Latest / Pod Save America / "Live from DC, it’s January 6!"

Transcript

"Live from DC, it’s January 6!" · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: Dan is filling in for Jon today. He's doing a
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: focus group of undecided voters for the wilderness. Things are
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: tough out there. One of the undecided voters is Doug Emhoff.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I didn't know he lived in Pittsburgh.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: On today's show, the January 6th committee sets expectations very
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: high or really very low for Thursday's primetime hearing. Tensions
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: in the Biden White House spill out onto the streets
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: and Chef Jose Andres talks to Tommy about World Central
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Kitchen and what they've learned helping people in Ukraine and
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: serving people in need around the world. But first, you
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: can now binge the entire first season of Stuck with
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Damon Young. This season, Damon explores The uncomfortable, hideous, and
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: hilarious absurdity of being black in America with some of
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: the brightest minds and boldest voices of the black community.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Listen to all episodes for free only on Spotify. And
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Crooked Coffee is coming June 21st.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Why coffee, Tommy? I love coffee. NPR sells coffee. They do?
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: If they can do it, we can do it. I
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: bet Ari Shapiro brews a mean cup of coffee.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: I bet he does too. I bet he does one
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: of those ones that's not even brewing.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: It's like pour over.
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: For sure he does. Somehow it's better than any coffee
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: you've had before. One time, R.H.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Pierrot's a friend of mine, and he showed me that
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: he had grown pears inside of a jar to make
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: some kind of a liqueur months later. And it was like,
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: I need laundry detergent. What can't you do? Amazing.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Anyway, enough about Hardy.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: The point is, coffee drinkers at Crooked tested many beans,
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: they found something they loved, and a portion of the
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: proceeds from every order will go to register her To
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: register women to vote across the country, go to cricket.com
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: slash coffee to sign up. The bag also looks very cool, Dan.
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: Oh, it does.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: It's a great design. Okay, let's get to the news.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: The January 6th committee's first primetime hearing is Thursday night.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: In the run-up to that hearing, members of the committee
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: are signaling that there will be news, and we've seen
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: indictments and damning reports about what was taking place in
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: the hours before the attack on the Capitol. Then on Friday,
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: the Department of Justice indicted former Trump White House aide
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Peter Navarro for contempt of Congress. While not indicting Mark
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: Meadows or Dan Scavino, Meadows turned over some documents before
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: stopping his cooperation. It's how he enjoyed many of his texts,
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: but it's also been reported that the committee has learned
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: he burnt documents after a meeting with Pennsylvania Republican and
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: big lie enthusiast Scott Perry. Dan, what does this tell
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: us about how seriously the DOJ is taking their broader
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: January 6th investigation? I have to say, because I was
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: sort of knocked out with COVID last week, I didn't
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: follow the Peter Navarro story very closely, so I thought
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: I'd Google it today. And I Googled Peter Navarro, and
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: the first thing that comes up is, in leg irons?
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: That's why I was like, oh, Peter Navarro must be
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: in jail. How cool is that? No, this is a
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: misdemeanor contempt charge that he has. It's a slap on
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: the wrist. And so I don't know that it tells
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: us anything about how seriously Merrick Garland, Department of Justice,
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: may be pursuing charges against Trump and his allies related
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: to this. But it does tell us that they're not
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: super serious about enforcing congressional subpoenas. Because if you can
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: negotiate for a little bit, and burn some of your
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: documents in the fireplace and not get charged with contempt,
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: it pretty much means that these subpoenas aren't worth much
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: more than the pieces of paper that Mark Meadows burned.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Tommy, can't we just enjoy this, Dan?
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: He was arrested at the airport. That must've been funny.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: He was arrested at the airport. You could get a
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: year per count, a hundred grand. He's, he's representing himself
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: pro se. I love that he's representing himself. This is,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: he really, uh, he's, he's playing it full, full loon. Totally.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: Uh, he, it does seem like what this is mostly
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: about is you can defy a congressional subpoena for as
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: long as you want. So long as you do it
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: with like a lawyer and like the proper words, like
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: Navarro seems to be just, uh, Just, just loose.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Just deleted the emails.
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: He just didn't follow. He just didn't, he just didn't
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: treat it respectfully.
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: I think if you're the president's trade advisor and then
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: you get arrested for contempt of court for your involvement
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: in an insurrection, that is like the strongest argument for
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: staying in your lane.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He had just done trade. He wouldn't have gone
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: to jail briefly.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: Right. Think about the path that Peter Navarro has taken
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: to those leg irons. He was just a, a, a
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: trade nut out in the world. Jared Kushner looked for
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: a book on trade on Amazon.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Googled him, yeah, Amazoned him. And now he's getting arrested
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: at the airport on his way to a Mike Huckabee hit.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Thanks, Bezos.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I do like that the MAGA response is like,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: how could you arrest him? He went to Harvard. That's
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: basically where they're coming from on this. They're all shocked
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: that the justice system treats suspects horribly.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Did you know he ran for Congress as a Democrat?
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in like 96, right?
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, campaigned with Hillary Clinton.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: So now also in the last week or so, we
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: learned about what was taking place inside the White House
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: and that Trump and those around him were aware of
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: the potential for violence on January 6th. Tommy, Maggie Haberman
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: has a story out that the day before the insurrection,
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: Mike Pence's chief of staff, Mark Short, alerted the Secret
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: Service that Donald Trump was going to turn publicly against Pence.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: And as a result, Pence might be in physical danger.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: Do you think that indicates that inside the White House,
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: they were aware that Trump's incitement might lead to violence
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: on January 6th. Yeah.
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Seems like it. I really do. I mean, certainly just
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: that Mark Short thought that he was Mike Pence's chief
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: of staff. I would love to know if Mark Short
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: talked about this conversation with the secret service with Mike
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Pence and if he knew he was going to do
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: it or if he was briefed on it afterwards. But
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: we now have this, this conversation between Mark Short and
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the secret service, which is secret service denied on Twitter,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: by the way, which is whatever. Um, That seems to
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: suggest that Trump's officials were aware that his words and
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: conduct could create violence before January 6th. And then we
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: have all the texts to Mark Meadows that shows that
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: they were aware as the violence was happening, that Trump
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: was capable of stopping it by putting out some sort
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: of statement. So it feels like there's a lot of
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: awareness of the power of his words now.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Dan. So we have the vice president's chief of
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: staff warning the Secret Service that the president is going
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: to put the vice president in danger. That's the day
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: before the insurrection. We also learned recently that in the Times,
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: also by Maggie Haberman, that as the events on January
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: 6th were unfolding, Mark Meadows told colleagues that Trump was
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: complaining about Pence being brought to a safe location. And
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: this is how it is actually described in the piece.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: Trump said something to the effect of maybe Mr. Pence
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: should be hanged.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Dan, what kind of.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: Evidence do you think the committee is holding back on
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: this specific? How much more information do we need? Do
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: we need to see a picture of Trump Behind Pence
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: with a pair of gloves, like holding a piano.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: What is fucking left?
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: Also, the other thing, Dan, if the president said he
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: wanted the vice president to die, don't you think you
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: remember the words? Don't you think you wouldn't have to
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: fucking paraphrase it?
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Except these people are all so dumb. Right.
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: But it, I like, I read that and I laughed
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: and then I briefly felt guilty for laughing, but it's
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: like somehow Mike Pence is the one person in all
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: of American life whose murder is funny.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: The president, it is, the president was watching a mortal
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: threat to the country and the vice president of the
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: United States. And he was like sitting there with popcorn
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: being like, they got him out of there.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: That's a shame. I want to see something happen. Uh,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: So this brings us to Thursday night.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: Tommy, Congressman David Cicilline, who's on the committee, said, I
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: think the American people are going to learn facts about
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: the planning and execution of this that will be very disturbing.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: Liz Cheney has signaled that we will learn a lot
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: more about just how organized the conspiracy to overturn the
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: election really was beyond incitement. Congressman Jamie Raskin said these
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: hearings will, quote, blow the roof off the House. Do
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: you think blowing the roof off the House is setting
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: expectations at the right level?
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that does. That says more Miami club promoter than
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: the member of Congress. But look, let's be glass half full.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: We've learned a lot of information in the last few days.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: I also want to just point out one little note
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: about the Mark Short going to the Secret Service is
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: apparently also went to Jared Kushner and tried to get
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: help from Jared and sort of calming things down. And
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Jared said he was too busy doing Middle East peace,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: which means lining up $ 2 billion from the Saudis.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: So So this is like the new I'm doing the dishes.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: I can get involved here. I'm trying to get paid.
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to do a corrupt deal to make billions
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: of dollars after I leave. I'm only in this job
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: for another couple of weeks.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Do you see this skinny suit? This doesn't pay for itself. Yeah,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: I think blow the roof off the house. Look, we'll see.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, certainly it seems like Maggie Haberman had to
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: publish this Pence Secret Service story because the committee learned
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: about it. She was worried about them getting ahead of her.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: So maybe Pence's aides will testify. Everything does seem to
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: be speeding up. DOJ is moving a little faster.
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: I'm going to allow myself to feel hopeful and to
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: be surprised to the upside.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: Dan, the Dems are holding these hearings in primetime, hoping
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: to get as many people to tune in as possible.
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: Raskin and Cheney and other members are like out there.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: They are kind of hyping this event. They are like
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: club promoters for this thing. Cheney has described the ongoing
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: threat to our democracy. Seems like she understands the importance
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: of looking forward. We talked a little bit about this
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: on Thursday night, but you were on COVID leave. What
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: does a politically successful hearing look like to you?
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: I think a politically successful hearing is one that drives
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: the political conversation for a month, right? It won't be
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: every day of that month, but they're holding these hearings
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: in primetime, I think in part because they've learned the
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: lessons of the failures of the two Trump impeachments where
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: most people, the overwhelming majority of people, particularly the people
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: that you who are not already decided one way or
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: another on the guilt or innocence of Trump, didn't see it.
• 9:57
  Speaker 5: They just saw news coverage of it from people they
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: didn't necessarily trust or care about or believe. And so
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: they're holding it in front of as many, with as
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: many eyes as possible.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: I think that's good.
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: I think the success here is if we raise the
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: stakes and we explain the danger, not just of what
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: happened on January 6th, but that it could happen again
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: and that the people who organized it, who pushed it,
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: who fomented that big lie are still doing that with
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: a grave existential threat to our democracy right now and
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: to upcoming elections.
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: Tommy, there's reports that they've hired a hotshot TV news
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: producer to make this feel like an investigative special, to
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: give it a Dateline vibe. Think that'll move the needle?
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, it's better than like, you know,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer storyboarding the thing. Did you guys know that Nightline,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: where the producer they hired came from, started as a
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: four-day-per-week update on the Iran hostage crisis? I didn't know that.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: And it was so successful that they just sort of
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: evolved it into Nightline.
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Rick Perlstein. Did you know that, Dan?
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: I did know that because I read it and I
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: read the same Rick Perlstein book.
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: Shout out, Reaganland.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Dan, you got a book out too, right? What's it called?
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Battling the Big Lie?
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: We'll get it. We'll get to it.
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: But I do want to say. Dan's battling the big
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: daily wire today.
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: Do you think if the Republicans were doing this and
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: they hired someone from TV, they would have hired the
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: guy from Nightline, right?
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: It would have been like Mark Burnett. They hired Bill Shine.
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, to do nothing in my old office in the
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: White House. That is correct.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: Look, we've seen what happens when Republicans try to put
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: on a primetime event. They've won despite their terrible, terrible
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: convention productions for year after year.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: We need DJ Pauly D. We need someone to really
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: pull the roof off.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: I think we need the guy behind Squid Game. Like,
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: let's shoot for the moon here.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: That's a good idea.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Or Top Gun.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Or Top Gun Maverick. That's right. He's probably not on
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: our side.
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: Anyway.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: You got questions, Lovett?
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, let's keep moving.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Let's keep moving.
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: All right. Tommy.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: All right. So Trump and his allies are planning to
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: counter program these hearings. According to CNN, the former president
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: wants people vigorously defending him and pushing back on the
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: select committee. There's already a lot of damning evidence. What
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: do you expect them to try to do to distract
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: from the testimony as it's unfolding in prime time?
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: This is kind of fun because usually there would be
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: a bunch of Republicans on the committee who would have
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: access to all the information and could better plan for
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: how they're going to respond. These geniuses decided not to
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: be a part of the January 6th committee and therefore
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: have no insight. They're just reading the news like us.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: So It sounds like the Republicans are planning to release
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: a report that basically blames all of January 6th on
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: security failures. Like, yeah, no shit. We all saw that.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: But I think there's a bigger question here. Kevin McCarthy
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: is running point on the response. That's a bad side
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: for them. On the hearings on the Hill. By the way,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Politico had an amazing piece last week about how reporters
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: are too scared to just call Kevin McCarthy stupid when
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: they talk about him or write about him. They use
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: euphemisms like, you know, I don't know.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: Kevin McCarthy dares to ask the question, what if Paul
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: Ryan was just coming out of anesthesia?
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Apparently Elise Stefanik is going to be like sort of
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: the main tack dog. But I don't know. They can try.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: I'm sure they'll be all over Fox News and they'll
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: find little points of grievance and they'll try to like...
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: You remember Adam Schiff did something that pissed them all
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: off in the impeachment hearings and they made that their
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: focus for three days. We'll probably see something like that.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: But Yeah, they're not very well set up here. Yeah,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: I've seen a bunch of different threads. There's like process
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: arguments that this is not a legitimate committee and that
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: they've kind of overstepped their authority. I saw intellectual Zamboni
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Hugh Hewitt saying nothing to see here, probably going to
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: be pretty boring.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: Nobody's going to watch. Dan, what are you expecting? And
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: do you think Democrats are doing enough to kind of
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: preview some of the Republican attacks on the committee?
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: Before Trump's first impeachment, Steve Bannon described their strategy to
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: Michael Lewis as flood the zone with shit. He said,
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: Democrats were not the enemy. The media is the enemy.
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: And they did that in that impeachment. So they just
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: threw everything they possibly had at the wall. The egregious
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: offense that Tommy referred to was Adam Schiff meeting with
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: the whistleblower, which is because Adam Schiff was the person
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: you blow the whistle to, right? That that was somehow
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: an offense. Do you remember that for a long period
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: of time in that hearing, became the Republican talking point
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: that Trump's extortion of Ukraine was legitimate because it was
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: Ukraine who interfered in the 2016 election, not Russia. And
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: what Ukraine did to interfere in the election was two things,
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: arrest Paul Manafort for crimes and two, to hide the
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: DNC server, which is not a thing that actually exists.
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: And so just, and that, that, that is what they're
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: going to, they're going to throw everything they possibly have
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: out there so that people who are paying less attention,
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: who are inherently cynical of politicians, the political process, and
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: the press will just throw up their arms and give
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: up and say they're all corrupt.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Who cares? And not really pay attention to them.
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: And what Democrats have to do here, I think the
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: first step is the right one, which is do it
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: in prime time, get as many people to see it
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: as possible, not rely on the press to carry that
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: message for you. Because when you rely on the press
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: for that, you are sending a discredited messenger to deliver
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: the message to a lot of people who we need
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: to reach.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: But the second thing is I think they.
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: Have to keep two very clear threads and keep them separate,
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: which I think keeps getting mixed up. There is the
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: criminal conspiracy to overturn the election that involves the legal memos,
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: what they wanted Mike Pence to do, the fake electors
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: in Arizona and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and elsewhere. And then
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: there is the violence at the Capitol. And those are
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: two very, very serious things, but they get all mixed up.
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: And the violence at the Capitol is one that is
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: you know, absent the very specific, you know, some sort
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: of like map in Trump's handwriting of how to get
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: to Nancy Pelosi's office or something that Mark Meadows failed
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: to burn, that becomes something you can blame on the
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: Proud Boys and others. But that is a product of
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: the larger criminal conspiracy. And the larger criminal conspiracy, I think,
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: is where they should put as much of their focus
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: as possible, because then you can't blame Nancy Pelosi completely
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: incorrectly for security in the Capitol, right? What it is,
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: is like, there are people who decided that What the
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: voters wanted and what the Electoral College decided was not
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: what they wanted, so they were going to overturn the
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: will of the American people. And keeping the focus on
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: that in a very clear way I think is essential
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: to sort of staying above the fray and what a
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: lot of the bullshit the Republicans are going to do.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: And again, just back to Peter Navarro, I mean he
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: wrote about the conspiracy to– overturned the election in his book,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: and he branded it the Green Bay Sweep. So there's
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: considerable evidence for us to point to here.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: It's the wire meme of don't take notes on a
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: criminal conspiracy, right?
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: Incredible.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: I just, it is too hard to beat these dumb,
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: dumb people. My God, it is such hard work, and
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: they are so stupid. It does seem like there has
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: been this, I think, challenge from the beginning. It continues
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: to this day, which is to talk both about the
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: insurrection and the violence that took place at the Capitol.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: the larger conspiracy to overturn the election and to continue
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: to overturn elections into the future and how to connect
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: those things together, how to make an argument that points
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: out the ways in which the incitement that took place
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: outside the Capitol was a kind of outside game to
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: create pressure inside the Capitol to move forward the plans
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: they had to get Pence to question the electors, to
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: get Grassley to take over for Mike Pence.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Somebody tell Chuck Grassley where he was.
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: You have to schedule the right insurrection around his naps.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Everything is speeding up. I mean, four Proud Boys were
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: indicted today for conspiring to create violence outside the Capitol.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Those guys provide Roger Stone with security and I think
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: did so on January 6th. So like there's a lot
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: of connective tissue here that hopefully will make it easy
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: to tell the story. We just need to see all
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: the emails and documents and phone calls that these guys
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: have figured out over the last year plus.
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: So.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: Those hearings are about to start. They'll be in primetime.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: They'll be taking place over the month of June. There
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: are reports that there's a disagreement within the January 6th
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: committee about what policy recommendations should emerge from these hearings
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: to defeat the next insurrection, an effort to overturn a
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: presidential election, a sequel that the GOP is already plotting
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: as we speak. Jamie Raskin wants big changes on voting rights,
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: even potentially abolishing the Electoral College, while Cheney is calling
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: for a more targeted set of reforms around the Electoral
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: Count Act directed not at voting rights, but specifically at
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: the efforts to dispute valid election results.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Dan, who's right?
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, Is it Liz Cheney?
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: Come on, say it. Say it, Dan.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: You want to say it?
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: Say it on the record. I've said it before, I'll
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: say it again. Cheney's right. I mean, look, in all seriousness.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Can we just add a mix to it? That should
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: be the start of like, that's like, and then the
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: beat drops. Raise the roof with that thing, Dan.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: So why do you think, so Dan Pfeiffer, as you've
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: always said, Cheney is right.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Why do you think.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: Cheney is right? I'm not even saying Liz. I'm not
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: even giving you the satisfaction of a Liz thing. Why
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: do you think Liz Cheney is right in this case?
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: Because if we make this about something that is not achievable, right?
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: It's not even like, Jamie Raskin, according to this report,
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: is not just pushing for the For the People Act
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: or the Voting Rights Act that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: Sinema support but won't break the filibuster for. He is
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: supporting a constitutional amendment that we have no capacity to pass.
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: And I think that is a distraction. I think the
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: whole idea about recommendations is a lot of Congress brain
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: happening here. You know what the recommendation is? Defeat Republicans
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: because they are dangerous. That is what really matters. If
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: you want to– like I think there's probably some pretty
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: serious recommendations around how to protect the Capitol, how to
• 19:29
  Speaker 5: ensure that they can call for help in situations faster.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: All of that is very important.
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: If there is a good idea on the Electoral Counts Act,
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: that is fine. But the point of the hearings is
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: to– and this is why they're holding them in prime
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: time– is to persuade the country about a very dangerous
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: thing that happened. to explain who was responsible and help
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: ensure it doesn't happen again. And you don't need a
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: white paper to come out of that to have it
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: be effective.
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't even think it's a matter of
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: what's politically possible. We know what happened when we tried
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: to get an expansive voting rights bill through, but it's
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: not like a targeted bill has much of a chance,
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: given that the only two Republicans that are willing to
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: acknowledge the existence of this committee are probably two of
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: the only yes votes you'll get from Republicans. And it'll
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: kind of be stymied in the Senate. But I do
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: think the goal out of this, to your point, yes,
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: it's about defeating Republicans. But let's drive a message about
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: the specific threat to our democracy.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: I want expanded voting rights. We all want expanded voting rights.
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: We all want.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: To make our democracy work better. But I do think
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: that even in the first year of this administration, we
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: kind of combine these two things, right? The effort to
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: undermine voting rights to prevent people from voting, which is
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: a very, very serious threat. And then the much darker
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: turn that took place at the Capitol representing an abandonment
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: of democratic legitimacy generally, basically just there's only one kind
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: of election that's legitimate, an election that Republicans can win.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: And if what we're hearing from the committee is basically
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: a focus on that, then the recommendations should be a
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: focus on that, right, Tommy?
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or maybe some more DOJ referrals. I mean, what Yes.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Let's fix this discrete problem of people trying to overturn
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: the results of the election in a variety of ways.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I cannot deal with another pivot from this massively important
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: hearing to a show vote on getting rid of the
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: electoral college that we know is dead in the water.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: There are times when you should, the House will take
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: votes that they know will never get through the Senate.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: There's times to put elected officials on the record about
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: big issues. In this instance, we have tried that. I
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: think that we really risk wasting crucial time between now
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: and the election when they could do more discreet things like,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know, fix, you know, premiums going up in
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Obamacare or do something on prescription drugs or just, you know,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: create some big effort where we all charge up a
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: hill and Joe Manchin kills that effort in before it
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: even starts and everyone feels demoralized again. Like that to
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: me is the worst case scenario coming out of a
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: hearing where, you know, for once we might learn a
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: bunch of new things and get people kind of concerned
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: about what happened again.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Dan, it just seems like on a range of issues,
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: there's kind of like a basic thing that's not happening,
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: which is, hey, let's have some votes that are good
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: and unifying for Democrats and hard votes for Republicans. There
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: was some talk after the vote to enshrine Roe went
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: down that we'd see some votes enshrining a right to contraception,
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: protecting the right to marriage equality. Those don't seem to
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: have happened. And on this, we have an opportunity to
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: put Republicans on the record. on a set of discrete
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: proposals just to protect our democracy. It seems like a
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: good idea to have a unified message coming out of
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: this and force Republicans to take some hard votes.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: But that just doesn't seem to happen.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: The House has been doing more of that recently.
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: The House has, for sure. On gas prices, they did
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: a vote on baby formula. There's been a couple other
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: things like that. And I suspect, if we can solve
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: this great feud between Jamie Raskin and Liz Cheney, that
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: they will do something like that in the House. The
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: Senate is a lost cause in this. It takes too
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: long to get the votes. They get lost in procedural
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: filibuster nonsense. You have Manchin and Sinema. And also, the
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: thing we have to remember is in the Senate, we're
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: only really running primarily against one incumbent senator in Ron Johnson.
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: In the House, there are Republican incumbents that we are
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: trying to defeat who are now in different districts. And
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: so House votes that put people on the record are
• 23:17
  Speaker 5: much more valuable for telling a story and for persuasion
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: than Senate votes, which are really about one knucklehead from Wisconsin.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: Meanwhile, President Biden will be in Los Angeles this week
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: for the Summit of the Americas, causing traffic around our
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: live show at the Ace Hotel Thursday night, part of
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: a broader push to have the president out and about
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: more after what we can safely call a challenging period
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: for the administration, with legislative setbacks and hard problems roiling
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: the country, from access to baby formula to the price
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: of gas. There's been a drumbeat of stories looking at
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: tension and infighting inside the White House over efforts to
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: manage these crises as President Biden's approval rating has fallen,
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: and we head into midterms that are taking a.
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: Woodchipper-like shape. Midterms, form of woodchipper. Dan, how much are
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: these kinds of stories typical of a White House in
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: the barrel, or is there more to it in this case?
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: What do you think?
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: When I read the Politico version of the story, which
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: is like the third or first story in the last
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: week about this, it actually made my stomach hurt because
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: it basically 10, 12 years ago.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: My God, we're so old.
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: 12 years ago, it's this exact story about the Obama
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: White House, right? There's a hole in the floor of
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: the Gulf of Mexico, oil spilling out. Why can't they
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: get in charge of it? They just can't get their
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: message out. What happened to the Obama hope magic?
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: And so.
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: When bad things happen, your polls go down. When your
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: polls go down, the press write stories about how you
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: are failing. And they tend to focus a lot of
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: these stories on internal process stuff and not on the
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: big structural factors that are causing that to happen. Could
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: the White House do better on a lot of things?
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Does the president need to get out more?
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Is he starting to do that?
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes.
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: He did his prime minister speech on guns. He's going
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: to be on Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday night. But the
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: big problem is the gas prices are high. Grocery prices
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: are high. People can't find baby formula. These are huge problems.
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: And most of the solutions are outside of the president's grasp,
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: at least immediate grasp.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Tommy, I had the same thought, too.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: The Politico story was like a classic in the genre
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: and not a criticism of the story. It was like
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: a good archetype of that kind of piece.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Classic. Classic.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: It was classic.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: So but the piece, as these pieces do, it starts
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: with it lays out the positive change, right?
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: What's happening?
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: There's going to be a course correction. There's going to
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: be out on the road. Here are the changes on
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: on gas prices, refocusing on a message calling out Republicans.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: But then it said the following. First, aides need to
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: quell the finger pointing. that's been erupting internally and increasing
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: concern over staff shakeups, according to five White House officials
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: and Democrats close to the administration not authorized to publicly
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: discuss internal conversations. What I love about that is, first,
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: aides need to quell the finger pointing contained in this
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: very paragraph, which represents the kind of anonymous sniping and
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: leaking that needs to be contained to prevent stories like
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: this one about anonymous sniping and leaking. Tommy, you were
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: young in the White House once.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: This is a classic of the genre. Dan and I
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: have had to deal with a million of these. One,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, staff shakeups rumored, infighting, White House battered by events,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: people saying, let Biden be Biden.
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: The best.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: I guarantee you there was like a Peoria publication that
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: like let Lincoln be Lincoln back in the day. And
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: the problem with these stories is like, I've been a spokesperson, Dan,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: you've been a spokesperson who takes this call. You have
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: to send the big email around to everyone on staff,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: alerting them that this brutal, infighting bullshit is.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: Going to be in the paper.
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: 90% of whom have already talked to the reporter.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, John Lemire is writing a story?
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: Who knew?
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, who knew? I don't even email reporters back. What
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: are you talking about? I don't even talk to Politico.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: What's Politico? It's so time-consuming. People take it so personally
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: because inevitably there's some staffer that is being rumored to
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: being pushed out or whatever. These are your friends. You
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: feel immense loyalty to these people. And like it's always
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: background sourcing. It's impossible to pin down what the truth is.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: You deny it, but you really have no idea what
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: the president is saying to members of Congress, old friends, family. Right.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: So my advice to the Biden press team would be
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: maybe fight the narrative a little less, maybe lean into
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: the skit a little more because you're never going to
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: convince reporters that the fourth version of the story isn't right.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: I would just be like, yeah, Biden was rip shit
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: pissed that mothers had to worry about getting formula and
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: that we hadn't briefed him on it. And that's why
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: he sent the military to Europe to get shipments back here. Like, yes,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: we staffers are mad that events on big issues don't
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: get covered. There's also questions about tactics. And it does
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: seem like they need to kind of lean in a
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: little harder, take some more digital swings. You can do
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: the op-eds in the Wall Street Journal and stuff, but
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: that should count for zero minutes of Joe Biden's day, right?
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Hopefully he's not editing the op-eds. I mean, I'm sure
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: he found out when it was published.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, hopefully.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's how it should work. But like, yes,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: get out in the country more, do more town halls. Like, yes,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: the Republicans will clip it. uh, you know, misstatements and
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: things and try to make him look old and blah, blah, blah.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: But like, that's okay. That's the price of doing business.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Like keep picking fights with Rick Scott. I mean, it's,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: it's just, it sucks to be in the barrel like this.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: It'll work itself out in a couple of weeks.
• 28:36
  Speaker 5: But one of the, like, there's like a, a ritual
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: for whenever you're in, in the barrel, as we used
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: to call it in the one else. Now I've never
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: seen anyone be in the barrel as long as Joe
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: Biden's been in it. I mean, it, It'll be one
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: year in the barrel come August, right?
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: He's making little hash marks in there. He's marking the days.
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: In the barrel.
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: And a lot of it's not his fault. It's like
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: you start to make a turn and then Russia invades Ukraine.
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: You start to make a turn and then there was
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: a baby formula crisis. But one of the last things
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: you have to do before you ever get out of
• 29:02
  Speaker 5: the barrel is you have to eat a bunch of
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: ceremonial shit for the press. And that's what these stories are.
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: And that's to your point. I mean, you got to
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: kind of lean in the narrative, do the pivot where
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: you kind of say it wasn't going well. We acknowledge it.
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: The president's pissed about it and we're switching. And I think,
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: you know, they need luck on their side to make
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: a real change here. But I do, you do sense,
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: I think, the opportunity to make the turn if they
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: can just catch a couple of breaks in the news cycle.
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: There is also, I do.
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: Think the like White House under siege kind of stories
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: and the fact that it has seemed as though Biden
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: hasn't been on the road as much as.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: He could be.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: The nature of there, it's just this unfortunate turn of events.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: But there is a quality of like seeming as though
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: you are kind of not being an observer to those events,
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: but out on the road, kind of being a participant,
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: being in front of people. that being buffeted by crises
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: is one thing, but then kind of seeming as though
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: those crises have kind of overwhelmed the system is, I think,
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: the most important reason to have him be out on
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: the road. Because just by seeing him out there, just
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: by being kind of more proactive, you dispute that just
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: by making news, just by being kind of more forward-looking.
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: And there are two parts to political messaging. The first
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: part is, what do you say? And I think Biden's
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: actually been very good about finding popular arguments, right? American
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: Rescue Plan was popular.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: We talked about it.
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: Bipartisan infrastructure problem. The Build Back Better plan was incredibly popular.
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: The second part is, how do you get people to
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: pay attention to what you're saying? And that, I think,
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: is where the diminished bully pulp of the White House
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: really hurts. The unrelenting news cycle really hurts, but also
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: is a requirement for Biden to do, I think, what
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: is not natural to him, right? Because he's a senator,
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: he is like a do-the-work-behind-the-scenes sort of guy, but you
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: have to be out there. You have to work. He
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: is going to have to work harder than Barack Obama
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: to get his message out because the media environment is
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: so much worse now than it was then.
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: And I do think you see some Republicans have kind
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: of figured this out a little bit better. Like Ron
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: DeSantis is excellent at like staying in the news about
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: just being at a podium and making news on a
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: set of issues to just keep himself in front.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: He just picks fights all day long. I mean, that's
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: why the Biden's gun speech was good, because I think
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: he did a pretty good job there picking a fight
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: sort of preemptively with Republicans for potentially voting down any
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: common sense gun reform. I mean, if they could have
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: BTS at the White House every day, I think that
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: would be, you know, good. Should consider that one.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: Love its allies.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Throwing that out there.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Look, you be careful.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: I made one offhand stupid bad joke.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: I love you guys. Forgive me. Forgive me, BTS people. Dan,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I love that they gave you a red keg cup,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: a solo cup there in the studio.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: What do you think's in here?
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Keystone light.
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: Chug it.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Chug and flip it. You're doing Rogan after this?
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: So Dan, uh, All right, they're going to let Biden
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: be Biden. He's going to tour the country. Maybe there'll
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: be more op-eds. There's going to be a plug so
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: subtle people won't even notice it.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: They're just going to buy the book.
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: They just bought it right there. I see him shooting
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: up the Amazon list as we speak.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: In your new book, Battling the Big Lie, which is
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: on sale today, right? Today.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: Today, yes.
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: Today.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: You had an excerpt of Vanity Fair and it says this,
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: in the context of political communications, this is the message
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: versus megaphone problem. Democrats spend 99% of their time worrying
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: about what they should say and only 1% figuring out
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: how to get people to hear what they are saying,
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: kind of the point you were just making. We have
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: a long-term structural challenge due to the imbalances we have
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: in sort of partisan media and mainstream media. But right now,
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: what advice would you give kind of understanding that we
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: may have a message problem, but we have an even
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: bigger megaphone problem?
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: I think you can see the power of the right-wing
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: megaphone in the January 6th hearings that we're going to have, right?
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: You have 70% of Republicans believing this easily disproven lie
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: about the election. And it is my contention, as I
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: write about in the book, that that is the product
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: of a decades-long effort from right-wing Republican political operatives like
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: Roger Ailes and Steve Bannon, funded by billionaires like Rupert
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: Murdoch and the Mercers, to create this, I call it
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: the mega-megaphone, it is Fox News, Breitbart, Daily Wire, digital
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: outlets that are that dominate the political conversation. I think
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: it's the most powerful weapon in politics. It's not the
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: only reason that Democrats have underperformed in recent elections, but
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: it's a major reason. Our message is getting drowned out.
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: The ultimate problem for Joe Biden is right now, because
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: of the power of this right-wing disinformation and propaganda operation,
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: the Democratic message is getting drowned out. We are on defense.
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: We are responding to Republicans constantly. And so there is
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: not a short-term solution to this. Tommy laid out a
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: bunch of sort of short-term tactical things that Biden could
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: do to get more of his message out. I'm sure
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: they're working on a lot of those. But we have
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: to have a long-term plan where I think Democrats have
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: to radically rethink how we communicate. Right now, Republicans view
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: communications as information warfare, and Democrats view it as press
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: management and public relations. We have to think about what
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: is a holistic, big-picture approach. How do we build up
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: the progressive megaphone? How do we take the millions and
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: millions of people who will text and call strangers at
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: a whim in election time or donate $ 5 or $ 10
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: a year and turn them into messengers for our party, right?
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: And so in this book, I lay out how the
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: right-wing build up this megaphone, how it works. I think
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: most Democrats do not understand. They sort of think Fox
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: is bad. They don't understand how powerful Facebook is and
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: just how prevalent MAGA extremist messaging is on it. And
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: I lay out a series of ideas for what all
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: of us can do, right? Democrats, people who just simply
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: care about democracy, how the press could change some of
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: how they cover things to reflect this new era in
• 34:59
  Speaker 5: communications and messaging. And so everything, this is the very
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: subtle part of the plug, which is whether we're talking
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: about January 6th and the hearings or the challenges that
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: Biden and Democrats are facing in this political environment goes
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: right back to the power of right-wing propaganda disinformation. And
• 35:18
  Speaker 5: so I think this is the singular challenge for our
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: party over the next couple of years. Despite having a
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: growing majority with more popular ideas, more popular politicians, we're
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: going to keep coming out on the short end of
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: the stick come election time.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Dan, what I like about your book is, I haven't
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: read it yet, but I know it's accurate.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: We're going to say the cover.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Well, I know it's accurate because you've been talking about
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: this broader challenge of the sort of right-wing disinformation ecosystem
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: and how much it does or how far it goes
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: on Facebook. And you seem to have pissed off like
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: every MAGA grifter, the Dan Bongino's, the Daily Wire, the
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Ben Shapiro's, David Wall, father of Jacob Wall, the guy-
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Father of the year over there. Yes, the guy I
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: think got arrested with his kid, the kid who always
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: talks about being at a hipster coffee shop, called you
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: a low-T dweeb. It seems like you really hit the
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: mark here with this thesis.
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: Look, if Ben Shapiro, Dan Bongino, Dan Bongino- Clay Travis,
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: hate the book. People who listen to Positive America will
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: probably love it. And I'm actually going to try to
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: convince my publisher to put their quotes as the blurbs
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: on the paperback version.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: That's a great idea.
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: That's great.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: You know, in one of the many stories looking at
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: infighting in the Biden White House, there was some press
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: that talked about how they're on the road, they're doing
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: these events on the road, and nobody's covering them. They're
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: not on television. Why are we doing this? And I do,
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: there's a kind of, The mainstream media and Republicans have
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: a kind of a truly abusive relationship. You know, it
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: is a deeply unhealthy, broken relationship. We have a kind
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: of codependency with the mainstream media that's like tense and
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: very toxic. But I sometimes wonder if we really want
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: like mainstream political press to kind of respect the critique
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: that we offer. I do think we need to stop
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: waiting for them to be the ones to carry our
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: message for us. If we still are using them as
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: this intermediary to try to get information out to the public,
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: they'll never be able to abandon their kind of fear
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: that they're going to be seen as a Democratic megaphone
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: and therefore have to be more kind of pretend non-biased
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: or give Republicans more of a time of day. I
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: think it would be better for us and them if
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: we stopped viewing them as our primary interlocutor with the public.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: It is insane.
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: That for the vast majority of Democrats, we think what
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: we're going to do is we're going to take our
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: message that we have tested it. We know how it sounds.
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: We know it'll persuade voters. We're going to hand it
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: to these other people who do not share our interest
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: in any way, shape or form, are distrusted by huge
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: swaths of the country and ask them to deliver it
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: to them.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: And who themselves have a vested interest in seeming as
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: though they're not our friends.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: And on the right wing, I mean, the Republican Party
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: has done a great job of bringing their right-wing voices
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: into the fold, the podcasters, the YouTubers, the Twitch streamers,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: no matter how unserious they are. Clay Travis, who Dan
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: just mentioned, is attacking him today, went viral last week
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: for telling a story about how he berated the umpire
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: at his 11-year-old son's Little League game and got tossed,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Clay got tossed, out of his son's game by the
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: ump in front of his family and his own parents.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: These are the right-wing thought leaders.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: Cancel culture.
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: Cancel culture.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Those are just like, The point is like, hey, we
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: need to sort of build up our own ecosystem on
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: the left here. Let's empower some of our own folks
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: who are a little more thoughtful than Clay.
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: It's one of the things I write about in the
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: book is that is a huge– like you don't want
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: to imitate Donald Trump in any way, shape or form
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: except one of the things he did that was incredibly
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: smart and strategic was he nurtured the right-wing media ecosystem.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: He did almost all of his interviews.
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: I'm not saying that Joe Biden should do this, but
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: he did almost all of his interviews on right-wing platforms.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: When right-wing.
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: Outlets– wrote stories that he thought advanced his message, he
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: shared those stories to his tens of millions of Twitter followers.
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: When books were written that advance his narrative, he tried
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: to get those books on the bestsellers. And Republicans have
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: been doing this for decades. Richard Nixon once actually found
• 39:20
  Speaker 5: a book about liberal bias in the press that was
• 39:23
  Speaker 5: written by a Reader's Digest writer. And he had all
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: of his aides all across the country go to all
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: the bookstores and buy them and get on the bestseller
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: list so that that narrative would do it. Democrats are
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: afraid to do that because we're so afraid of this
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: idea of propaganda. It's like, oh, they're going to call
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: us propagandists. When propaganda is just persuasive messaging, right?
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: That is what we have. Our job is to persuade.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: When you like it, when you think it's good.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, that is why we got to get
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: in the game.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: No, I think it's better.
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: I think we should keep doing what we're doing, which
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: is we should lay out a huge policy agenda for
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: a major news outlet. And then the headline will really
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: help because it'll be something like, for President Biden, a reckoning.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: But also, Republicans have so conditioned the mainstream media to
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: be scared of being called biased or liberal that they
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: are totally happy being friends with people like Pat Buchanan.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: who famously wrote a speech for Spiro Agnew that was
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: so intense that Richard Nixon wouldn't give it, just like
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: destroying the press back in the 70s and then had
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: the MSNBC show for years. They treat these right-wing nuts
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: as serious and bring them into the club. But if
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: you're on the left, you don't get that same, you
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: don't get the same courtesy.
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: No, no.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: I mean, there are so many people that were not
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: seen as serious because they oppose the stupidest foreign policies
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: in human history.
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: All right, Dan, is there anything else we need to
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: know about this fucking book? Where do they buy it?
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: They can buy it anywhere you get your books. Amazon,
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: Indie Bounds, your local bookstore, anywhere you can do it.
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: If you can support an independent bookstore, that's great. But
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: go out and buy the book, please. Everybody buy the book,
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: all right? We need this thing to scream up the charts.
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: The right wing has a whole machine to get their
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: books on the bestseller list. It's part of their nightmare factory.
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: Who's our enemy here, Dan? Is it Kellyanne?
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Who's above you?
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Well, I tried to.
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: run this competition with Kellyanne Conway. And then she rocketed
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: to number two on the list. Couldn't beat out Bill O'Reilly,
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: not dead.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Maybe you should have thought about writing that you hate
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: your fucking wife. That'd help.
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: I would say Kellyanne Conway got the dreaded bulk purchase dagger.
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: So there were some people out there who would buy
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: bulk purchases. Someone who's obviously not George Conway buying large
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: quantities of Obama.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: All right, that's it. When we come back, Jose Andres.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: My guest today is a chef, a humanitarian, the founder
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: of the incredible nonprofit organization, The World Central Kitchen, in
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: the subject of a new documentary called We Feed People
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: from director Ron Howard. It's available now on Disney Plus.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: Chef Jose Andres. Welcome to the pod. Welcome back to
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: the pod, I should say.
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: Thank you for having me again.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: It's lovely to see you. Jon Favreau and I were
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: lucky enough to work or do a project with Jose
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: a million years ago. And the best part was we
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: got paid in food. And I just remember sitting in
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: your office and you were just feeding us and feeding
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: us and feeding us. And I thought, this is the
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: greatest thing I've ever done in my life. But your
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: generosity of spirit came through then. And it's so great
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: to see you doing this on the global stage. Let's
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: just start with, I mean, the beginning, I guess, which
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: is Haiti in 2010, because I believe that World Central
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: Kitchen was born out of some of the work you
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: did in the wake of that horrific earthquake that struck
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Haiti that year.
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: Is that right?
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about that origin?
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, totally. Haiti was very important in why World Central
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: Kitchen exists today. But if anything, the most important for
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: me was other moments before. One very important, 1993, arriving
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: to Washington, D.C. I was 23 years old. I came
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: as a chef, a young chef, to open Jaleo, the
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: Spanish tapas restaurant on 7th Avenue. Great restaurant. It's the
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: place I met Senator Patrick Moynihan in the first weekend
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: I was open. Maybe my love for policy just began
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: right there. But then I went to an organization called
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: DC Central Kitchen. It's one of the best, what we
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: would call, soup kitchens. But this was like nothing else
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: I've seen. Was the organization feeding people in need in Washington, 10,000
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: meals a day, but was not used throwing money at
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: the problem. Was bringing people from out of the streets.
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: People used coming out of jail and training them to
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: be cooks. In the process of training those men and
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: women to be cooks and giving them an opportunity, feeding
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: the people in need in DC. Every dollar all of
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: the sudden multiplied, not only by two, because we were
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: training them, but then those men and women will find
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: jobs in restaurants like me. In the process, we were
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: fighting food waste. In the process, we were empowering the city.
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: The founder, Robert Erger, told me that philanthropy always, it seems,
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: is about the redemption of the giver. when philanthropy must
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: be about the liberation of the receiver. Okay, you put
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: this moment, and then what happened in Katrina, New Orleans,
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: with the Superdome, where we had thousands of men and women,
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: some of them, many of them, coming from the low nine,
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: without food for days. And you think, what is an arena?
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: Everybody is wrong about an arena. Everybody thinks it's about
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: the place for music and sports. Well, no, it's a
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: gigantic restaurant that entertains with music and sports. Why we
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: didn't feed people in this moment in one of the
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: best cities in the world for food with the best
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: chefs in the world. Those moments of inaction in New Orleans,
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: me watching from the comfort of my home and the
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: learning in Washington DC during years in 1993 is what
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: gave me this moment of saying, If we send nurses
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: and doctors after an emergency to take care of the wounded,
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: if we send firefighters and first responders to help rescue
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: people from out of buildings, who do you think is
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: the best people to feed people in an emergency? Cooks
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: like me. That's how World Central Kitchen came to be.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: It's amazing. I mean, in the organization, I mean, it's
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: been so fun watching you to build this organization from afar.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like another key inflection point was 2017.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: Hurricane Maria destroys a huge portion of Puerto Rico. You
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: get down there just days later, all of a sudden
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: you're making beef stew for thousands of people. Fast forward
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: a couple months, the World Central Kitchen is feeding more
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: people than the Red Cross. You're doing millions of meals.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, I know the full answer to my question
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: will take like hours, but what's your general approach to
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: getting to a place and scaling up operations so quickly?
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: Because it is truly remarkable to me how quick and
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: how nimble your organization is.
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: Are you already implying that my first answer was way
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: too long? Great. No, no. Just remember, I am an immigrant.
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: My English is weaker than yours. Your English is perfect.
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: I require more words than you to explain myself, but
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: I'll be nimble in my answer. Puerto Rico really was
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: a moment that was a big boom, but Maybe one
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: of the reasons I went with the urgency of now
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: to Puerto Rico is because only a couple of weeks before,
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: I was in Houston responding to the previous hurricane. It
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: was back-to-back hurricane four and five. It was almost the
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: beginning of non-stop hurricanes of four or five magnitudes every
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: single year. In Houston, I was in the convention center downtown,
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: and somebody in charge of feeding the people in the
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: convention center, decide to close the biggest kitchen in Texas.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: Crazy.
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: It didn't make any sense. And we were feeding the
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: convention center 10,000 men and women out of the parking lot.
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: It makes any sense? It doesn't make any sense. I'm
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: telling you that we are putting people in charge to
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: feed people that have no clue on feeding people. Why
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: Puerto Rico? Because I saw that if what happened in
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: Houston was repeating itself, not in a convention center, but
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: in an entire aisle, and they were going to be
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: in trouble. And we show up there three, four days later,
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: Nate Mook, who now has become the CEO of World
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: Central Kitchen for his own merits, he came just to
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: give me a hand, was two people of World Central Kitchen,
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: him and I, and he was not a part of
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: the organization, and me not either, because I was just
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: the founder. What we did, first day, thousand meals. 10 friends,
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: all of them cooks downtown. We saw that everybody was
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: requesting meals. We went from 1,000 meals a day to 150,000
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: meals a day, from one kitchen to more than 37
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: kitchens across the island, including the islands of Vieques and Culebra.
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: At one moment, we had 26 operating at the same time.
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: We were doing 150,000 meals a day. very quickly and
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: without realizing we reached 4 million meals, but we were
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: able to influence many more meals. That's in essence how
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: World Central Kitchen began. Everybody thinks that the emergency's big
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: problems actually have very simple solutions. We cook, but we
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: do more than cooking. We get in a car, we
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: get in a helicopter, we get on a truck, we
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: get on a boat, and we reach the people. We
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: don't wait. for the people to call us. It's no phones.
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: We don't wait for the people to come to us.
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: It's no roads, so it's no cars. We search for
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: the people. The best of Wall Street Kitchen is not
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: like we cook. We are cooks. We're cooking all the time.
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: The best part of Wall Street Kitchen is that we
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: find the people with any logistics we may need to
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: achieve that. Yeah.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, OK, dumb question. I feel like I often
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: see you making paella. Is that because you can make
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: really big batches or is this because you love it?
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: Well, because I think paella is the one pot that
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: one day will feed the world. It's a great way
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: to cook rice, but then you can cook anything. And
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: I'm very proud that I was able to get the
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: emoji paella a few years ago. I was in the
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: heart of putting the emoji in your iPhone. I was
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: very happy that less than two months ago, I was
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: able to send paella to the space station. So yeah,
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: paella very much is in my veins.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: That's incredible. You've taken paella galactic, I guess. I know
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: you have a team that's been doing amazing work in
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: Ukraine feeding people. I heard somewhere, and maybe this is
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: old news now, that you guys have prepared over 17
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: million meals in Ukraine so far. Is that accurate?
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's old news. I just came back from Ukraine myself.
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: I've been there more than 50 days, I think. probably 55.
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: I arrived there 24 hours after the war began. Let
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: me give you numbers very quickly because those are all numbers.
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: 35 million meals, hot meals, over 350,000 meals a day.
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: On top of that, we are doing over 600,000 meals
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: in the form of more than 30,000 bags, like if
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: you went to the supermarkets. It's around 15 kilos bags.
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: Every bag more or less makes over 20 meals each.
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: So this is like 600,000 meals on top of the 350,000 meals.
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: We are some days going above 1 million meals a
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: day across Ukraine. We have 490 restaurants in our system.
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: We are in eight countries, not only in Ukraine, but
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: the surrounding countries, plus Germany and Spain. We are distributing
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: in 3,800 points every day. We are in 1,350 shelters.
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: I've been to many of them, know all of them.
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: We are in seven border crossings and transit hubs, train stations,
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: bus stations, 24 hours a day in those hubs. Why?
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: Because mothers and children are living 24 hours. We have
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: to be there next to them. And in total, we
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: are in more than 200 90 cities, including the one
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: I was, Mykolaiv, in Krematorsk, in Chernihiv, in Kharkiv. Many
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: of these cities are right at the front of the war.
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: And we are there not only obviously feeding in the
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: easy places, which will be the refugee places, the places
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: where people go home now, away from home. But I'm
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: so proud that we have more than 8,000 people working
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: with us in our network of amazing Ukrainians that every
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: day they risk their life to bring food to those
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: people that they cannot leave sometimes their homes because they
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: are too sick, because they are elderly, because they have
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: no money, because they are afraid to move away from
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: their home. Even there is a war. So I'm so
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: proud that we are doing so many meals per week,
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: so many million meals per week next to the Ukrainian
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: people that are fighting for freedom and democracy, not only
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: for them, but for all of us. And we need
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: to be there next to them.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, the scale of the work and what you're
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: giving is just incredible. I mean, what I also love
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: about what you do is you go to these places
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: that are often, you know, experiencing tragedy, disasters, and you
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: release videos from the ground that show what it's like.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: You don't hold back on the emotions you're feeling, but
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: the messages are incredibly hopeful and optimistic. And I'm kind
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: of wondering where that hope and optimism comes from because
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: you're going to some bleak places sometimes.
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I think the way nonprofits, we've done the work
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: in the past of trying to raise money on showing
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: the worst moments of the people versus trying to show
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: people that they are hopeful. I mean, even after in America,
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: after a hurricane, after an earthquake, after a fire, those
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: are very hard moments. I don't think we are in
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: the business of showing the worst of people. I think
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: we are in the business of showing the best of people.
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: We all know they're going through hardships, but people don't
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: want our pity. People want dignity and our respect. The
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: videos we try to show is not used to upbeat
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: for the sake of, it's like people are fighting. We
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: got one kitchen destroyed a few weeks ago in Kharkiv.
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: The big missile hit this neighborhood, a very big building,
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: and the explosion was so huge that even our kitchen was,
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: across the street, the kitchen was destroyed. We only got them,
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: some people died in that explosion of our teams, four wounded.
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: These people decided on their own that they were not
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: going to stop. They moved the equipment to another location nearby.
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: They moved all whatever food was safe. They began cooking
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: two days later. They were making thousand meals a day
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: the third day. The four wounded went out of the hospital.
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: They went back to the kitchen. And even some of them,
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: they could only use one hand. They began doing whatever
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: they could to keep feeding their people. This is the
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: spirit of Ukraine. But in these emergencies, overall, unfortunately, you
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: see in the worst moments of humanity is when you
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: see the best side of humans. And that is the
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: messages we are trying always to share with everybody that
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: follow us.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: That's amazing. It seems like the work is infectious because
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: I was watching an interview with Ron Howard where he
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: said that at one point you commandeered his film crew
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: and had them unloading trucks instead of filming. How did
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: that go over with him and the folks at Disney Plus?
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: Well, we need to remember one thing. I love Ron.
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: I'm so blessed that he's the one that really kept pushing.
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: We say, let's do this. And I'm like, really? This
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: looks like a reality show. But Ron Howard is a
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: very special person. But this, I remember telling him, he's like,
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: I understand you are doing this movie about us, but
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: the most important is not the movie. The most important,
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: we are feeding people. And this was very clear. And
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: when was some moments that we needed extra hands because
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: it was a true emergency, because it was rain or
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: whatever was happening. We had to move quick because we
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: have to feed people quick. For me, it was very
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: simple to understand that they will understand that. And the
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: amazing thing is like they did it not because we
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: told them to, but because within them, their empathy, like
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: every human is full of empathy. The first actions they
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: try to help. The only thing what Sandra Kitchen is
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: doing is just untapped. the amazing human potential we all
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: have within us. And used to make people not think
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: that they want to help or do something, but gives
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: them that push behind to say, do it. And that's
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: what's maybe making World Central Kitchen so successful is because
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: we are untapping that potential and everybody's ready to serve,
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: everybody's ready to go. And that's where you see moments
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: like what happened in Puerto Rico, what happened in Bahamas.
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: Right now we are in Mexico after a hurricane, We
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: are in Bangladesh after the big rains in an isolated
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: community had a huge destruction. You see, we show up
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: and we do whatever we can to bring hope, sometimes
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: only through one plate of food at a time.
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: Amazing.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: Again, We Feed People is available now on Disney +.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: So in that spirit of your last answer and in
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: the way World Central Kitchen helps people kind of find
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: the empathy and tap it within themselves, how can listeners
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: help The organization, if they hear what you're saying and
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: they think, I want to get involved, that feels like
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: something for me.
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: Well, obviously, World Central Kitchen, right now we've got a
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: lot of Americans that came to Poland where we have
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: one of the World Central Kitchen kitchens. That's a big
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: one in Chimish that we've been able to help from
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: there to serve many of the different entry points into
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: Poland from Ukraine. And I'm so proud so many Americans came.
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: But the truth is that we have people from so
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: many nationalities. So there's many ways to help. Not everybody
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: can come, especially in our zone. But unfortunately, I always
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: tell everybody that Western Drug Kitchen is the biggest organization
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: in the history of mankind. We are bigger than Amazon.
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: And with all due respect to my good friend, Jeff Bezos,
• 58:36
  Speaker 4: we are bigger than UN. And people say, come on, Jose,
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: why are you talking about? Let me tell you. Every
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: restaurant in planet Earth is already part of World Central Kitchen.
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: Every food warehouse on planet Earth is already part of
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: World Central Kitchen. Every farmer, every fisherman is already part
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: of the network of World Central Kitchen. The only thing
• 58:58
  Speaker 4: that happens is they don't know it yet. But the
• 59:00
  Speaker 4: day something happens, usually we go and we activate them immediately.
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: And this is proven every day to be right. Hope
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: people will be able to help. Obviously, you send $ 1,
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: we appreciate it because we use money better, quicker, and
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: faster than anybody you know. If you don't have that $ 1,
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: just doing a retweet on social media, what we do,
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: this goes a long way. And maybe one day, unfortunately,
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: we will be in your community. The only thing you
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: have to do is use show up because we will
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: need you. You don't know how to cook. Don't worry.
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: You'll deliver through your car. You don't know how to drive.
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: Don't worry. We'll put you how to make sandwiches. You
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: don't even know how to do that. We'll put you
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: cleaning or washing or moving boxes from one place to another.
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: It'll be always a way that we will find your
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: talents to be put at the service of feeding people.
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: And remember, when we go, like in Ukraine, Every single
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: dollar we've been putting into the operation has been going
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: to help Ukrainians. Why? We have so many restaurants. We
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: are able to support those restaurants financially. We pay them
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: per meal. But don't misunderstand me. It's not like we
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: are hiring. This is people that they want to do it.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: But that money helps the restaurant be active, helps the
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: farmer to receive their payment, helps the economy locally because
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: the guys are paying rent and the guy's keep paying
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: their taxes and the guys keep moving the economy in
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: a circular way. At the end, we are not throwing
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: money at the problem, which is feeding the people in need,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: but we are investing in the solution, making sure that
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: every dollar helps the different areas of the economy in
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: the places, in the cities, in the countries that we
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: are going to help.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, it's an incredible documentary, an incredible organization.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: Thank you for all the work you're doing. And also,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: I know you would rather have spent the last 30
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: minutes chopping onions than talking about yourself. So I appreciate
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: you doing this show because I know you actually hate
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: this stuff and you hate promoting yourself and you'd much
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: rather shove like literally every line cook forward. But I
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: think people need a little dose of inspiration and hope.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: So I appreciate that. Thank you for joining.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: Thank you for having me.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: And that's our show.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: Thanks to Dan Pfeiffer for filling in today. Order his
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: book right now. And thanks to Jose Andres for joining us.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: We'll be back Friday morning with a new episode live
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: from LA with the whole gang, plus Travelle Anderson, Guy Branum,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: and Dianne Feinstein will be joining us.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: That's not true.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 6: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 6: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 6: Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 6: associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 6: Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineer the show. Thanks to
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 6: Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 6: and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 6: Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montuth. Our
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 6: episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.