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“My Cousin Rudy.” · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:23
Speaker 1: On today's pod, I chat with Reverend Raphael Warnock about
0:25
Speaker 1: his pivotal Senate race in Georgia. Before that, we'll talk
0:28
Speaker 1: about how soon-to-be ex-president Donald Trump just can't stop losing,
0:32
Speaker 1: President-elect Joe Biden's first set of hires, and what Democrats
0:35
Speaker 1: can learn about how Biden won Georgia. But first, check
0:39
Speaker 1: out this week's Pod Save the World, where Tommy and
0:41
Speaker 1: Ben talk about reports that Trump asked his national security
0:44
Speaker 1: team for options to strike Iran's nuclear facilities. and has
0:48
Speaker 1: accelerated the drawdown of troops from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. Also,
0:53
Speaker 1: Georgia's voter registration deadline for the runoffs is December 7th.
0:58
Speaker 1: Vote Save America is making sure every potential voter can
1:01
Speaker 1: make their voice heard by helping the group Register to
1:04
Speaker 1: Vote register 300,000 new voters in Georgia. That's the goal, 300,000
1:09
Speaker 1: for every $ 2 raised. Register to vote will be able
1:14
Speaker 1: to reach one new voter with the materials they need
1:17
Speaker 1: to register by first-class expedited mail. So if you're able
1:22
Speaker 1: to donate, help them get the job done at votesaveamerica.com
1:25
Speaker 1: slash registerGA. That's register to vote. Help them out. They're
1:29
Speaker 1: going to try to register 300,000 new voters in Georgia
1:33
Speaker 1: for the runoff.
1:34
Speaker 2: John, what was the margin?
1:35
Speaker 3: All right.
1:36
Speaker 1: The margin, I think we're at 14,000. So 300,000 would
1:38
Speaker 1: be a lot. That would be more than the margin
1:42
Speaker 1: right there. That would be sufficient. That might be a
1:46
Speaker 1: big enough margin to stop the Republicans from trying to
1:49
Speaker 1: steal another election.
1:51
Speaker 2: Don't be silly.
1:51
Speaker 1: But who knows? But who knows? All right, let's get
1:54
Speaker 1: to the news. Donald Trump is still trying to steal
1:57
Speaker 1: the election. And he is still failing and still losing.
2:01
Speaker 1: He's now lost 29 separate legal challenges and most of
2:04
Speaker 1: his legal team, which is now down to Rudy Giuliani
2:08
Speaker 1: and Jenna Ellis, who once called Trump an unethical, corrupt,
2:11
Speaker 1: lying criminal dirtbag. According to the Washington Post, this dynamic
2:16
Speaker 1: duo has abandoned the strategy of getting the courts to
2:19
Speaker 1: disqualify the hundreds of thousands of ballots necessary to overturn
2:22
Speaker 1: Biden's victory across multiple states. Instead, Trump and Rudy's plan
2:26
Speaker 1: is to, quote, pressure Republican lawmakers and officials across the
2:30
Speaker 1: political map to stall the vote certification in an effort
2:33
Speaker 1: to have Republican lawmakers pick electors and disrupt the Electoral
2:37
Speaker 1: College when it convenes next month. Uh, Couple things here, Dan.
2:42
Speaker 1: Number one, that's not a plan because as I keep saying,
2:46
Speaker 1: Republican legislatures don't get to pick the fucking electors. They
2:50
Speaker 1: are not, they do not have a role, but who
2:53
Speaker 1: knows what they will try anyway. Number two, what does
2:57
Speaker 1: it say about Trump's strategy that he put this guy
3:00
Speaker 1: in charge?
3:01
Speaker 3: We could do like a, did you all watch My
3:04
Speaker 3: Cousin Vinny? You know the movie? It's one of my
3:07
Speaker 3: favorite law movies because he comes from Brooklyn. And when
3:11
Speaker 3: the nice lady who said she saw and then he
3:15
Speaker 3: he says to her, how many fingers do I how
3:17
Speaker 3: many fingers do I got up? And she says three.
3:22
Speaker 1: So that was Rudy Giuliani at Thursday morning's press conference
3:26
Speaker 1: with Jenna Ellis, other goons in the Trump legal team.
3:30
Speaker 1: They crowded a bunch of people during a pandemic into
3:32
Speaker 1: a small, sweaty room. So sweaty. that Rudy Giuliani's hair
3:37
Speaker 1: dye started running down his face.
3:39
Speaker 2: John, were they sweating because it was hot with all
3:41
Speaker 2: their masks on?
3:42
Speaker 1: No, no, no, probably because they have COVID. So Rudy
3:49
Speaker 1: stood up there, talked about how they're going to win
3:51
Speaker 1: because there's a bunch of fraud, even though in court,
3:54
Speaker 1: Rudy has admitted to judges where you can't really lie
3:57
Speaker 1: in court, that there is no fraud that they're alleging.
4:01
Speaker 1: They continue to lose cases. What's going on here? What
4:03
Speaker 1: does it say about Trump's strategy that Rudy's in charge
4:06
Speaker 1: now and they're just trying to pressure Republican officials to
4:10
Speaker 1: fuck with the certification process in these states?
4:13
Speaker 2: Well, they're trying and failing, thus far at least, to
4:16
Speaker 2: pressure Republican officials. We talked about some of the specific
4:19
Speaker 2: things they have done recently. It– It's really hard because
4:25
Speaker 2: we watch this and he does this absurd My Cousin
4:28
Speaker 2: Vinny anecdote where he kind of even fumbles the plot
4:30
Speaker 2: of My Cousin Vinny. And it's easy to laugh and
4:35
Speaker 2: be like, what a bunch of fucking idiots. We know
4:40
Speaker 2: that they are going to fail. Joe Biden is going
4:42
Speaker 2: to be the next president of the United States. They
4:43
Speaker 2: are not going to succeed. So it's easy to dismiss
4:45
Speaker 2: it in the short term, but we can't lose sight
4:49
Speaker 2: of the danger in the medium and the long term.
4:52
Speaker 2: Like this is a president of the United States and
4:55
Speaker 2: a group of subpar JV goons trying to steal an
4:59
Speaker 2: election by throwing out legally cast votes primarily from black
5:04
Speaker 2: and brown voters in this country. Like that's what is happening.
5:07
Speaker 2: And that seems really bad, I think. But what makes
5:10
Speaker 2: it even worse is that every Republican is going along
5:14
Speaker 2: with it. Every single one of them. That is not
5:17
Speaker 2: going to change the outcome now. But it is going
5:20
Speaker 2: to change the nature of the Biden presidency in American
5:22
Speaker 2: politics going forward. And we are watching something before our
5:28
Speaker 2: eyes that is much bigger than really July being an
5:30
Speaker 2: idiot that is quite disturbing. And it's like the thing
5:33
Speaker 2: I have been wrestling with, like you and I, we
5:35
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time last podcast to explain to
5:37
Speaker 2: people why we believe that this that they should not
5:40
Speaker 2: be panicked about Donald Trump's deal in the election. But
5:44
Speaker 2: it's like, how do you find the right balance between
5:46
Speaker 2: that and being incredibly scared about what it all says
5:49
Speaker 2: about where we are headed as a country? And that's
5:51
Speaker 2: sort of what I think all of this forces me
5:52
Speaker 2: to wrestle with.
5:53
Speaker 1: My thoughts on this are people shouldn't be alarmed. They
5:56
Speaker 1: should be enraged. Alarm doesn't do anything for you. Being
6:00
Speaker 1: scared of this doesn't do anything for you. Being enraged,
6:03
Speaker 1: at least, as you should be towards every single Republican
6:07
Speaker 1: who is helping him try to pull this off. You
6:09
Speaker 1: mentioned Republicans in Congress. There are only 16 Republicans in
6:12
Speaker 1: Congress who have acknowledged Joe Biden's victory. We are fortunate
6:17
Speaker 1: at this point that Republicans and Republican state officials and
6:22
Speaker 1: election officials in Arizona and Georgia have resisted Trump's plot
6:25
Speaker 1: to steal the election. So far, Republican legislators in Pennsylvania
6:30
Speaker 1: and Michigan have refused to go along with this plot
6:34
Speaker 1: to steal the election. But like you said, most of
6:35
Speaker 1: the Republican Party is there. But what they're trying to
6:38
Speaker 1: do right now, is because they have lost in court,
6:43
Speaker 1: they only have a propaganda strategy left of fear and intimidation.
6:46
Speaker 1: All they have left is trying to get us to
6:48
Speaker 1: believe that they can steal the election and to spin
6:52
Speaker 1: everyone up with this. Because if they can keep that
6:54
Speaker 1: hope alive, they can keep Trump happy and they can
6:57
Speaker 1: keep this going. And again, clearly what the strategy is
7:01
Speaker 1: here from Trump is to push Republican lawmakers and push
7:06
Speaker 1: Republican politicians to a point where they either have to Say,
7:10
Speaker 1: I'm going to go along with your plot to steal
7:12
Speaker 1: the election and continue to be in good standing with
7:14
Speaker 1: the Republican Party, or I'm going to stand up for
7:17
Speaker 1: democratic traditions and norms and institutions and the fair results
7:21
Speaker 1: of an election, and then possibly you could put me
7:24
Speaker 1: out of a job by sicking your supporters on me.
7:27
Speaker 1: That's what Trump's trying to do right now to the
7:28
Speaker 1: Republican Party. And the safeguards against him succeeding right now
7:33
Speaker 1: continue to be the courts, which have almost... Unanimously, in
7:39
Speaker 1: 30 cases, 29 of them, Donald Trump has failed in
7:45
Speaker 1: those courts. But those are the safeguards right now, the
7:50
Speaker 1: law and the courts. And like you said, I have
7:55
Speaker 1: no doubt that if this election was any closer... if
7:58
Speaker 1: there was like a real question about recounts, if this
8:02
Speaker 1: was like 2000 in Florida, they would absolutely steal this election.
8:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. The safeguards are actually,
8:09
Speaker 2: in my mind, not the courts. They're not institutions. They're
8:11
Speaker 2: not the law. The safeguard is the math. It just
8:14
Speaker 2: happened to be that Joe Biden won by enough in
8:17
Speaker 2: enough places that this was not an election that could
8:19
Speaker 2: be stolen. If this was coming down to those 10,000
8:22
Speaker 2: votes in Wisconsin and or the 500 votes that happened
8:26
Speaker 2: in Florida for Gore and Bush, then this election, I think,
8:29
Speaker 2: could very well be stolen. And I do, like, there
8:33
Speaker 2: was one, I think, perhaps a difference of opinion, or
8:36
Speaker 2: at least in how we express the opinion. The Republicans
8:38
Speaker 2: are not being intimidated into this. They were going along
8:42
Speaker 2: willingly with it. They are not being held hostage by Trump.
8:46
Speaker 1: Well, I think they're certainly being, I mean, he's intimidating them.
8:50
Speaker 1: They might be saying, fine, I don't need to be intimidated. Raffensperger,
8:55
Speaker 1: the Secretary of State in Georgia, has been receiving death threats.
8:58
Speaker 1: That is intimidation. He has stood up against those death threats.
9:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we're agreeing, essentially. But what I think
9:04
Speaker 2: the difference is, is we're not in a world where
9:06
Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell and Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton and Ted
9:10
Speaker 2: Cruz and these guys want to declare Joe Biden the
9:12
Speaker 2: winner and put this era behind us, but are afraid
9:15
Speaker 2: of getting primaried. They believe it is in their political
9:17
Speaker 2: interest to create this fiction that the election was stolen
9:20
Speaker 2: because it will help them hobble Joe Biden's presidency. And
9:24
Speaker 2: help them win elections in 2022, in the runoffs in
9:28
Speaker 2: Georgia right now, and then 2024. That is what's happening.
9:30
Speaker 2: It's a political calculation that conspiracy theories and spreading these
9:34
Speaker 2: lies help them. And I think that has real– like
9:39
Speaker 2: when you say be enraged, this is the sort of
9:42
Speaker 2: depressing thing about this is– like even though our head
9:47
Speaker 2: told us different, like what you really wanted was we
9:49
Speaker 2: were going to beat Trump– He was going to go away.
9:51
Speaker 2: Republicans would still be bad, but we returned to something.
9:54
Speaker 1: I never thought he was going to go away. I
9:57
Speaker 1: never did. I guess it's why I've been so– I've
10:00
Speaker 1: been surprised by some of the reactions from reporters, Democrats,
10:04
Speaker 1: pundits on Twitter because it's almost like– why isn't everyone
10:06
Speaker 1: more alarmed that this is happening? I'm like, why is, like,
10:09
Speaker 1: this is the same guy we've been dealing with since
10:11
Speaker 1: fucking 2015. He has broken laws at every chance. He
10:16
Speaker 1: has been corrupted every chance. He has lied at every chance.
10:18
Speaker 1: He has undermined every single democratic norm and tradition this
10:21
Speaker 1: country has ever had. Of course he wasn't going to
10:24
Speaker 1: go away.
10:25
Speaker 2: I guess what I mean is that the threat of
10:28
Speaker 2: what he represents would recede somewhat. Like, of course he
10:31
Speaker 2: was going to dispute the election results. We said that
10:32
Speaker 2: for years.
10:33
Speaker 4: Right.
10:34
Speaker 2: And he did it. And he's done it maybe for
10:36
Speaker 2: longer than people thought he would. But the fact that
10:38
Speaker 2: Rudy Giuliani is holding a press conference today, we are
10:41
Speaker 2: two weeks, two and a half weeks after the election.
10:43
Speaker 1: Here's– I mean, well, the reason– and we can get
10:45
Speaker 1: into this. But the reason they're doing this now, the
10:47
Speaker 1: reason all this activity is happening today is because tomorrow–
10:51
Speaker 1: November 20th, Georgia will certify the results of their election.
10:55
Speaker 1: On Monday, the 23rd, Pennsylvania and Michigan are scheduled to
10:59
Speaker 1: certify the results of the election. And on the 24th,
11:02
Speaker 1: Nevada is scheduled to certify the results of the election.
11:04
Speaker 1: If all those states certify on those days, it's over.
11:09
Speaker 1: Joe Biden has hit 270. The election has been certified.
11:13
Speaker 1: The electors will be sent to Washington. So they are
11:16
Speaker 1: trying to stop certification right now because it is their
11:19
Speaker 1: last ditch effort, which is why fucking Donald Trump has
11:21
Speaker 1: also invited two Michigan lawmakers to the fucking White House
11:24
Speaker 1: so he can, again, intimidate them and pressure them. Two
11:28
Speaker 1: people who have said, we're not sending our own electors,
11:31
Speaker 1: the Republicans in Michigan. We're not going to do that.
11:33
Speaker 1: Trump is bringing them to the White House so he
11:35
Speaker 1: can intimidate them into doing it. That's what's happening right now.
11:38
Speaker 1: I also like, I don't, I don't think it's really
11:40
Speaker 1: helpful to tell everyone what emotion they should feel, whether
11:43
Speaker 1: it's actually now that they like, whether it's fear or
11:45
Speaker 1: panic or anger or whatever else. Like, I think it's
11:48
Speaker 1: probably more productive to tell people what we can do.
11:51
Speaker 4: Right.
11:51
Speaker 1: And like, I don't, you know, I see people saying like,
11:54
Speaker 1: let's impeach him again. We think I'm just, I just
11:59
Speaker 1: want to get this straight. I just want to get
12:00
Speaker 1: this straight. So the House of Representatives is going to
12:02
Speaker 1: gather together. They're going to drop articles of impeachment for
12:04
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's deal in the election, which they certainly could.
12:07
Speaker 1: He's certainly stealing it. And they're going to vote to
12:10
Speaker 1: impeach him. And they're going to go to the Senate.
12:12
Speaker 1: And how hard is Mitch McConnell going to laugh at
12:14
Speaker 1: that when he gets the articles of impeachment? He's going
12:16
Speaker 1: to laugh pretty hard, right? I would if I was
12:19
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell. What do you think is going to happen?
12:21
Speaker 1: You think the Senate Republicans are just going to impeach
12:23
Speaker 1: him one more time on the way out? We suddenly
12:25
Speaker 1: have this much faith that Republicans in the Senate have
12:28
Speaker 1: shame and they're going to be, oh, no, I better
12:30
Speaker 1: impeach Donald Trump over this. There's a lot of like,
12:33
Speaker 1: we're going to go to the GSA and tell them like, oh, well,
12:36
Speaker 1: you must certify that he won. What's she going to do?
12:39
Speaker 1: Bill Barr's Justice Department going to go after Emily at GSA?
12:42
Speaker 1: Is that going to happen? Of course it's not. Like
12:44
Speaker 1: there's just, I get that everyone's mad and everyone like wants,
12:47
Speaker 1: like we are not like a Nancy Pelosi press conference
12:50
Speaker 1: away from fixing this right now. We're just not. Like
12:53
Speaker 1: if the worst happens, right? We talked about last week
12:57
Speaker 1: and for some reason, Donald Trump, gets Republicans to fuck
13:02
Speaker 1: with certification, gets them to send electors. And if for
13:05
Speaker 1: some fucking reason the courts don't step in, then like, yeah,
13:11
Speaker 1: we're going to have to have mass protests in the streets.
13:13
Speaker 1: That's our only other option. And we're not there yet,
13:15
Speaker 1: but yeah, we, who knows? There's a small chance we
13:18
Speaker 1: could get there in a couple of weeks, but like
13:20
Speaker 1: that is literally the only option I can think of,
13:22
Speaker 1: unless you can think of other things that could actually
13:25
Speaker 1: move this shit along.
13:26
Speaker 2: Well, as we know, impeaching him the first time put
13:29
Speaker 2: a stop, to his corruption and authoritarianism and everything else.
13:33
Speaker 2: So if we do it again.
13:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, stopped him dead in his tracks, Dan.
13:37
Speaker 2: It is one of the hard things to do to
13:39
Speaker 2: separate what is most effective from what would make us
13:42
Speaker 2: feel good. Would Donald Trump becoming the first president to
13:45
Speaker 2: be impeached twice make me happy? Absolutely. I would like
13:49
Speaker 2: him to walk around for the rest of time with
13:51
Speaker 2: not one, but two scarlet eyes on his chest. But
13:56
Speaker 2: that's not going to change the situation here. And And
14:00
Speaker 2: this is hard because for the course of this podcast,
14:04
Speaker 2: in the beginning for Comedio, what we've always tried to
14:06
Speaker 2: do is, where can you have the most impact? Here
14:09
Speaker 2: is something you're concerned about, you're worried about, you're angry about.
14:11
Speaker 2: What can you do? And there are very limited levers
14:14
Speaker 2: to pull here. I mean, the most effective lever in
14:17
Speaker 2: the medium term is to win the Senate. Because if
14:21
Speaker 2: we win the Senate, we can do two things. One,
14:24
Speaker 2: you can Make it clear the Republicans paid a political
14:27
Speaker 2: price for fucking around with our democracy because that is
14:30
Speaker 2: the only– raw political power is the only language they speak.
14:35
Speaker 2: If they lose power by being a bunch of assholes,
14:38
Speaker 2: it may cause them to curtail briefly at least this behavior.
14:44
Speaker 2: But also we have the Senate. We can put in
14:46
Speaker 2: place some norms and checks and balances. They make it
14:48
Speaker 2: harder for a bunch of these authoritarian yahoos to drive
14:51
Speaker 2: trucks through the loopholes in our system. So if you're
14:53
Speaker 2: looking for something to do, I hearken back to what
14:55
Speaker 2: you did in the opening part here, which is the
14:57
Speaker 2: best thing we can do is take the Senate.
15:00
Speaker 1: No, that is very, very true. All right. I want
15:02
Speaker 1: to quickly talk about what happened in Michigan this week
15:05
Speaker 1: as an example of how sort of desperate and hopeless
15:07
Speaker 1: Trump's strategy is. On Tuesday, the two Republicans on the
15:11
Speaker 1: four-person bipartisan Board of Canvassers in Wayne County, which is
15:14
Speaker 1: the county that includes Detroit, initially refused to certify the
15:18
Speaker 1: election results, something that has never happened before. Their excuse
15:21
Speaker 1: was that some precincts had a few small discrepancies between
15:24
Speaker 1: the number of votes cast and the number of voters
15:26
Speaker 1: who participated, something that has happened many times in the past,
15:29
Speaker 1: has always been easily addressed, and has never prevented certification.
15:33
Speaker 1: One of the Republicans also said that she'd be willing
15:35
Speaker 1: to certify the results in the mostly white areas of
15:38
Speaker 1: Wayne County outside of Detroit. And the other Republican was
15:41
Speaker 1: found to have racist Obama memes on his Facebook page.
15:45
Speaker 1: Donald Trump quickly congratulated the two Republicans on Twitter just
15:48
Speaker 1: minutes before they caved to tremendous public pressure and voted
15:51
Speaker 1: to certify the results after all. Then late Wednesday night,
15:55
Speaker 1: the two of them filed affidavits saying they tried to
15:58
Speaker 1: rescind their votes because Donald Trump called them after they
16:03
Speaker 1: voted to certify the results. So first of all, how
16:08
Speaker 1: much of a problem would it be if these two
16:11
Speaker 1: racist goobers somehow get their way?
16:15
Speaker 2: Ultimately, it shouldn't be a problem because this will eventually
16:18
Speaker 2: go to the courts, and the courts are pretty clear
16:20
Speaker 2: that the certifying of the vote count is, as I
16:24
Speaker 2: saw in one of the articles, a quote-unquote ministerial duty.
16:26
Speaker 2: It is their job. If they don't do it, the
16:27
Speaker 2: court will do it for them. Also, I would just
16:29
Speaker 2: like to note, Joe Biden won Michigan by 140,000 votes.
16:33
Speaker 4: 3%. 3%.
16:33
Speaker 2: 14 times larger than Donald Trump's margin in 2016.
16:45
Speaker 1: It was the battleground state probably closest to some of
16:47
Speaker 1: the polls. 3% is big.
16:52
Speaker 2: I mean, it's still like nine points off the polling average,
16:55
Speaker 2: but closest.
16:56
Speaker 1: Yes. We're talking relative these days. So look, a couple
17:02
Speaker 1: of things from this. First of all, it is great
17:05
Speaker 1: that they bowed to public pressure. That's important. It shows
17:07
Speaker 1: that doing this in shining a light on this, that
17:10
Speaker 1: good reporting, that everyone paying attention to this does have
17:13
Speaker 1: an effect talking about things that you can do. Continuing
17:15
Speaker 1: to talk about this, continuing to highlight the plot to
17:18
Speaker 1: steal the election is important because you put pressure on
17:21
Speaker 1: these people. Donald Trump also puts pressure on them, of course.
17:24
Speaker 1: But no, so what happens now is every county has
17:26
Speaker 1: to certify their results. So all of the counties in
17:29
Speaker 1: Michigan have been certified. And Wayne County now has been certified.
17:33
Speaker 1: So the secretary of state, the chair of the commission,
17:37
Speaker 1: all these other people said, like, they can try to
17:38
Speaker 1: take back their votes all they want. The results in
17:41
Speaker 1: Wayne County have already been certified and sent to the board.
17:43
Speaker 4: Right.
17:44
Speaker 1: So now we talked about this last week. Now we
17:46
Speaker 1: have a board, the state board of canvassers in Michigan
17:49
Speaker 1: that has to certify the result also split two Democrats,
17:51
Speaker 1: two Republicans. So what happens if those two Republicans act
17:54
Speaker 1: like the assholes in Wayne County? That's when, as you said,
17:57
Speaker 1: the courts step in and certify the election. Also, Governor Whitmer,
18:00
Speaker 1: a Democrat, has a role to play in certifying the election. Also,
18:03
Speaker 1: the Secretary of State, a Democrat, has a role to
18:05
Speaker 1: play in certifying their election. So those are all the
18:08
Speaker 1: backstops there. What if Donald Trump, as he calls the
18:13
Speaker 1: Senate leader and House leader in the Michigan Statehouse to
18:16
Speaker 1: Washington on Friday to pressure them to suddenly send their
18:20
Speaker 1: own slate of electors? So then I don't know what
18:22
Speaker 1: happens then. Then they have to go back and get
18:24
Speaker 1: the entire Michigan legislature to pass a resolution. saying we
18:29
Speaker 1: send our own slate of electors after the official certification
18:33
Speaker 1: with the official slate of electors has already been sent
18:35
Speaker 1: to the electoral college because they went through the legal
18:38
Speaker 1: process of certifying that. So then you have a legally
18:41
Speaker 1: certified slate of electors that went through the legal process.
18:46
Speaker 1: And then you have like a fake slate of electors
18:48
Speaker 1: that the Republican legislature made up. Again, that goes to Congress.
18:52
Speaker 1: Tie goes to the official slate of electors certified by
18:57
Speaker 1: the Democratic governor. So all of these like this is
19:00
Speaker 1: you can see why the Trump people are doing this
19:02
Speaker 1: because they just want to keep their hopes alive. But
19:04
Speaker 1: like every single avenue runs into a dead end here
19:08
Speaker 1: for them.
19:10
Speaker 4: Right, right.
19:11
Speaker 2: Joe Biden is going to be the next president of
19:12
Speaker 2: the United States. That is what is going to happen.
19:14
Speaker 1: Let's talk about how this is all affecting public opinion
19:17
Speaker 1: because all of the legal strategies are sort of running
19:20
Speaker 1: into brick walls for them. But they are spending a
19:22
Speaker 1: lot of time using all of their propaganda channels to
19:26
Speaker 1: undermine the integrity of the election with their voters. And
19:30
Speaker 1: there was a new Reuters poll out this week that
19:32
Speaker 1: gauged how well this strategy is working. On the bright side,
19:35
Speaker 1: 73% of Americans believe that Joe Biden won the election
19:40
Speaker 1: and only 5% believe that Trump won. On the less
19:43
Speaker 1: bright side, 52% of Republicans say that Trump, quote, rightfully won.
19:48
Speaker 1: And 28% of all Republicans say that Trump, quote, rightfully won.
19:50
Speaker 1: Americans believe that the election, quote, was the result of
19:53
Speaker 1: illegal voting or election rigging, which is up 12 points
19:57
Speaker 1: from four years ago. How much of a problem is this, Dan,
20:01
Speaker 1: short term? And then let's talk about long term.
20:04
Speaker 2: Short term, it helps explain the political incentives that Republicans
20:06
Speaker 2: not named Trump are abiding by when they perpetuate this fiction.
20:12
Speaker 2: They want to be in touch with their base. They
20:14
Speaker 2: believe the only way to stay in office, either through
20:17
Speaker 2: avoiding a primary or winning a general election by firing
20:20
Speaker 2: up the base, is to stay in touch with that base.
20:22
Speaker 2: And so they're going to just ride the wave here.
20:25
Speaker 2: So that's part. In the long term, I don't want
20:28
Speaker 2: to overstate the concerns about the beliefs of one part
20:32
Speaker 2: of the Republican base. Barack Obama had a massively successful
20:36
Speaker 2: presidency despite the fact that something like 40% of Republicans
20:40
Speaker 2: believed he was an illegitimate president born in Kenya despite
20:42
Speaker 2: the release of multiple birth certificates. There is something disturbing
20:48
Speaker 2: about the information ecosystem in America that people could believe.
20:52
Speaker 2: There's something disturbing about media literacy, about sort of the
20:57
Speaker 2: trusted institutions, all these other things in American life that
20:59
Speaker 2: such a significant portion of our population is willing to believe.
21:04
Speaker 2: such obviously farcically false information. That's not new. It's been
21:10
Speaker 2: around for a very long time. It's worse because of
21:12
Speaker 2: Facebook and social media. But just in general, it says
21:17
Speaker 2: a lot about the inability of our institutions, the media,
21:19
Speaker 2: and others to give people believable, factual information to make
21:23
Speaker 2: them believe things that run counter to their political instincts,
21:28
Speaker 2: if you will. And so, yeah, it is concerning. I
21:31
Speaker 2: think there is a Republican strategy here at play that
21:34
Speaker 2: involves making it harder for Joe Biden to be president.
21:36
Speaker 2: And you can see that through what Trump is doing,
21:38
Speaker 2: through what McConnell is doing, etc. But it's like just
21:40
Speaker 2: if you look at our country and you say– A
21:42
Speaker 2: bunch of people believe that an election that Joe Biden
21:44
Speaker 2: won by a lot was stolen based on no evidence. Yeah,
21:46
Speaker 2: that's concerning. And especially in a world where the quote
21:49
Speaker 2: unquote mainstream media has done a really excellent job at
21:54
Speaker 2: pointing out time and time again that there is no
21:57
Speaker 2: evidence for what Trump is saying, for what the Republicans
21:59
Speaker 2: are saying. Like they've done a good job of that.
22:01
Speaker 2: And despite that, a whole bunch of people believe a
22:04
Speaker 2: whole bunch of bullshit. And that's concerning.
22:07
Speaker 1: It is concerning. And as you noted, it's been concerning
22:10
Speaker 1: now for at least a decade.
22:13
Speaker 3: Right?
22:13
Speaker 1: Like there is at least half of the Republican Party
22:16
Speaker 1: is willing to believe literally anything. Like that Joe Biden
22:19
Speaker 1: didn't win? Yeah, of course. That the QAnon conspiracies? Yeah.
22:23
Speaker 1: That Democrats run a fucking pedophile ring, global pedophile ring? Yeah,
22:27
Speaker 1: they'll believe that too. They will literally believe anything they
22:29
Speaker 1: hear from Donald Trump and from Newsmax and from OAN
22:32
Speaker 1: and from most of the primetime assholes on Fox News.
22:35
Speaker 1: That's what we're dealing with this country. And if we
22:37
Speaker 1: don't figure out a way to combat misinformation and conspiracies,
22:41
Speaker 1: and the right-wing propaganda machine, which is very large and
22:44
Speaker 1: very powerful, you know, we're going to be in some
22:48
Speaker 1: real trouble long term. But this is a problem that
22:52
Speaker 1: has predated believing in the results of this election or not.
22:55
Speaker 1: This has been a problem throughout the Obama administration. This
22:58
Speaker 1: has been a problem throughout the Trump administration. It is
23:00
Speaker 1: maybe the greatest threat we face as a country. It
23:03
Speaker 1: may be, because like you said, it might only be
23:06
Speaker 1: half of the Republican Party, but that's a good chunk
23:08
Speaker 1: of people in this country who believe in some pretty
23:10
Speaker 1: crazy shit right now.
23:12
Speaker 2: And those people have outsized political influence because of gerrymandered
23:16
Speaker 2: districts that ensure that politicians, particularly in the Republican side,
23:19
Speaker 2: are more concerned about a primary to their ideological flank
23:22
Speaker 2: than losing a general election.
23:24
Speaker 1: So one more thing before we talk about sort of
23:26
Speaker 1: Biden staffing up on the transition. Let's talk about the
23:28
Speaker 1: transition itself. Are there any other levers involved? that Democrats
23:33
Speaker 1: or the Biden people can pull here to pressure Emily Murphy,
23:37
Speaker 1: who runs GSA, to ascertain that Biden has won and
23:42
Speaker 1: get the transition going. Like, you know, we have seen
23:45
Speaker 1: this week, the Biden folks, that he's had a lot
23:48
Speaker 1: of his COVID-19 task force on television. And he himself said,
23:53
Speaker 1: this delay is going to cost lives because they have
23:56
Speaker 1: to get synced up on vaccine distribution plans and all
24:00
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. And so There's a lot that
24:03
Speaker 1: Biden can do without the official transition beginning, especially because
24:06
Speaker 1: he has a lot of people who are experienced in government.
24:08
Speaker 1: But we're in the middle of a raging pandemic. People
24:11
Speaker 1: are dying and lives depend on working with the Trump
24:16
Speaker 1: administration to figure out vaccine distribution. And they can't because
24:20
Speaker 1: Emily Murphy feels like she's being pressured from both sides
24:23
Speaker 1: reportedly about this when all she has to do is
24:26
Speaker 1: sign a fucking piece of paper. I mean, like what
24:28
Speaker 1: can be done about this?
24:30
Speaker 2: I mean, this is hard because it is another example
24:33
Speaker 2: where this is a person and a president insulated from
24:37
Speaker 2: the sort of political pressure that can often be applied
24:41
Speaker 2: by the population writ large. Emily Murphy is not someone
24:45
Speaker 2: who is running for office. She is not someone who–
24:48
Speaker 2: Donald Trump has never run– well, maybe he's running for
24:49
Speaker 2: office again, but he has generally been insulated from that
24:52
Speaker 2: sort of political pressure. Joe Biden has tried to play
24:54
Speaker 2: this as– coolly and calmly as possible, right? He does
25:00
Speaker 2: not want to raise panic. He does not want to
25:01
Speaker 2: make it seem like his presidency is being hobbled or
25:05
Speaker 2: stopped or sort of disenchanting his voters, many of whom
25:08
Speaker 2: are going to need in Georgia, that somehow it was
25:11
Speaker 2: all for naught because of Donald Trump and one cowardly
25:16
Speaker 2: bureaucrat who has no concept of the oath of office
25:19
Speaker 2: she took or her actual duties, while at the same
25:22
Speaker 2: time sending out credible medical spokespeople to make the case
25:26
Speaker 2: for why it's a problem. I think– and I don't
25:29
Speaker 2: want to overstate the impact of this because Emily Murphy
25:32
Speaker 2: and Donald Trump aren't particularly influenced by a lot of
25:34
Speaker 2: these things. But I do think we could, as a
25:37
Speaker 2: democratic party, raise concerns about the impact. The pandemic is raging, right?
25:43
Speaker 2: We are at– we crossed 250,000 deaths yesterday. You're seeing
25:47
Speaker 2: huge numbers. The entire country is moving in the wrong direction.
25:50
Speaker 2: We are headed into the holiday– Thanksgiving holiday weekend, which
25:53
Speaker 2: could be a series of millions.
25:55
Speaker 1: Of– It's a fucking disaster. It's a– We are already
25:59
Speaker 1: in a disaster. We're headed to a worse disaster.
26:01
Speaker 2: Everyone is cheering, rightfully so, that news around these vaccines
26:05
Speaker 2: are making progress. All of that is being delayed. People
26:09
Speaker 2: are going to die or people are going to get sick.
26:11
Speaker 2: Fewer sick people are going to be able to recover
26:13
Speaker 2: because Donald Trump, Emily Murphy, and the entire Republican Party
26:18
Speaker 2: are stopping the government from functioning. They're ensuring that we
26:21
Speaker 2: are not going to have a smooth transition on the
26:23
Speaker 2: most important, most deadly issue in recent American history– because
26:26
Speaker 2: of obstinance and stupidity in Republican politics. And I think
26:30
Speaker 2: we could raise the alarm about the consequences of this
26:32
Speaker 2: one decision and put some pressure on other Republicans to
26:37
Speaker 2: say something about it. I'm not saying that that's going
26:39
Speaker 2: to change everything, but it is one thing that the
26:42
Speaker 2: Democratic Party writ large could do to raise the temperature
26:46
Speaker 2: on this, because there are very real consequences and we
26:49
Speaker 2: can't treat it like... When Donald Trump said that he
26:52
Speaker 2: refused to commit to the peaceful transfer of power, you know,
26:57
Speaker 2: it was like 65 days ago, but it seems like
26:59
Speaker 2: 100 years ago. You know, the thought was he was
27:01
Speaker 2: going to use the military to stay in the White House.
27:04
Speaker 2: And obviously that was never going to happen. What he
27:06
Speaker 2: is doing is completely undermining the traditions of how that
27:10
Speaker 2: works by making it impossible for the new president to
27:13
Speaker 2: hit the ground running. And he's doing that at an
27:14
Speaker 2: incredibly dangerous time. And we can make other Republicans have
27:17
Speaker 2: to answer for that if Donald Trump and Emily Merkel.
27:19
Speaker 1: And he's using the Republican Party to do that.
27:22
Speaker 3: Yeah.
27:23
Speaker 1: And, you know, I mean, like, you know, Axe on
27:25
Speaker 1: his Axe Files podcast interviewed Mitt Romney. I know your
27:29
Speaker 1: favorite politician. And and Romney was like, it's ridiculous that
27:34
Speaker 1: they're doing this in the transition. Like Romney spoke out.
27:36
Speaker 1: And my first thought was like, OK, I'm glad Mitt
27:38
Speaker 1: Romney said that. And my second thought was like, OK,
27:40
Speaker 1: what's that going to do now? Now Mitt Romney says
27:43
Speaker 1: it's bad.
27:44
Speaker 4: Great. So.
27:45
Speaker 1: Yet there's Emily Murphy just sitting there at fucking GSA,
27:48
Speaker 1: not ascertaining the win still. So I think there's no
27:52
Speaker 1: harm in making a lot of noise. And I would,
27:55
Speaker 1: you know, I read a political story that Biden and
27:58
Speaker 1: his team are sort of they're doing a lot of
28:01
Speaker 1: this behind the scenes where they're trying to pressure Republicans
28:04
Speaker 1: and business leaders to put pressure on Trump and to
28:06
Speaker 1: speak out about this. I do think like Biden does.
28:10
Speaker 1: saying this publicly.
28:12
Speaker 4: You're right.
28:12
Speaker 1: He doesn't need to be alarmist about it, but I
28:15
Speaker 1: don't see the harm in him pushing even harder on this.
28:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. I think the idea of
28:21
Speaker 2: getting business leaders and other people to speak out is smart.
28:33
Speaker 1: So let's talk about President-elect Joe Biden's first big round
28:35
Speaker 1: of White House hires, which includes Ron Klain as chief
28:38
Speaker 1: of staff, campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon as deputy chief
28:41
Speaker 1: of staff, longtime Biden aide Steve Reschetti and Mike Donilon
28:44
Speaker 1: as senior advisors, Biden campaign co-chair and Louisiana Congressman Cedric
28:48
Speaker 1: Richmond as director of the White House Office of Public Engagement,
28:51
Speaker 1: Dana Remus as White House counsel, and Julie Rodriguez as
28:54
Speaker 1: director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. Dan,
28:58
Speaker 1: what do you think about these hires? And what, if anything,
29:01
Speaker 1: do they tell us about Biden's approach to governing?
29:05
Speaker 2: Now, putting all of our biases on the table, we
29:08
Speaker 2: are friends with many of these people. We have worked
29:11
Speaker 2: with most of them. I have worked with Ron Klain
29:14
Speaker 2: and Jenna Malley Dillon off and on for my entire
29:17
Speaker 2: political career, right? I've worked with Ron for multiple campaigns,
29:20
Speaker 2: worked with Jenna multiple campaigns, worked with Julie Rodriguez in
29:23
Speaker 2: the White House, worked with Steve Reschetti in the White House,
29:26
Speaker 2: known McDonald, like all these people we know. And they're
29:29
Speaker 2: all incredibly talented. They are incredibly loyal to Biden. And
29:32
Speaker 2: I think that's the takeaway that I have from these
29:36
Speaker 2: announcements is that Biden is putting in place a group
29:39
Speaker 2: of very experienced political and government operators who he trusts
29:46
Speaker 2: and trust him. And that is really how Joe Biden
29:49
Speaker 2: has operated in his whole career. Like he has been
29:53
Speaker 2: very good.
29:53
Speaker 1: He values loyalty a lot.
29:55
Speaker 2: He values loyalty, but he also has a very good
29:57
Speaker 2: eye for talent. He hired Ron Klain when Ron Klain
30:00
Speaker 2: was coming out of law school, I believe. Tony Blinken,
30:03
Speaker 2: who was his national security advisor forever. The Donilon brothers.
30:05
Speaker 2: These are people that Biden identified as very talented early
30:08
Speaker 2: in their careers and early in his career. And he
30:10
Speaker 2: kept them around for decades. Now, it's very important in
30:13
Speaker 2: a White House staff to have a balance of perspectives.
30:15
Speaker 2: You want some people who have been with you forever,
30:18
Speaker 2: who understand you and understand your style. And you want
30:21
Speaker 2: some new people who bring in fresh perspective. And I
30:22
Speaker 2: think we will see some of that. But this is
30:24
Speaker 2: a group of core people. very talented loyalists. And I
30:28
Speaker 2: think it bodes very well for a highly functioning, highly
30:30
Speaker 2: competent White House staff.
30:34
Speaker 4: Yeah.
30:34
Speaker 1: I mean, I know all these people as well, have
30:36
Speaker 1: worked with them all as well. I think the person
30:38
Speaker 1: I probably worked most closely with is Ron, because he
30:43
Speaker 1: ran debate prep for Obama. And I got to know
30:45
Speaker 1: him during that process in 2012. And he is just fantastic, thorough,
30:52
Speaker 1: listens to everyone from all different persuasions. He's just a
30:55
Speaker 1: very competent, brilliant manager. So I think Ron's going to
31:00
Speaker 1: be great there. And like I said, yeah, Mike Donilon,
31:03
Speaker 1: Mike Don was a senior advisor for John Kerry when
31:05
Speaker 1: I was 21 and a press assistant on that campaign.
31:08
Speaker 1: That's how long I've been around Mike Donilon.
31:12
Speaker 2: Can I say one more thing about Ron before we
31:13
Speaker 2: move on?
31:14
Speaker 4: Yeah.
31:14
Speaker 2: There is no position more important than White House Chief
31:17
Speaker 2: of Staff. They are the person who runs the government
31:21
Speaker 2: top to bottom, manages the White House, helps facilitate everything.
31:26
Speaker 2: I don't believe there's ever been a person more qualified
31:28
Speaker 2: for a job in a moment than Ron is for
31:30
Speaker 2: this one. Ron helped run the Recovery Act Task Force
31:34
Speaker 2: for Joe Biden in 2009. We're in the middle of
31:36
Speaker 2: a recession. Ron was the Ebola czar during the last pandemic.
31:39
Speaker 2: We're in a pandemic right now. Ron worked on judicial
31:42
Speaker 2: nominations in courts his whole career. We're dealing with how
31:46
Speaker 2: to unrig and how to deal with a rigged court system.
31:48
Speaker 2: He is sort of perfectly.
31:50
Speaker 1: He was part of the recount in Florida during the
31:53
Speaker 1: last attempted coup.
31:54
Speaker 4: Right.
31:57
Speaker 1: So there has been criticism from some groups on the left,
32:00
Speaker 1: like the Justice Democrats, about specifically Steve Reschetti and Cedric Richmond.
32:05
Speaker 1: Reschetti because he was once a lobbyist before he joined
32:09
Speaker 1: the Obama administration a while back, and because his brother
32:12
Speaker 1: currently lobbies for pharmaceutical companies. Richmond because he's received a
32:16
Speaker 1: lot of donations from the fossil fuel industry. Dan, what
32:20
Speaker 1: do you make of these criticisms?
32:22
Speaker 2: I understand that there is skepticism among a lot of
32:27
Speaker 2: progressive activists about Joe Biden's progressive credentials. And that is
32:30
Speaker 2: completely fair. His campaign was more to the center than
32:33
Speaker 2: they were. They supported other candidates. I understand that skepticism.
32:39
Speaker 2: A couple of things, though, that I think are worth
32:41
Speaker 2: noting on this, which is Steve Reschetti and Cedric Richmond
32:45
Speaker 2: were core parts of the campaign, despite whatever previous experience
32:50
Speaker 2: they had had, core parts of the campaign that moved
32:54
Speaker 2: in the general election to a big, bold climate plan
32:58
Speaker 2: that was co-authored by AOC. I think you have to
33:02
Speaker 2: put all of these things in context. And people's paths
33:05
Speaker 2: are not necessarily perfectly predictive of what they're going to
33:09
Speaker 2: do in office. And ultimately, White House staff is a
33:13
Speaker 2: position whereby you are facilitating the agenda of the president.
33:19
Speaker 2: And Joe Biden was very clear about what his climate
33:22
Speaker 2: plan was. And now, if he does not live up
33:25
Speaker 2: to that, both in executive actions and whatever legislative efforts
33:28
Speaker 2: he can do, then he should certainly be held accountable
33:30
Speaker 2: for that. But I would not personally, and once again,
33:34
Speaker 2: I don't know Congressman Richmond. I know Steve Reschetti quite well.
33:37
Speaker 2: He is a friend of mine. He's a very talented
33:40
Speaker 2: and loyal lieutenant to Joe Biden. And I think will
33:43
Speaker 2: very much help Joe Biden pass his legislative agenda. He's
33:45
Speaker 2: very health savvy.
33:46
Speaker 1: I think we, in 2008, Barack Obama railed against the
33:50
Speaker 1: influence of lobbyists. That was very important to our campaign.
33:54
Speaker 1: We had ethics and lobbying restrictions in the White House.
33:57
Speaker 1: I understand the undue influence of lobbyists.
34:00
Speaker 4: It is bad.
34:01
Speaker 1: It is a cancer on our politics for sure. I
34:04
Speaker 1: think like, Steve being a lobbyist before the Obama administration
34:09
Speaker 1: started and his brother currently being a lobbyist is a
34:12
Speaker 1: bit of a stretch. But again, I agree with you
34:14
Speaker 1: that you have to hold Joe Biden accountable for keeping
34:18
Speaker 1: his promises and running a government that is reflective of
34:23
Speaker 1: the campaign platform that he put out, which all of
34:26
Speaker 1: these people signed off on because they were all part
34:28
Speaker 1: of his campaign. I do think it is very important
34:31
Speaker 1: for a president, and you know this, to have... people
34:35
Speaker 1: with different viewpoints, sometimes contradictory viewpoints around you, right? If
34:40
Speaker 1: you had a whole bunch of lobbyists around you, or
34:42
Speaker 1: if you had a whole bunch of people who were
34:45
Speaker 1: very friendly to the fossil fuel industry around you, and
34:48
Speaker 1: that's all you had, then it's a problem because all
34:50
Speaker 1: the advice you're hearing all day is from those people
34:53
Speaker 1: and it might influence you that way. But if you
34:57
Speaker 1: have a diversity of views around you all the time
35:01
Speaker 1: as president, and you stay true to your own beliefs,
35:04
Speaker 1: and the platform that you campaigned on and the policies
35:07
Speaker 1: that you promised then it's okay to have like people
35:10
Speaker 1: with views that don't necessarily line up with everyone else
35:12
Speaker 1: in the administration right so it's like i do think
35:15
Speaker 1: i do think like let's look at the whole cabinet
35:17
Speaker 1: let's look at the whole white house staff i'm sure
35:20
Speaker 1: there will be progressives there will be moderates there will
35:23
Speaker 1: be people who've worked for industry before there'll be people
35:25
Speaker 1: who worked for labor right like hopefully there will be
35:28
Speaker 1: a broad diversity in every sense of the word in
35:31
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's administration. And then let's see what moves he
35:35
Speaker 1: actually makes and criticize the substance of those moves if
35:39
Speaker 1: they warrant criticism or applaud them if they warrant applause.
35:43
Speaker 2: One other point on the lobbyist stuff, which is Joe
35:45
Speaker 2: Biden is going to put in place, as Barack Obama did,
35:48
Speaker 2: a series of rules to ensure that his White House
35:51
Speaker 2: staff are not under the undue influence of lobbyists or
35:54
Speaker 2: part of the revolving door or can advocate for people
35:57
Speaker 2: for which they had past or future financial connections to.
36:01
Speaker 2: And that is the right thing. And if there is
36:05
Speaker 2: any evidence at any point in time that anyone violated
36:07
Speaker 2: those rules, then that's a huge problem. But we shouldn't
36:10
Speaker 2: presume that is what is going to happen or these
36:12
Speaker 2: people are inherently corrupt because they made career choices in
36:15
Speaker 2: the past before they went to go work for the–
36:20
Speaker 2: Democratic president with the boldest climate plan in history. I
36:24
Speaker 2: think all these things require context. And there should absolutely
36:30
Speaker 2: be political pressure, as you point out, based on what
36:32
Speaker 2: Joe Biden says and what he does and whether it
36:34
Speaker 2: matches up to his promises. But I would not read
36:37
Speaker 2: too much into his choice of longtime loyal aides on
36:41
Speaker 2: his White House staff.
36:43
Speaker 1: And again, what we saw during this campaign is that
36:46
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's views have changed and evolved over time. in
36:50
Speaker 1: many instances, to become more progressive than they used to be.
36:53
Speaker 1: So it follows that that is very possible for the
36:56
Speaker 1: staff he hires to evolve and change in the same way,
37:01
Speaker 1: their views from the past. That's just, you know, they
37:04
Speaker 1: might not, but we could at least hold open the
37:06
Speaker 1: possibility that they may, you know.
37:08
Speaker 4: All right.
37:10
Speaker 1: So all the people we just talked about are White
37:11
Speaker 1: House staff, which means none of them have to be
37:14
Speaker 1: confirmed by the Senate. The president-elect's cabinet appointments are a
37:17
Speaker 1: different story. And sources close to Mitch McConnell told Axios
37:20
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago that Republicans may try to block
37:22
Speaker 1: nominees if they're too progressive, or even if they just
37:25
Speaker 1: don't like them. For example, some Senate Republicans have already
37:28
Speaker 1: said they'd try to block Susan Rice's nomination if Biden
37:30
Speaker 1: asks her to serve as Secretary of State. Dan, why
37:33
Speaker 1: do you think they're so focused on Susan?
37:36
Speaker 4: Um....
37:38
Speaker 2: I don't know, John. It's going to be something really obvious,
37:43
Speaker 2: like Susan maybe being a black woman in a party
37:46
Speaker 2: that celebrates racism and misogyny.
37:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it might be the same reason that
37:50
Speaker 1: they focused on her more than anyone else during the
37:54
Speaker 1: Benghazi episode.
37:55
Speaker 2: Even though she had no actual connection to anything that
37:59
Speaker 2: happened in Benghazi.
38:00
Speaker 1: The least to do with it. The least to do
38:03
Speaker 1: with it of anyone. Yeah, no, that's not very surprising
38:05
Speaker 1: how they feel about Susan Rice. So, What can Biden
38:09
Speaker 1: do here if we don't win the two Senate seats
38:12
Speaker 1: in Georgia? Because if we do, you know, we can
38:15
Speaker 1: tell Mitch McConnell to go fuck himself just about every
38:18
Speaker 1: day for the next two years. It'll be very enjoyable.
38:19
Speaker 2: And if that's not motivation enough to open up your
38:21
Speaker 2: wallet and give some time, I don't know.
38:23
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell and Tom Cotton, all these people are bitching
38:26
Speaker 1: about Susan Rice. And we say, hey, fuck you. We
38:29
Speaker 1: don't care.
38:30
Speaker 2: I can't hear you. Your voice does not count. You
38:32
Speaker 2: have no power.
38:34
Speaker 1: Oh, win Georgia. Anyway, OK, but let's let's another scenario
38:38
Speaker 1: where Mitch is in control of the Senate and and
38:41
Speaker 1: and Joe Biden needs a cabinet.
38:42
Speaker 2: I mean, this is it's challenging, right, because you're trying
38:48
Speaker 2: to build momentum as you go forward.
38:51
Speaker 3: Right.
38:51
Speaker 2: And you don't want to take losses early on, but
38:54
Speaker 2: also for the same reason, you don't want to obviously
38:56
Speaker 2: avoid fights or you don't want to be intimidated anymore.
38:59
Speaker 2: from doing something that you think is right for your
39:01
Speaker 2: government in the first day. So there is a longer
39:04
Speaker 2: conversation about using something called the Vacancy Act to insert
39:07
Speaker 2: the people you want in there. But that is something
39:09
Speaker 2: I think happens a little bit further down the line.
39:11
Speaker 2: You still have to make a decision about how you
39:14
Speaker 2: are going to– what are you.
39:15
Speaker 4: Going to do?
39:16
Speaker 2: I think there is probably no better candidate to be
39:20
Speaker 2: Secretary of State than Susan Rice. It seems from all
39:23
Speaker 2: the reporting we read, which take with 17 grains of
39:25
Speaker 2: salt– is that this is someone that Joe Biden, who
39:28
Speaker 2: he trusts and likes his work before would very much
39:29
Speaker 2: like to be a Secretary of State. So how do
39:32
Speaker 2: you do that?
39:33
Speaker 1: He was close to making her vice president.
39:35
Speaker 2: That's right. So it reasons that this is something he
39:37
Speaker 2: would want to do. You're making a political decision about,
39:41
Speaker 2: is it better to pick someone that Mitch McConnell kind
39:44
Speaker 2: of sort of signs off on, enough to give you
39:46
Speaker 2: some handful of votes, or is Do you press the issue?
39:50
Speaker 2: And do you make the Republicans say? Because almost every
39:53
Speaker 2: single one of them is going to have to vote no.
39:59
Speaker 2: That is the situation we are in, is you're going
40:01
Speaker 2: to need to get 90% of Republicans to vote no
40:03
Speaker 2: to do it. I think it is in cases, particularly
40:06
Speaker 2: in Susan's case, and obviously with all of our biases
40:08
Speaker 2: that she's a friend of ours, that you should have
40:11
Speaker 2: that fight. Having that fight is the right thing to do.
40:14
Speaker 2: Because I think the political consequences of walking away from
40:16
Speaker 2: that fight And the governing consequences of walking away from
40:19
Speaker 2: that fight exceed the consequences of taking on that fight
40:25
Speaker 2: and losing it.
40:27
Speaker 4: I agree.
40:27
Speaker 1: And I think, look, Joe Biden has promised a cabinet
40:30
Speaker 1: that looks like America. And that means a cabinet that
40:35
Speaker 1: is diverse. That means a cabinet that does not just
40:38
Speaker 1: have moderates, but progressives as well. And so naturally, at
40:42
Speaker 1: some point, whether it's Susan or someone else, there's going
40:45
Speaker 1: to be someone that pisses off Republicans. So you're going
40:48
Speaker 1: to have to have one of these fights at some point.
40:50
Speaker 1: You might as well pick a few.
40:52
Speaker 2: And I think Susan is obviously one where you have,
40:54
Speaker 2: there's no question of qualification or anything like that.
40:56
Speaker 4: Yeah.
40:59
Speaker 1: So before we get to my interview with Reverend Warnock,
41:01
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about how Biden won Georgia
41:04
Speaker 1: and what that might tell us about how we can
41:06
Speaker 1: win these two runoffs in January. Nate Cohn at the
41:10
Speaker 1: New York Times said, just dug into the precinct level
41:13
Speaker 1: results and found that Biden's win was made possible by quote,
41:17
Speaker 1: huge gains among affluent college educated and older voters in
41:20
Speaker 1: the suburbs around Atlanta. He also said that while black
41:23
Speaker 1: turnout and white turnout increased, both the black and white
41:28
Speaker 1: shares of the electorate fell while the Hispanic and Asian
41:31
Speaker 1: share of the electorate rose by a few points. He
41:34
Speaker 1: also noted that unknown race also rose by a few
41:37
Speaker 1: points as a share of the electorate. So just to, uh,
41:40
Speaker 1: get that all out there. So Dan, was there anything
41:42
Speaker 1: in Nate's analysis that was surprising to you?
41:45
Speaker 2: I mean, on its face, when you say that the
41:51
Speaker 2: black share of the electorate is at its lowest level
41:56
Speaker 2: in a number of elections, that feels discordant from the
42:03
Speaker 2: conversation that has been happening for the last couple of
42:05
Speaker 2: weeks about how the work of Stacey Abrams and Latasha
42:09
Speaker 2: Brown and New Georgia Proctor and everyone else delivered the election.
42:13
Speaker 2: And while those things seem in conflict, they aren't actually because,
42:20
Speaker 2: as you point out, turnout was up. It wasn't up
42:22
Speaker 2: as high as other groups in the electorate, but it
42:26
Speaker 2: was up and that was the difference, right? And that
42:28
Speaker 2: is a group that was organized and registered and In
42:32
Speaker 2: the face of overwhelming voter suppression from a secretary of state,
42:37
Speaker 2: then turned governor, who voter suppression is his platform, right?
42:42
Speaker 2: That is his reason for being. I don't want to
42:44
Speaker 2: say this is surprising, but once again, the quote unquote
42:48
Speaker 2: suburbs and the Democratic surge in the suburbs and the
42:51
Speaker 2: post-Trump realignment are what delivered a state. And the surprising
42:54
Speaker 2: part may be not what is in the details, but
42:57
Speaker 2: it's the fact that Georgia fell before North Carolina or
42:59
Speaker 2: Florida fell. in the sort of shift of the sunbelt.
43:02
Speaker 2: I think that is interesting.
43:05
Speaker 1: So a few things, the black share of the electorate
43:08
Speaker 1: falling slightly, um, is only surprising until you then see
43:16
Speaker 1: that the white share of the electorate also fell. That
43:19
Speaker 1: was the, that's the whole thing. It's like, so the,
43:22
Speaker 1: and the reason that happened is because the biggest surge
43:24
Speaker 1: in terms of increasing your share of the electorate was
43:27
Speaker 1: among Hispanic and Asian voters. And again, Lauren Gorwargo runs
43:31
Speaker 1: Fair Fight, works with Stacey Abrams very closely. She pointed
43:34
Speaker 1: this out too. The fact that unknown race rose by
43:38
Speaker 1: a few points as a share of the electorate, and
43:40
Speaker 1: that could be a mix of black voters, Hispanic voters,
43:43
Speaker 1: Asian voters, some combination. The fact that that rose, when
43:46
Speaker 1: you put together unknown race rising as a share of
43:49
Speaker 1: the electorate, Hispanic and Asians increasing as a share of
43:53
Speaker 1: the electorate, then it is a story of non-white voters
43:58
Speaker 1: rising registering and turning out in massive numbers and actually
44:02
Speaker 1: increasing their share of the electorate vis-a-vis white voters. And
44:05
Speaker 1: the white share of the electorate in Georgia has been
44:07
Speaker 1: falling steadily from election to election to election. So I
44:10
Speaker 1: do think that's like an important part of the analysis.
44:12
Speaker 1: The other part, you should all read Perry Bacon at
44:15
Speaker 1: FiveThirtyEight did a great analysis of Georgia as well on FiveThirtyEight. And,
44:19
Speaker 1: you know, he talked about how this is a story
44:20
Speaker 1: about Atlanta and its suburbs turning really blue. And then
44:25
Speaker 1: the exurbs beyond those suburbs are which are traditionally Republican strongholds,
44:30
Speaker 1: turning purple. So Joe Biden lost by less in some
44:33
Speaker 1: of those Republican strongholds and then just crushed it in
44:36
Speaker 1: Atlanta and the suburbs. And the other thing is we
44:40
Speaker 1: think about, and we talk about this a lot in
44:42
Speaker 1: The Wilderness, the Southwest episode of The Wilderness this season.
44:45
Speaker 1: Go check it out. Everything holds up quite well. People
44:48
Speaker 1: think about the suburbs still as a bunch of white
44:51
Speaker 1: middle-class people. And those are not the suburbs. Those are
44:53
Speaker 1: especially not the suburbs around Atlanta right now. The suburbs
44:57
Speaker 1: are incredibly diverse. Half or less than half the population
45:00
Speaker 1: in the suburbs around Atlanta is white. There is an
45:04
Speaker 1: increasing Asian population, Hispanic, black population. So the truth about
45:09
Speaker 1: what happened is always much more complex than a lot
45:11
Speaker 1: of these takes. And I do think that when you
45:13
Speaker 1: look at what happened in Georgia, it is a story
45:15
Speaker 1: of these growing suburbs becoming more democratic. Now the question
45:21
Speaker 1: is why, right? So when we know how, we know
45:24
Speaker 1: like what the, what changed in Georgia to deliver Joe
45:28
Speaker 1: Biden the win, but why did he win over these
45:32
Speaker 1: groups of voters? Why did he win this state? What
45:34
Speaker 1: do we know about that from both Nate's analysis, Perry's
45:37
Speaker 1: analysis and others?
45:38
Speaker 2: Was that Joe Biden benefited from, this is related, I
45:43
Speaker 2: think in part to the ex-urban areas becoming more purple
45:46
Speaker 2: or Joe Biden benefited in part from some more conservative voters,
45:51
Speaker 2: former Republicans, soft Republicans, independents, who do not like Donald Trump,
45:57
Speaker 2: which is why Joe Biden, both in Georgia and frankly,
45:59
Speaker 2: in many places in the country, ran ahead of other Democrats.
46:02
Speaker 2: That's the thing that we really have to explore going
46:05
Speaker 2: forward is, are those voters available to Democrats not named
46:10
Speaker 2: Joe Biden, not running against someone named Donald Trump, right?
46:14
Speaker 2: Is Georgia Virginia? or is Georgia North Carolina. So Virginia
46:19
Speaker 2: went blue in 2008 and just kept going blue to
46:22
Speaker 2: the point it's not even a competitive state anymore. North
46:24
Speaker 2: Carolina went blue in 2008. Barack Obama, like Joe Biden,
46:28
Speaker 2: benefited in North Carolina around the country from a number
46:31
Speaker 2: of more conservative voters who were fed up with George Bush,
46:35
Speaker 2: the Iraq War, Katrina, et cetera. And then it receded
46:38
Speaker 2: back to the mean and Democrats have not won it
46:43
Speaker 2: at the presidential level since. And it's sort of been
46:45
Speaker 2: actually status quo. It has not been in this inexorable
46:48
Speaker 2: trend blue. Which way does Georgia go is a really
46:51
Speaker 2: interesting one. Now, that is not just about whether these
46:55
Speaker 2: slightly more conservative voters can become Democrats outside of this election.
46:59
Speaker 2: It's also about whether you get even more Black turnout
47:01
Speaker 2: coming forward. You get more young people turnout or get
47:03
Speaker 2: more Latino turnout. But that is sort of the The issue,
47:08
Speaker 2: and it's the thing that gives us some great excitement
47:12
Speaker 2: that Georgia is now a purple state, but is it
47:14
Speaker 2: purple for a long period of time or is it
47:15
Speaker 2: purple trending blue quickly? And that we don't know the
47:18
Speaker 2: answer to yet.
47:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, there's two main sources of Joe Biden's
47:22
Speaker 1: victory in the state. One is what you mentioned, vote switchers,
47:25
Speaker 1: people who voted for Trump were Republicans and now they
47:27
Speaker 1: vote Democrats. The other source of victory is the demographic
47:30
Speaker 1: change in the electorate and the higher participation of some
47:33
Speaker 1: of the fastest growing groups in the electorate as well.
47:36
Speaker 1: So what does that mean? A lot of people have
47:38
Speaker 1: moved to Atlanta and the suburbs over the last several decades.
47:42
Speaker 1: Those people are both more diverse and more democratic leaning.
47:46
Speaker 1: And so some of the victory is just because the
47:48
Speaker 1: state itself, the population of the state has changed, particularly
47:53
Speaker 1: in Atlanta and the suburbs as more younger people move,
47:57
Speaker 1: as more liberals move, as more people of color move
48:00
Speaker 1: to the state. Once those people move, groups like Stacey
48:03
Speaker 1: Abrams groups, like worked really, really hard to register those
48:07
Speaker 1: new voters, turn out those new voters, register voters who
48:11
Speaker 1: have been in Georgia for a long time and haven't
48:13
Speaker 1: really voted that much, make sure they turn out. So
48:15
Speaker 1: that's like one part of the story. And then the
48:17
Speaker 1: other part of the story is a bunch of Trump
48:20
Speaker 1: Republican voters who decided to change sides. And I think
48:22
Speaker 1: that the key is, we don't know exactly the proportions
48:26
Speaker 1: of each of those sources of victory, but like that
48:29
Speaker 1: is going to be the question going forward is like,
48:31
Speaker 1: how do you keep, how do you both keep the
48:33
Speaker 1: vote switchers to stay Democrat, but also how do you
48:38
Speaker 1: harness that demographic change, registering new voters and making sure
48:41
Speaker 1: they all turn out and you got, you have to
48:43
Speaker 1: do both. There is just, it's not a choice. And
48:46
Speaker 1: I think that's, I think that's probably the case in
48:48
Speaker 1: every single one of these Sunbelt states, right?
48:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. The story of how Biden won
48:55
Speaker 2: Georgia is very similar to how he won Pennsylvania, which
48:58
Speaker 2: is strong showing in the suburbs. And losing the ex-urban
49:04
Speaker 2: rural counties by a little bit less in a lot
49:06
Speaker 2: of places than Hillary Clinton did. And that adds up
49:09
Speaker 2: to a win. The thing that's interesting about Georgia and Arizona,
49:12
Speaker 2: very similar, is they have what we used to refer
49:15
Speaker 2: to in the old days as an elastic electorate. There
49:17
Speaker 2: are a lot of unregistered. potential Democratic voters to go get.
49:23
Speaker 2: There are also, to be clear, a bunch of unregistered,
49:26
Speaker 2: likely Republican voters for Republicans to go get. But some states,
49:30
Speaker 2: particularly the ones in the Midwest, have kind of a
49:32
Speaker 2: locked-in electorate. There's not a lot of population growth, not
49:35
Speaker 2: a lot of in-state migration. They've been battleground states forever,
49:38
Speaker 2: so they've been sort of registered to death. There aren't
49:41
Speaker 2: these huge pockets like there are in Georgia and Arizona,
49:45
Speaker 2: North Carolina. Texas, obviously, is like this. How Democrats figure
49:49
Speaker 2: out the ability to add new likely Democratic voters to
49:54
Speaker 2: the rolls, keep turnout among our base constituency up, and
49:57
Speaker 2: hold on to some of these vote switchers is what
49:58
Speaker 2: is ultimately going to determine our ability to not just
50:02
Speaker 2: win national popular vote elections, because we're going to do
50:04
Speaker 2: that for a very long time, I believe. It's how
50:07
Speaker 2: are we going to be able to do that in
50:08
Speaker 2: ways that help us win both tough electoral college victories
50:12
Speaker 2: and win Senate seats, which is even harder in some
50:16
Speaker 2: of these states than winning at the presidential level, as
50:18
Speaker 2: we know from the performance up and down the ballot.
50:22
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of which, in the most immediate sense, what,
50:24
Speaker 1: if anything, do these analyses of Georgia and how Biden
50:28
Speaker 1: won tell us about how to win the Georgia runoffs?
50:32
Speaker 2: You know, I read Nate's article, which is excellent. I
50:35
Speaker 2: read Perry's article that's excellent. They don't The answer is
50:39
Speaker 2: sort of is everything and nothing, right? Like the formula
50:42
Speaker 2: for winning these is the same formula everywhere, which is
50:47
Speaker 2: turn out your voters and try to get as many
50:50
Speaker 2: people in the middle as you can. It's an and-both strategy.
50:53
Speaker 2: What is very clear from looking at what happened on
50:55
Speaker 2: Election Day in 2020 is they are winnable. They are
50:58
Speaker 2: very winnable. We can absolutely do it. There is this
51:02
Speaker 2: sense that Democrats are bad at runoffs strictly in Georgia.
51:06
Speaker 2: There is a history of this in 2008 and 1992,
51:08
Speaker 2: where after Democratic victories, we lost runoffs in Georgia. despite
51:13
Speaker 2: having good election days before that. I think that is
51:16
Speaker 2: different now. And one of like a question we're going
51:19
Speaker 2: to see, we don't know the answer to this yet,
51:21
Speaker 2: but some of the shift within the Democratic base to
51:24
Speaker 2: include more college educated suburban voters possibly could mean that
51:29
Speaker 2: we become a party that includes more reliable voters than
51:34
Speaker 2: it used to. It used to be, you know, the
51:35
Speaker 2: entire thing was Democrats are better presidential years. We've been
51:38
Speaker 2: a bit from mobilization. Republicans do better in midterms because
51:41
Speaker 2: they A higher percentage of their voters are reliable voters
51:44
Speaker 2: who vote in every election. There are just fewer of
51:46
Speaker 2: them overall. I think this election might have turned that
51:48
Speaker 2: on its head. The fact that we had such huge
51:50
Speaker 2: turnout in 2018 doesn't tell us exactly what will happen
51:54
Speaker 2: in 2022 because it was sort of a wave election.
51:55
Speaker 2: And we've seen that for Republicans in 2010, for Democrats
51:59
Speaker 2: in 2006. But I think there is a world in
52:02
Speaker 2: which those voters who helped deliver Georgia to Biden are
52:07
Speaker 2: more likely to vote in this runoff. than we otherwise
52:12
Speaker 2: would have assumed because it is a group of more
52:14
Speaker 2: reliable voters who are going to be more engaged with
52:16
Speaker 2: politics going forward than previously made up the Democratic base.
52:20
Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
52:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, because college-educated voters tend to be the highest propensity
52:25
Speaker 1: voters that turn out the most no matter what and
52:27
Speaker 1: turn out in off-year elections, in special elections, and in
52:31
Speaker 1: runoff elections, midterm elections as well. And so if we're
52:36
Speaker 1: if college educated voters used to be more Republican and
52:39
Speaker 1: now they're more Democrat, then the advantage moves to the Democrats, right?
52:43
Speaker 1: And lower propensity voters that tend to turn out in
52:45
Speaker 1: presidential elections are both non-college educated white voters and to
52:50
Speaker 1: an extent, black and Hispanic voters. So that's more even.
52:55
Speaker 1: But especially like, you know, college educated white, black and
52:58
Speaker 1: Hispanic voters do tend to turn out reliably in most
53:03
Speaker 1: of these elections. And so if, especially around college-educated white voters,
53:07
Speaker 1: which we used to lose, if we're winning them now,
53:09
Speaker 1: then it's a little bit better for us. But again,
53:11
Speaker 1: you know, we also had an election in Georgia in 2018,
53:16
Speaker 1: mainly because of voter suppression, which, you know, Brian Kemp
53:20
Speaker 1: narrowly won because he also got a lot of turnout
53:22
Speaker 1: among a lot of reliable voters for Republicans then, and
53:25
Speaker 1: that plus voter suppression got him that victory. So we
53:28
Speaker 1: should expect that a lot of these voters could still
53:31
Speaker 1: turn out, even if Donald Trump's not on the ticket,
53:33
Speaker 1: they turned out for Brian Kemp in 2018. Um, but
53:36
Speaker 1: we should also know that our votes are there. We
53:40
Speaker 1: just found out our votes are there because Joe Biden
53:41
Speaker 1: won them. And yes, there is a gap between Joe
53:44
Speaker 1: Biden's vote, uh, and John Ossoff's vote and, and, uh,
53:48
Speaker 1: the combined votes for on the democratic side and the
53:50
Speaker 1: Warnock race. There is a small gap and we have
53:52
Speaker 1: to figure out like How to close that gap, right?
53:55
Speaker 1: Are there people who voted for Joe Biden but also
53:58
Speaker 1: voted for Loeffler and Perdue? There are also probably a
54:02
Speaker 1: group of people who just voted in the presidential and
54:04
Speaker 1: didn't even vote down ballot. We know that because there
54:07
Speaker 1: were 45,000 more votes cast in the presidential than there
54:09
Speaker 1: were in the Senate races. So there's some combination of
54:12
Speaker 1: things going on there that I think Democratic organizers and
54:15
Speaker 1: progressive organizers on the ground in Georgia will probably be
54:17
Speaker 1: trying to go figure out and go get those votes
54:21
Speaker 1: that Biden got.
54:22
Speaker 4: Yeah.
54:22
Speaker 2: I mean they are winnable and it is basically– the
54:26
Speaker 2: only thing you can do in this situation from our
54:29
Speaker 2: perspective is ensure the campaigns have the resources to do it.
54:32
Speaker 2: They're all raising a lot of money and these are
54:34
Speaker 2: going to be very, very expensive, which is why it's
54:36
Speaker 2: important that Ossoff and Warnock campaigns have the resources they
54:40
Speaker 2: need because the Republican special interests understand what is at
54:43
Speaker 2: stake here, right? Their tax rates are at stake, right?
54:45
Speaker 2: They do not want to pay more taxes.
54:47
Speaker 1: Did you see that Karl Rove said this? Karl Rove
54:50
Speaker 1: told a donor who was complaining about spending all this
54:53
Speaker 1: money on Georgia, open your pocketbook now to protect your
54:57
Speaker 1: pocketbook later.
54:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a business expense.
54:59
Speaker 1: That's what Karl Rove said. It's a strategy.
55:01
Speaker 2: This is at the heart of Republican fundraising and spending.
55:06
Speaker 2: It's a business expense. They are paying to keep themselves
55:09
Speaker 2: richer and more profitable and corporations. So they're going to
55:13
Speaker 2: need the resources to turn out our voters. And if
55:14
Speaker 2: we do that, we have a shot to do this.
55:16
Speaker 2: What is interesting about this one, which makes it not
55:18
Speaker 2: a perfect test case for what comes down the line,
55:21
Speaker 2: is this is a, I mean, it's a unicorn event
55:26
Speaker 2: of two runoffs happening at the same time that have
55:30
Speaker 2: control of the Senate. And these campaigns, there's going to
55:34
Speaker 2: be hundreds of millions of dollars spent between now and
55:36
Speaker 2: the runoff. Guaranteed. And so people are not going to be,
55:40
Speaker 2: a lot of times what happens in the runoff is
55:41
Speaker 2: people are unaware it's happening, so they don't vote. People
55:44
Speaker 2: are going to have many opportunities that they have access
55:46
Speaker 2: to a television to know when this runoff is happening.
55:49
Speaker 4: Yeah. Okay.
55:50
Speaker 1: Well, I will talk to one of the candidates involved
55:52
Speaker 1: in that runoff, Reverend Raphael Warnock, after the break.
55:55
Speaker 2: Oh, so it's not Kelly Loeffler? I thought it was
55:57
Speaker 2: going to be Loeffler.
55:58
Speaker 4: Okay.
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Speaker 1: Reverend Raphael Warnock is the Democratic nominee in Georgia's special
56:10
Speaker 1: election Senate runoff on January 5th. Welcome to the show.
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Speaker 4: Thank you. Great to be here with you.
56:17
Speaker 1: So you were chosen 15 years ago as the senior
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Speaker 1: pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, a successor to Dr. Martin
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Speaker 1: Luther King Jr. How did you go from that to
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Speaker 1: getting involved in this crazy business?
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Speaker 4: Well, listen, it's great to be here with you. Um,
56:34
Speaker 4: I came to the Ebenezer Baptist Church, as you point out,
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Speaker 4: 15 years ago. And every year since I came to
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Speaker 4: that pulpit, I've had the honor of being engaged with
56:46
Speaker 4: the issues that I think matter. Fighting for voting rights,
56:54
Speaker 4: working to make sure people have access to affordable health care,
56:57
Speaker 4: fighting for the dignity of workers. One of the fun
56:59
Speaker 4: things about being a pastor is is that I get
57:03
Speaker 4: to spend my time really focused on things I would
57:06
Speaker 4: be doing anyway, and I'm able to really commit my
57:10
Speaker 4: life to service. And so this step into a race
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Speaker 4: for the United States Senate, it may seem a little
57:15
Speaker 4: strange to some, but for me, it's not a huge leap.
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Speaker 4: It is a continuation of my lifelong commitment to service.
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Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about how your faith
57:26
Speaker 1: informs your activism?
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Speaker 4: Sure. Everything that I've tried to do, is an expression
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Speaker 4: of my faith. And it's as simple for me as
57:39
Speaker 4: the gospel, love your neighbor as yourself. One of my
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Speaker 4: favorite passages is the one in which Jesus is quoting
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Speaker 4: Isaiah or reading from the book of Isaiah when he
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Speaker 4: says that the spirit of the Lord is upon me
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Speaker 4: because he has anointed me to preach good news to
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Speaker 4: the poor, to open the eyes of the blind. to
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Speaker 4: set the captives free, to preach the year of the
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Speaker 4: Lord's favor or the year of the Lord's freedom. And
58:08
Speaker 4: so that's what my ministry has been about. And when
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Speaker 4: I say my faith informs my work in the campaign,
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Speaker 4: I don't mean that in any narrow sectarian way. I
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Speaker 4: believe God has worshiped in many houses known by many names.
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Speaker 4: And I have deep respect for those who claim no
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Speaker 4: faith tradition at all. but certainly work to act as
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Speaker 4: people of moral courage and integrity in the world. What
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Speaker 4: I mean is that my values are derived from my faith.
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Speaker 4: And these are values that I think show up in
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Speaker 4: all of the great traditions, moral and religious, justice, compassion, empathy,
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Speaker 4: love of neighbor. I think that there is some expression
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Speaker 4: of this basic idea across faith traditions, do unto others
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Speaker 4: as you would have them do unto you. And so
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Speaker 4: my work in this sphere is about making sure that
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Speaker 4: that shows up in our public policy. And right now,
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Speaker 4: for me, that means that in the richest nation in
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Speaker 4: the world, everybody ought to have access to affordable health care.
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Speaker 4: We ought not call essential workers essential workers without paying
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Speaker 4: them an essential wage, providing for them essential benefits. And
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Speaker 4: young people, regardless of their zip code, ought to have
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Speaker 4: access to a good quality education, the enrichment of their
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Speaker 4: young minds in such a way that they can become
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Speaker 4: prosperous and productive members of society. That's the work I've
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Speaker 4: been doing before I was running. And what I hope
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Speaker 4: to do now is to bring those same values to
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Speaker 4: the United States Senate.
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Speaker 1: So a lot of reporters and data nerds are trying
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Speaker 1: to figure out how Joe Biden won Georgia and how
1:00:01
Speaker 1: the state may be on the cusp of electing two
1:00:04
Speaker 1: Democratic senators. What's your take on what happened in the
1:00:08
Speaker 1: general election and what lessons are you carrying with you
1:00:11
Speaker 1: into the runoff?
1:00:13
Speaker 4: Well, what people need to understand is that it didn't
1:00:15
Speaker 4: just happen automatically in the general election. That was the
1:00:21
Speaker 4: fruit of years of labor. We've been working hard in
1:00:25
Speaker 4: this state for about a decade because we understand that
1:00:33
Speaker 4: you have to work hard to give people an opportunity
1:00:38
Speaker 4: to have their voices heard in their own democracy. And
1:00:42
Speaker 4: so over the last several years, I've been working with
1:00:44
Speaker 4: Stacey Abrams and others. We've registered hundreds of thousands of
1:00:49
Speaker 4: new voters in this state. I was chairman of the
1:00:52
Speaker 4: board of the New Georgia Project. And prior to that,
1:00:55
Speaker 4: I was its spokesperson. Since 2014, that organization registered 400,000
1:01:01
Speaker 4: new voters in the state of Georgia. And so that
1:01:06
Speaker 4: kind of on the ground grassroots outreach, voter mobilization, coupled
1:01:13
Speaker 4: with The emergence of great candidates who put forth a
1:01:19
Speaker 4: message that allows voters to see their own stories, their
1:01:23
Speaker 4: own concerns, is what is creating this exciting moment in Georgia.
1:01:28
Speaker 4: And so, you know, Secretary Clinton did not win Georgia, obviously,
1:01:35
Speaker 4: in 2016. but her race coupled with the work we
1:01:40
Speaker 4: were already doing began to transform the electoral dynamics on
1:01:45
Speaker 4: the ground to decrease the Republican majority. So that in 2017,
1:01:51
Speaker 4: John Ossoff ran, didn't win the congressional district that he
1:01:57
Speaker 4: was running for, but again, began to close the gap
1:02:02
Speaker 4: so that when Lucy McBath ran the following year in 2018, Now,
1:02:08
Speaker 4: Congresswoman McBath was able to win a seat held not
1:02:12
Speaker 4: long ago by Newt Gingrich. And this was a part
1:02:15
Speaker 4: of the wave that we saw in Stacey Abrams' amazing
1:02:19
Speaker 4: and historic run in 2018. And so Stacey Abrams in
1:02:21
Speaker 4: 2018 came within 55,000 votes of winning the gubernatorial seat.
1:02:34
Speaker 4: while running against a man who was both her opponent
1:02:37
Speaker 4: on the field and the umpire, calling balls and strikes.
1:02:42
Speaker 4: And with his thumb firmly on the scale, he barely
1:02:46
Speaker 4: slipped by her. And the good news is that since 2018,
1:02:54
Speaker 4: we've registered in this state 1,000 new voters. 49% of
1:02:59
Speaker 4: them are people of color. 45% of them are under 30.
1:03:03
Speaker 4: And so when you see Georgia, you see the new South.
1:03:10
Speaker 4: It is more diverse. It is more inclusive. It is
1:03:15
Speaker 4: more forward-looking and hopeful. It grasps toward the future rather
1:03:21
Speaker 4: than imagining some mythic past. And Georgia is the tip
1:03:31
Speaker 4: of the spear.
1:03:33
Speaker 1: So control of the U.S. Senate and Joe Biden's entire
1:03:36
Speaker 1: legislative agenda rests on the outcome of your race and
1:03:39
Speaker 1: John Ossoff's race. No pressure. But I'm curious as to
1:03:43
Speaker 1: how you're framing the stakes of this race to the
1:03:45
Speaker 1: people of Georgia. How much of your pitch is about
1:03:47
Speaker 1: the national implications of what will happen?
1:03:50
Speaker 4: Well, it's primarily about what's going on on the ground
1:03:52
Speaker 4: here in Georgia. I mean, the pundits are talking about
1:03:57
Speaker 4: the politics because that's what pundits do. But the people
1:04:00
Speaker 4: are talking about their problems. As I move all across
1:04:04
Speaker 4: the state, folks in Georgia are concerned about whether or
1:04:09
Speaker 4: not they're going to be able to continue to have
1:04:11
Speaker 4: health care if they have a pre-existing condition. We've got 1.8
1:04:14
Speaker 4: million Georgians in this state who have pre-existing conditions, and
1:04:18
Speaker 4: we should make sure that that word never becomes just
1:04:21
Speaker 4: one more word. phrase in our political lexicon. When we
1:04:28
Speaker 4: say pre-existing conditions, we're talking about people who have hypertension, diabetes,
1:04:34
Speaker 4: who've had a stroke or a heart attack. We're talking
1:04:37
Speaker 4: about cancer survivors. Heck, we're talking about COVID-19 survivors. We're
1:04:43
Speaker 4: talking about almost anybody. Because the fact is, you may
1:04:46
Speaker 4: not have a pre-existing condition, but there are many circumstances
1:04:50
Speaker 4: under which tomorrow your situation would be different. And if
1:04:54
Speaker 4: the Republicans have their way, if Kelly Loeffler has her way,
1:04:58
Speaker 4: insurance companies will be able to deny you coverage if
1:05:01
Speaker 4: you have a pre-existing condition. And because we've hammered them
1:05:05
Speaker 4: so much on this question, she rolled out a fake
1:05:10
Speaker 4: plan a few days ago claiming that it covers pre-existing conditions.
1:05:13
Speaker 4: A pronouncement is not a plan. If you read through
1:05:16
Speaker 4: the plan, you will see that there are loopholes in
1:05:19
Speaker 4: it big enough to drive through a Mack truck. which
1:05:23
Speaker 4: allow the insurance companies to get off the hook and
1:05:26
Speaker 4: deny people coverage. I think that would be terrible at
1:05:28
Speaker 4: any time, but it is especially terrible during a pandemic.
1:05:32
Speaker 4: Who gets rid of people's health care in the middle
1:05:35
Speaker 4: of a pandemic? She thinks that's right. I think it's wrong.
1:05:38
Speaker 4: And the people of Georgia have a choice to make.
1:05:42
Speaker 1: So Donald Trump is still trying to steal this election.
1:05:46
Speaker 1: David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler have been openly supportive of
1:05:49
Speaker 1: his efforts. They've attacked the Republican secretary of state who
1:05:52
Speaker 1: is now getting death threats for not go along with
1:05:54
Speaker 1: their scheme. Is this part of your message to voters?
1:05:57
Speaker 1: Do you think Donald Trump's attempted coup here should be
1:06:00
Speaker 1: an issue in this campaign? How do you see this?
1:06:03
Speaker 4: Honestly, I'm tired of talking about him. Me too. He's
1:06:07
Speaker 4: on his way out, whether he recognizes it or not.
1:06:11
Speaker 4: What's unfortunate is that Kelly Loeffler has sided with him
1:06:17
Speaker 4: rather than the people of Georgia. But we shouldn't be
1:06:20
Speaker 4: surprised because she told us that's who she's there to represent.
1:06:23
Speaker 4: She has said over and over again, I'm 100% Trump. Now,
1:06:29
Speaker 4: as I talk about that, I'm really not talking so
1:06:32
Speaker 4: much about whether or not you support him. I want
1:06:35
Speaker 4: the people of Georgia, the people of America to think
1:06:38
Speaker 4: about that. A sitting United States Senator who is sent
1:06:43
Speaker 4: there to represent the people of her state is confused.
1:06:47
Speaker 4: She thinks she's there to represent the president. And she
1:06:53
Speaker 4: says 100%, which is such a bizarre thing for someone
1:06:57
Speaker 4: to say about anyone. Heck, I disagree with myself every
1:07:01
Speaker 4: now and then. I don't have a 100% record of
1:07:04
Speaker 4: agreement with me. I think people send senators to the
1:07:10
Speaker 4: Senate to represent them and to represent their interests. And
1:07:13
Speaker 4: I think it's unfortunate that she has joined in this
1:07:20
Speaker 4: very raw and crude attempt to diminish the voices of
1:07:25
Speaker 4: Georgians and to undermine confidence and trust in our electoral process,
1:07:34
Speaker 4: which is just basic to our democracy. It will not stand,
1:07:39
Speaker 4: and I think the people of Georgia are going to
1:07:41
Speaker 4: rise up come January 5th and reject it wholesale.
1:07:46
Speaker 1: So outside Republican groups are spending untold amounts of money
1:07:50
Speaker 1: on attack ads, mainly against you, which you anticipated with
1:07:54
Speaker 1: a very clever and heartwarming ad predicting that they'll say
1:07:57
Speaker 1: you hate puppies. I love that ad. But Republicans, national Republicans,
1:08:01
Speaker 1: not just Loeffler, they're going all in now on attacking
1:08:04
Speaker 1: your faith, trying to say you don't support our military
1:08:07
Speaker 1: because you quoted the Sermon on the Mount. They're trying
1:08:09
Speaker 1: to say you hate Israel because you criticize the Israeli government.
1:08:12
Speaker 1: They even dragged Reverend Wright into this, which is real
1:08:15
Speaker 1: PTSD for me. Having worked on the Obama campaign, how
1:08:19
Speaker 1: are you planning on responding to these attacks, which are
1:08:23
Speaker 1: only going to get worse over the next month?
1:08:25
Speaker 4: Well, I think the attacks show how desperate they are.
1:08:28
Speaker 4: I mean, look, I'm the challenger. She's the one who
1:08:32
Speaker 4: has been in the Senate for 10 months. And I
1:08:35
Speaker 4: think it's so sad that a sitting United States senator
1:08:39
Speaker 4: clearly doesn't have anything good to say about herself. and
1:08:43
Speaker 4: why she should stay there, and what she's been doing
1:08:47
Speaker 4: for the people of Georgia. She's spending her time attacking me,
1:08:51
Speaker 4: adding a kind of toxicity to this race. And I
1:08:55
Speaker 4: think that the people of Georgia are already, like people
1:09:00
Speaker 4: all over this country, suffocating in the fall of a
1:09:05
Speaker 4: once in a century pandemic and economic turndown, the likes
1:09:09
Speaker 4: of which we have not seen since the Great Recession.
1:09:14
Speaker 4: We've got big problems that we need to address in
1:09:17
Speaker 4: this country. And again, I think they're going to reject
1:09:22
Speaker 4: the politics of distraction and division. People who have no vision,
1:09:27
Speaker 4: traffic and division. Kelly Loeffler knows she can't lead us,
1:09:30
Speaker 4: and so she's trying to divide us. Here's what I'm
1:09:33
Speaker 4: going to do. I'm going to stay focused on the
1:09:36
Speaker 4: young man that I ran into recently down in Columbus, Georgia,
1:09:42
Speaker 4: Tony Hill, who He's a relatively young man, but he
1:09:47
Speaker 4: suffers from congenital heart issues. And he had to get
1:09:52
Speaker 4: an artificial heart. And for him, this debate about health
1:09:55
Speaker 4: care and getting rid of health care is not a
1:09:58
Speaker 4: political debate. It's a death sentence. I'm going to be
1:10:02
Speaker 4: thinking about the folks in Cuthbert, Georgia, that I ran
1:10:05
Speaker 4: into a few weeks ago, who, in the middle of
1:10:08
Speaker 4: a pandemic, watched the hospital, the only hospital in their area, close.
1:10:15
Speaker 4: And as that hospital shuttered its doors, that dealt an
1:10:20
Speaker 4: assault not only on the rural health care system in
1:10:23
Speaker 4: that area, but it means jobs were taken away. I'm
1:10:28
Speaker 4: going to be focused on them. If money could buy
1:10:32
Speaker 4: this election, could buy this seat, Kelly Loeffler, the richest
1:10:36
Speaker 4: member of Congress, whose family literally owns the New York
1:10:40
Speaker 4: Stock Exchange, and that's not a figure of speech. It
1:10:44
Speaker 4: is the actual literal truth. She would have bought this.
1:10:48
Speaker 4: She would own the seat by now if she could
1:10:51
Speaker 4: buy it. We will be outspent, or she's outspending me
1:10:58
Speaker 4: right now. But I intend to do what I've spent
1:11:01
Speaker 4: my life doing, and that is speaking truth. And I
1:11:05
Speaker 4: believe that truth is its own power.
1:11:08
Speaker 1: So you put out an ad of your own a
1:11:10
Speaker 1: while ago about how racial justice issues aren't theoretical for you.
1:11:14
Speaker 1: You know, it got into how you were accused of
1:11:15
Speaker 1: shoplifting and dragged out of a store as a kid
1:11:18
Speaker 1: just because you had your hands in your pockets. How
1:11:20
Speaker 1: much progress on race do you think we've made as
1:11:24
Speaker 1: a country since you were a kid? And how do
1:11:27
Speaker 1: we make more at a time of such polarization in
1:11:30
Speaker 1: this country?
1:11:33
Speaker 4: There's no question that we have made progress on the
1:11:36
Speaker 4: question of race. in our country. Look, I'm a kid
1:11:42
Speaker 4: who grew up in public housing. One of 12 children
1:11:48
Speaker 4: in my family, I'm number 11 and the first college graduate.
1:11:54
Speaker 4: I know something about life's challenges. I know what it's
1:11:58
Speaker 4: like to experience racial profiling, to be singled out, not
1:12:05
Speaker 4: only in a grocery store, but in a classroom. And
1:12:09
Speaker 4: yet I was able to navigate all of that because
1:12:15
Speaker 4: my community embraced me and reminded me that I'm a
1:12:18
Speaker 4: child of God. I think my parents poured something in me,
1:12:22
Speaker 4: a kind of love of community and a kind of
1:12:27
Speaker 4: deep self-regard that frankly served as a kind of vaccine
1:12:34
Speaker 4: against the worst ravages of racism. And because they, in
1:12:39
Speaker 4: some sense, inoculated me against self-hatred, I was able to
1:12:45
Speaker 4: go on, earn four degrees, become the pastor of Ebenezer
1:12:49
Speaker 4: Baptist Church, the spiritual home of Martin Luther King Jr.
1:12:54
Speaker 4: And now I'm running for the United States Senate against
1:12:57
Speaker 4: the wealthiest member of Congress whose family literally owns the
1:13:01
Speaker 4: New York Stock Exchange. Only in America is my story
1:13:06
Speaker 4: even possible. So that represents progress. The American dream is
1:13:11
Speaker 4: alive and well, but it is slipping away from far
1:13:15
Speaker 4: too many people. The divide between the haves and the
1:13:18
Speaker 4: have-nots is a growing chasm. And Black people feel it.
1:13:24
Speaker 4: Brown people feel it. But you know what? Poor white
1:13:27
Speaker 4: people in the rural areas of North Georgia and across
1:13:32
Speaker 4: this state, they feel it too. opponents are hoping to
1:13:36
Speaker 4: do is to appeal to identity politics rather than the
1:13:41
Speaker 4: politics of progress. I intend to represent all the people
1:13:46
Speaker 4: to put forward a kind of public policy that raises
1:13:50
Speaker 4: all votes, that is honest about the complicated story of America,
1:13:54
Speaker 4: and yet embraces America because we know that the great
1:13:56
Speaker 4: thing about this country is that for all of its
1:13:58
Speaker 4: flaws and challenges, we always have a path to make
1:14:01
Speaker 4: the country greater.
1:14:02
Speaker 1: Well said, Reverend Warnock. Thank you so much for joining us.
1:14:05
Speaker 1: Good luck to you out on the campaign trail, and
1:14:08
Speaker 1: we'll see you soon.
1:14:09
Speaker 4: Take care. Thank you. Good to be with you.
1:14:16
Speaker 1: Thanks to Reverend Warnock for joining us today, and I
1:14:18
Speaker 1: hope you all have a great weekend. We'll talk to
1:14:19
Speaker 1: you next week.
1:14:20
Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
1:14:25
Speaker 1: Hot Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
1:14:29
Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller.
1:14:33
Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
1:14:36
Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
1:14:40
Speaker 1: Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support. And to
1:14:43
Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
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Speaker 1: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
1:14:50
Speaker 1: every week.