No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Republicans' secret PowerPoint to subvert US democracy exposed

Episode Date: December 12, 2021

A PowerPoint document that circulated among Trump administration officials outlining their plan to overthrow American democracy has been handed over to the January 6 Committee, followed by a muted response from the media and Democrats. Brian interviews EPA administrator Michael Regan about how he’s insulating the department from the possibility of another administration that’s hostile to its mission and whether the EPA is doing enough to combat climate change as we continue to feel its impacts. And National Correspondent for the Washington Post, Philip Bump, joins to discuss new COVID data now showing disproportionate impacts in Trump-voting counties.Donate to the "Don't Be A Mitch" fund: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dontbeamitchShop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about the PowerPoint document that circulated among Trump administration officials, outlining their plan to overthrow American democracy, and the muted response that came from it. I interview EPA administrator Michael Regan about how he's insulating the department from the possibility of another administration like Trump's that's hostile to its mission, and whether the EPA is doing enough to combat climate change as we continue to feel its impacts. And I'm joined by national correspondent for the Washington Post, Philip Bump, who discusses new COVID data now showing disproportionate impacts in Trump. voting counties. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So, um, the Trump team circulated a PowerPoint with step-by-step directions to stage a coup. So that's what we're going to talk about, because one of the two political parties in this country

plotted to overturn the election results, and they made a literal PowerPoint about it, and that's not great. But what's also not great is the fact that it doesn't seem to be breaking through in the media or within the Democratic Party. And so because it's just baked in that Republicans are anti-democratic, it's somehow not newsworthy when there's written proof of it. And so I'll dedicate my monologue to it.

The January 6th committee is now investigating a 36-page PowerPoint document titled Election Fraud, Foreign Interference, and Options for 6th January that essentially outlines the plan to overturn the 2020 election, including instructions for Trump to declare a national emergency

to delay the certification of the election results. The PowerPoint was circulated by a retired colonel Phil Waldron, who reportedly met with Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows eight to ten times. Meadows ultimately turned the PowerPoint over to the January 6th committee. Waldron also reportedly briefed a group of Republican senators on January 4th and another group of House Republicans on January 5th, which, of course, was the day before the insurrection on January 6th, and that was an event with the sole intent of pressuring Republican officials not to certify the election results.

Now, among the proposals listed in the PowerPoint were for Mike Pence to reject electors from states where fraud supposedly occurred, for Pence to replace those electors with Republican electors, or for Biden certification to be delayed, while U.S. Marshals and National Guard troops would secure ballots from so-called disputed states. So pretty grim, a plan circulating within the presidential cabinet, the author of which met with the chief of staff

reported eight to ten times, and yet here are some of the headlines that came from this. The New York Times headline was, January 6th Committee examines PowerPoint document sent to Meadows. The Washington Post was election denier who circulated January 6th PowerPoint says he met with Meadows at White House. Like, this was Trump's plan to overthrow American democracy. And the best we're getting right now to alert the American public is that an arbitrary PowerPoint is being examined. And look, it's not like we wouldn't have known about Trump's crimes without this PowerPoint.

And we have other evidence besides the PowerPoint that the president attempted to stage a coup. But that doesn't mean they get a pass when new evidence. damning evidence like this comes out. Like, I understand that none of this is new, right? I understand that we all know what the Trump team was trying to do, that they did it out there in the open in broad daylight, that it's not surprising. But an administration, a political party,

being so corrupt that their crimes aren't surprising, still doesn't mean that those crimes should be normalized. It doesn't mean that the justice system goes easier on them. It doesn't mean that we should report on it less. And yet, that's what's happening. And granted, we don't know what the January 6th committee and the DOJ are doing behind the, scenes, but look, I'll tell you this much. I wouldn't be surprised if nothing happened to Trump,

and I know that a lot of you wouldn't be either. And in terms of the media coverage, I actually get into this in my upcoming interview with Philip Bump, and I asked him specifically about why this kind of coverage isn't trumping all other coverage, and I think he gives a really thoughtful answer, but I would still contend that I've only seen a minimal amount of reporting on this, which is especially fucking sad considering the United States prides itself on being this this beacon of democracy for the world, and we're the closest we've been to that experiment ending, and it doesn't get as much coverage as a Christmas tree

outside of Fox News's headquarters burning down. And so I'm going to try to have a nuanced take here. On one hand, yeah, I have beef with that coverage that I truly don't believe acknowledges the gravity of what's happening. I think I've made that abundantly clear. On the other hand, there are no consequences for these kinds of actions, this kind of behavior. And so at the end of the day,

there really isn't a huge incentive structure to cover this because so what it's not like anyone has the balls to charge trump right like we have him on tape asking the georgia secretary of state to find 11,780 votes exactly one more vote than he was losing by nothing happened you steal a french fry from McDonald's and the cops will still come and arrest you there's a justice system for that but try to undermine a general election try to stage a coup to do it so shamelessly and overtly that you make a fucking PowerPoint presentation and the the guy's planning his next run for president. So I think that there's been a systemic failure from top to bottom. That's not to say that there still isn't time for accountability, and I know the justice system isn't exactly built for speed, but it's been pretty uninspiring watching this country navigate threats to its own existence. At the end of the day, it's not really even about the PowerPoint. The PowerPoint is ultimately further evidence of an effort to undermine an American election.

Yes, that already happened, but also that's still ongoing. That's the issue. We didn't defeat authoritarianism. We escaped by the skin of our teeth, thanks to just a very, very, very small handful of people like Mike Pence and Brad Raffisberger. People who've been duly purged and excommunicated from the party. Mike Pence has no future in the GOP.

And so the issue becomes what we're going to do about it now. Because as we speak, the guardrails that protected our democracy in 2020 are being systematically dismantled. There are voter suppression laws to depress turnout. There's partisan gerrymandering to predetermine Republican majority. and congressional districts.

There are provisions like the one in Georgia, allowing the Republican legislature to reorganize county election boards thanks to SB 202. In Spalding County, Georgia, three black Democrats on the board of elections were just replaced by three white Republicans. And the chairman of the board

has endorsed Trump's stolen election claims. Republicans have already quietly reorganized six boards of election in Georgia so far. All of that's to say that we are running out of time. And look, yes, we need to pass legislation. I am glad we passed the American Rescue Plan. know hundreds of thousands of lives to the fact that we were able to distribute those vaccines quickly. I'm glad that we passed infrastructure. That's a historic investment in this country.

I'm glad we're on the brink of passing the Build Back Better Act. I think it'll be the most transformative piece of legislation in our lifetimes. But unless we want these to be the last pieces of legislation that we pass for the foreseeable future, Democrats need to wake up and start focusing on voting rights with even half of the focus and attention that Republicans have while they're stripping those things away. Pretending that everything is fine isn't going to make this problem go away, it's only going to leave us woefully unprepared when its consequences are finally realized after the next election. And so I think that we need our elected officials, the media, everyone to acknowledge the existential threat that we're contending with right now,

and to not treat this like politics as usual, to not be afraid of our own shadows and to recognize that if we don't do something now, while we can, then we shouldn't act surprised when Republicans are successful in 2022 and 2024, where they failed in 2020. Next step is my interview with EPA Administrator Michael Regan. Today we've got the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Michael Regan, thanks so much for coming on. Hey, thank you, Brian, for having me. So I'll start with the most important question first.

We're obviously contending with a Republican Party that is unabashedly hostile to the environment, to the whole mission of the EPA. Now, we lost precious time dealing with climate change during the Trump administration. And that was time that we didn't have the luxury of losing. What's being done to insulate the EPA from another administration that might be just as hostile, if not more, to its mission? Well, you know, it's a great question. And the good news is the employees at EPA are so resilient. What we've done is we brought them back to the table.

They are a part of all of our decision making. We put policies in the place. There will be no political interference of this administration. We will follow the science. We will follow the law. I think that that gives them the courage to come back, stay at the table, and work as hard as possible to solidify as many laws and regulations as policies and policies as possible so that we don't see the loss of time and effort that we saw during the previous administration. What did the EPA look like after the Trump administration had basically had its way with it? Like what kind of an EPA did you take over? Well, Brian, it was one that really frustrated me. I spent 10 years at EPA before leaving and coming back. Those were my colleagues that were not treated well during the previous administration. And so it's no secret. The morale was extremely low. During the last year of the Trump administration, I was told that over a thousand EPA employees left their jobs. And so I inherited an EPA that had a smaller, workforce because people chose to leave. And many were demoralized. Thankfully, we've come in. We've held all-hand meetings. We've engaged the staff. We put policies in place. People are back

at the table and they're back at their jobs. And EPA is starting to hit its stride. Have a lot of the employees who had left during the previous administration, has there been kind of a resurgence of those employees having come back? You know, we have a great recruiting process in place. We're hopeful that we get some of the expertise that walked out of the door. But we've also got our eyes focused on the future and we're creating an opportunity where we can get a new young workforce to come in, pick up the ball where it was dropped and keep running down the field. I'm excited that we're going to have a mixture of experience and new energy at this new EPA. It looks like the Build Back

Act as it stands right now is going to be all carrots and no sticks, meaning credits for climate provisions, but not really any punishments for polluters. Is that approach enough, given the fact that our window to at least keep emissions less than 2 degrees Celsius is quickly closing? You know, I think the Build Back Better Act is just a part of a broader approach. You know, the president is focused on building a better America. So in that approach, you have the resources from the American Rescue Plan, you have resources from the bipartisan infrastructure bill, you have resources from the Build Back Better Act.

But you also have the core authority that agencies like mine have that will hold companies accountable. So, yes, you have a carrots and stick approach with this EPA because in this legislation, we are finally seeing the historic investment in resources needed to match our regulatory authority, to make the bad actors good, but also to give communities those resources that they need to move as quickly as possible while bringing investments off the sidelines. I would say it's a combination of having sticks already in hand and these new

legislative pieces being complementary carrots so that we get to the president's goal of building a better America. Great. Now, John Kerry had come out and said that the private sector can win the climate change battle for us. And yet critics are saying that we don't have time that we need the government to act quickly because there's a cliff. Like this isn't the normal evolutionary process

where fax machines eventually give way to computers when the market's ready. So how are you reconciling needing the private sector with still using the levers of the federal government to speed the process along? If we're going to meet the president's ambitious agenda, which we will, we'll need a public-private partnership. Our goal and my goal as EP administrator

is to provide the rules of the road, to provide the incentives, but as you mentioned earlier, to provide some sticks as well. I believe if we provide the private sector some certainty and the rules of engagement, then they will be able to do what they do best, which is be innovative, be entrepreneurial and spirit, leverage technology, bring the capital off the sideline. And so I think it will require our regulations encouraging the private sector to be their best selves. And I believe that we can

get it done in America. What does environmental justice mean? And why is that a priority for this administration? You know, environmental justice really is important to this administration and to me at EPA. It's not lost on me that I'm the first black man to lead the agency. And many of the people in the environmental justice community look like me and my son Matthew and my wife, Melvina. You know, environmental justice and equity is part of our DNA. And these are communities that have been disproportionately impacted for decades because of racist policies, because of lack of political representation. And so we're seeing a disproportionate impact to black and brown communities, low-income communities, tribal communities. And I believe that if we create regulations and policies

that address some of these social and environmental ills, it will serve as a rising tide in this country. Our goal should be to protect every single person in this country. And environmental justice and equity will give us the platform to do just that. Well, you know, in a similar vein, we've been hearing for years how many Americans don't have access to clean water, how they're contending with lead pipes. Can you speak on how this issue, the issue of clean drinking water

in the United States of America in the year 2021, how this disproportionately impacts minority communities and what's being done to rectify it from this administration? You know, we're laser focused on it. And I would say that climate change is exacerbated that situation. Many of these communities that have had poor water quality and poor water systems are seeing these systems be pounded by intense rainstorms and hurricanes. Listen, there is over $50 billion in the bipartisan infrastructure deal to be focused

specifically on water infrastructure, providing good quality drinking water to everyone in this country, but we're not going to put Humpty Dumpty back together the same way. We're going to be sure that we put together a more resilient water infrastructure that not only is stronger and more resilient, but will provide clean drinking water to everyone in this country. You know, there's over, there's approximately six to 10 million lead service lines still in use in this country. And we all know that lead is detrimental for our children in terms of impacting learning and impacting lots of qualities of life that they may want to experience. And so the president has charged us to replace all of the lead service lines or the lead

pipes that are connected to our homes, our schools, our daycares, our churches, and our hospitals. And so I'm excited that, yes, this lead problem and water quality problem is a problem for our environmental justice communities, but it reaches well beyond that. And the bipartisan infrastructure bill aims to begin to change that game. Now, that bill won't have all of the money needed to replace all of the lead pipes. What's being done to kind of to finish the job as we continue, you know, as now we begin to embark on the fixes that need to take place. What's being done to finish that job? You know, there are a couple of things.

The first thing is in the bipartisan infrastructure deal, there's a significant amount, there are significant resources there to get the part. already started, so to speak. And the president's build back better agenda, there are also additional resources that may have the flexibility to be applied to lead service pipes. And then we have the traditional resources that my agency, the Department of Education

and Health and Human Services, they have as well. So we're going to aggregate all of these resources. But Brian, it gets back to something you said earlier. We're asking the private sector to also come off the sidelines, because there lots of economic development and job-inducing opportunities if we replace these less service lines. So I see a huge opportunity for a public-private partnership that really, again, serves as a rising tide for our community. Now, you traveled to Greensboro, North Carolina

this past week to visit Volvo. How is this White House working with domestic automakers to stay aligned with the goals that were laid out in the Paris Climate Agreement? You know, I believe it is important to leave Washington, D.C., leave the bubble, get out from behind the desk, and really engage with those who were asking to meet the task of the day. Volvo has committed to the Paris Accord Agreement. Volvo has committed to 35% electric vehicles by 2030, 100% fossil fuel by 2040. They have a serious commitment. As we develop the regulations or the rules of the road for all of the automobile industry and the trucking industry, it's important that we understand what technologies are available and can be applied.

So I'm here in Greensboro, North Carolina today, not only with the chair of Volvo North America, the president of Mack trucks, but I also visited with the president of the United Auto Workers, one of the largest unions that's charged with providing jobs to make sure that President Biden meets his goal. Together, the three of us were putting our heads together to think through how do we meet these ambitious goals of tackling climate change, deploying technology, growing jobs, and making this country globally competitive. It's important that I have these meetings so that we can do just that. I'm glad you brought up EVs because General Motors has said that it's aiming to produce

only electric vehicles by 2035. Now, a lot of Americans are going to look at that and say, look, I'm just trying to put food on the table. I can't be worried about buying an electric vehicle. What's your message for those Americans who are wary of making the shift to electric vehicles? You know, I think we should assure the American people that we're putting the onus on the automators. You know, we are hoping that this transition can be back of mind for most people. President Biden in the bipartisan infrastructure deal committed 7.5.5. $5 billion to put charging stations all across this country.

We believe that if we put the charging stations all across the country, if the automobile makers create, you know, significant investments in a diverse suite of vehicles for people to choose from, they're going to naturally gravitate change towards those electric vehicles because they're cooler, you know, they will be as cheap as hopefully as our fossil fuel-driven vehicles. but more importantly, they won't suffer from range anxiety because we will have invested in the proper infrastructure so that they can get those charges.

So people will see that they are doing a good thing for the planet. They won't have the range anxiety and they'll actually be driving cooler, faster vehicles. We believe we can make that case to the American people. Yeah. And I think, you know, the irony with the right wing having settled on high gas prices for this past week as their outrage point of the day are. kind of making that argument for you guys, you know, in terms of like, yes, gas prices are high. Gas prices are always high. This has always been an issue that Americans have had to worry

about. No one's ever happy with the price of gas. Well, you know, as the cost of electric vehicles continues to come down, as charging stations continue to go up, this just makes it all the more attractive. I do want to end with this. You know, I don't think that there's anything I can say to overstate the danger of not addressing climate change right now. And for a lot of young people, this is the number one issue. This is the world that we're going to grow up in. And naturally, we don't want it to be rife with wildfires and hurricanes and droughts and extreme weather. What's your message to those young people who feel anxious about the world that they're growing up in? I completely understand anxiety. Every morning that I walk out my house

to go to work. I kiss my eight-year-old son Matthew on the forehead and I'm ready to tackle the day. recognize that I'm fighting for his future. And I believe that in order to fight for an effective future for him, not only do we need to put the proper guardrails in place to reduce the emissions that are exacerbating climate change, but we need to be sure that this country is nationally secure and that we have the jobs and the economic developments out there so that he can have a good quality life. And so I would say to young people, to mothers and fathers like myself, no need to be anxious. This is where America can perform and be at its finest. And we have a significant opportunity here, not only to mitigate climate change, but do it in a way that

it's good for national security, good for economic development and jobs, and more importantly, keeping this country globally competitive. So I'm excited about the opportunities and to president's agenda for building a better America is within reach. Great. Well, you know, you have a lot of people behind you and very happy that climate is being taken into account with all of the White House's priorities here. You know, you'd mention that you're in North Carolina right now. That's your home state. What do you have planned for the holidays? You know, I plan to spend some time with my mother and father, sister and brother, my family, and my in-laws. And listen, we've all gotten our shots. We've all gotten our

booster shots. And so we're excited that for the first time in a long time, we can all come together and really enjoy each other and be thankful. Great. Well, we'll leave it there. Michael Regan, thank you so much for both the work you're doing and taking the time to speak with me today. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks again to Michael Regan. Now, we have the National Correspondent for the Washington Post. Philip Bump, thanks so much for coming on. You bet.

So you wrote a really interesting article on December 1st, and that was titled The Two Haves of the Pandemic. And then on December 6, you wrote another excellent article that was entitled, The Obvious Problem with Blaming Coronavirus Deaths on Joe Biden. Now, both of these articles generally follow the same theme. Could you give a brief overview of what they're about? Yeah, I mean, essentially, the articles are looking at the way in which the pandemic has evolved between 2020 and 2021. The first one,

the two halves of the pandemic, was noting essentially that at that point, the amount of time to pass between that that infamous day in 2020, when the NBA shut down and when we learned of Tom Hanks had the coronavirus, the same amount of time had passed from that day to the inauguration as it passed from the inauguration to the day the article dropped. And so it was really looking at literally two halves of the pandemic, one of which was on Trump's watch, one of which was on and the difference between them and that difference primarily being obviously the advent of the vaccines in mid-December a year ago and how vaccination uptake has differed by party and therefore the effects of the pandemic. I shouldn't say therefore, you know, that correlates with the fact

that in this year in 2021, most of the negative effects of the pandemic have been felt more harshly in places that actually voted for Donald Trump last year. That was exacerbated by the fact that that that's happening even while we have a vaccine that's free and readily available. Yeah. So it's important to remember that most Republicans have received a dose of the vaccine this point. The challenge is that most of those who aren't vaccinated are Republicans. So data from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that there's about a three to one margin among the unvaccinated. There are three times more likely to be Republicans than Democrats. As a result, what we see this pattern across the country is that places that voted more heavily for Donald Trump

in 2020 are less likely to be vaccinated. There's a direct correlation, between the extent to which you support of Joe Biden and the extent to which that county actually has been vaccinated. So, you know, the data are still, because the data are such a mess, continue to be such a mess for COVID, we can't simply say this is all because, you know, these places were harder hit because they were lower vaccinated. There is a correlation between the places that were low vaccinated and places that were harder hit that also overlaps with partisanship. And that's really the pattern that we're seeing in 2021 that didn't exist to the same extent in 2020. And that's the part that I want to dig into.

So the charts that were especially, that especially stood out to me were the death tolls in the Trump voting counties versus the Biden voting counties. Now, how clearly can we infer voters from the county level data? Like with how much confidence can we link the county's preferred candidate with the individual voters preferred candidates within that county? Because like when you think about New York or L.A., yes, those are blue counties. But there are way more Trump voters in raw. numbers than in quite a few rural counties that voted for Trump by a way higher percentage. No, you're exactly right. This is what's called the ecological fallacy that you can't simply assume because the environment in which a pattern occurs that is because of that pattern that

is occurring, right? And, you know, one of the things I find fascinating I think is underappreciated is there are more Trump voters who live in Biden states than live in Trump states, you know, to your point. That said, there are also a lot of awfully small counties that don't have very many people and a lot of them voted for Donald Trump and are very, very low vaccination rates. I mean, when you look at the correlations, a very strong correlation between the, the extent to which a county voted for Trump and the extent to which it has or has not actually been vaccinated, you know, so that strongly suggests that there is a causal relationship there. And then, of course, we have this presumptive causal relationship, which is, again, tricking to suss out based on

available data between the lack of vaccinations and the negative effects of the coronavirus. So elections are one on the margins, right? Like we're seeing elections won in states by 10,000 votes, 20,000, 40,000 votes. When states begin losing people at the rates that they're losing them right now, especially when you take in to account the partisanship, when does that have electoral implications? And I asked because you would think that Republicans might consider it while they're continuing to oppose the only measures that would actually prevent their own supporters from dying at these rates.

Yeah, I mean, we're still talking, thankfully, we're still talking about a very, very small of the American population, right? I mean, obviously it is bad that I think as of right now, something like 790,000 people have died of this virus. And this year, when we talk about it, it's actually about evenly split between red and blue counties. It's about the same number in each, but because there are so many fewer people that live in red counties, it is a disproportionately harder hit part of the country that places that voted for Donald Trump last year. So, you know, so the net effect by county is about the same. And it is, you know, hundreds of thousands of people. since the onset of the pandemic, but this is also a country of 330 million people.

Last year, there were more, the initial estimates from the CDC are more people died in America than had ever died in America before. Of course, our population is larger than it's ever been before as well. You know, will there be an electoral effect? I'm skeptical. Yes, it is at the margins, but you'd have to be a very specific set of people who died. You know, this is also grim. And I realize you weren't saying you weren't saying this to, you know, sort of be macabre.

But, you know, the odds are that unless something really, really, really. dire happens. I mean, even when we see, for example, you know, like, you know, a massive hurricane that disrupt things, you know, like Hurricane Sandy, which disrupted much of the Northeast immediately at the time of the 2012 election, didn't really have that much of an effect on the election itself. You know, so the, I think it's easy to overestimate and sort of overplay this idea that, you know, oh, the Republicans are sort of dooming themselves electorally. I think the odds of that are pretty low. Now, data like this is obviously new. And as you mentioned before, you know, we needed to wait to have an even amount of time between pre and post-presidencies

to be able to equate the two of them between Trump's time and office and Biden's time in office as they've dealt with this pandemic. And of course, there's been plenty of articles about Florida and Texas's poor handling. So we kind of guessed that their handling was, you know, would result in the impacts that it did have. But now we have actual discernible evidence that Trump voting counties are starting to lose almost double the amount of people as Biden voting counties since basically July. Does having this kind of proof, these visuals, the charts that you have included in these articles, do you feel like they confer a sense of legitimacy to a reality that Republicans have been hoping to just will away? Honestly, no. I mean, I think that we still

don't know. You know, I recognize that I'm being more cautious than a lot of other people are on this. But, you know, there are contributing factors, right? I mean, the number one way that this virus spreads is by people being indoors. Are there reasons that you would be more likely to be indoors in Florida in the middle of July? Yeah, it's hot, right? You know, is there a reason that now cases are starting to increase rapidly in the Northeast? Yeah, it's cold, right? I mean, you know, not to be like too, you know, immature about it, you know, not to sort of downplay too much, but I mean, there are ways in which you can look these numbers, be like, okay, maybe this isn't all simply because of, you know, just policy decisions

Ron Santos was making. I mean, that said, if you look at the numbers now, it is places, and I did, I did another piece on this, it is the rates of new cases in blue states that are now seeing increases are higher in the counties in those states that voted for Donald Trump. So even within a blue state right now, the places that are being harder hit by the coronavirus

are places to vote for Donald Trump, which does tend to reinforce this thesis that it does come back potentially to vaccinations of partisanship. But I am very, very reticent to say, look, now we have proof that this is because red state governors messed up. I am very, very clear, though, that I do think it's unfair to compare where Florida was this summer and the spike in cases or deaths that it saw there, which it was absolutely abnormal. I think it's unfair to compare that to the spike and death that occurred in New York and March and April of 2020, simply because we didn't have vaccines, we didn't have

therapeutics, we didn't have awareness, we didn't have riot testing. You know, so this thing, it was a very different scenario then. So I'm very loath to make that comparison. But I do think we have to be cautious in saying, aha, this is a function of Republican politics, when I think we can infer, and I think it's safe to point out this correlation between vaccination and partisanship. You know, that's a good point that you brought up. We'll never have a discernible answer one way or the other, but we can keep looking at this data and inferring what we can from it. Do you ever get feedback from Republicans that kind of acknowledge the central premise of these articles, which is that the numbers do seem to be, at least at this point in time,

higher in terms of death rate for Trump counties than Biden voting counties. Yeah, I mean, the feedback is essentially like, I remember I wrote a piece probably toward the end of the real peak of the Delta search that made the case that I just made about how this is not comparable to New York. And, you know, that's something different has happened in Florida just based on the fact that we have these treatments. And a lot of people will like, well, wait two months. You know, just wait. It's warm in Florida, and you're going to see what happens in the fall in New York. You know, right now, the fall, you know, most states are doing better now than they were last year at, you know, comparable weather period in the year. So, yeah, that that is, you know, it's totally, it's a totally valid point, you know, that this issue of people being moved inside.

So, yeah, there is feedback. It is generally not, oh, you're wrong about what the data say. It is instead, this has nothing to do with politics. It's just sort of an incidental side effect of the data collection. I don't think that obviously carries much weight. More broadly, I think something that we see, and that's criticized, especially if you're as enveloped in the world of Twitter as I am,

is the concept of both sides in the media where one side can say two plus two is four and the other side can say two plus two is 97. And operating under the assumption that we all have to be neutral and that both sides are just as legitimate as the other, the media is more inclined to generally say, you know, sparks fly,

as Democrats and Republicans battle over math equation instead of saying Republicans have no clue how to do math. How do you and your colleagues approach that? And is it something that you've had to reconcile as you've covered previous administrations and parties that have maybe had more of an interest in honesty? I will say that I think the problem which you cite, which certainly does exist is overstated often. And the lens in which it is overstated is that there are a lot of people on both sides, not to both sides, a conversation about both sides, but it's true. There are a lot of people who want a story to convey the point of view that they hold. Right. And so I get a lot of feedback. If I read about Donald Trump, you know, some some random thing,

you know, even if it's not flattering to Donald Trump, I'll get a lot of like, why aren't covering the fact that he's trying to destroy American democracy. And it's like, look, man, like, you know, Donald Trump, even Donald Trump contains multitudes. And at some point, you got to cover the entire thing. And that holds for everything, right? You know, and I really do think, while it is important to be accurate and convey a sense of what is actually happening, you know, for example, in the days before January 6th, when I was covering Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz's initial efforts to try and throw up roadblocks to the electoral vote count, I wasn't saying, you know, some people say, I was saying, like, these two guys,

I'm trying to find Leopold's democracy. That's the headline of my piece, right? Like, you know, I can call a spate spade on this. But at the same time, you are better served as an American, much less as a journalist, by saying, okay, wait, this thing which I'm seeing on Twitter or this thing which I'm hearing from people who have a particular political viewpoint, is that a fair encapsulation of this, right? And it doesn't mean you always have to go out of your way and get a quote from Kevin McCarthy about something. You know, you can, there are obviously times in which you can make assumptions about what is happening, which are going to be borne out. You know, toward the end of 2020, there was no reason to assume that Donald Trump was being honest when he was making a factual claim, right?

You don't need to give him that benefit of the doubt, right? After a while, sort of patterns are established that you can use as, you can use his shorthands. But at the same time, I think that while there is a real value to partisan journalism that is very, very focused on trying to dig up things that are undercutting their opponents, and that's true of conservative media and it's true of liberal media. I think that's very valuable. I think it's also valuable to have media institutions, which are very deliberate about doing their best to try and make sure they are covering both sides of something. And even, you know, that does, again, that does not mean that you go to January 6th and say, some people say it was bad to invade the capital. Some people say it was cool.

You know, that doesn't mean that's how you have to cover that. What that does mean, though, is it means that you have to actually do your best to try and make sure you understand the complexities of an issue that a lot of people on social media are disinterested in understanding as complex issues. Totally. That's absolutely a great point. I do want to finish with this. And this is coming from my perspective, obviously as a Democrat, obviously seeing what's happening with January 6th, with bills like SB 202, other voter suppression bills that are sprouting up all across the country, is there a sense that we're losing the forest through the trees by focusing on the minutia of day-to-day politics and treating this all as politics as usual, generally

in our media coverage when there's kind of a five-alarm fire happening right behind us. And we have, you know, Donald Trump pulling the levers. We have him and his allies in the Republican Party purging that party of any non-allies or any nonpartisan election officials. Like I said, we have these voter suppression bills sprouting up across the country and, you know, basically taking away all the guard bells that protected our democracy in 2020. And yet still, like a lot of the coverage that we see right now is politics as usual, is just focusing on, you know, the little skirmishes, intra-party fighting, beltway bullshit. is there a sense that we are kind of missing the forest through the trees and that we're

and that there's this big train coming and we're not really getting off the tracks? So this is a really, really good example of the discussion we were just having, which is you're right. There are a lot of warning signs. Warning signs are elevated by political scientists, warning signs that are elevated, you know, the experts in authoritarianism in terms of what's happening in the United States. I'm writing a book and I've had a lot of conversations with political scientists. And a lot of them, you know, there's often this asteris of, you know, assuming we survive,

as democracy through 2024 then, right? You know, which is a very grim way to go about talking about where the United States is. But at the same time, there are other stories. You know, Ross Douthit, who I don't agree with, you know, everything, he said somewhat understating the issue. You know, he had a piece in which he made a good point, which is, you know, David Perdue is going to be running for governor in Georgia. And he's running explicitly on a platform of, I would have thrown the election to Donald Trump. You know, I think that's partly opportunist. but I don't think it's fair to assume that it will necessarily be opportunistic once he gets in the office should he win. But, you know, if Brian Kemp were to be suddenly caught, you know,

smuggling arms to the Chinese to help invade Taiwan, like, that's a story you still need to cover. Like, even if Brian Kemp is in this bipolar, you know, democracy versus authoritarianism, if that's what this race actually does come down to fundamentally, you know, if you imagine some sort of imaginary race where that is these stated positions are, I will be an authoritarian versus I will be, you know, a representative of liberal democracy. And that representative of liberal democracy is at the same time a spy for foreign power. You still got to report on the spy for foreign power. Now, you're absolutely right.

You know, is it as important the machinations of some, you know, House vote that is centered on, you know, X, Y, and Z? Look, I've never found that stuff terribly interesting. So I'm, you know, maybe not the best person to say. But there is still, there are still other stories you need to talk about. Again, there are multitudes to American politics. And you still need to do the report. He still need to do the digging. If Joe Biden is stealing money from the U.S. Treasury, you still got to report that, for God's sake, right? You can't not deal with that. And so you, you know, with all due respect, you are obviously predisposed to be very concerned about this very particular aspect of American democracy. And it's a very important issue going on too. And you know, but if I am writing about something that is not related to that, that doesn't mean that this fire is not still burning in the same way that you still have firemen who are doing other fire jobs, even if they're not the ones that are actually out there at the hydrant with the

hosts. Great point. And nice to have nuance in an age of zero nuance whatsoever. So I appreciate that. Philip, where can where can my listeners find you? The great Washington Post, which I'm sure they already subscribed. So they probably see me anyway. Twitter, P-bomb. Oh, I just actually, but you know what? I will pitch. I just started a newsletter every Saturday. It's a look at an interesting data visualization for the week before. Something it's in the news. And it's really just sort of exploring the way in which you can, you know, use, look at data visually, which, you know, but it's also fun and just like, you know, I mean, everyone says it about the newsletter. Oh, it's, you know, this very specific thing.

It's also fun. This one actually is, I think, you know, obviously I'm biased. But if people want to sign up for that, they can do so. It's called how to read this chart. Great. Well, that was what I was just going to say. I mean, the visual aids that you, that you have in your articles are extremely informative. It's a ton of what I use in everything that I do when I, you know, cover all this stuff on a daily

basis. So thank you for that. And yes, if you are listening, definitely follow that newsletter. Philip Bump, thank you so much for taking the time. I appreciate it. Thanks again to Philip. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera, and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app. Feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review. and check out Brian Tyler Cohen.com for links to all of my other channels.