and for CNN by using it as a point
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: of entry to a larger conversation so that people see
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: what possibilities look like And to the point about being
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: reminded of just how angry Trump is, not taking the
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: bait ticks him off more than almost anything else. And
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: so being unwilling to take the bait and instead being
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: the grownup on the stage, which is what he is,
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: that's the best way to fact check without having to
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: call the question.
• 21:51
  Speaker 9: I think that's so important because there is, and I
• 21:54
  Speaker 9: think Biden fell into this in that last debate with
• 21:56
  Speaker 9: the wrong guy, wrong time, wrong place, right? That's, That
• 22:01
  Speaker 9: is a version of strength, right? But Biden needs to
• 22:04
  Speaker 9: be as strong and steady. People think Trump is strong.
• 22:08
  Speaker 9: They may view that strength in a malicious way, as
• 22:11
  Speaker 9: many of us do and should, but he comes off
• 22:14
  Speaker 9: as strong, right? It's Sarah Longwell, our friend who's on
• 22:16
  Speaker 9: this podcast a lot, says he gives off raving lunatic energy, right?
• 22:21
  Speaker 9: And so that becomes equated with strong. So Biden doesn't
• 22:23
  Speaker 9: show strength by repeatedly punching Trump in the.
• 22:27
  Speaker 7: Face, literally or figuratively.
• 22:30
  Speaker 9: But by being strong and energetic in his responses, but
• 22:33
  Speaker 9: also seeming steady. Because that's the difference between the two,
• 22:35
  Speaker 9: is that that's how Biden won was Trump, like you
• 22:37
  Speaker 9: watch that debate and it's a reminder of just how
• 22:40
  Speaker 9: chaotic and erratic and alarming Trump is. And that was
• 22:43
  Speaker 9: particularly alarming at a time of national crisis, like we
• 22:46
  Speaker 9: were going through in the pandemic at the time. And
• 22:47
  Speaker 9: so Biden had, and people looked at Biden and they said,
• 22:50
  Speaker 9: that is a steady hand on the wheel in a
• 22:52
  Speaker 9: dangerous time.
• 22:53
  Speaker 7: And Biden has to show that because that's been lost
• 22:55
  Speaker 7: over the last four years.
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think it's machismo versus maturity.
• 22:59
  Speaker 7: Yes, that's right.
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: We need to see maturity, and that lets him lean
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: into age, because you get maturity from someone who's been
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: here long enough to know what's worth fighting about and
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: what's not.
• 23:08
  Speaker 7: We've got a whole lot of maturity on our side.
• 23:11
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: We've got maturity in spades.
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we've got maturity up the yang.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: We've got so much maturity. I think where it gets
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: a little weird for Jake and Dana is not like, actually, Mr.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Former President... 27 nato countries paid two percent of gdp
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: for defense you know it's like not shit it's like
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: would you cheer you know it's like it's like no
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: actually mr president you you didn't win the 2020 election
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: and your own attorney general said there wasn't sufficient voter
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: fraud to impact the outcome in any way like those
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: are the kind of threshold like the sky is blue,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: the sky is red, kind of reality-based questions where I
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: wonder if they start to feel like they need to start.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we're talking about this like it's a
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: regular presidential debate, but one of the candidates is a
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: convicted felon who tried to overturn the last election and
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: then incited a violent insurrection in the Capitol. So it's
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: just like, it's like, so it's the elephant in the room,
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: you know?
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but like, right now, if you look at swing
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: state polls, right, Donald Trump is currently leading, Joe Biden
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: is losing, right? Joe Biden needs to change something at
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: this debate. If we come out of this debate and
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: it's a story about how Donald Trump and Jake Tapper
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: were mixing it up, well, that's a problem. And I
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: think just as much as, whatever, I.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Don't think Jake.
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: Tapper or Dana Bash want to be the story out
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: of this debate. But at the same time, I expect
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: one way they will avoid any question about being biased
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: is they're not going to go easy on Donald Trump.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: They're going to go really hard on both of them.
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: Everyone's talking a lot about what Jake and Dana are
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: going to do with Trump. One of the ways Joe
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: Biden is going to have to, he's going to get
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: some pretty hard questions from the moderators too.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: And that's going to be part of his test.
• 24:52
  Speaker 7: The story that comes.
• 24:53
  Speaker 9: Out matters a lot, right? Because I know 60% of
• 24:57
  Speaker 9: voters said they're going to watch the debate. That would
• 24:59
  Speaker 9: be 90 million people.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Zero chance.
• 25:02
  Speaker 9: So, you know, if you pull people and ask them
• 25:03
  Speaker 9: if you're going to go to the gym this week,
• 25:04
  Speaker 9: they also say yes, right?
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Half the country is full of shit. That's right.
• 25:09
  Speaker 9: But so, you know, that Biden debate that we just saw,
• 25:13
  Speaker 9: 70 million people endured that. Now, that's a time in
• 25:16
  Speaker 9: which that was a general election debate in October at
• 25:18
  Speaker 9: a time in which you really had no other option.
• 25:20
  Speaker 9: It's not like you're choosing between the debate and going
• 25:21
  Speaker 9: out to dinner with your friends or going to a
• 25:23
  Speaker 9: baseball game, right? You were either watching that or watching
• 25:26
  Speaker 9: something else, right? In that same poll where 60% of
• 25:28
  Speaker 9: people said they'd watch it, only 41% of quote unquote
• 25:31
  Speaker 9: swing voters said they were going to watch it. And
• 25:33
  Speaker 9: so the people we need most are probably not going
• 25:35
  Speaker 9: to watch it. So they're just going to pick up
• 25:37
  Speaker 9: the vibes off the debate. And if the vibe is, God,
• 25:41
  Speaker 9: that was fucking awful. These guys yelled at each other
• 25:43
  Speaker 9: for 90 minutes. That doesn't change the dynamics of the race, right?
• 25:47
  Speaker 9: If it is Trump's a giant asshole, that does help
• 25:49
  Speaker 9: a little bit. But the one you really want is,
• 25:51
  Speaker 9: Biden was better than I thought, right? That's what you
• 25:54
  Speaker 9: want people talking about, right? And then when people see
• 25:55
  Speaker 9: the clips, Because the real spin war is going to
• 25:58
  Speaker 9: be on TikTok after the debate's over. You want the
• 26:00
  Speaker 9: clips to jive. That's what will go viral is a
• 26:02
  Speaker 9: bunch of people going, Biden was pretty good. I don't
• 26:04
  Speaker 9: agree with him on everything, but he was pretty good.
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: You want a hot guy who normally makes pottery to
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: be like, I actually watched the debate and I was
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: pretty surprised.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: No, you want one of the clip guys like Aaron
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Ruppar being like, I can't believe Maria Bartiromo said this.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: And you click the clip and you're totally underwhelmed by
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: the results. But yeah, you got to frame it. You
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: got to frame it.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: Question for the group before we move on. The president
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: of CNN called you. and said that Jake was having
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: a dental emergency and you had to be the fill-in moderator,
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: what is the number one question you're asking Donald Trump?
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Jake is ripping that tooth out with his bare hands.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Remember the scene in Castaway where he put the figure
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: skid against his tooth and he banged it out of
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: his face with a rock? He's like, cut me, cut me.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Cut me, Meg.
• 26:50
  Speaker 7: Anyone got a question?
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: It's a rocky chat.
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: None that don't have curse words in them.
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: Um.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: I don't challenge her to swear.
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: I'm the daughter of not one, but two pastors. If
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: I curse, I have to say bless your heart when
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: I'm done. No, I mean, I think it's a question about.
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: I don't know, because he's going to lie. Like maybe
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: just ask him how old he is. See if we
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: can get that one right.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Don't you want to ask like basic sometimes? Like how
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: does a bill become a law?
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: No, no, no. How many states are there?
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: What are the three branches of government?
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: Where is Florida?
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: Explain the difference between Medicare and Medicaid.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's a good one.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: That's a really good one.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Look, I wanted to ask this question because we know
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: tomorrow morning when this podcast comes out, Jake and Dan
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: are going to be listening.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. They are.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: The first thing they do, Pod Save America.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: But how are you really? You know, like see if
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: you can get them to open up. What gives you hope?
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: What gives you hope?
• 27:58
  Speaker 7: Drake or Kendrick.
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: Love it.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: Do you have one?
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: You know, I was thinking about this question and I
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: really don't like, I, I feel like, I feel like
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: the questions we actually want him to answer are also obvious, right?
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: Because like the truth is obvious. That's I think the
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: challenge of being in this time, which is that like
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: the truth is blitheringly obvious to all of us.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: And it feels like our job is to go out
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: there and say.
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: Something that we believe is completely obvious and to a
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: country that is for some reason, inexplicably, unavoidably 50-50, no
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: matter what fucking happens. And so it's like, really the question,
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: it's like, you end up at the place where you're like,
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: how fucking, how do you fuck your mother?
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: How could you?
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: And that doesn't do anything for anybody.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: But I like, I like questions though.
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: I do think that like, there have been moments with
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: Trump too, where you ask a question like, you know,
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: we're so accustomed to it now. Like the Trump worldview
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: is everything he's ever done is perfect. And when he's president,
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: everything's great. And when he's not, everything's shit. And that flips,
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: that's a switch that flips the day he.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Wins or loses. And like, what's your biggest mistake?
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: Like, what do you think you got most wrong when
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: you were president? Like, what's your biggest regret?
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: They'll say Mike Pence.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: But that's interesting.
• 29:12
  Speaker 7: But that's interesting. Right?
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: But I remember early on, Hugh Hewitt, Lovett's friend, conservative
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: radio host, asked President Trump, then candidate Trump, What is
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: the nuclear triad, which is like the three means of
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: distributing nuclear weapons? There's subs, there's nuclear silos, and there's bombers.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: And Trump clearly didn't know the answer. Unlike all of us.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: And just fudged his way through it. But Hugh is
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: a right-wing hack who worked for Richard Nixon and now
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: has a radio show, so he just kind of.
• 29:39
  Speaker 7: Let it pass.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: But something like that could just catch him on the
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: basics of government.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:44
  Speaker 7: He's very good at not answering questions.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:49
  Speaker 9: His greatest political skill is that he has no capacity
• 29:51
  Speaker 9: for shame in his body. And so any other normal
• 29:55
  Speaker 9: person would get that question and they would feel more
• 29:57
  Speaker 9: and more uncomfortable answering as they were like trying to
• 29:59
  Speaker 9: bullshit their way through it, it would be patently obvious.
• 30:02
  Speaker 7: He just like bulls through it.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Well, that's, I think that's why you can't, it can't
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: be a question that he's just going to like lie through.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: Like I want him to, I would ask him, all right,
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: you've said before that you, this is kind of goes
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: to the Mike Pence thing. You said before that you
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: hire the best people, but more than a dozen of
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: your most senior aides last time you were president are
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: not supporting you, including multiple defense secretaries, multiple national security advisors,
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: your vice president, multiple White House chiefs of staff, and
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: they have said about you that you are a threat
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: to democracy, that you are a danger to America, that
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: you are a narcissistic moron. How can the American people
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: trust you to lead this country if the people that
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: you hired who worked closest with you aren't supporting you?
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: I bet he gets that. That's a good question.
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: You had a great question just in your back fucking pocket.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: You set us up. That was so good.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: That was a fucking contest. I just wanted to add that.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: That was really good. That was really good.
• 31:08
  Speaker 7: Didn't Chris Wallace ask him that question?
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: Chris Wallace?
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: When?
• 31:12
  Speaker 9: When?
• 31:12
  Speaker 7: On Fox News Sunday, I think.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, recently.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: When did he do an interview with... Oh, oh. When
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: was the last time he... I was wondering this because
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: this is the first time that Donald Trump has submitted
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: himself to questions from someone who is not a right-wing
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Newsmax person. When did he do Chris Wallace?
• 31:28
  Speaker 7: Well, that was a long time ago.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: That was years ago.
• 31:31
  Speaker 7: Caitlin Collins, I think, on CNN was probably the last.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: I did.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: It is interesting.
• 31:35
  Speaker 7: Or the 90-minute Time magazine interview that he did.
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: Which is wild.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that's not live TV.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: I didn't think that.
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: Like, you know, we talk a lot about, oh, incumbent presidents,
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: you know, they're not used to being questioned. This is
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: a rare time. We have two incumbent presidents who are
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: going to face kind of tough questions in a way
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: neither one of them are particularly used to. I also
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: think Trump, too, like, if you ask him a question
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: he knows is meant to throw him off guard, he's
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: very kind of good at avoiding it. But actually, some
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: of the most damaging things he's ever said, like, I
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: think there should be some punishment for the woman. Those
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: are questions that didn't seem dangerous. And he tried to
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: bullshit his way through because he didn't know the answer
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: and didn't know how fraught it was. So that's sometimes
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: the most interesting space to get Trump.
• 32:14
  Speaker 7: Give me your thoughts on tax policy, sir.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: I think catching him being dumb is fine because that'll happen.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: But I do think, like, some of the questions are like, hey,
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: are we all crazy here? He tried to overturn the election.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: All these people, like, imagine if all of Joe Biden's
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: senior officials were like, absolutely not. The guy's a threat
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: to democracy. What are we doing here? Questions like that,
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: I think, are.
• 32:37
  Speaker 7: In the New York Times poll, once again released for.
• 32:41
  Speaker 9: This podcast, 6% of likely voters think that Donald Trump
• 32:44
  Speaker 9: should be president and in prison.
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: Eight.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: It was eight.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: That's registered. It's six and likely.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: I saw that. I was like, you want to be
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: really sad? Eight percent of the supporters think he should
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: go to jail. It's tough. It's tough. Okay.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Enough of that.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: It's going to be a great debate tomorrow night. Wonderful.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: We'll see you on the other side. It's going to
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: be a pageant of democracy. But before we let Stacey go,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: she has generously agreed to play a game with some
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: spicy pros that will seem very familiar to you. And
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: I don't know anything about this.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Stacey.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: Yes, John.
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: I don't know if you know this, but Tommy and I,
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: and John sort of, he helped a little.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: We wrote a book.
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: I've heard tell.
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: It's called Democracy or Else. It dropped Tuesday, and it's
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: available at fine bookstores everywhere, including here at this show.
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: And if it hits the best sellers list, maybe airports. You,
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: of course, are not just a person who's helping to
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: change the politics of Georgia while advocating for voting rights
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: and democracy. You are also an author of multiple novels,
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: which you wrote under your pseudonym, J.K.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Rowling.
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: I read them all on the plane. It's Selena Montgomery,
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: which is a beautiful name.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: I really like it.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I really like that.
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: Now, I read them all on the plane here, and boy,
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: are my arms tired. So, we thought we'd make voting
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: rights sexy in a segment we're calling... Kiss and tell
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: people to register. And it's very simple.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: I would just love if you could help our audience
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: get a primer on the stakes around voting and democracy
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: in this election. So John, Tommy, and Dan are each
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: going to ask you a question about it.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: And that's all there is to it.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: I do not believe you.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: No, that really is.
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: They're just going to ask you a question, and that's
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: all there is to it. Dan, you're going to kick
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: us off.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, no. Excellent.
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: Here is your question for Stacey. Why don't you kick
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: it off, and please read it as written.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 34:49
  Speaker 7: Hi, Stacey. It's me, Dan Pfeiffer. Hi, Dan.
• 34:54
  Speaker 9: I lend a certain credibility to this whole operation. Sort
• 34:57
  Speaker 9: of a spectrum, with Levin on one end and me
• 34:59
  Speaker 9: on the other.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Anywho.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: Hey, don't rush through it.
• 35:03
  Speaker 9: Anywho, an exchange in one of your novels reminded me
• 35:07
  Speaker 9: of the importance of mail-in voting. Hunger raged inside her,
• 35:13
  Speaker 9: demanding to be sated. But it would mean nothing if
• 35:15
  Speaker 9: he didn't understand. You're all I ever wanted, she said.
• 35:18
  Speaker 9: Ethan froze, stunned and humbled. He kissed her then, slowly, tenderly.
• 35:23
  Speaker 9: A benediction and a beginning. Murmuring into the night, I've
• 35:27
  Speaker 9: only ever been yours. Republicans in Nevada are suing to
• 35:31
  Speaker 9: block the counting of mail ballots that arrive after election day.
• 35:36
  Speaker 9: Their efforts to restrict voting across the country in the
• 35:38
  Speaker 9: hope the Supreme Court will issue benedictions for their policies.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: I see what you did there.
• 35:42
  Speaker 9: But is the hunger for democracy among voters enough to
• 35:46
  Speaker 9: overcome these restrictions?
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: Well, given that as a line from Hidden Sins, what
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: we know, thank you, what we know is that the
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: secret to their success was revealing to the world what
• 36:02
  Speaker 5: was happening. So number one, the way we protect democracy
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: and we ensure access is by pushing hard for the
• 36:11
  Speaker 5: world to see what Nevada has been and what it
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: could be.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: Because Morrow's was a story of redemption.
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: And we can redeem ourselves and Nevada in 2022 by
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: making sure that the voters of Nevada believe that not
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: only is their right to vote sacred, but it is
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: a benediction to put a stamp on that ballot and
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: send it in so it can.
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: John has a question.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: For you as well.
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: And John, I hate you.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: Hi, Stacey. It's me, podcasting's Jon Favreau. Polls show a
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: lot of voters, especially voters who are less engaged and
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: less likely to vote, are skeptical of democracy itself, whether
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: it can deliver, that it's worth their time, which reminded
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: me of how much we admire your leadership and wisdom.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: Do we take for granted that people understand why a
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: democratic system is best? How do you address that cynicism?
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: He just got a nice one.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: It's like reading it like, oh, no.
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: I don't think we take it for granted. I think
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: it depends on the state you.
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: Live in, literally.
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: We have 50 different democracies. If you're in Oregon or
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: in California, congratulations, or Washington state, yay. If you're in Georgia,
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: God bless you, because the governor won't. If you're in
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: Florida or Texas, they're trying their best to stop you.
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: And so I think our opportunity is to remember that
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: not everyone has the same democracy that you do, even
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: though we live in the United States. And so a
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: lot of the work that we do, a lot of
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: the work that Vote Save America does, that Fair Fight does,
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: the work that gets done is about trying to ensure
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: that for as many people as possible, we can start
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: to take for granted how democracy should work. But until
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: we get there, we've got to do the work for
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: everyone who doesn't have a chance to stand up.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: That's great.
• 38:02
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: And while I'm talking about Fair Fight, make sure you
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: check out fairfight.com slash L-F-G-V-F. stands for freaking. Let's freaking
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: go vote. So go to FairFight.com, LFGV, which is being
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: done in partnership with Vote Save America because we can
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: get this done.
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: And I believe Tommy has a question for you.
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: Tommy, I am sorry.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Okay. Hi, Stacey. Tommy Vitor here. And I turn red
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: at the slightest provocation. Hold for effect. I was thinking
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: about the franchise while reading this passage in the novel
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Hidden Sins. Heat, like an inferno, blazed in his veins.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: It demanded that he slide his arms around her, that
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: he trail his hand along her spine to sink into
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: the silver curls at her nape. He wanted to pull
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: away to resist the skeins, thank you for the parenthetical there,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: that would bind his heart to her again, but he'd
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: forgotten that she tasted of honeyed sweetness. Thanks. We are
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: trying to resist the skeins of partisan gerrymandering and the
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: purging of voter rolls. But for Republicans, the prospect of
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: choosing their voters rather than the other way around is
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: just too sweet. How do we fight for democracy when
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: it feels like the democracy itself is stacked against us?
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: We fight for democracy by remembering that we're entitled to it.
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: The Constitution does not give us the right to vote,
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: but our citizenship gives us the responsibility to demand the vote.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: And so.
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: Part of the effectiveness of gerrymandering is that it tries
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: to convince us that our votes don't matter because we
• 39:55
  Speaker 5: don't live in the right zip code or on the
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: right side of the line. My response is that we
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: do our best to erase those lines. We do that
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: by making sure that people who were unfortunately drawn out
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: of power understand that there are other ways to gain
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: that power. And we don't use voting as the only thing.
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: It is one of the tools in the toolbox. And
• 40:19
  Speaker 5: just as the curls of the nape of Mara's head
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: that curled around his fingers, as he pulled her closer,
• 40:28
  Speaker 5: we can too pull our country closer together.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: Amazing.
• 40:33
  Speaker 9: Amazing.
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: So just so everyone, thank you so much, Stacey.
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: Before, just so everybody here knows, we'll have more to
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: say about it soon, but there is a very exciting project.
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: From Stacey Abrams and Crooked Media, coming your way soon.
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: But I won't kiss and tell.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: Stacey Abrams, everybody. The one and only.
• 41:12
  Speaker 9: Our guest tonight is the co-founder of Run for Something
• 41:14
  Speaker 9: in a Thank you. An amazing organization that's recruited and
• 41:19
  Speaker 9: trained thousands of progressive candidates all around this country to
• 41:22
  Speaker 9: run for office up and down the ballot. She is
• 41:24
  Speaker 9: one of the most inspiring and smartest people in democratic politics.
• 41:28
  Speaker 9: Please welcome to the stage, Brooklyn's own Amanda Lippman. Thank
• 41:42
  Speaker 9: you for being here.
• 41:43
  Speaker 8: Thank you for having me.
• 41:45
  Speaker 7: I promise not to make you read anything from Stacey's books.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: I've read a few of them.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: They're very good. They're very good, yes. Okay.
• 41:52
  Speaker 9: While the presidential race is going to come down to
• 41:55
  Speaker 9: traditional battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, the race for
• 41:59
  Speaker 9: control of the House of Representatives is going to come
• 42:01
  Speaker 9: down to this state right here, New York. Now, last
• 42:06
  Speaker 9: night was a primary election here. We had a very
• 42:10
  Speaker 9: divisive primary. Incumbent Jamal Bowman lost. But going forward, this
• 42:15
  Speaker 9: is going to be where it happens, right? We have
• 42:17
  Speaker 9: two Republicans in states that Joe Biden won, a bunch
• 42:20
  Speaker 9: of really purple districts.
• 42:22
  Speaker 7: What is your view of what's going to happen in
• 42:23
  Speaker 7: the state?
• 42:23
  Speaker 9: And can the party unite in time to take advantage
• 42:25
  Speaker 9: of a bunch of contested, targeted, winnable House races in
• 42:29
  Speaker 9: a very blue state in the presidential year?
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: I think we're going to have to.
• 42:34
  Speaker 8: New York is going to be a battleground this year,
• 42:36
  Speaker 8: which is a little unfamiliar for us New Yorkers in
• 42:39
  Speaker 8: most elections.
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: But we have seen.
• 42:42
  Speaker 8: What New Yorkers can do when it comes to going
• 42:44
  Speaker 8: out to Pennsylvania and knocking doors, when it comes to
• 42:47
  Speaker 8: going down to Virginia and knocking doors when it counts.
• 42:50
  Speaker 8: And I believe that New Yorkers can understand this is
• 42:53
  Speaker 8: our time to shine. We can show up when it counts.
• 42:57
  Speaker 8: We always do. And there are some really competitive local
• 43:03
  Speaker 8: elections that are going to be happening this year all
• 43:05
  Speaker 8: across the state, including in some of these competitive house
• 43:08
  Speaker 8: districts that are going.
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: To make the difference, too.
• 43:11
  Speaker 9: Are there any political races anywhere on the ballot here
• 43:14
  Speaker 9: in New York that you're watching with particular interests that
• 43:16
  Speaker 9: you think are inspiring candidates, interesting, important races?
• 43:20
  Speaker 8: Well, Run for Something just had a bunch of candidates
• 43:22
  Speaker 8: up on the ballot yesterday that I'm really excited about.
• 43:25
  Speaker 8: We helped Claire Valdez win a union organizer, take a
• 43:29
  Speaker 8: seat in the state assembly. Up in Albany, Gabriela Romero
• 43:33
  Speaker 8: won a seat, a very progressive, incredible young woman in
• 43:36
  Speaker 8: a very competitive race. And I think there's going to
• 43:39
  Speaker 8: be some really exciting races out on Long Island this year.
• 43:41
  Speaker 8: So stay tuned.
• 43:45
  Speaker 9: People often think that it is the presidential race that
• 43:47
  Speaker 9: drives turnout, right? And that was sort of in the
• 43:48
  Speaker 9: premise of my question, that this is a presidential year
• 43:50
  Speaker 9: here in New York. But Run for Something thinks it's
• 43:52
  Speaker 9: the opposite, right? You talk about something that's called reverse coattails,
• 43:56
  Speaker 9: where local elections can actually drive turnout for the top
• 43:59
  Speaker 9: of the ticket. Do you explain your theory and how
• 44:01
  Speaker 9: it's impacted recent elections?
• 44:03
  Speaker 8: So Traditionally, people understand that the presidential candidate has coattails,
• 44:08
  Speaker 8: that people show up to vote for Biden or against
• 44:11
  Speaker 8: Trump and then also fill out the rest of the ballot.
• 44:13
  Speaker 8: What Run for Something has seen, and we actually proved
• 44:15
  Speaker 8: this out with some research back in 2020, is that
• 44:18
  Speaker 8: contesting local elections, especially state-led, city council, school board, can
• 44:23
  Speaker 8: increase turnout for the entire ticket to the tune of
• 44:26
  Speaker 8: anywhere between 0.3 and 2.3% within that district, which can
• 44:30
  Speaker 8: be the margin of victory for, say, Biden in Wisconsin
• 44:35
  Speaker 8: or Arizona or Georgia. Now, think about this a little bit.
• 44:39
  Speaker 8: Your local candidates, your state-led candidate, your city council candidate
• 44:43
  Speaker 8: is out there knocking doors, talking to voters. Hey, I'm Amanda.
• 44:47
  Speaker 8: I want to talk to you about your property taxes
• 44:49
  Speaker 8: or the book bans they're pushing or how we can
• 44:52
  Speaker 8: fight for abortion access here in this state.
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: You know them.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: You can yell at them directly if.
• 44:57
  Speaker 8: You want, which is kind of fun. you can really
• 45:00
  Speaker 8: build a personal relationship. It's like a field organizer with
• 45:03
  Speaker 8: a ton of skin in the game. And more recently,
• 45:06
  Speaker 8: we actually tested this out with young voters in particular.
• 45:09
  Speaker 8: We fielded a question in a poll. We asked young
• 45:12
  Speaker 8: voters in battleground states if there was a young diverse
• 45:15
  Speaker 8: progressive running for state or local office near you or
• 45:18
  Speaker 8: in your area, how would that affect your likelihood to vote?
• 45:22
  Speaker 8: 61% of young Democrats said it would make them more
• 45:24
  Speaker 8: likely to show up.
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: That's huge.
• 45:28
  Speaker 8: Especially in a year where like, let's be honest, a
• 45:32
  Speaker 8: lot of young people, especially young voters of color, not
• 45:35
  Speaker 8: particularly psyched to show up for Biden. So this is
• 45:39
  Speaker 8: a tool in our toolbox.
• 45:41
  Speaker 9: I was going to ask that because this is, you know,
• 45:43
  Speaker 9: I think obviously reverse coattails works all the time, particularly in,
• 45:48
  Speaker 9: you know, redder parts of the state where Democrats may
• 45:50
  Speaker 9: not run all the time or there's not a competitive
• 45:52
  Speaker 9: congressional race. So, you know, you're not seeing ads to
• 45:54
  Speaker 9: turn out, but maybe you're turning out for your local
• 45:56
  Speaker 9: school board or as you say, your city council or
• 45:59
  Speaker 9: alderman or local election official, I know, is something you
• 46:01
  Speaker 9: guys focus a lot on. But this year, in particular,
• 46:05
  Speaker 9: it feels like with so many people being unhappy with
• 46:09
  Speaker 9: the choice at the top of the ticket, for whatever reason,
• 46:12
  Speaker 9: that this would be most important, right?
• 46:13
  Speaker 8: You know, we just had a small gathering to talk
• 46:16
  Speaker 8: about some of the work run for Something Does around
• 46:17
  Speaker 8: school board races. And Luisa Santos, who's a member of
• 46:20
  Speaker 8: the Miami-Dade School Board, who's a target for Ron DeSantis,
• 46:23
  Speaker 8: who's had Proud Boys show up at her campaign events,
• 46:26
  Speaker 8: who's been harassed, and also has done incredible things for Miami-Dade,
• 46:31
  Speaker 8: bringing electric school buses down there, working for free lunch
• 46:34
  Speaker 8: for kids. She was telling us how she goes and
• 46:37
  Speaker 8: knocks doors and she'll talk to voters and she'll be like, well,
• 46:39
  Speaker 8: are you going to vote this fall?
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: And they're like, no, psych, not interested.
• 46:43
  Speaker 8: And they'll say, well, let me talk to you about
• 46:46
  Speaker 8: what I've done for your kids. We don't even have
• 46:48
  Speaker 8: to talk about Biden. We don't have to talk about Trump.
• 46:49
  Speaker 8: Let's talk about what I've done for your kids and
• 46:51
  Speaker 8: for our community. They have a conversation. Will you show
• 46:55
  Speaker 8: up and vote for me? And she's able to get
• 46:58
  Speaker 8: them to say yes. And that times a thousand is
• 47:03
  Speaker 8: what's going to win for democracy this fall.
• 47:05
  Speaker 9: Right, because people, they turn out, they're unlikely to leave
• 47:11
  Speaker 9: the first question blank, right?
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: It's just not really what people do.
• 47:16
  Speaker 8: Sometimes people leave the down ballot blank, but what we're
• 47:19
  Speaker 8: doing with the thousands of Run for Something candidates across
• 47:22
  Speaker 8: the country this year that we've recruited and the hundreds
• 47:24
  Speaker 8: that we're endorsing is... is giving people more invitations, more
• 47:29
  Speaker 8: reasons to show up. They'll probably do the rest of
• 47:31
  Speaker 8: the ballot, most of them, because most of them are Democrats.
• 47:34
  Speaker 8: They don't want Trump. They're just like not super psyched
• 47:38
  Speaker 8: about everything else.
• 47:40
  Speaker 9: In 2022, you guys spent a lot of time talking
• 47:44
  Speaker 9: about electing the candidates at the local level who are
• 47:46
  Speaker 9: going to help certify the elections, right? That in some cases,
• 47:49
  Speaker 9: it's the recorder of deeds, right? Could you just talk
• 47:53
  Speaker 9: a little bit about that effort, how you're doing in 2024?
• 47:55
  Speaker 9: And maybe some of the, so because we know when
• 47:57
  Speaker 9: you talk local issues, right, you think local candidate, school board, potholes,
• 48:02
  Speaker 9: local excise taxes, right? But how local candidates affect like
• 48:08
  Speaker 9: some of the national issues we think about, like education, abortion, healthcare,
• 48:12
  Speaker 9: that sort of stuff.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 48:14
  Speaker 8: So we call this program clerk work because I love
• 48:16
  Speaker 8: a good rhyme. And the idea is that we should
• 48:18
  Speaker 8: elect pro-democracy leaders who actually oversee elections.
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: It's revolutionary.
• 48:23
  Speaker 7: That is a crazy idea.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: Crazy.
• 48:25
  Speaker 8: It's something Steve Bannon fundamentally disagrees with and has been
• 48:27
  Speaker 8: running massive campaigns to recruit against. We have been doing
• 48:31
  Speaker 8: this now for about two and a half years intentionally.
• 48:33
  Speaker 8: We've gotten more than 500 folks to run for pro-democracy
• 48:36
  Speaker 8: positions that actually oversee elections. My favorite example here. So
• 48:40
  Speaker 8: in 2023, we sent a bunch of text messages out
• 48:42
  Speaker 8: in Pennsylvania saying, hey, have you thought about running for
• 48:44
  Speaker 8: county commission? Because county commissions, among their many other powers,
• 48:48
  Speaker 8: oversee the election, decide where polling places are and how
• 48:52
  Speaker 8: the election is certified. One of the people we texted
• 48:55
  Speaker 8: was a pastor in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania named Justin Douglas.
• 48:59
  Speaker 8: Justin had been fired from his congregation for being too
• 49:02
  Speaker 8: welcoming to LGBTQ congregants. He had been working with the
• 49:06
  Speaker 8: unhoused community in the area. And he was like, I
• 49:09
  Speaker 8: don't know if I'm the right person for this, but
• 49:11
  Speaker 8: I'll have a conversation with you. And our Pennsylvania State
• 49:14
  Speaker 8: Director and our team there worked with him to get
• 49:16
  Speaker 8: him to yes, and then to help him run this
• 49:19
  Speaker 8: incredible campaign. for county commission in Dauphin County, which is
• 49:22
  Speaker 8: around Harrisburg. He was outspent 10 to 1. He was
• 49:26
  Speaker 8: running against a Republican who had all the money and
• 49:29
  Speaker 8: all the support and all the institutions. And Justin was
• 49:32
  Speaker 8: leaving flyers on people's doors that was like, The mayor
• 49:35
  Speaker 8: in Jaws 1 is still the mayor in Jaws 2
• 49:37
  Speaker 8: local elections matter. One of the things in his campaign.
• 49:43
  Speaker 7: That's so funny.
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's great.
• 49:48
  Speaker 8: One of the things in his campaign besides democracy was
• 49:50
  Speaker 8: that a number of prisoners had died in residence at
• 49:53
  Speaker 8: the county jail system that the county commission oversaw. And
• 49:56
  Speaker 8: he made that a core part of his campaign. Justin
• 49:59
  Speaker 8: won by just about 150 votes. Justin flipped control of
• 50:08
  Speaker 8: the county commission for the first time since the early
• 50:12
  Speaker 8: 1900s and over 100 years. One of the first things
• 50:16
  Speaker 8: Justin did was expand the number of ballot drop boxes
• 50:18
  Speaker 8: in Dauphin County. Justin is making sure that ballots are
• 50:23
  Speaker 8: available in Spanish and Nepalese and Bhutanese. He's ensuring that
• 50:28
  Speaker 8: the anti-democracy and Republican incumbent he beat has no control
• 50:32
  Speaker 8: over whether the election is certified. Justin and the county
• 50:36
  Speaker 8: commissioners that he is part of are going to make
• 50:38
  Speaker 8: sure that Joe Biden is able to fairly win the
• 50:41
  Speaker 8: election in Pennsylvania this year and win the White House.
• 50:46
  Speaker 9: When Run for Something started in 2017, right after Trump won,
• 50:51
  Speaker 9: you became a vehicle for this tremendous sense of activism
• 50:56
  Speaker 9: among people, like, what can I do? And you facilitated
• 50:59
  Speaker 9: people who were looking for something to do to run
• 51:01
  Speaker 9: for office at all levels, right? And there was a
• 51:03
  Speaker 9: huge burst of people who wanted to do it. In
• 51:06
  Speaker 9: the ensuing years, especially since 2020, there has been this
• 51:11
  Speaker 9: sense that a lot of people have disengaged from politics.
• 51:15
  Speaker 9: Either they thought Trump is gone and I'm exhausted and
• 51:20
  Speaker 9: I can take a break, he's back, or they're maybe
• 51:23
  Speaker 9: just burned out, cynical, whatever else. What's it been like
• 51:26
  Speaker 9: trying to get people to run for office this year
• 51:29
  Speaker 9: in this environment?
• 51:31
  Speaker 8: Would you believe that we have built a list of
• 51:33
  Speaker 8: almost 160,000 young people in all 50 states who want
• 51:38
  Speaker 8: to run for office. It is, as far as we know,
• 51:46
  Speaker 8: the largest candidate pipeline of the Democratic Party. Thousands of
• 51:52
  Speaker 8: people have signed up just in the last few months.
• 51:55
  Speaker 8: They believe we're going to still have elections in 2025,
• 51:57
  Speaker 8: and they want to be on the ballot when we do.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 52:02
  Speaker 9: You said, you know, a lot of the candidates you
• 52:03
  Speaker 9: work with are young candidates, right? You've really focused on
• 52:05
  Speaker 9: young progressive candidates. All of the polling of the polling,
• 52:08
  Speaker 9: we believe, suggests that one of the challenges for the
• 52:10
  Speaker 9: Democratic Party right now are.
• 52:12
  Speaker 7: Young voters, progressives, but also young voters writ large.
• 52:16
  Speaker 9: What advice do you have for Democratic candidates running anywhere
• 52:19
  Speaker 9: about how they can bring Democratic voters back into the fold,
• 52:23
  Speaker 9: young voters back into the fold?
• 52:24
  Speaker 8: Talk about the things young voters care about. It really,
• 52:27
  Speaker 8: in many ways, is that simple.
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: Housing.
• 52:30
  Speaker 5: Young people care.
• 52:31
  Speaker 8: Disproportionately feel the impact of the cost of housing, especially
• 52:35
  Speaker 8: because young people are renters and we do not have
• 52:37
  Speaker 8: enough renters in elected office. So when we have conversations
• 52:40
  Speaker 8: about housing, it's a lot of landlords. Abortion access. You know,
• 52:51
  Speaker 8: I'm still technically a young voter. I'm six months pregnant.
• 52:53
  Speaker 8: Reproductive health is on my mind.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: Congratulations.
• 53:00
  Speaker 8: Mid-October due date. I'm just going to be crying in
• 53:02
  Speaker 8: my house either way. You know, think about the things
• 53:07
  Speaker 8: that are really affecting young people now. Even, you know,
• 53:10
  Speaker 8: here in New York, public transit. Could go on a
• 53:17
  Speaker 8: whole rant about congestion pricing, but.
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: Boy, Kathy Hochul's making it real hard.
• 53:24
  Speaker 8: No, I think it's, in many ways, young voters really
• 53:27
  Speaker 8: want to hear people talk hear our politicians in our
• 53:29
  Speaker 8: party talk to us about the things that directly affect
• 53:32
  Speaker 8: our quality of life, which is not to say that
• 53:35
  Speaker 8: democracy isn't part of that.
• 53:36
  Speaker 5: It absolutely is.
• 53:37
  Speaker 8: And it's not to say that like restoring the soul
• 53:39
  Speaker 8: of America is part of that too.
• 53:41
  Speaker 6: Sure.
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: Kind of.
• 53:42
  Speaker 8: Some of us are like hit or miss or, but
• 53:44
  Speaker 8: what the soul of America, is it good?
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: Is it bad?
• 53:46
  Speaker 8: I don't know. But for most young people, they just
• 53:49
  Speaker 8: want someone to tell them like, I can fix the
• 53:51
  Speaker 8: things that are bothering you. I can give you hope.
• 53:54
  Speaker 8: I can show you that there is a path to
• 53:55
  Speaker 8: a better community and a better place to live. It's
• 53:59
  Speaker 8: why local candidates can really drive us.
• 54:01
  Speaker 9: And is that recognition that granularity is important, specificity is important?
• 54:05
  Speaker 9: You know, you made a mention of the democracy message, right?
• 54:08
  Speaker 9: Is there a sense that for a lot of young voters,
• 54:09
  Speaker 9: I think maybe for a lot of voters, the democracy
• 54:12
  Speaker 9: message may sometimes ring hollow because it becomes an endorsement
• 54:15
  Speaker 9: of a political system that a lot of young people
• 54:17
  Speaker 9: felt has not worked for them?
• 54:19
  Speaker 8: Yeah, you know, you think about someone who's 18 in 2024,
• 54:23
  Speaker 8: they've never known a political environment without Trump. They've never
• 54:27
  Speaker 8: known a democracy that felt like it was reflective or
• 54:31
  Speaker 8: representative of us. I think it's one of the reasons
• 54:35
  Speaker 8: why we've seen young voters or young candidates be such
• 54:37
  Speaker 8: powerful drivers for young voters. It's both like practical, tangible. Oh,
• 54:42
  Speaker 8: this is someone who, when I say I'm really pissed
• 54:44
  Speaker 8: about X, Y, Z issue is going to personally understand it.
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: Because they have dealt with it.
• 54:49
  Speaker 8: But also this is someone my age, my cohort, like
• 54:52
  Speaker 8: maybe I play basketball at the gym with them. you know,
• 54:55
  Speaker 8: our kids play soccer together, whatever it might be, who
• 54:59
  Speaker 8: cares enough and believes enough in the possibility here. And
• 55:03
  Speaker 8: I think it's one of the best things about this
• 55:06
  Speaker 8: work is it is so optimistic and so hopeful to
• 55:09
  Speaker 8: see young people who don't believe the system is broken.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 55:14
  Speaker 9: John, John and Ty, we're not the only ones with
• 55:15
  Speaker 9: book news. You have an upcoming book with us for
• 55:19
  Speaker 9: Crooked Media Reads. It's still in the works.
• 55:21
  Speaker 8: Super not done yet.
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: I hope my editor is not here.
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 55:25
  Speaker 9: In this book, you're exploring generational leadership shifts. Can you
• 55:27
  Speaker 9: give us a little preview of what you'll be covering
• 55:29
  Speaker 9: in the book?
• 55:30
  Speaker 8: You know, I'm pretty behind. But I am writing a
• 55:34
  Speaker 8: little bit about what it looks like to be the
• 55:37
  Speaker 8: boss whose employees follow you on Instagram. Or, you know,
• 55:42
  Speaker 8: take me for an example, to try and take maternity
• 55:45
  Speaker 8: leave as the boss. Or, like Run for Something does,
• 55:49
  Speaker 8: believe that work-life balance is really important and want to implement,
• 55:52
  Speaker 8: as we have, a four-day work week. and actually put
• 55:56
  Speaker 8: that into practice. You know, when I say like, you
• 56:00
  Speaker 8: know what a boomer leader, no offense to all the boomers,
• 56:02
  Speaker 8: although my girls will live in the water wars, so
• 56:05
  Speaker 8: a little offense. But when I say like my boss
• 56:09
  Speaker 8: is such a boomer, you kind of know what that means.
• 56:12
  Speaker 8: What I'm trying to do is define what it looks
• 56:14
  Speaker 8: like when you say my boss is such a millennial
• 56:15
  Speaker 8: and my boss is such a Gen Z. So coming
• 56:18
  Speaker 8: to you next May, please buy copies.
• 56:22
  Speaker 9: All right, finally before we go, Amanda, you've been on
• 56:25
  Speaker 9: our podcast many times. Crooked Media and Posse America are
• 56:28
  Speaker 9: huge fans of Run for Something. I found what you
• 56:30
  Speaker 9: guys started in 2017 and what you've done to be
• 56:33
  Speaker 9: incredibly smart, incredibly impactful. It is exactly what the Democratic
• 56:37
  Speaker 9: Party has needed. In the pre-Trump era, so many times
• 56:42
  Speaker 9: Republicans were winning races because there was not a Democrat
• 56:44
  Speaker 9: to run against them. Because we had no operation within
• 56:47
  Speaker 9: our party to recruit and train people. No point of
• 56:51
  Speaker 9: entry for people who said, I want to run for office.
• 56:53
  Speaker 9: They didn't know who to call. what website to go to.
• 56:55
  Speaker 9: And Amanda and her co-founders built this organization and have
• 56:59
  Speaker 9: been making a gigantic difference. And so I want to
• 57:02
  Speaker 9: give you the opportunity to tell the people in this
• 57:04
  Speaker 9: room and listening, not in this room, how they can
• 57:09
  Speaker 9: help support your work. Because no matter what happens in November,
• 57:12
  Speaker 9: good outcome, unthinkable outcome, we need to continue to get young,
• 57:18
  Speaker 9: progressive people running for office up and down that ballot.
• 57:19
  Speaker 9: Because that's the next generation in the Democratic Party. So
• 57:22
  Speaker 9: how can they help run for.
• 57:22
  Speaker 8: Something runforsomething.net slash donate, $ 1, $ 5, $ 5 million, I will
• 57:29
  Speaker 8: take it all. And I say that somewhat jokingly, but
• 57:33
  Speaker 8: also anyone who's been sort of, you know, to your
• 57:35
  Speaker 8: point earlier, existing in the political space right now is tired.
• 57:39
  Speaker 8: And we are feeling that on the fundraising side too.
• 57:41
  Speaker 8: So if you believe in this work and you believe
• 57:43
  Speaker 8: that building power, sustainable power in all 50 states at
• 57:46
  Speaker 8: the local level matters, make a donation. And if you
• 57:51
  Speaker 8: are listening or you're here in the room, And you're like, huh,
• 57:54
  Speaker 8: you know, I really would like to do something about
• 57:56
  Speaker 8: housing or childcare or abortion access or criminal justice reform
• 58:01
  Speaker 8: or whatever issue it is. Run for what.net. Look up
• 58:05
  Speaker 8: what offices are available for you to run for next
• 58:08
  Speaker 8: year or the year after. We would love to help
• 58:11
  Speaker 8: you because I believe that democracy is going to win
• 58:13
  Speaker 8: this fall and we're going to get a lot of
• 58:14
  Speaker 8: elections next year. And even when Trump is far gone,
• 58:17
  Speaker 8: we're going to have all his little copycats all across
• 58:21
  Speaker 8: the country who are running for school board and city
• 58:23
  Speaker 8: council and state ledge that we have to beat too.
• 58:25
  Speaker 8: And you, either listening or here, can be a part
• 58:28
  Speaker 8: of that.
• 58:29
  Speaker 9: Please give it up for Amanda Littman. Thank you so much.
• 58:38
  Speaker 9: When we come back, strict scrutiny. Melissa Murray is going
• 58:41
  Speaker 9: to join us for some more news.
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: Please welcome NYU law professor and co-host of strict scrutiny.
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: Our pal, Melissa Murray.
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: A.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: Standing ovation for the people at home.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: So, uh, today was a day like so many others
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: in June where sickos like us maniacally refreshed our feeds
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: at 10 a.m. Eastern, 7 a.m. Pacific in anticipation of
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court decisions that usually make us angry when they
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: come and angry when they don't come. Wednesday morning was
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: slightly different in that the court rejected a challenge from
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: Republicans in Missouri and that would have prevented the federal
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: government from simply asking social media companies to remove misinformation
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: from their platforms. But despite the court's term usually ending
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: in June, which is almost over, despite American democracy hanging
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: in the balance, we still don't have the immunity ruling
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: or about 10 other important rulings. So Melissa, we'll get
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: to all of that. But first, how big of a
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: deal was the 6-3 ruling in Murthy v. Missouri?
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: Well, thanks for having me. This chair is really deep.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: I feel like Martha Annalito made this, so I could
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: feel like a child. So Murthy v. Missouri is a
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: really important case about social media. It should be understood
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: in tandem with a couple of other cases that the
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: court still has not yet decided. These net choice cases,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: I think those may come down in the next couple
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: of days. But The case was decided on procedural grounds.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: The court said that the litigants, which were two Republican
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: state AGs and then a handful of social media users
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: who said that Facebook and Twitter moderated their content to
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: root out their COVID-19 conspiracy theories, The court said they
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: didn't have standing. So it was a purely jurisdictional question.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: So we didn't actually get to the substance of whether
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: the government can lean on social media platforms to do
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: better content moderation. But because it was a standing issue,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: this could come back at a later time. It may
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: come back in the future. I think the biggest thing
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: that this case did was that it allowed the court
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: an opportunity to once again smack down the Fifth Circuit,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: which I always appreciate. And they did it in really
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: excellent form. Like on strict scrutiny, we refer to the
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: Fifth Circuit as a meth lab of conservative grievance. And
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: the court seemed to agree with us. They basically said
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: that this case, there had been no discussion of any
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: of the facts that might lead to questions of standing
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: whether these were the right litigants to bring this case
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: to federal court, and so Amy Coney Barrett wrote for
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: the majority, and she said, you know, this is not
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: a fact-free zone, and I guess that was encouraging.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: Were there any.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: Hints in the decision about how they saw the substance
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: of the case, or was it just purely standing?
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: Mostly standing. The dissents, though, were really interesting. There was
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: a big dissent by Justice Alito, and, I mean, wow.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 6: Get out.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 7: Really?
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, that guy.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: That guy. So he wrote this dissent where he just
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: basically railed on the Biden administration. and specific members of
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: the Biden administration by name. So he name-checked Joe Biden,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: he name-checked Jen Psaki, name-checked the Surgeon General, and basically
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: talked about all of these people trying to censor conservatives.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, it was almost like a Fox grandpa getting
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: a chance to write a Supreme Court opinion.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 9: Think of them as people who might be upset about
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 9: someone putting a flag on.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 7: Their house, that kind of thing.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: He is deep in the comments section, huh?
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: He is, yes.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: He's checking his men's shoes.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: Long-time lurker, first-time caller. Yes, exactly.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: I wanted to ask you about the dissent because, first
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 4: of all, you dip into Alito, and he's.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: Just mad all the time. All the time. He's mad
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: all the time.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: But why? He's 70-something years old. He has the skin
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: of a 50-year-old. This man looks amazing for his age. No, seriously.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: Check it out.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like maybe you get everything you want, and
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: then you're unhappy, but... but uh something that something for
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: him and his therapist he doesn't these people are not
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: in therapy but um what was the i wanted to
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: ask you about the dissent because you know the meth
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: lab right now is contained to the fifth circuit but
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: in the dissent he doesn't just name check people right
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: he says oh these bozos writing the majority they didn't
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: even entertain the actual substantive question, but I will, and
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: I actually think on the merit this is a violation
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 4: of the First Amendment. Does that tell you, like, I mean,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: it does seem like everyone's like, oh, this opinion is,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: this Fifth Circuit opinion is ridiculous, but not ridiculous to
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: three people already.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: So, not ridiculous to three people who would be very
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: happy to reach the merits of this case, and a
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: dissent like that is essentially a roadmap to future litigants
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: just find better plaintiffs who can actually make out plausible
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: claims of injury. And then here's a path to deciding
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: this on the merits and turning this into a First
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: Amendment violation. So I think that's a big part of
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: what this was.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 4: Right, because he even says, right, like, they didn't even
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: seek damages. If they had sought damages, we could have
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: talked about the damages. So it's like he's like really like, no, no,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: come back and we'll we'll we'll get rid of any
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: bounds on what you can say online.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: They do this all the time. The conservatives are always
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: doing this. In the Miffa-Pristone case, Thomas and Alito were
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: basically asking the solicitor general to identify who would be
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: a better set of plaintiffs. And thankfully, she was like,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: I don't work for you. I work for the Attorney General,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: and so she declined to provide a roadmap for them,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: but they do this all the time. These dissents, these
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: concurrences are often invitations to come back, do it better,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: do it again.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: It does seem like Alito is like Heisenberg, and he
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: does want the meth lab to go national.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: Who is Jesse in this?
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 7: Martha Ann.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: Always. Let's say.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 9: Someone reads Alito's dissent, they see if there were damages, whatever,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 9: they get standing. What does an actual decision on the
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 9: merits in Alito's fashion mean? The government simply can't ask
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 9: Facebook to take posts down?
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: Well, so we already have a little bit of a
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: kind of inkling of where he's going because a couple
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: of weeks ago, the court decided another case, NRA versus Vulo.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: And it was decided much earlier in an earlier stage
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: of litigation. But basically what had happened was Maria Vulo,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: who is a New York state official, leaned on some
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: insurance companies, some banks, to basically stop doing business with
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: the NRA in the wake of the Parkland shooting. And
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: the NRA sued saying that you can't do that if
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: you're a government official. And the court, in a very narrow,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: unanimous decision written by Justice Sotomayor, said, yeah, the government
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: can do its job. It can't use its position to
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: lean explicitly or to coerce another entity to do something.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: And I think That's basically what Justice Alito is looking at,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: and he said specifically that Vulo should be the template
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: going forward.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: So, Tommy, does this seem like a defeat for the
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: forces of disinformation?
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: It seems like a mixed bag. I mean, like, I think,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: setting the government aside, I mean, I think the challenge
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: with disinformation at the moment is the platforms. Speaking of
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: Justice Alito's skin care, I think Couple weeks ago, I
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: saw that on TikTok, a bunch of influencers were saying
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: that you don't actually need sunscreen to prevent skin cancer,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: that sunscreen can give you skin cancer.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 7: Who was, there was one famous person behind this, right?
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: Anyway, so like no dumb idea won't go viral over there,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: so TikTok's a problem. I think Meta's sort of washing
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: its hands of all things content moderation. Twitter is obviously
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: a disaster. I mean, we have like Elon Musk is
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: the number one super spreader of disinformation. I think they
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: fired their whole trust and safety team. They've changed the
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: verification process so that any bozo can pay eight bucks
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: for a blue check and get algorithmic amplification. And then
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: if you go super viral, you can actually make money
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: on your posts. So every time I see in the news,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: like something happened in Gaza, there will be an account
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: that is sharing a video from like 2015 in Syria
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: that they purport to be from today because they'll get
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: paid off of that. So I think the platforms that
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: are disaster, I think that you're seeing... academics get in
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: the crossfire of the political discourse here. Like I think
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: Stanford just shut down a research lab that was focused
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: on disinformation. And you have Republican members of Congress crowing
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: that like, in the name of free speech, we just
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: killed all this free speech and research. So I feel
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: like the trajectory of our broader efforts of preventing the
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: spread of disinformation are getting pushed aside because institutions are
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: not prepared for the political fallout.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: It doesn't seem like we're going to be able to
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: address the supply of disinformation at this point, because it's
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: in so many different platforms. It's so many different places.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: And whether people, whatever the Supreme Court ultimately decides, if
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: it comes back to them, there is legal pressure, the
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: Stanford Internet Observatory shut down because of this legal pressure
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: and because of pressure from people who are funding it.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: So it's just like, It does feel like it's becoming very,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: very difficult to just actually go after the different sources
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: of misinformation and deal with the platforms unless we're going
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: to actually regulate them, which is also difficult.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: And there's very legitimate questions about what role the government
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: should play here in terms of censorship, free speech, First
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: Amendment rights. You can imagine a scenario where a Trump
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: administration is shutting down disinformation that says things like, hey,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: you lost the 2020 election. So we have to be
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: careful on that part, but I think broadly, there's a
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: lot of non-government actors here. This is also just like,
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: what we're talking about is so far, like this is
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: about individual staffers and people in the government seeing vast
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: amounts of misinformation already on the internet and like desperately
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: trying to do triage like if you're at the stage
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: where you're reaching out to Facebook about individual posts that
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: are going viral you've already lost we've already lost like
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: that's a that's a you know that's a I'm going
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: to say it you're going to be a little immature
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: about it, but it's like putting a finger in the dike.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: I can't do it. Dan? Yeah, I mean, that's where
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: the point is. Do you have a better metaphor?
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 7: I don't know how I follow.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: That, but... I was going to say it's like whack-a-mole, but.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 7: Yeah, whack-a-mole.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 7: That was the one I was going to use, but anywho.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 9: Like, even in a world in which we get the
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 9: right decision in whatever the future case is on this,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 9: all it's saying is platforms will still make the decision.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 9: So ultimately, our solution as a society for limiting the
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 9: spread of disinformation is to bet on the goodwill of
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 9: tech billionaires. And then in the course of world history,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 9: that bet has never worked.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 7: Just betting on.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 9: Rich business barons to make decisions counter to their financial
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 9: self-interest is not a good strategy. And I think ultimately
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 9: the way we're going to beat misinformation and disinformation is
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 9: not to stop it at the source. It is to
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 9: invest our time and energy into countervailing factual positive.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: And making our own.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: Damn it.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: We're going to make our own. Make our own.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: Okay. Melissa. So the counts vary somewhat, but it seems
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: like there are about 10 opinions left to be released.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: What are the big ones other than immunity? We'll get
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: to immunity.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: So there are a couple of really big cases involving
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: the future vitality of the administrative state. So one, SEC
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: versus Jarkesee, which is about the SEC's ability to do
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: in-house enforcement adjudication. That's how most SEC cases are adjudicated.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: That will be huge. There's another set of cases, two
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: consolidated cases, Relentless versus Department of Commerce and Loper Bright
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: Enterprises versus Raimondo, which are about whether in circumstances where
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: a statute is ambiguous, whether it's the agency who has
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: the opportunity to determine and resolve that ambiguity or whether
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: a judge, a Trump judge should be able to do that.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: It's the Chevron doctrine. So that hangs in the balance.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: There's a major case on homelessness, Grants Pass versus Johnson.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: There are major cases involving environmental law, Ohio versus EPA,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: which is about the good neighbor rule. If you've watched
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: The Lion King, this is basically the Pumba rule, whereas
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: states that are upwind have to take precautions to ensure
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: that their downwind neighbors don't bear the brunt of smog
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: or air pollution. So A lot of really big cases,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: some of them, I think, too wonky to really get
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: into on mainstream media, which is why you hear about immunity,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: you hear about Mifepristone, but you don't hear about these
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: other cases. But these are the cases that are about
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: government as we know it, whether we have clean air,
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: clean water, whether government can regulate or whether we're going
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: to allow judges, unelected judges to make these decisions.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: And it does seem like that the court later today
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: may have accidentally posted a decision on a major abortion
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: case in Idaho. What happened there?
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: So you've got to ask at this point, who's doing
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: IT at the court, right? Is it Martha Ann?
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 5: Possibly.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, if you were refreshing this morning, I did
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: not refresh hard enough to catch this, but apparently... The
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: court inadvertently uploaded the opinion in Moyle, which is the
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 3: EMTALA case. EMTALA is the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 3: It's a federal law that requires when you present at
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: a federally funded hospital, which is most hospitals since they
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 3: mostly all take Medicare and Medicaid funds, you have to
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: be served with emergency treatment that's appropriate, stabilizing emergency care.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: including abortions. And that has to be done even if
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: you are in a state with a draconian abortion law
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: like Idaho, for example. At oral argument, when this case
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: was argued, it seemed very clear that the conservative supermajority
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: on the court was really skeptical about the prospect of
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: women needing emergency abortions in cases of miscarriage or whatnot. And,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: you know, in their infinite medical judgment, the justices were
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: sort of like, can't she just like wait, maybe die?
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: All of that. But it seems from this uploaded opinion
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: that the court has made a decision to punt this case.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: They've decided that they are going to do what is
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: known as a dig. They've determined that certiorari, or the
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: court's decision to review this case, that decision was improvidently granted.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 3: And usually a dig happens when the court determines after
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 3: oral argument, after review has been granted, that the circumstances
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: are such that further adjudication would be improvident. So a
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: dig is very unusual, right? It doesn't happen that often.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: And I've never really seen a dig happen so many
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: months after oral argument, right? So, I mean, usually if
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 3: you've determined that there are circumstances that would require a dig,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: it's pretty obvious on the face.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we all know that. And we all know what
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 4: improvident means.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: Right, well, I know about.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 4: We all know, but just in case somebody's listening and
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 4: they don't want to feel dumb....
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: I assumed you knew, because I know about your LSAT score.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I'm saying I know. We know, but they don't.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 4: Somebody out there, they all know, but somebody might not know.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: Improvident, we shouldn't have done it.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: I call it the alleged LSAT score, but.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, he always tells me about it.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: I know, well, that's, you know... So.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: We shouldn't have taken this case. So a mulligan, essentially.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: Let's just call it a mulligan. Do you want to
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: hear my crazy cockamamie conspiracy theory about this case?
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: Yes, of course.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: What did Lovett say? We're creating our own misinformation. That's
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: what Dan advocated.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 3: Let's do it. So here's my theory of this. The court.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 3: got rid of the Mifepristone case, not by deciding it
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 3: on the merits, whether the FDA properly regulated Mifepristone. They
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: ditched it on standing grounds, like not the right plaintiffs,
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: not a clear claim of injury. And then this case
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 3: gets digged, like dismissed as improvidently granted, a mulligan, if
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: you will. I think they know that abortion drives women
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 3: to the polls. I think they know that abortion gets
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 3: undecided voters out and it galvanizes support in electoral politics.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: And I think they've looked at the calendar and they
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 3: realize November is coming.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: God, 100%.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: I think this is true. And I think they're trying
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 3: to figure out a way to get the court out
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 3: of the crosshairs of electoral politics. And if they decided
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: this the way I think it looked like it was
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: going at oral argument, it would have galvanized so much
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 3: support among women. I mean, like, they're basically asking, just
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: go die. Go to a parking lot and wait till
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: we tell you you can have this abortion. And I
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: think they just didn't want to do that. Justice Jackson
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 3: writes a barn burner of a concurrence slash dissent where
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: she says, I don't believe this was improvidently granted. I
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: believe you bitches wanted to get to this and you
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: took it. And now let's decide it because you broke it,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 3: you buy it. Like, you need to decide this. And, yeah.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 9: I mean, the lesson here that clearly the court took
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 9: from Dobbs and all the political repercussions was not that
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 9: you shouldn't take a constitutional right away from half the country.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 7: It's that you shouldn't do it in an election year.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, and John Roberts said this at the oral
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: argument in Dobbs. He's like, listen, can't we get to
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: some kind of compromise where we uphold this cockamamie Mississippi law,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 3: but we don't go all the way and overrule Dobbs?
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: Wouldn't that be better? Because there's an election coming, the midterms.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: And they wouldn't listen to him. Millions of women were
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 3: energized by Dobbs and they went to the polls. I
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: think they see the same thing happening now. Abortion is
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 3: a salient issue for elections. And Justice Jackson said this
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 3: in her concurrence slash dissent. She said, you know, there
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 3: is comparatively a more convenient time for us to get
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: to this and make no mistake. we will get to this.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 3: We're not getting to it now because they've decided it's
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: improvident to do so, but we will get there. And
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 3: there's already another case coming out of, wait for it,
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: the Fifth Circuit, So this is going to come back
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: to the court. It'll just come back after November. So
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 3: don't be fooled. Don't listen to all of the folks
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: who are like, this is a moderate court on abortion.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 3: They want to take this issue out of the public
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 3: discourse around this election. I don't even know if it
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 3: was a mistake that it got uploaded the day before
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 3: the debate where the one thing Joe Biden needs to
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 3: hammer is that Donald Trump is responsible for whatever is
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 3: happening on abortion.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 7: Sleeper cell IT person.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: Well, I was, I mean, I was going to ask, like,
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 2: on that note, so we're recording this Wednesday night. The
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: debate is Thursday night. Tomorrow morning, Thursday morning, there's going
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: to be more decisions. There will also be decisions Friday.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: And then there will be decisions, I guess, Monday. And
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: we don't know what's going to happen beyond that. What
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: decisions could be released tomorrow that would provide fodder for
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 2: either candidate at the debate tomorrow night? And how likely
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: do we think that this court's going to release any
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: decisions tomorrow morning that could potentially be fodder for the
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: debate tomorrow night? Because it doesn't seem like they would
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 2: drop the immunity, but now I'm thinking of some of
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 2: the other ones. Any case that would help Joe Biden
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: make an argument against Donald Trump at the debate, it
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 2: seems unlikely they would drop that tomorrow morning.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: Maybe they dropped the EMTALA decision since we all seem
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 3: to know what it is. So, yeah, it's out there.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 3: Cat's out of the bag. Like, let the chips fall
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 3: where they may. Housing prices are so high. Maybe they
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 3: released the case on homelessness and, like, make that Joe
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 3: Biden's fault. Possibly. I think it's very unlikely that the
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: immunity case comes out for obvious reasons. Although... They could
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 3: literally be like gremlins where they got wet and ate
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: after midnight and just decided to do it. I don't know.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 3: That would be the most chaos agent thing ever.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: Well, there's also the case.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: Actually, the eating after midnight would make them gremlins.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 3: Is that what happened?
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: The getting wet would make more gremlins.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 3: Is that what happened?
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 4: The eating after midnight turns Gizmo into gremlin.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 3: I actually never watched this movie.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 4: Oh.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 3: I just know this.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: Um... It seems like you raised it.
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 3: It was on the LSAT.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: You raised it improvidently.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 3: I did. I wish you were back on the island.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: The one I was wondering if they would release tomorrow
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: morning would be Fisher and which is a case about
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: the January 6th insurrectionists, and they were charged with obstructing
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: an official proceeding, and they could throw out those charges.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: It seemed like they were leaning that way in oral arguments,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: and that would take away two of the four charges.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: Not necessarily.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 3: So the Fisher case is about the statute, part of
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 3: the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, that was passed in the wake of Enron,
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 3: and it makes it a crime to corruptly obstruct an
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 3: official proceeding. And the question in Fisher is, is whether
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 3: obstructing the certification of the Electoral College is the sort
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 3: of official proceeding that the statute's writers had in mind,
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 3: or was it something like evidence tampering or witness tampering,
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: like the kind of thing that happened around Enron. And so,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 3: you know, this is going to turn this court's would-be
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 3: textualists into knots because on the face of it, this
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: is straight up textual healing. Like, obviously, this should apply. But,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 3: you know, if you're textual-ish, you know, you might not
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 3: necessarily go this way, especially if January 6th hangs in
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 3: the balance. The reason why I think it doesn't necessarily
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: have to apply to Donald Trump is that the charges
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: in the January 6th indictment are not simply about interrupting
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 3: the certification of the Electoral College, but about advancing these
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 3: slates of false electors, and that could be the kind
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 3: of corrupt act that would fall within the scope of
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 3: this statute.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: Because that would be even more textualist, because in the
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: statute it says, like, you can't, it's certificates, right?
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, when you get that feeling, you need textual healing,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 3: and you have to do that. So, you know, again, maybe,
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 3: because I'm not sure how it necessarily works for Donald Trump.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's a get-out-of-jail-free card for him, even
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 3: if they cite with the rank and file January 6th.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: Though at that point he would just say, he would say,
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: the prisoners, the patriots of January 6th, the court just
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 2: ruled today, they're exonerated.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: That's not going to help him. We all have eyes.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I was going to say, one, it would help
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 7: the members of his favorite choir.
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 9: But if that IT, that possible resistance member who handles
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 9: IT at the Supreme Court is listening, that is a
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 9: decision that would be good for us to have out.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 9: Because there's nothing we would like more than for Donald
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 9: Trump to be talking about the Patriots of January 6th
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 9: on a debate stage in front of 50 million people.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 4: And if that IT person is listening, I don't know
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 4: if this will help.
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: And you know they are. And you know they are.
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 4: I don't know if this would help, but please try
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 4: turning the Supreme Court off and then back on.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: So SCOTUS continues to do Trump a solid on Jack
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 2: Smith's January 6th case. by continuing to punt the immunity ruling.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: Judge Eileen Cannon keeps doing everything she can to slow
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: walk Jack Smith's other case, which is Trump stealing classified information.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: Can you take us through the latest on what Cannon
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: has been doing and how this might be different than
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: what other federal judges would do?
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: Did you see the new picks today? New Mar-a-Lago picks
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: just dropped.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 3: Oh, I did see those.
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: All the classified boxes spilled over on the side.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 3: It's great. So I grew up in Port St. Lucie, Florida,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 3: which is right next door to Fort Pierce, where this
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: courthouse is. And I'm just like, it's a wacky place.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 3: So I'm never entirely surprised by what Judge Cannon does.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, one, she's not a very experienced judge. And
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 3: when I say this on MSNBC, people always get.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: Into my mention, like, stop making excuses for her.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm not making excuses for her. I'm basically
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 3: saying she's not that smart about this. But she's not
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 3: an experienced judge on criminal matters. And so I think
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 3: A lot of what we're seeing, it's either a lack
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 3: of experience, she's out over her skis, or she literally
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 3: is in the bag for Trump, or some combination of both,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 3: which I don't discount either. She's been doing a lot recently.
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 3: So one thing that she's doing that I think most
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 3: federal judges do not do is that she's making no
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 3: use of the federal magistrate judge to whom she has
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 3: been assigned. Typically, if you're a district court judge, you
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 3: get assigned a magistrate judge. This is not an Article
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 3: III judge, but an Article I judge that basically does
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 3: a lot of Article III functions. So they do a
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 3: lot of pretrial hearings. They will handle evidentiary motions and
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 3: things of that nature. And they basically do a lot
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 3: of the managerial work that clears space for district court
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 3: judges to do their work and keep cases going on track.
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 3: Bruce Reinhart is the magistrate judge who's been assigned to her.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 3: He's also the judge that signed the warrant for the
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 3: search of Mar-a-Lago. So It's probably real awkward for her
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 3: to go to Judge Reinhart and ask him to help
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 3: her take on some of these issues. And so she
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 3: seems to not be relying on him. Again, it seems
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 3: like an unforced error for a district court judge because
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 3: it frees up a lot of time and keeps things moving.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 3: Last week and this week, she had a couple of
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 3: really odd hearings where she invited essentially a Miki to
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 3: come into court and to argue an issue that I
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 3: think has been asked and answered by the Supreme Court
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 3: and other federal courts, like whether the appointment of a
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 3: special counsel is constitutional or not. I believe this was
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 3: decided in United States versus Nixon many years ago and
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 3: has subsequently been reaffirmed by various federal courts. including the D.C. Circuit,
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 3: a decision that the Supreme Court declined to review later,
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 3: so it seems settled.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: Something she could have Googled?
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, could have been an email, right?
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 4: Did you say amici?
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: Friends of the court? Is that what that is?
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 7: I've just.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: If people just heard that term and they weren't sure
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: what it was.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 3: Tell me you don't listen to strict scrutiny without telling
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 3: me you don't listen to strict scrutiny.
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: I'm helping them. I knew the term. I knew that...
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: You heard that I knew the term.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 3: Your LSAT score again.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 7: I'm just... There's a.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: Big amicus or amicus debate that needs to be answered.
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: Did you say amicus or amicus? You go back and forth.
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 3: I think I sometimes go back and forth. I want
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 3: to be inclusive.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 3: So she's doing that. She had another hearing this week
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 3: about whether or not the funding structure for the special
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 3: counsel was constitutional, also asked and answered by a case
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 3: this term at the Supreme Court. So just seems to
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 3: be like having a lot of hearings. And I guess
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 3: that's fine if the question of this case getting to
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 3: trial weren't so urgent, right?
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 2: I was wondering why she's doing all this. Cause like,
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 2: didn't she are like, the case is not happening before
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 2: the election at this point.
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 3: A hundred percent.
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: So it's like, it feels like she's just like spiking
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 2: the football.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 3: Maybe she's trolling us. I don't know. But I mean,
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 3: I do think it's worthwhile to put a pin under this. Like,
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 3: This is the most straightforward case.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: I know, I know.
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 3: This is the easy one, for real. And there are
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 3: lots of people in federal prison right now for having
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 3: fewer classified documents in their possession.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 3: And so.
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 2: And not obstructing justice when someone's like, hey, if you
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: have classified documents, can you give them back? And he's like, no. No,
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: thank you.
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 3: Erase the videotape.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: I have a subpoena. No, thank you.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 6: No, I mean, so.
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 3: This one's pretty bad. And again, I think you have
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 3: to look at sort of, Tommy and I have talked
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 3: about this, but Judge Cannon's on this case because the
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 3: Southern District of Florida has two judicial vacancies that the
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 3: Biden administration has been unable to fill because for district
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 3: court seats, there is a custom of requiring the home
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 3: state senators to provide their blue slips to any judicial nomination.
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 3: And Rick Scott and Marco Rubio have refused to sign
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 3: off on anyone who the Biden administration. Shocking, I know.
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 3: And so when this case went into the wheel for
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 3: the Southern District of Florida, there basically were like only
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 3: a handful of judges who it could go to. And
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 3: one of them was Judge Cannon. And lo and behold,
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 3: it was Judge Cannon.
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: It was a real deer hunter situation. If that was
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: for you, fine. I want you to know that you
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: got me all pissed off about the blue slip thing.
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: And then I came into the next pot I did
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: with these guys. And I was like, Dick Durbin is
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: trying to bring back the blue slip process. And that's
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: stupid because it means these Republicans and red states can
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: spike these judges. And then these guys, they made fun
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: of me. They told me I was a dork for
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: bringing up the blue slips and they made fun of me.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: I don't remember specifically saying that. I absolutely remember that.
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds like something we do.
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: It does sound like something we do.
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 9: I mean, well, look, we do know that if in
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 9: the nightmare scenario where Donald Trump wins the White House
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 9: and the Republicans take the Senate. the Republicans would continue
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 9: to give that privilege to Democratic senators, of course.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 3: Obviously.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 6: 100%.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 5: 100%.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 2: So the immunity decision, we're waiting. It feels like we're
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 2: not going to have a real January 6th trial. We
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 2: might have a mini trial before the election. Like a hearing.
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: A hearing, right. Eileen Cannon's doing her thing. We're not
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 2: going to have that trial. The former president was convicted
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: of multiple felonies in New York. We're clapping. We're clapping.
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: Shout out.
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 4: And by the way, seven of the jurors are here tonight.
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: Hi, Hillary Clinton. Every one of them got a sign.
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 2: That hasn't really moved the polls. Lovett, you've been talking
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 2: about how as much as Donald Trump should face accountability
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 2: from the law, that is not going to save us.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: Do you want to make that case again now?
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 4: Look, I do think there's like, I was thinking about
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 4: this before the show, just that like, I feel like
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 4: in the end, like Donald Trump is just the luckiest
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 4: person in the history of human society.
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 2: And we'll just have to.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: Face that at some point.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 4: Like it just never a drop of rain will ever
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 4: fall on this man. Like I just, what he did
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 4: in a past life must've been pretty fucking amazing. But no, look,
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 4: I think, you know, there was this, there, you know,
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden put out an ad.
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: It was a great ad.
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 4: It was a contrast ad about Donald Trump being convicted
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 4: in all the ways Joe Biden is fighting for ordinary people.
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 4: And we talked about how that had, was a change
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 4: from where Joe Biden had been at the beginning of
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 4: the race, where he said, like, the courts won't save us,
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 4: only we can save ourselves. And I think the hope
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 4: that somehow the judicial process, the legal process, the, I
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 4: don't know, the moral character of primary voting Republicans, like
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 4: there was going to be some path to getting rid
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 4: of Donald Trump that didn't involve, once again, all of
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 4: us putting on our boots and our jackets and going
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 4: and knocking on doors and getting people to do it.
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 4: But I think With each passing day, it is very
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 4: clear that no, there will be no legal accountability for
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump. And by the way, a media environment this
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 4: noisy and a Republican Party this debased, telling all of
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 4: us that it's acceptable for someone convicted of multiple felonies
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 4: by a jury of their peers to be the nominee
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 4: makes it acceptable to half the country.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: That is just the reality we live in. And I
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: think a lot of times.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 4: How can this be?
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: How can this be?
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 4: It is.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: It just is.
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 4: And there'll be plenty of time for us to figure
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 4: out how to slowly but surely build a politics that
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 4: doesn't make the stakes feel like this and doesn't make
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 4: us feel so worried all the time, but that is
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 4: not our luck for the next four to five months.
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 2: Melissa wants to fly her flag right now.
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 3: All right, this is so dystopian. How can you wear
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 3: this outfit and be so dark in your predictions? He is,
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 3: it's true.
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, thank you, sir.
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 3: So here's my take on it, right? Like you're leaning in, okay.
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: I'm interested.
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 2: Before you leave for Miami.
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 4: Just between us, Amiki.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 3: You are my best Amiki, you really are. That's only
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 3: true if Donald Trump wins, right? Because if Joe Biden wins,
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 3: these cases can actually happen, right? They won't be killed
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 3: by a new Trump DOJ. They can actually go forward.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 3: And if accountability is what you want, then... going to
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 3: the polls, getting your friends, galvanizing people for Joe Biden
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 3: should be a high priority. Like, that's how you get accountability.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. Yes, these trials continue.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 4: I'm more making the broader point that, like, we have
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 4: to defeat not just Trump, but this movement enough times
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 4: and so emphatically that craven, valueless people who care only
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 4: about winning decide that the way to win is.
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: To moderate, right?
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 4: Like, A couple years ago, it was Marco Rubio saying
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 4: that the future of the Republican Party is a cosmopolitan
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 4: and moderated party that brings in people from all walks
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 4: of life.
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: It was called the autopsy because the party was dead.
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Marco Rubio let us down. That's all. That's the
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 4: point I'm making.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 3: I think they were just so freaked out by having
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 3: a black president that they were like, we got to
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 3: have a king.
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 4: Definitely. Yeah.
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 3: Once you get to that point, if that's not your bag,
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 3: then this is the moment to stand up and fight.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 9: Let me give a pitch that maybe is a little
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 9: more of your baser pitch for why you should get
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 9: involved in this election.
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 7: So you're sitting there.
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 9: We've been doing this for fucking forever at this point.
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 9: We've told you every election since 2017 was the most
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 9: important election of your lifetime.
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 7: You've been knocking doors. You've been texting. You've been phone calling.
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 9: But just imagine this scenario when you're sitting on the
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 9: Vote Save America website and you're afraid to hit submit
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 9: on your email address. We work our asses off. Donald
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 9: Trump loses. Then we get to watch Joe Biden and
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 9: Kamala Harris get sworn in again. Then a few months later,
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 9: Donald Trump will stand trial in Washington, D.C.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: For the insurrection. And then.
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 7: He's convicted.
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 9: Maybe he goes to prison. A few months later, he
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 9: leaves prison. He goes to Fulton County, Georgia. He has
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 9: to stay in trial again for having to overthrow the election.
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 7: Gets convicted.
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 9: Goes back to prison. A few months after that, comes back.
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 9: Goes to trial for stealing classified documents.
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 7: Gets convicted. It's going to be a pretty sweet 2025, people.
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: And then the primary begins.
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 2: Lock him up.
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: Lock him up.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: And then they're old, and Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 2: are like, we got to go. And we've also not
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 2: only reelected Joe Biden, but we've kept the Senate and
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 2: we've flipped the House. And now we are adding more
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court justices.
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 4: And then Apple makes all the chargers the same.
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 7: Yes!
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 2: This is the dream. This is the dream.
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: There we go.
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 2: All right. So that's the hopeful. That's the hopeful scenario.
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 2: But it only works if everyone gets out there and
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 2: volunteers and donates and does everything we can. for the
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 2: next couple months to actually make this happen. So that
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 2: is our show for tonight. We're gonna be doing a
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 2: special debate reaction show tomorrow night that'll land early Friday
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 2: morning in your feed. Check it out. Thank you, Stacey Abrams.
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 2: Thanks to Amanda Lipman and Melissa Murray. Thanks to Greenlight
• 1:35:18
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• 1:35:20
  Speaker 2: a copy of Democracy or Else, please do it on
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• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Brooklyn.
• 1:35:33
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• 1:35:56
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