Latest / Pod Save America / Inside 2024 (Full Episode): John Legend on Celebrities Getting Political, Endorsing Biden, and Avoiding a Second Trump Presidency

Transcript

Inside 2024 (Full Episode): John Legend on Celebrities Getting Political, Endorsing Biden, and Avoiding a Second Trump Presidency · Pod Save America

• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: So today we have a special sneak peek into this
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: month's Inside 2024. And we got Jon Legend, which is
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: really exciting. John and I talk about celebrity endorsements and
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: his experience on the campaign trail with Obama. We also
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: talk about 2024, John's thoughts on the 2024 race. He's
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: going to be out there for Joe Biden. He's already
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: endorsed him. He's going to be campaigning. And he talks
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: about his thoughts on the race, on the importance of endorsements,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: on the importance of why you should choose Biden over Trump.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: It's a fantastic interview. John is one of the politically
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: savviest people I know. As I say in the interview,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: he could go run a campaign himself. So it's a
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: fascinating conversation. Subscribe to Friends of the Pod at crooked.com
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: slash friends.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Enjoy.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to Inside 2024. I'm Jon Favreau. Our guest
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: today needs no introduction, but I'll give him one anyway.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: He's an incredibly talented and wildly successful singer, songwriter, pianist,
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: and performer. who's reached EGOT status. He's also a longtime
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: political activist and all-around wonderful human being.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: John Legend, welcome back to the pod. And a friend
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: of the pod. And a longtime friend of the pod.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: Let's be clear about that.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: So we are doing this behind-the-scenes look at different parts
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: of a campaign. Today we're focusing on endorsements and campaign surrogates,
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: particularly celebrities. I thought you'd be a perfect guest because
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: of all the celebrities I've seen get involved in politics,
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: you're at the very top of the list in terms
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: of how politically savvy and deeply committed you are i
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: think you could probably run a campaign yourself do you
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: remember at what point in your life you first became
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: interested in politics oh yeah i remember watching jesse jackson
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: uh speaking at the uh 88 uh.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Convention that nominated Dukakis. It was an incredible speech.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: And I was just so moved by his speech and
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: I was so excited. I didn't understand that it was
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: already a foregone conclusion that Dukakis was going to get
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: the nomination at that point. And I was just like,
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: how could anyone not vote for Jesse Jackson after this
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: speech he just gave? And I was just so inspired
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: by it. And then I had grown up with a
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: sense of understanding of what politics means, particularly to Black people,
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: and how important it was for us to be engaged
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: as a community, as a group of people who had
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: been marginalized and had.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Needed, you know, the protection of the federal government, needed.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: To be organized politically to gain the rights that we
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: have now.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: So I read about Dr. King.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: I read about all the people that organized us during
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: the civil rights movement. And I read about their interactions
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: with the presidents at the time and marching for voting
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: rights and for civil rights. And so I had a
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: pretty clear, for that age, understanding that politics.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: uh, matter, they, they.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: Affect our lives. And this is when you were a kid, like, yeah,
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: I was born in 78. So thinking about Dukakis, that
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: was when I was 10 years old. And when I
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: was a kid, I would go to the library. I
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: was homeschooled a lot of my, uh, younger years and
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: I would go to the library and I would like
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: seek out books about, uh, civil rights leaders and people who, um, um,
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: were engaged in, in the political process to, to make
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: a difference.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: And so I always looked up to those kinds of
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: people and.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: Saw political engagement as part of being a citizen, as
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: part of being a human being, really.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Do you remember the first time you spoke out about politics?
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: First time?
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: I mean, I spoke out before people cared what I
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: had to say. That's good. But, you know, I was
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: a student at Penn and was engaged in the electoral
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: process during that time. I think the first election I
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: voted in was 2000. So I didn't vote in 96.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: But I voted, you know, Gore versus Bush. That was
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: my first. And as a lot of people might recall,
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: the Iraq war, the lead up to the Iraq war,
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: happened a little bit after that. You know, 9-11 happened
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: in 2001. And the drumbeat of war started to be.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Amped up and ramped up, leading us to the terrible
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: mistake of invading Iraq. And I remember marching on the
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: streets against the war in Iraq because I could tell
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: something wasn't right about it and that we were being
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: misled and that it wasn't really addressing what happened in
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: 9-11 in any way.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: And I was upset about it.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: And so I was out on the streets protesting in
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: New York among hundreds of thousands of people, really, who
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: were speaking out against that war. And then, you know,
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: I continued to stay engaged in presidential politics after that,
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: but also got more of an understanding of what local
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: politics mean too. And as I've gotten older, I've gotten
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: more engaged in local and state politics too.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to say, I know you've focused
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: on education reform and justice reform. Tell me about your
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: decision to get involved in those issues and what those
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: early years were like.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think really it was motivated just by me
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: reading about things. So I would read books that kind
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: of pushed me to think about some of these issues, like,
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: you know, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander and
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: other books that, you know, made me feel a sense
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: of urgency around making sure our kids got better schools
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: and making sure our justice system was really reformed and
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: we started to decarcerate.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: And so I focused on both of those issues.
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: Because I read a lot about them, cared a lot
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: about them, and they connected with my own personal story
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: quite a lot. And the more I read about them
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: and understood them, I understood that the presidential election wasn't
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: where it was at for a lot of those issues.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: There's so much that happens on a local and state
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: level on both of those issues that it required a
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: level of engagement in those elections, those races that I
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: hadn't thought about before.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Did you find it frustrating, rewarding?
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: How much progress were you able to see over the
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: years as you actually dug in?
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: Honestly, particularly with incarceration reform, decarceration, and criminal justice reform,
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: we've seen a lot of progress over the past decade
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: or so. We started Free America about 10 years ago,
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: and we've seen the levels of incarceration in the United
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: States go down pretty significantly during that time. We've had,
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: of course, kind of PR setbacks with the rise in
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: crime during the pandemic.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: We've had other issues, but the fact remains.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: True that we've actually seen quite a lot of decarceration
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: in this country in that time that we've been focused
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: on the issue. And I feel like we as an
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: organization and me as an individual have had a lot
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: of impact on that conversation. I talked about it at
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: the Oscars when I won Best Song. for Glory with Common.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: I talked about our mass incarceration issue. And I have
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: been one of the main people in the public arena
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: that have spoken up for decarceration and ending mass incarceration
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: and making it something that was part of the national conversation.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: And it's been effective. And then we got involved in
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: district attorney races. nationwide in major cities like Philadelphia and
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: Chicago and Los Angeles and San Francisco. And we've helped
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: elect a bunch of progressive DAs in some of the
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: biggest population centers in the country, which has had a
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: significant impact on those local communities. And just by numbers,
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: you know, they represent a large portion of the population,
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: despite only being cities.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: And so that's impacted the whole country.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: You mentioned how there was a spike in crime due
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: to the pandemic largely. And because of that, there's been
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: a political backlash against some of the progressive prosecutors and
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: DAs and all the work that you guys have done.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: Have you thought about now that crime's coming down again,
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: it's come down again, have you learned any lessons from
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: that in terms of like how to sort of move
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: public opinion back to where it was on these issues?
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: Well, you have to take the long view, first of all,
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: like understand that in that moment, people are going to
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: feel a sense of urgency about crime and they're going to.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Attribute it to things that they want to attribute it to.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: If they're against progressive DAs, they're going to blame progressive
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: DAs when crime goes up. But obviously, any kind of
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: objective observation of what was happening would show you that
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: it wasn't the progressive DA's fault that crime went up
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: during the pandemic. There were all these other reasons and
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: the pandemic was the main reason. And so now that
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: we see crime going back down, it's become clear, I think,
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: to anybody who's being honest about it, that it wasn't
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: the progressive DA's fault that crime was growing up during
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: that time. But they wanted to use that to roll
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: back the progress that we had brought about. And so
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: they used it. And we have to be vigilant, I think,
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: and clear eyed but also sympathetic because when people are
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: experiencing crime in their communities and an uptick in crime,
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: it is, you know, it's concerning and people feel fear
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: and it's legitimate fear and you have to acknowledge people's
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: fear and say, we acknowledge that and we genuinely are
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: sympathetic to that, but we also want to do something
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: that's smart and wise in response to what's going on
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: and just doubling back and going back to what we've
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: done before that didn't work before isn't the answer.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: So I remember you were one of the first big
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: celebrities to endorse Barack Obama back when we were still
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: losing to Hillary Clinton by double digits. Uh, and I
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: remember you headlining that concert in Des Moines right before
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: the Jefferson Jackson dinner in November of 2007, I think
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: it was.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: When did you first meet Obama? I met him in Chicago.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: I was on, um, I was touring to support the
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: Once Again album, which came out in 06. And he, um,
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: had gotten some publicity from the 2004 convention speech. And
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: so I knew about him from that. And then when
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: we were coming to town to Chicago to do the tour,
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: his team reached out to us and said, you know,
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: we hear you're coming to town for the tour. Senator
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: Obama would love for you to come by the office
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: and meet him.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: And I was like, absolutely. Came by.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: And he hadn't announced that he was going to run yet.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: He was thinking about it. And, you know, after the
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: buzz that he got from the 2004 speech, you know,
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: people were talking about him, but it wasn't clear that
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: he was going to run yet. And it was pretty
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: clear that Hillary was the favorite to be the nominee
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: for the Democratic Party in 2008. And so at best,
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: it was going to be a long shot that he
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: would even run. And if he did run, uh, that
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: he would get nominated. Uh, but I sat with him
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: and enjoyed our conversation. We sat in his office and, um,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: I told him, you know, at the end of the conversation,
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: if you decide to run, let me know and we'll
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: see what we can do to help. And, uh, you know,
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: he decided to run. He announced, you know, you, you
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: remember it well, uh, in Springfield, Illinois, um, you know,
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: evoking Abraham Lincoln and, and, um, started to really inspire
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: the nation. And I was happy to get behind his
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: campaign and do what I could do to help.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: You did a lot.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, was that the most involved you were in
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: a presidential campaign? Did you do stuff for Kerry at all?
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: Barely. And when Kerry was running, I wasn't particularly well known.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: My first album came out in December of 2004.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: So after, you know, Kerry had run and lost. So,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: I mean... I was involved in politics, but not.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: In any way that was like elevating a particular cause
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: because I wasn't elevated enough to do so.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Our staff is interested in your thoughts on turning the
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: New Hampshire primary night Yes We Can speech into a song.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: Which for me is always a little weird and certainly
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: a moment where I started thinking like, what on earth
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: is going on here?
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: What is happening? It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: As they blaze the trail toward freedom. Yes, we can. Yes,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: we can. It was sung by immigrants. As they struck
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: out the distant shore of the playing earth. And pushed
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: westward against the unforgiving wilderness. Yes, we can. How did
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: that even come about? I haven't even watched that in
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: so long.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: So long.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: I'm so like, I don't know how it would hold up. Well,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: I know. It's almost like how the West Wing holds up. But,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: you know, it was.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: Quite a heady time. People were genuinely inspired by Obama.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: And Will.i.am, it was his idea to put the video together.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: And he just called up a bunch of his friends. Now,
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: Will and I are friends. I just saw him this weekend, actually.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: at Formula One, but we had written songs together since 2002.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: We had the same manager at the beginning of my career.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: And we wrote Ordinary People together, written songs with him
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: for the Black Eyed Peas. We wrote American Boy together,
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: the big hit from Estelle and Kanye. So we had
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: quite a history together. And so when he calls me,
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: you know, to get involved in anything, I'm usually like, okay,
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: let's do it. And, uh, of course I had been
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: involved in the Obama campaign already. And he was like,
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to make a music video to this speech.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: It was so inspiring. And I'm like, okay.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: And, uh, we like tried it. We were in there
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: and tried to make it work. And, uh, We made
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: a video and it became a thing. It really became
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: a thing.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: 2008.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: It feels like forever ago. It got a lot.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: It was like, God, so many YouTube views. It was like,
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: it was like really massive. It went way further than
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: we ever expected it to.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Same.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: So I imagine that for a lot of celebrities, there's like,
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: there's a good deal of thought and discussion that goes
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: into deciding how and when to use their voice to
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: speak out about politics or endorse a candidate. You got
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: to think about the potential blowback from fans who don't
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: share your politics. You also got to think about whether
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: a famous person getting involved will actually help cause or candidate.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: How do you think about those things?
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: Well, we try to be as wise as we can
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: about where I can make impact and it's not on everything.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: And I think like there's not always value to everything
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: you do as a famous person. And sometimes there's maybe
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: negative value to some of the things you'll do. It
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: may not be helpful, but. I feel like on the
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: issues where I really am deeply engaged in the content
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: of the issues like criminal justice reform, and then where
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: we're absolutely engaged with the activists and the organizers who
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: aren't as famous as I am, we talk to them.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: We talk to them about their priorities. We talk to
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: them about what they're trying to get passed and how
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: we can be helpful. And sometimes they don't always want
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: me to do all the things. They want me to
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: come in when it's time for this particular thing that
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: we need with public engagement to get the message out,
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: to elevate an issue. John, can you make a video
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: about this so that we can highlight this particular issue
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: and get people organized around it? John, can you show
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: up at this fundraiser to help raise money for this
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: particular issue or this particular candidate? And so we try
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: to be very engaged with the community, very good listeners
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: and not big foot our way through every issue and
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: thinking that we have all the answers. We listen, and
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: then we can engage when the activists and organizers on
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: the ground tell us this would be helpful and useful
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: for us.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: I keep thinking about in that documentary, Miss Americana, Taylor
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: Swift talks about how she regretted not speaking out in
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: 2016 and really wanted to speak out, I think it
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: was in 2018, and then of course she endorsed in 2020.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: But all of her people, including her dad, were very
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: much like, this is bad, you get blowback.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Have you ever had to deal with that kind of.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: I think we all have to deal with it, but
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: I do think it's harder in the country world where
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: she came from because the kind of, you know, the
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: inertia is in the direction of being a bit more
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: conservative and patriotic in that genre and in that community
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: of fans that listen to country music.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: And so I think it.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: Is harder for Taylor in that context to speak out
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: for more progressive candidates than it is for a black
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: artist who comes up through R & B and soul,
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: which it's part of our tradition to be more progressive.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: It's part of our tradition to speak out for civil
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: rights and particularly for the rights of black people in
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: this country. You know, we have such a long line
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: of artists that came before us that did it. And
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: it's almost like it's part of our legacy. And we
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: just carry that forward. And so the inertia is actually
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: in the direction of us being engaged and being active.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: And I think for Taylor, the inertia was the opposite.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: It was.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: In favor of her shutting up and singing. So I
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: think it was riskier for her to do it than
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: it is for me. But, you know, I'm on The Voice,
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: which is nationally broadcast on NBC. We have fans all
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: over the country and some of them are conservative. And
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: I'm sure I alienate some of them by speaking out
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: on some of these issues. and I'm sure that I
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: may lose some fans because I speak out on politics,
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: but I also think that I probably gain some fans
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: by speaking out on some of these issues too, because
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: I think most fans want their artists to be authentic
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: and honest and to believe in something and stand for something.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: And so, I think a lot of fans are attracted
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: to artists who.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Aren't silent on issues that matter.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: How have you dealt with being not just in a
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: spotlight for your day job, but for politics.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there's been some blowback from... Oh, yeah. You
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: and Chrissy. Yeah, of course. Like, you know, on Trump's radar. Yeah,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: we were on Trump's radar.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: Obviously, he tweeted at us and he's always had an
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: issue with women who speak up.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Especially.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, I had been on a Lester
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: Holt special about mass incarceration on MSNBC on a Sunday night.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Which, why is he watching this?
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: Like, what would make Trump watch MSNBC on a Sunday night?
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Nothing better to do, I guess.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: While he's the president of the whole United States of America.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: But he watched it, and he wanted more credit for
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: the First Step Act, so he was mad that we didn't,
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: you know, kiss his ass more on that special. And
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: so he, like, spoke up, called me boring and my
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: wife filthy mouth or something like that. And, um, you know, it, uh, birthed, uh,
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: a wonderful hashtag, um, president pussy ass bitch, um, that
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: came from my wife's, um, Twitter account. And, um, it's
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: eventually got censored by Twitter and, and shortened to president PAB.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: And apparently based on congressional hearings, uh, a few years later,
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: this really irked, um, Donald Trump, and he actively reached
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: out to Twitter to try to censor this hashtag and
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: was very upset about the blowback from him tweeting my
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: wife and myself. And it was quite an episode in
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: American history. It's been a pretty stupid eight years. It's
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: in the congressional record now.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Very exciting.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: So the other side of this is, do you think
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: celebrities with platforms have an obligation to speak out about politics?
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Because now you see a lot of people, and this happens,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: I think, on the left, where people want someone who's
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: a celebrity to speak out on just about every issue,
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: and then even if you do speak out on an issue,
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: they want you to speak out more, and why are
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: you not using your platform?
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: And this has especially happened around the war in Gaza. Yeah,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: it's happening right now. Over the last year. How do
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: you feel about that?
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: I think we should be careful about expecting celebrities to
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: speak out about everything, because honestly, a lot of us
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: aren't informed about this issue or that issue.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: And these issues are very complicated. They have lots of history.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: And particularly what's happening now in the Middle East, I
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: think it requires a level of understanding that most celebrities
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: just don't have. And I think truly, like, we all
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: should be humble about what we know and what we
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: don't know. And I think fans and audiences should be
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: careful about wanting us to weigh in on everything.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Because honestly, like, No. Well, and it's like the efficacy
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: of celebrities weighing on everything.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: The efficacy, one, but also the depth and the breadth
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: of understanding necessary to contribute meaningfully to the conversation is
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: actually just not there for most artists. And you can't
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: really blame them. This is not what they do every day.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: They're musicians. They're actors. They're in the public eye. And
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: you want them to use that platform for good. But
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: also you want them to do it with a sense
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: of understanding and knowledge and wisdom and connection to activists
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: and organizers and experts.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: And everybody's just not able to do that.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: And so I think we all as fans should be
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: careful what we ask them to do because you might
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: not get what you're wanting out of that conversation and engagement.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: That is true. You've endorsed Biden again.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: I think you said you'll be on the trail later
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: this year.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: Why do you think this race is so damn close
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: right now? I think it's close because it's always close.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: And particularly in this era, the nation is pretty evenly divided.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: And every election has been close. I can't remember an
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: election in my lifetime that hasn't been. I mean, I
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: guess before I was voting with Reagan, but since then,
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: you know, they've all been close and the nation's pretty
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: evenly divided. And then the Electoral College makes it so
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: that It's even closer than, you know, the popular vote
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: would even suggest because it's all hinging on, you know,
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: four or five states usually.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Do you think that voters have Trump amnesia? I do
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: think they forget.
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: And, you know, sometimes people, particularly when they think about
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: what's happening in Palestine and they're upset and they're frustrated
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: with Biden. And rightfully so, like we should be frustrated
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: and we should be pushing forward. President Biden and the
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: administration to really be cognizant of U.S. leverage and power
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: in the region and where our funds and our weapons go.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: All of that is really important.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: And I'm glad that progressives are speaking out and holding
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: President Biden's feet to the fire. But at the same time,
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: this election is between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Like,
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: As much as we enjoy the conversation around third parties
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: and how exciting it feels to have other choices, the
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: bottom line is one of those two people is going
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: to be president. And it's so abundantly clear to me
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: that Joe Biden should be the president. When I decide
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, it's not even a conversation,
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: not even close to me what the moral right thing
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: to do for the country and for the world is.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: It's reelect Joe Biden.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: It appears that from the polls, from focus groups, from
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: just talking to people, you see it in some election
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: results over the last several years as well, that Biden
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: is particularly struggling with some young voters, Black voters, Latino voters,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: particularly young Black males and young Latino males. So there's
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: sort of a male, there's a gender discrepancy here. Why
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: do you think that is?
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: Well, I think, Trump performs a form of masculinity that
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: I think is attractive to some people. And to be clear,
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: like black men, even an uptick for Trump is still
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: a landslide for Biden.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: So black men are overwhelmingly more than any other race
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: of men are supporting Joe Biden.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Very true.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: But, you know, there is an uptick and that uptick
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: may be enough to win Wisconsin or it may be
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: enough to win Michigan or whatever. And so, you know,
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: it's an issue that the campaign's going to have to
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: deal with. And so, but I do think Trump performs
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: a form of masculinity that is appealing to some men. Black, white, Hispanic,
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: you know, across the board. And that may explain the uptick.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: And then, you know, I hear a lot of misinformation
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: and disinformation about the economy under Trump and what's happened since.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: And to be clear, like, the economy... It's doing quite well.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: We came back from a pandemic. The unemployment rate is
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: extremely low. It's like crazily low. It's low among black people.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: It's low among Hispanics. It's low among the entire nation.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: And particularly because of some of the particular types of
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: economic bills that Joe Biden's passed, it's actually going to
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: be quite helpful to men. because of the manufacturing jobs
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: that are coming back to the country, the construction infrastructure
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: jobs that.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Are coming back to the country.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: So if you are informed about that and you objectively
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: are observing what's going on with the economy, you would say, actually,
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: Biden is really great for the economy and he's great
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: for men in the economy because he's bringing back the
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: types of jobs that men often do. And so I
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: think getting more education out there about what's going on
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: with the economy, and how helpful it's going to be
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: that he passed the climate bill, which was called the IRA,
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: but it was basically the most massive climate bill in
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: the history of the United States and the history of the.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: World, probably.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: All these things are amazing accomplishments that I don't feel
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: like he's getting any credit for, and I don't think
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: people understand what kind of impact it's having and is
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: going to have. I know growing up in Ohio, so
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: many of the jobs that My parents and their generation
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: worked and a lot of people might work in the
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: future are manufacturing.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: My dad was an auto worker. And the fact that.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: There is such a boon in electric vehicles and the
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: batteries and all the things that go into making those
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: and that a lot of those are being made in
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: the United States now is going to really help Ohio.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: It's going to help Georgia. It's going to help Tennessee.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: It's going to help a lot of these places. And
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: so I think more people need to understand that that's
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: what's happening and that Joe Biden and a Democratic Senate
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: and Congress passed these things to make our nation better
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: and stronger.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: I do think there is a psychological effect of seeing
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: higher prices due to inflation.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And inflation. Which hit every country. Yeah.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: And I think people need to understand what happened with inflation, too.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: After the pandemic, we had a supply issue. We had
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: all these other issues that made inflation go up all over.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: the world.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: And it went down faster in America.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: We recovered from the pandemic better than any other developed
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: country in the world.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We've done that. Biden's done that.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: The Democratic Senate and House, which was in charge for
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: the first two years of his administration, did that by
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: and the Fed, of course. But All working together, our
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: economy came back more quickly and better than any economy
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: around the world.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: I do wonder, like, do you talk to people who
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: are wavering? And if you do talk to someone who's wavering,
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: what would your message be about people who might be,
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: maybe they're, and this is the voters that Biden's having
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: problems with, people who voted for him in 2020 and
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: are now thinking either maybe Trump, maybe stay home, maybe
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: third party.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: Well, I think the economic issue is always important. And
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: it's hard to convince someone if they don't want to
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: believe it. But the truth is, the economic story for
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: Biden is actually quite clear. The actions that the Biden
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: administration took in the first two years really made our
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: comeback stronger and better than any.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Other comeback around the world.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: And so I feel like if that's the reason, if
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: you think Trump is going to be better on the economy, no.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: And then Trump, when he comes back, he's made it
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: clear a couple of things he wants to get done.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Pass another tax cut for really rich people.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: And he's also on the economy, promised to roll back
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: all the green economy things that Biden has done. He
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: sat with billionaires and told them, I'm going to cut
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: your taxes. And then he sat with oil billionaires and
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: told them that I'm going to roll back every climate
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: legislation that Biden put in place. And if you care
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: about either of those issues, like, no way, do not
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: vote for him. And then more of us are becoming
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: aware of this Project 2025 issue. On every issue we
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: care about, the Heritage Foundation, which is very conservative, and
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: the MAGA Coalition have come together to say, here's how
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: we want to completely remake the executive branch so that
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: we put our people first. people without expertise, but who
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: are politically loyal to us in places all throughout the
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: executive branch to make sure that we get our way
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: on everything.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Whether it's reproductive rights, whether it's.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: Environmental regulations, whether it's immigration enforcement, and whether it's like
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: just picking and choosing who they want.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: To prosecute in the Justice Department.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: They've decided we're going to take over all these levers
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: of government, take out career government employees who have expertise
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: in the subject matter and put in our political appointees
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: and we're going to implement this project 2025 and it's
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: going to be hell for anybody who doesn't agree with them.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: And man, like, I can't imagine thinking when the choices
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: between Biden and Trump, which it is, that there's any equivocation.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: It's clear Biden needs to be reelected.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: I do think that celebrity endorsements, notable people being out
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: there talking about why it's important not to elect Trump again,
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: why Biden is the right choice. It's actually could be
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: more effective this cycle than others just because the biggest
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: challenge is attention right now. The way because of the
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: media environment, the way that media is fractured, the way
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: that people have turned away from the news, turned away
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: from politics over the last several years because they're just
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: sick of it for good reason. And so if people
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: are grumpy about stuff, and they don't really know why,
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: and they're going to blame Biden. I think that creating
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: a permission structure where it's okay to vote for Joe Biden,
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: because right now it feels, in the culture, and for
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: people who aren't paying attention to politics, it feels.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Uncool to vote for Joe Biden. It does feel uncool.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: They're both old, man, and it's hard for people.
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: They both declined in their ability to talk to the
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: people and just seem vigorous and energetic. And it's hard
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: for people to get excited about that. But, like, you
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: have to vote for harm reduction, too. Like, clearly Trump
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: is extremely harmful to this nation, to our democracy, to
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: women's rights, to civil rights, to immigrants' rights. Like, on
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: so many issues, it's clear. And if you only vote
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: because of the Supreme Court, like, vote. Because just think
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: about the Supreme Court, what's going to happen? The oldest
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: members right now are Clarence Thomas and Sammy Olito, the
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: two most ridiculously fervent conservative, like radically conservative people hanging
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: insurrection flags in their front yard. Like, you know how
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: radical you have to be to hang an insurrection flag
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: in your front yard? Yeah.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: So.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: As soon as Trump gets elected, they have the permission
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: to retire, and he's going to replace them with a 39-year-old.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: That has their same- Who also likes flying an insurrection flag.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: That has their same ideological bent, but is going to
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: live for another 40 years and serve on the court.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: And we have to hope that Sonia Sotomayor hangs on
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: for four years. Fuck no. No way. That is reason
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: enough to be urgently for Joe Biden. Yeah.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: No, I think that's well said. John Legend, thank you,
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: as always, for coming on Pod Save America. Thank you.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: And excited that you're going to be out there helping
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: get the message out.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: Do what I can. Take care.