Offline with Jon Favreau - Is a $16 McDonald’s Order Going to Elect Trump?

Episode Date: December 3, 2023

Jeff Stein, White House economics reporter at the Washington Post, joins Offline to talk about the $16 McDonald’s meal that captivated the internet—and whether Bidenomics is to blame. Conservative media outlets sunk their teeth into the story a few weeks ago, so Jeff and Jon dig into the burger narrative to examine today’s economy: why, amid stagnating inflation and a hot job market, do voters still disapprove of President Biden’s handling of the economy? Is social media painting a bleaker picture than the statistics report? And is this economic disconnect the biggest challenge facing Biden’s re-election?

I feel like a perfect meme of the economy would be like Ben Affleck like with the cigarette like looking sad like coming out from Dunkin with like an overpriced coffee. This would be my follow-up story. That's good. I like that. I'm Jon Favreau. Welcome to Offline. Hey everyone.

Max is on the road this week so we're going to get straight to the interview and it's a good one. Our guest this week is Jeff Stein, an economic reporter at The Washington Post, and I'm talking to him about a recent piece he wrote with Taylor Lorenz that's caused quite a stir, partly because of the headline, which is, The Viral $16 McDonald's Meal That May Explain Voter Anger at Biden. If you missed it, a couple weeks ago, conservative media jumped all over a nearly year-old TikTok in which an influencer posted his receipt of a McDonald's order, a burger, fries, and a drink that cost $16. Their argument, of course, is that the high price is Joe Biden's fault.

And, of course, the actual story of the economy is more complicated. Which is where Jeff and Taylor's piece comes in. They try to figure out why voters still disapprove of President Biden's handling of the economy, even though a lot of the economic indicators are relatively good. One argument they unpack is that, quote, the digital world is painting a bleaker picture than the statistics report. I know, shocking. But I still think there's more to the story than TikTokers trash-talking the economy for clout. So I invited Jeff on to talk about the piece, the way social media is fueling economic angst,

the truth about the actual state of the economy, and why this economic disconnect is maybe the biggest challenge facing President Biden's re-election. Here's Jeff Stein. Jeff Stein, welcome to Offline. Thank you so much, John. It's been a minute. Yeah, I know. It's good to talk to you. So you and Taylor Lorenz wrote a piece in the Washington Post this week that really livened up the discourse. The headline is the viral $16 McDonald's meal that may explain voter anger at Biden. I'll let you talk more about the story itself. But I thought you guys did an excellent job laying out the debate that has been dominating the conversation among economists, Democratic strategists, pollsters, the Biden White House, which is what's driving people's discontent with this economy? Is it the economy itself or is it the information we are consuming about the economy from the media and particularly social media?

So to start, I know you guys talk to a lot of economists and White House officials who say that the data shows the economy is in relatively great shape. What's their argument? What's that argument? Yeah, and I'll just say this story provoked more stupid emails than any story I've written in a very long time. Congrats. Just the quotient of bad reading comprehension. So yeah, to your point, like what is the positive story here? It's pretty self-evident. There's a lot of reasons to be really optimistic. I mean, there's so many problems that, like if you could go in a time machine

and go back to like 2013 or like when you were in the Obama administration and be like, hey, all these things that are huge problems that we can't solve, they're going to look like they do now. People would have been ecstatic. They wouldn't have believed that we're having this huge wave

of people coming off the sidelines back into the labor force huge spike in small business creation people just going out and starting their own businesses huge spikes in investment in ways that are really exciting to see you know businesses manufacturing construction all booming in ways that are super exciting and um you know to you know defying media media predictions about an imminent recession that people were very nervous about last year. And so in so many ways, you really have to say, as you're saying, we have this Goldilocks kind of economy where the inflation has really come down. We were at, you know, nine or 10% last year. It's now down to a little around three, which is not great, but certainly way better than we were before. And, you know, Larry Summers and others had been saying to get from a inflation rate of nine or 10% to 3%, you're going to have to see millions and millions of people get thrown out of work.

And so like we were writing stories being like, if inflation comes down, all these people are going to lose their jobs. It's going to be terrible. And some people, the people who were disputing that and saying, actually, a lot of this inflation, right, the prices go up. It could be because people have more money and there's a spike in demand or there's insufficient supply. A lot of people were saying, hey, this is really about the supply. And those people have, I think, it's fair to say, been very vindicated in that now inflation has come down and we have not seen at all a spike in unemployment. And that's like, God, thank God that that happened. It's miraculous and we should be really grateful for it. So good economic growth, inflation has come down, jobs are being created, like lowest unemployment

in a long time. So all these macro economic indicators pointing in the right direction. And yet people's views about the economy are incredibly negative. And that's not just according to a few political polls, right? Yeah. I mean, it's breathtaking when I go out and talk to voters. It's astoundingly consistent across age, across racial category, gender. I mean, it's most intense right now among young people, which we can sort of get into why, but it's so consistent that people are upset. And I think as a journalist, I'm trying to hold two things in my head simultaneously, which is that it's totally understandable that people who are dealing with, you know, these numbers that we're

seeing that are so good are like, look, why aren't people happy about this? And yet, when you talk to people, you understand also why they're so frustrated, why people are still really struggling to get healthcare, why housing prices are too high, why everyone feels a disaster to away from the ravages of American capitalism and being thrown into poverty. And as you know, John, the child tax credit expired. That was a lifeline for 30, 40 million people. And we've seen a spike in poverty. We've seen a spike in hunger and a spike in people without healthcare. And so those are real phenomenon too. And is there space in our political discourse? Is there space in our head to try to celebrate the good things, but not lose compassion for people who are also struggling? I think that's been, when you talk about tweets, and I'm guilty of this as anyone, but

when you talk about trying to explain the complexity of 330 million people's experiences with their finances in a tweet, you're going to oversimplify one side of that. Yeah. I mean, I guess this is where the $16 McDonald's meal comes in. What's that all about? Tell us that story. Yeah. So I was actually talking to like a senior Democratic official one night and it was late and I wasn't even like, what's that all about tell us tell us that story yeah so i was actually talking to like a senior democratic official one night and it was late and i wasn't even like what's the story that we should be writing you know i wasn't like fishing for examples and i was just sort of asking like how was your day and he was like man this burger is like all focused on today i was like what are you talking about so i hadn't seen this at all. And about 11 months ago, this story is crazy. Like 11 months ago, a guy got like a novelty

item at McDonald's. It was not a Big Mac, which was mischaracterized by conservative media. Later, this guy got a Big Mac at this like one overpriced Idaho McDonald's. And he posted about it on TikTok. And this is where it's like, again, like my ambivalence because food prices are up and like fast food prices are also up. So it's not like nothing is happening here, but okay. This was posted in December, 2022. That's when he posted his TikTok. It went like a little viral then. And then in September of this year, McDonald's posted its revenue report. So people were like, oh, McDonald's is making a lot of money.

And then someone started talking about like, hey, they're making a lot of money, but they also are charging people $16 for a meal. This wasn't a big knock. He got a smoky double quarter pounder with cheese, not novelty item with fries and a Coke, large soda. So that was 11 months ago. Then the McDonald's earnings report comes in September. And then by November, the timeline of this, the internet is such a strange place. By November of this year, so 11 months after he orders this burger, conservative media is writing headlines that are like the $16 McDonald's meal that is upsetting people. And it's like, this was one meal. A meal that happened 11 months ago in one place in Idaho or Utah.

Yeah. And it wasn't even a Big Mac. And so the person I was talking to, this Democratic official was like, what are we supposed to do about this? We don't want to be out there being like, you shouldn't be upset about grocery prices being high because people are struggling with that. And it's a real issue that the administration itself is working to address. But simultaneously, there's an undeniable media, social media environment, I think it's fair to say, that can exacerbate some of those real tendencies. Now, what conservatives might say is like, that's always existed. Like Trump had to deal with exaggerations of the problems in his economy too but i think it's fair to say that this is a huge problem for biden because price price hikes have become

associated with him and sorry to filibuster here so much but um i was talking to this one economist uh justin wolfers and he was saying i was explaining the story to him and i was like laying out what i just explained to you and he was like the thing is in time since time immemorial people have bought in overpriced burgers and been like i spent too much on my dinner and i like feel stupid but like because of the biden inflation phenomenon we're now in a dynamic where people are like i spent too much on a burger it's's Joe Biden's fault. And that feels maybe like it's new and somewhat unfair to the president. Well, I didn't realize until I read your story that, I mean, obviously the flashiest example is the $16 McDonald's burger, but then you guys sort of

dug into TikTok and there's all these viral TikToks with like the hashtag silent depression. Can you talk about the silent depression? Yeah. Well, sort of, cause it doesn't exist, but I mean, this is, again, like it's hard to want to have empathy for people who are genuinely struggling. Like housing costs for young people are extraordinarily high interest rates have put the american dream of owning your own house out of reach for for millions of people and yet then there's people on tiktok writing about how the media and the powers in washington aren't adequately recognizing that we're in what they say is worse than the great depression and you know like i was with my um wife's grandmother and her family for thanksgiving and we're like talking about you know what it was like to live in the 40s and like like i'm sorry

you're not living through the second great depression like there aren't like hoovervilles and like purchasing power is like 650 higher than it used to be like like those numbers are not lying but you do run the risk of like appearing to minimize things that are legitimate senses of economic frustration and i think i mean i at some point i want to turn the conversation to ask you some questions because i do think it's like the political messaging challenge that that creates seems very difficult. Yeah. Well, it's one we dealt with in the White House in a different set of economic circumstances that, according to the data, were definitely worse, right? We had a great recession and unemployment was very high and people were feeling very bad about the economy for many years after 2007, 2008, 2009.

I remember writing speeches where it was always like, you wanted to identify with people's struggles. You also wanted to say that the economy is improving and what President Obama and his administration were doing is working. And that we also wanted to do a lot more, right? And so, but like every time even even telling that story you know it's like it takes a couple steps yeah and which one do you start with even like how do you know

which one to begin with or like what's the right one to you know what i mean i mean yeah well this gets to like i think the the point of some of the anger around the story and everyone yelling about this which is like i do think you start with empathy for people who are struggling, you know, even if they're putting a TikTok talking about a silent depression that are completely wrong, factually inaccurate, clearly there are,

there are people struggling and, and there are people feeling like the economy is bad. And I realized there's now, there's like this whole side of the discourse that has this this media theory about that, right, which is and you guys talked about this a little bit. So I'd love to hear about it, which is that perceptions of the economy are driven by the information that people consume. And so if all you see are TikToks and headlines and everything around you is saying that the economy is bad, even if the economic indicators are good, then you're

going to start feeling like the economy is bad. And that can actually affect consumer sentiment and it can affect sort of economic conditions and definitely economic perceptions. We had this debate internally because I quoted someone in my story who was making the point like, an individual can't experience the economy. And I had that quote in my piece. And my editor called me and was like, what are you talking about? Like, yeah, of course we do. We all experience the economy.

That makes no sense. And I clarified in the story that what he meant was that no one person can have an experience of the macro economy and so i like in a pretentious way like oversimplify this debate between like the realists or the materialists people who are like people's impressions of the economy are formed by their real world circumstances and the um idealists the people who not, not in the sense that they're optimistic, but in the sense that they believe that ideas move history, and they think that reality is socially constructed rather than based on the Marxist superstructure, from that Marxian interpretation of history.

There's this idea in economics called the money illusion that I think is really important for understanding the contours of this discussion, which is the essential argument is that people, when it comes to this question of the Biden administration, they stimulated the economy with massive stimulus and it produced a lot of things. But by raising the amount of demand, the amount of spending in the economy, they simultaneously rose prices, but they also led to elevated wages because now there was more money circulating and businesses felt the need to pay workers more because workers had more demand and more leverage. And this economist Robert

Schiller wrote this famous paper in the 90s that said, which I think makes a lot of intuitive sense that people see their own wage gains. And I feel this way too. I got a raise a couple years ago with the Post and I was like, I did that, not to give you too many traumatic memories. It feels like I did that. I got that wage bump. I worked hard and I did work hard. And other people worked hard to get their wage gains. So you don't want to take that away from people, but they don't connect that to the same forces that are causing their prices to go up. So then they'll see the positive side of Biden's economic changes as not related to something anyone else did. There's something that they did. They'll personalize that, but then they'll externalize the negative externality of the

inflation of the prices going up so they'll see they'll go to the grocery store and they won't see that as related to the wage gain they got and that's like every voter i talked to has that and you're yeah you want to just be like well don't you understand that your wage gain was part of this broader sort of rising of all boats and it's's just very hard for people to feel that way because they want, I think, for totally understandable reasons, they want to feel that they are responsible for their own successes. Before we head to break, two quick housekeeping notes. This Wednesday, December 6th, join Crooked's group thread event covering the fourth and hopefully final Republican primary debate. It'll be a Friends of the Pod exclusive event. So to

get access, visit cricket.com slash friends to learn more and sign up. Also, Pod Save America is down to its last two live shows of the year. You can catch the show in El Cajon on December 7th with co-host Sam Sanders and San Jose on December 13th with co-host Adisu Demesi. Grab your tickets at cricket.com slash events today.

So I was talking a couple weeks ago to a friend of mine who's a former Biden administration official, economic official. And we were talking about this inflation and inflation coming down. And I was like, what's going on? And he said, well, the problem is inflation has come down, but prices have not come down. And so he actually used the example of the hamburger. He's like, if you're paying $16 for a McDonald's meal, then you're not going to pay $17 anymore because inflation is coming down. But prices aren't going down again. Prices aren't coming down to $15 or $14. And yes, maybe your wages have gone up, but you still see the price tag. And eventually people get used to higher prices, but it usually takes a year, maybe more. Longer than the Democrats have.

And so the challenge is to get prices to come down, you'd need deflation and deflation would cause unemployment. And so therefore, we're sort of just going to be stuck with high prices. And I do believe that, of course, the information environment plays a big role in how we think about the world, politics, culture, the economy, everything like, that's why I started this podcast, why we started Crooked Media. Yeah, it's interesting to be in media being like, yeah, actually media has nothing to do with how people, it's like, why are you doing it, man? Yeah. It's like, of course, the information that you consume when you wake up every day shapes your worldview.

But I think a key part of that information environment is the prices of things that you see in the grocery store and that you buy. And so if you are seeing prices that are higher, which they are, then it doesn't seem too crazy to me that people would think that the economy is not great, even if it is better. But I don't know. No, I think that's right. I mean, the economists, I think, have the time horizons that they want to talk in, which often makes sense from the perspective of sort of like policymakers trying to figure out how to design the economy. And so like, you get monthly and annual inflation rates, those are

important. But to me, it's not obvious why. Well, so yesterday we did some reporting from the Taco Bell a few blocks from my house and the people that we were talking to, I was like sort of just asking like, what's your impression of food inflation? And they were sort of saying that they'd heard, I think, I can't remember if they said Biden or Democrats, but they were saying that people were saying that inflation was like 3%, which is what it is on an annualized basis. And she was like, but I went to the store and my chicken cost $12 and it used to cost six. So how is that 3%?

And it's like, if you measured in the last year, then maybe it would be 3%. But you remember from two and a half or three years ago when it was actually six. And so this question of like what time horizons people will see in is i think very dangerous for the biden administration like they were tweeting on thanksgiving for instance like your meal got cheaper this year or yeah because prices came down a little bit for the cost of making of having a thanksgiving dinner relative to your overall budget which is like obviously a great thing

we should celebrate but if you compare it to three years ago it's still up you know 15 20 percent so i think that's yeah i saw i think they said it was like this is this is the fourth cheapest thanksgiving in the last however many years and i was like i don't know if that's necessarily a talking point yeah well i think it's interesting because as someone who maybe i shouldn't admit this but like frankly has been more sympathetic to the just personally i think my coverage has been very fair but i think i'm a little more sympathetic to the like the people have understandable reasons for being upset. I think it's been really interesting that like just this week, we have this story about this today, the White House is now talking more about price gouging. And I've talked to some pollsters who like every time I talk to them, they're like, we are begging the White House to stop trying to convince people that things are good and to instead be like, it's corporate America's fault. Yes. Dan Pfeiffer and I went on a rant about this yesterday.

Oh, I'm sorry. As a good line or as a... No, it's like we're part of the people being, we're two of the people who are like, stop trying to convince people it's good. Go after corporate price gouging. And enough with the nerd economists who are telling people like no it's not actually price gouging that's causing the officials like i get the

economic theory behind it i get that that um like corporate price gouging is not responsible for high prices right now necessarily but if corporations are making record profits and prices are high it is of course fair to call them out for that. Yeah. No, I know no one who's more personally hostile to the Democratic Party than you two. So it's not surprising to hear you guys do that. No, that's really interesting. And the fact that the White House is starting to move in that direction, I think is really interesting. There were some economists who were criticizing this and i understand where they're coming from i think there's a lot of litigation over like biden's economic policies and a lot of people don't want them to be viewed in retrospect as a failure and if biden doesn't run on defending them right that's

always been the counter argument like if we're not out there defending this then the void will be filled by criticism so like we need to like make our own case. On the other hand, to your point, it's like poll after poll after poll is like, this is the way to go. Like how, how serious are we about Trump representing an existential threat? You know, like if Democrats believe that this is like a dictator level event that we're looking at, you're going to resist challenging that because of anything in this space seems, I don't know. You know what I mean? Yeah, no, look, I mean, I will, I'll try something else here, which is in addition to prices remaining high and that having an effect on how people perceive the broader economy and also their own financial situation, which, you know, I've seen some people say, well, when people

are asked about their own finances, they say they're fine. But when they are asked about the economy, they say it's bad. And so that's why it must be the media's fault and social media's fault. But like, I don't know, there's a poll out in October, two and three Americans say their AP poll, two and three Americans say their household expenses have risen over the last year, but only one in four say their income has increased in the same period. Another survey, survey of 4,000 adults, YouGov, finds that three quarters of working Americans say they're stressed about their personal finances these days.

Just 39% of 18 to 29 year olds describe their household finances as good compared to a majority, 58% of those who are 30 and older. So like- That meme has taken off the one you're describing that people are saying that finances are good. I think the data has been really mischaracterized. There's one poll that suggests that, but Gallup has a ton of research that suggests that people actually rate their personal finances as being quite poor. And then people respond like, well, they're not quite poor. And I personally think that that's wrong because if you look at, and sorry for the rabbit hole, I don't know if this will be interesting to people, but like if you just look at labor market outcomes, if you compare people's income from like their job,

it looks quite positive. Like it looks like it should be good but what people leave out of that story too often in my opinion is that in 2020 and 2021 and for a little bit of 2022 we unleashed this like enormous gusher of federal stimulus cash that hit basically every level of the income distribution six $6 trillion over two years. I mean, it was an unprecedented attempt to buffer Americans' economic fortunes with government support. And then we just yanked that away. We created all these programs for nutritional assistance

and food stamps and healthcare and housing. I mean, unemployment goes on and on. Student loans. Student loans is a perfect example. And then we yank that away. And when you broaden your aperture to look not just at labor market income, but at aggregate income,

both of government payments and of sort of private sector payments, people actually saw a decline in 2022, which to me would make a lot of sense for why they're upset you look at bank balance sheets like individual consumer bank balance sheets after the stimulus checks went out they surged and also people weren't spending as much because they were home but they surged to 10 11 000 on average for a lot of of the income brackets and then that just got washed away. And some people will say,

look, that was temporary. It was always intended to be temporary. Now we're returning to normal, so you shouldn't be upset. But if I'm someone and I'm washing my bank account, go from 10K to $500, that's a scary,

that's a very scary thing to live through. The good story I'll just say at the very end here is that that was more the case last year in 2022. And this year, that story has abated a little bit. And I think going into next year, we could see continued improvement, which is a hopeful sign for the Biden administration. Yeah. And I mean, look, I think on top of the price increases and everything we've been through

the last couple of years, they're coming on top of decades of rising costs. Like as long as I've been in politics since from the Kerry campaign to the Obama campaign, like right on through to today, Democrats have talked about the rising costs of college, of healthcare, of housing, of childcare. And those costs have steadily increased over time. We used to talk about this in the Obama administration all the time. It was like, yes, we're coming out of the Great Recession, but the economy we had before the Great Recession wasn't necessarily great for everyone itself. The middle class was squeezed.

Like there's been how many books about middle class squeeze? How many campaigns run on the middle class? Of course, people are going to be upset about the economy and worried about their own finances because they have been for several decades now. And if you throw some price increases on top of that, and also a housing market where interest rates are up, so it's harder to buy a house and it's harder to rent an apartment. And if you, so if you put that together with the rising cost of almost everything over the last several years, anyway, it does seem like it would add up to, you know, not well off people, but the broad middle class and people like struggling to get into the middle class. Those people are probably, are probably pretty pissed. Yeah. I mean, to me, it's, it's been a little weird to watch the progressive advocacy think tank space. Under Trump, right in 2019, the labor market was pretty healthy. Wage gains were

pretty strong at the bottom. And then you got this response from people on the left that was like, these indicators are missing how hard and how precarious life is for the American working class when it comes to childcare, housing, healthcare, and those things that you're talking about. And now we're in this bizarro world where the progressive line is to be like, it doesn't make sense to be upset about those things when all the objective data show that they're getting worse. I think that's been a kind of a strange thing to watch. I think that the main counterexample to all this, just to be fair to the people who may not see it the way you do, is that the most are that this sense of pessimism is fueled by economic precarity then like why are people spending so much money is something that i i struggle to think of like a really good response for i think part of it might be you know like

the fact that uh people don't want to go back to you know the lifestyle that they felt like they were in before they saw their wages go up and they feel the lifestyle that they felt like they were in before they saw their wages go up. And they feel like now that they're making more money, they should be entitled to spend more, which is also super legitimate. And maybe people still feel like they have a bit of a cushion, but still sense the overall direction is bad. I think those are also legitimate counterpoints, but that's the counter argument here that i can't like quite fully explain i saw i saw somewhere people say that well if prices are up then of course there's going to be more spending yeah no it's inflation adjusted though like inflation adjusted assuming

we trust the economic data of course which i mean i wonder if people are just there's also the possibility that people are spending and they're just cranky because their savings are, you know, they're seeing their savings depleted. They're spending anyway because they have to spend on all the things they need to spend on. Although I did see that the toy makers, Mattel and Hasbro are like expecting much lower toy sales over the next quarter, which is also sort of alarming because that's Christmas. So you think around the holiday season, they would get more. And I know that like toy sales, oddly enough, are sort of a leading indicator on these things

because people spend a lot of things that they have to, but then when they start not getting their kids toys too, that becomes a bigger issue. So I don't know. Maybe that's a leading indicator. Maybe it's not's not yeah maybe we'll have a recession then people will be happier and i was gonna say i mean i actually no i think it gets to kind of a another point that i have been thinking about a lot which is like the whole like idea of this whole biden economic movement in some ways was like worker power was depressed for 40 years

like the ability of service workers in particular but also like factory workers and people manufacturing like their ability to secure wage increases for production and for services was depressed while like this broad you know while consumer goods were cheap. And we flipped the switch in part because of Biden and then the workers, the blue-collar workers in particular, but also service industry workers, got this new power where they were able to demand higher wages. But the flip side of that was that the things that they were producing became more expensive.

And I think the really depressing possibility here The flip side of that was that the things that they were producing became more expensive. and out shout the people at the bottom who are seeing these like wage increases for you know baristas and construction workers and people who like um sweet floors and whatever and that's a very troubling scenario because what it suggests is that any attempt to elevate the bottom will produce price increases at the middle class then says, I hate this and leads to the suppression of those wage gains. I hope that's not what's going on, honestly. From a political standpoint, just to talk about the politics of this and the Biden administration, like, I mean, I have a few rules. Number one, like you don't argue people out of their feelings in politics and forget about people's perceptions about the broader economy.

If it is true that a bunch of people are pissed about the broader economy, but are feeling great about their own personal situation. I don't think we'd be having this conversation nationally and Biden's numbers would be this bad. I think there's a lot of data that shows that people are, polls, focus groups, whatever you want, people are telling us that they're struggling, a large group of people, especially young people, right? And I think that if you're the Biden administration, you need to address those concerns, not just by feeling empathy with those people, though I think that's important as well, but by offering an agenda that's going to help people with the cost of living and recognize that the cost of living has gone up, not just in the last couple of years, but over decades,

and that Biden has been fighting for decades for proposals and policies that would help people with rising costs and help people with affordability. And by the way, he's running against Donald Trump and the Republican Party, and you just have to draw a contrast with what they would do, which is not make anything more affordable for people. None of their policies would do that. They're not proposing anything for making health care more affordable, child care more affordable, any of these other things. And I think that if the Biden folks and Democrats in general just go out there and have an agenda that's that's zeros in on affordability and that and they contrast that agenda with what the Republicans are offering and have voted for in the past,

then that to me seems like the most effective message that is both, it has the benefit of being true, it is grounded in policy, it's grounded in people's real world experiences, and I still would argue that Democrats have a political advantage there, even if people are upset about the last couple of years. Yeah, actually, your answer kind of reminded me of i think like the first time i ever interacted with you was during the obamacare repeal fight and like i feel like all of like a official establishment washington at the time was like for understandable reasons but was just laser focused on the muller stuff and like the FBI investigation and all of the like Trump crazy

show stuff like that was so top of mind for for Democrats and obviously for good reasons but like I remember I think we had a conversation where we talked about how all the polling actually suggested that what was going to help Democrats was not this, but was going to be Obamacare repeal, that people were really worried about their protections on pre-existing condition coverage and just sort of the bread and butter message that even if they weren't personally on Obamacare, but what that represented about their healthcare, that that was really potent for people. And so think we're like reprising in many ways these these same debates i'll i'll add um i had a story a couple months ago about

um donald trump's advisors just in in their 2017 tax cut they brought the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 and i had a story that was about how Trump's closest advisors are talking about a push if he gets elected to get that from 21% to 15%. And that's maybe not as sexy of a headline as some of the wild stuff Trump say and get a lot of clicks and whatever Mussolini thing he said and all that. It's obviously slasher in a lot of ways, but if you're the Democrats, well, and I'll just add that I heard from people close to the Trump campaign that they were really annoyed by the story. They were like, I'm sure they were like, we don't want this to be

like the thing that people are talking about. And to me, that just just showed how even if you're the kind of person who i think is super understandably mostly concerned about democracy and the sort of the institutions of government and the slide into authoritarianism and all that that represents that even if you think that what is likely to prove most politically salient to people is an argument over what you just outlined about affordability, about the basic bread and butter issues. Frank Bruni had a column in the New York Times that was like, it's not the economy, stupid. Democrats just need to talk about Trump's threat to democracy. I was like, this definitely, I mean, maybe he has something,

maybe there's something that I don't know, but it really contrasts with a lot of the evidence I've heard from pollsters. I mean, it drives me crazy because I also think there's a huge divide in the American electorate. It might be the biggest divide there is, which is between people who pay a lot of attention to politics and consume news and people who do not. That divide exists, especially within the Democratic Party, especially with the Democratic Party's coalition right now. We were a very college educated coalition of people who were paying close attention to the

news. At least a lot of a big part of our coalition is that. And so for those voters, those are the voters who have showed up in special elections and won them for Democrats, shown up in the midterms and really, you know, surprised in the midterms for Democrats. And I think those voters, people who pay attention to the news, people who are college educated, people who are doing relatively well, they do care a lot about democracy as a huge issue and a threat to democracy. That's not to say that people who don't pay attention don't care about democracy, but they are not consuming all of the information that we are consuming. They are not in this political junkie bubble that a lot of us are in. And the further you get from the sort of political junkie voter and the person who is just like not consuming as much news and maybe is just like seeing a couple TikToks here and there or just, you know, watching headlines here and there, those people care more about the economy. And they tell pollsters that, and they tell people in focus groups that. And their vote choice is largely based on,

not necessarily like, did Biden do a good enough job in the economy, but like, who's gonna fight for me, right? Like who, which of these people that I'm voting for is going to make my life better, is going to improve my life conditions. And there's a lot that goes into that part of your, uh, your life that they might improve, maybe making sure you have the right to get an abortion, right? Like, so there are social cultural issues that go into that. But I do think that central for most people is like, how are you

going to fix my quality of life? Can I ask a question about that? Cause you guys had, if I remember correctly, there was a big speech in Kansas, right, that Obama did that was like reviving American populism. What was the like impetus for that? Was that a similar, does that feel like a similar juncture? Yes. guess because the thing i hear from some democrats and even some like people at the washington post was like biden's problem is just that he's too old and that's why no one's ever going to like the economy under him and so how would they try to measure that that that if they go down this road that that is working yeah so we went to osawatomie kansas which is a place where uh teddy roosevelt had given a big populist speech about the economy like 100 years earlier. And the genesis of that speech, this was in the like fall winter of 2011. So basically right around now in the 2012 cycle.

And we didn't know that Romney would be our opponent yet, but we thought he might be. But we realized like no matter who won that Republican primary, that the defining problem that we were hearing from voters was that they still felt like they could not get ahead. That even though the economy had recovered somewhat and there's jobs being created and all this kind of stuff, people were struggling and that economic inequality, wealth inequality, the fact that so many people in the middle class felt like they couldn't get ahead. And so many, especially post bank bailout, so many like rich people ended up even richer after the financial crisis, as did big corporations. And we decided early on that the central message of the 2012 election would be that Barack Obama is on the side and fighting for middle class Americans and that economic equality and the struggles of the middle class is the defining challenge of our time.

That's what we said in that speech. And that whoever the Republican nominee is, was we were going to run hard against them as a candidate that was going to help the rich get richer. And that Obama for the last four years and hopefully for the next four years will be fighting to improve the lives of middle class Americans and people struggling to get in the middle class. And like that was the message. We knew that was going to be the message when Mitt Romney was the nominee. It just made it sharper and easier for us in so many ways. Donald Trump is a billionaire. Like, it seems like they're, I know. Well, the problem is, is that Mitt Romney didn't say a bunch of crazy shit like, like

Donald Trump does. So it's not like he wasn't as extreme on so many social and cultural issues as Trump is or just issues of democracy in general. And even though he called himself severely conservative and talked about self deportation and all that, it still wasn't Donald Trump. And so he didn't quite get the same attention that Trump did for his comments. So it was easier to drive an economic message. But I think that I think the Democrats have had a tough time driving an economic message against Donald Trump for a long time. I think Biden actually Biden did it better than Hillary did in 2020 than she did in 2016.

I think Democrats did it well in 2018 because of the Affordable Care Act fight and because of the tax cut, the Trump tax cut, which is was also extremely unpopular. And he was like his popularity was at its lowest, obviously, January 6. But then the two other times were the health care fight when he tried to appeal Obamacare and the tax cut. And so it's like, I think the Democrats really have to drive home the economic message. And I think the Biden administration does, too. And like Joe Biden, Scranton Joe versus like, you know, Donald Trump on fifth ave, which is a contrast they drew at the end of the 2020 campaign. That's what I'd be driving every day. Can I just ask, were there people, I'm not like looking for names or anything, but were there people who, everything you said is super interesting. Were there people at the time

who were like, why won't we run on getting us out of the great Recession? And then like emphasizing that, was that part of the internal discussion? Yes, that was always the battle. And there were, I will tell you, it was a lot of former Clinton officials who were like, we got to, we need the headlines. We need, yeah, right. We need to just talk about the wins all the time, talk about the wins. And look, I mean. It's frustrating for the White House because they're like,

look at all this shit we're doing like they are so proud of it and and to be fair the jobs chart the famous jobs chart we had that showed like all the job losses both under bush and then at the beginning of the recession and then like all the job gains that was effective in focus groups and a lot of people were like, oh, okay. I didn't realize that things are starting to get better. But that still did not work as well as this is Barack Obama's plan for the middle class. And this is what Mitt Romney would do. That was the most effective. And I will say that David Axelrod, who worked a lot on the speeches with us, he was the one who was always like, we have to understand what people are going through.

We have to show empathy. And then we have to drive the contrast about what we're going to do. So that was like Axe and a lot of the speechwriters. I'm sure the White House will be listening very carefully to what David Axelrod has to say right now. Yeah. Yeah. He's their big fan these days. But look, I know there's a lot of people in that White House and the Biden White House who do, like, because they worked in the Obama White House too, who do feel the same way, right, and want to drive the contrast and a lot of so I just think they got a, that you got to do it. There's just there's a little bit of a chip on their shoulder, like, and I get it, because they're frustrated that they have done all these great things. And

he and Biden has this long list of economic accomplishments, and people aren't appreciating it. And so they're frustrated at the media, they're frustrated at allies, they're definitely frustrated with Republicans. But I think that the best way to get over that frustration is not to just like keep banging your head against that wall. It's to yell at Jeff Stein specifically. And to just change the frame of the conversation, right? Which is not like, is the economy good or bad, But what are we going to do to make the economy better? I think one point along these lines that I think is really worth emphasizing is that the administration, they had a ton of, when they had unified control of Congress, they had a ton of goals and policy priorities that were aimed directly at the cost of living crisis. And they had a very robust child care plan pre-k plan college affordability cost plan obviously their student debt cancellation policy the child tax credit i mean there were literally dozens of these proposals aimed specifically at affordability and trying to

think i think essentially they all failed because joe mentioned like all joe mentioned republican them out of the build back better they were trying. And I think there are some people on the left who are like, Biden's to blame for all that stuff dying. I don't think that makes any sense based on the evidence of what was happening on the Hill. But people didn't see the results of those plans because they didn't ever take effect. And the stuff they did pass that they think they deserve credit for is very important stuff you know subsidies on on the climate um you know and autos is really was it was very impactful the infrastructure bill those stuff that stuff is important but it's not really you know it a lot of it is aimed at like bolstering the long-term economic productivity of american businesses like

that's not an affordability issue the climate issue has components of that in terms of rebates for home heating improvements and heat pumps, that kind of thing. But that's also not really a central, what is my pocketbook? And a lot of those programs don't even really get started for a few years anyway. And so while I understand that the White House thinks that its economic plans have been great, the stuff that they wanted to do by their own admission hasn't taken effect at all. So it's hard to be like, I can understand wanting to take credit for the stuff they've done, but on affordability, they not through their own fault, just because the way the Senate works, but they just haven't done it. And I think that the best way to deal with that is to just tell the truth. And I am betting he

will do this in the State of the Union, but just as like, this is my list of policies that will help with affordability and Republicans have stood in the way and you've got to work with me on this. And then when he hits the campaign trail, he can say, send me a Democrat at Congress so that we can finish the job and pass all these affordability proposals that I tried to do for the last several years, but was blocked by Congress. You know, I mean, that happens to be the truth. And it's probably the most effective argument. I do think one issue there that they have is like there are so many things that they want to do, like child care, housing, elder care, that like I don't know if they need to pick, you know, to narrow down. Like if Biden's out there being like,

I have 35 plans to deal with all the affordable issues, they need one or two. I don't know how they solve that problem. But luckily, I don't have to because I'm just a reporter. Well, last question and I'll let you go. One of the people who responded to your story is Nate Silver. And for some reason, he also decided to assume that you don't eat at McDonald's or Taco Bell. You must not know what's Nate Silver. And for some reason, he also decided to assume that you don't eat at McDonald's or Taco Bell.

You must not know what's going on. Would you like to respond to that? Bang up job there, Nate, really. Very impressive research. Yeah. People after that were asking me, like, someone asked me, like, do you eat at Taco Bell, like, to stay in touch with, like, what people who eat fast food a lot are like going through with their prices like no i just really like the food like it's really good um did you wasn't there a story you had taco bell like at your wedding is that yes uh yeah we we put it on the um on the invite and then the day of the wedding i gave like one of my closest friends

and his wife i was like you guys are in charge of the taco bell but i got married in ithaca and um they like called the uh one ithaca taco bell and they were like we need like 80 crunch wraps and there's like one like 17 year old working there who's like calling his like headquarters in dc or whatever being like like just imagine like the uh the fast food guy from the simpsons you know it's being like yeah right they want uh 150 uh orders and so we ended up getting pizza instead that's great that's great no look as someone who i'm not a huge taco bell fan but uh drink duncan coffee almost every morning yeah and and eat their sandwiches and

also would rather a chain restaurant than almost any other restaurant i feel like a perfect name of the economy would be like ben affleck like with the cigarette like looking sad like coming out from duncan with like an overpriced coffee this would be my follow-up story that's good i like that jeff stein thank you for indulging me in this conversation. And sorry about all the nasty emails. I think it was a great piece. And I'm glad you guys did it. So thanks.

Thanks for joining Offline. Thanks for having me on, John. Really appreciate it. Offline is a Crooked Media production. It's written and hosted by me, John Favreau, along with Max Fisher. It's produced by Austin Fisher. Emma Illick-Frank is our associate producer. Andrew Chadwick is our sound editor.

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