Pod Save America - “Accountability today, justice tomorrow.”

Episode Date: April 22, 2021

Derek Chauvin is found guilty of murdering George Floyd, Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) joins to talk about renewed hope that Congress might pass police reform, and Democrats re-introduce the Green New Deal as Joe Biden pledges to cut carbon emissions in half ahead of a global climate summit.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, please visit crooked.com/podsaveamerica. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's pod, Derek Chauvin is found guilty of murdering George Floyd. Representative Karen Bass joins to talk about renewed hope that Congress might pass police reform. And Democrats reintroduce the Green New Deal as Joe Biden pledges to cut carbon emissions in half ahead of today's Global Climate Summit. But first, check out a brand new episode of Alyssa Mastromonaco's YouTube series, Let's Break It Down, where she's joined by our old boss, David Plouffe, to discuss all the secrets and fun stories behind presidential travel on Air Force One. You can find it at youtube.com slash Crooked

Media. I can't wait to watch this one. It's great. I watched it last night. Oh, good. No, look at you. You already watched it. Okay, great. You know, it's possible, John, I have some time being up in late hours of the night holding my phone where I can consume content from the crooked media hose. That's true. That makes sense. All right. Let's get to the news. On Tuesday, a verdict was reached in a case that fueled a global movement for racial justice and the largest civil rights protests in American history. After 10 hours of deliberation, a Minneapolis jury found Officer Derek Chauvin guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd. Chauvin is the second Minnesota police officer ever to be convicted of murdering someone while

on duty, and he will spend the next eight weeks in jail awaiting his sentence, which could be up to 40 years in prison. Floyd's family responded to the ruling in an emotional press conference. Here's his younger brother, Phil Anise. I feel relieved today that I finally have the opportunity for hopefully getting some sleep. A lot of days that I prayed and I hoped and I was speaking everything into existence. I said, I have faith that he will be convicted. We won't be able to breathe until you're able to breathe. Today, we are able to breathe again. Dan, what was your reaction to the verdict?

You know, I watched it live as, you know, according to ratings, millions of people in this country and around the world did. And the fact that we did that sort of says everything about the significance of this case, the movement that was spawned from the murder of George Floyd, and all of the inherent problems in our criminal justice system and systemic racism in our society. And for the fact that, as I'm sure you did and everyone else did, you watched it with great trepidation and suspense, that Chauvin could have been acquitted of this. Because here you have a case where the murder was committed in public on video, seen by the world, and yet people were still deeply afraid that justice would not be done, that there would not be a measure of justice, as Vice President Kamala Harris said. And it speaks to how much work still needs to be done.

And the other thing as I was watching that I was thinking about was all the millions of people who took to the streets in the middle of a pandemic to march in a protest against structural racism after the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and so many others, what would it say to them if in this case, the justice system could not truly do the bare fucking minimum of convicting someone who committed the crime on video? What would it say to that? Would that be a message to all those people that progress was impossible? And so I think this is relief more than celebration by any stretch of imagination because there's so much more work to do and so many more turns in this case, as you said, just with the sentencing and then the other officers who were involved. But I think the way

the whole thing played out sort of bespeaks the courage of the Floyd family, the people who got involved because of it, and all of the problems that still exist within our criminal justice system and within our society. Yeah, I was first relieved by the verdict, then sad that the outcome had ever been in doubt, and then angry that in order to convict a police officer, it had to be a case where the murder was filmed, right? Because if 17-year-old Darnella Frazier hadn't held her phone up, all we would have had is that Minneapolis Police Department statement that read, man dies after medical incident during police interaction, right? So it had to be a case where the murder was filmed. It had to be a case where Chauvin's fellow police officers were willing to testify against him. It had to be a case where the victim was literally begging for his life while slowly being choked to

death for nine minutes. So what happens when the next murder isn't filmed? What happens when the facts of the next case are in dispute, what happens when the police refuse to speak out against their own, which is usually the case. And I think all that speaks to the need, like you said, for transformational change in policing. And what happens if the attorney general is not someone like Keith Ellison, who is a progressive, who ran on, in part, police reform and doing better in situations like this? The outcome was in doubt in a situation where there were factors that gave us better reason to believe that you could get the right outcome in the trial than there would be in almost any other case in any other part of the country.

And that's what's so alarming about this. Yeah, David Graham wrote in The Atlantic, the Chauvin conviction is the exception that proves the rule, which I think is the right way to sum that up. It seemed like everyone with any kind of platform responded to the verdict on Tuesday. Activists, politicians, celebrities, athletes, brands. The reactions ranged from incredibly moving to incredibly cringeworthy. I won't spend time on the latter. Just do a quick search for Nancy Pelosi or the Las Vegas Raiders. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose office led the prosecution of the case,

reflected the sentiment of many of us when he said, quote, I would not call today's verdict justice, but it is accountability, which is the first step towards justice. President Biden and Vice President Harris also addressed the nation. Harris said that, quote, a measure of justice isn't the same as equal justice. We must still reform the system. And here's a clip from Biden's remarks. So we can't leave this moment or look away thinking our work is done we have to look at it we have to we've looked as we did for those nine minutes and 29 seconds we have to listen i can't breathe i can't breathe

breathe. I can't breathe. Those are George Floyd's last words. We can't let those words die with him. We have to keep hearing those words. We must not turn away. We can't turn away. We have a chance to begin to change trajectory in this country. So it's highly unusual for the president and the vice president to speak after a ruling like this. It's even more unusual for the president to weigh in before the verdict, like Biden did when he told reporters that the evidence against Chauvin was overwhelming and he was praying for the right verdict. Why do you think he did that? Let's take them separately.

The question about weighing in before, which is definitely in violation of every piece of guidance that every person who works in the White House Counsel's Office told him to do. But I think he answered it because to not say the evidence was overwhelming here would be dishonest. And I think a, you know, sort of a violation of the conversations and the relationships that he's been having with the Floyd family and activists ever since this day. I mean, it is, you know, sometimes legal guidance flies in the face of what is patently obvious and true and needs to be said. And so I think that's

why he did it. I promise you there were several meetings. Many emails were sent in the White House staff after he did it. But I think it was the right thing to do. Well, I also think like when we're looking for evidence of change and the way things that have changed over time, you and I and Tommy and Ben, we're all talking about this. Like, can you imagine if Barack Obama did something like that? Like there would have been all those same emails in the White House and warnings from the White House counsel's office. And I wonder if all those

years ago, he probably would have listened to those warnings instead of doing what I'm sure he would have wanted to do, which is say exactly what Joe Biden said. Well, he very much did after the acquittal of Michael- Dr. Trayvon, right? Well, Trayvon, well, so it's happened both ways. We don't have to run through all the history, but he spoke after the acquittal in the Ferguson case back in 2014 and answered it with language that was very much in line with what the attorneys would want him to say. And the reason he did that is there was a pending federal investigation and he was abiding by what that guidance was. And people were very disappointed in what he said because it was not what he necessarily

felt. He could speak to it as a person and a black man in America was speaking to it as the person to whom the Justice Department technically reports. And so that like I think that has changed and how you address these things has changed. And it's also this is some of the barriers that Trump stumbled into that have changed, I think, how you think about what presidents can and can't say. And for many cases, when Trump did, it was absolutely terrible. This was the case where I think Biden did the right thing. The reason to go out and speak afterwards is because

of the movement that the murder of George Floyd sparked and what it meant and how people got involved because of it. And my assumption is that they would have spoken regardless of the result. If you had gotten the horrible, incorrect result, if there had been some sort of acquittal in the face of all of the evidence, speaking out was the right thing to do. And I think it's very notable that they spoke together. The president and vice president almost never speak together. That is not a thing that happens often, particularly not in a nationally televised address. And the fact that you had a black woman speaking about this in this moment was incredibly powerful image. And I think it's to the, you know, it speaks a lot about the relationship that I think the two of them have

and the role she's playing in the White House. Let's talk about that movement. You know, listening to Biden talk in that clip about the chance to change the trajectory of this country. What, if anything, do you think has changed about America since George Floyd was murdered? And what hasn't? And you see this in public opinion research that awareness of just the embarrassing idea of structural racism in this country has gone up. More white people will talk about it. They will cite it as a reason for this. The acknowledgment about the existence of the problem of police violence against black and brown Americans, the awareness of that and opposition to that has grown significantly over time. You've seen, although it's come back some since the height of the protest, acceptance of and support for the Black Lives Matter movement has grown incredibly since 2014. What hasn't changed is the way in which the Republican Party

is the way in which the Republican Party weaponizes these disputes to try to run on a white nationalist message, essentially. And that would these issues become more, even if you, when you have brands and football teams and you are exactly right, every brand, I mean, it's almost like, it's sort of incredible. Like every sports team in America felt obligated to put out a statement when this happened. Every brand. And so in a way, that is progress, right? That is now the consensus position among brands and sports teams and other entities that try very hard to be removed from politics. And you can see it just sort of, I think most explicitly in sports, when the NBA

finals were played in the bubble, it was played on a court that said Black Lives Matter. And that would not happen without this movement. But on the other end, and we will talk about the reaction on the right on this, there was always a backlash to these things and a radicalization among the far right. And that makes it hard to do make the progress you need to make, because you have the other side becoming more entrenched in their views and sort of protecting the system as it exists. Yeah, I mean, look, there's there's both substantive and attitudinal changes that have taken place in the country since George Floyd was murdered. Like we just said, you saw the largest largest mass protest movementS. history. You know, the New York Times pointed out that 170 Confederate symbols were renamed or

removed since then. You know, you had, it's part of the reason that Donald Trump was defeated and Biden was elected. And one of the, one of the consequences of Biden being elected that was announced yesterday is the Department of Justice is now once again engaging in pattern and practice investigations. This went into the Minneapolis Police Department, which could result in a consent decree, which could, you know, transform policing within that department that used to happen under the Obama administration. Of course, it did not under the Trump administration. We had Samson Youngway on here last week talking about all kinds of transformational local reforms, state reforms, budgets, police budgets that have been cut.

I talked to Savante Myrick, the mayor of Ithaca, a month ago. He was on here talking about disbanding his police force in Ithaca, retraining unarmed public safety officers. And of course, there were these attitudinal shifts that you were talking about in public opinion. You know, white Americans have become more likely than in recent years to support the Black Lives Matter movement, to say that racial discrimination is a big problem, and to say that excessive police force disproportionately harms black Americans.

Now, like none of this is to say, as you pointed out, that like systemic racism isn't still deeply ingrained in almost every single aspect of American life. We're sitting here talking as 20-year-old Dante Wright's family, including his son, is burying him today. A video of Chicago police killing 13-year-old Adam Toledo was released a few days ago, hours after the verdict in the Chauvin case. A Columbus police officer shot and killed 16-year-old Micaiah Bryant. Police are killing, you know, black and brown people in America every single day. And of of course there's always tremendous backlash there is always fear and cowardice on the part of even well-meaning elected officials um and you know i don't think anyone

should should feel should have to feel good or proud or optimistic about where the country is right now i have problems doing that myself. You just have to believe that we can change it. And you have to believe that when enough people pour into the streets for enough time, it can start to change minds and attitudes, and especially among the younger generations. And that's not everything, but it's something, you know, it's a start. And I think that's what this represents and what these past months have represented is that it is a it is a start. It is a step towards progress. But progress doesn't happen unless people people stay involved and stay loud and stay on the streets. is going to join us soon to talk about passing more systemic reform in Congress.

But I do want to touch on first the point that you made about the predictably horrifying and idiotic response from the right. Here are Fox News stars Greg Gutfield and Tucker Carlson on the verdict. I'm glad that he was found guilty on all charges. Yeah. Even if he might not be guilty of all charges. I am glad that he is guilty of all charges because I want a verdict that keeps this country from going up in flames. Oh, my goodness. No politician or media figure has the right to intimidate a jury and no political party has the right to impose a different standard of justice on its own supporters. Those things are unacceptable in America. All of them are happening now. If they continue to happen, decent, productive people will leave. The country as we knew it will be over.

So we must stop this current insanity. It's an attack on civilization. An attack on civilization. So that's what the most popular cable news channel in America is saying about the verdict. I did. I did enjoy the other panelists on Greg Gutfeld's show. Just can't even contain it. Just oh, my God. I can't believe we're going through this. Even even the panel.

It was even too much for them. America will be over. That is what Tucker Carlson said. America will be over. That is what Tucker Carlson said. America will be over. I if, especially with a case like what we saw with the Chauvin case, that that really does the trick, at least among people who are not already, you know, just huge racist Tucker fans. I think they were basically throwing a temper tantrum because they were so jacked up for wall-to-wall looting coverage for one – to get a bad outcome. And for one person somewhere in America, probably in Portland, to throw a brick through a window.

And then it would be Antifa and the Republicans would talk about all these bills they're trying to pass in states like Florida to crack down on protesters because they definitely care about freedom and hate cancel culture. And so it was just like they didn't know what to do. It was like it rained on their parade. And so they lashed out everywhere they could in the most absurd but on brand ways possible. Yeah, I do want to talk about those the bills that have been passed by Republicans and proposed and proposed by republicans and states across the country um that are specifically targeting protesters legislatures in oklahoma and iowa have passed bills granting immunity to drivers who hit protesters with their cars the kentucky state senate passed a bill that would send people to jail for using quote offensive or derisive words towards a police officer.

And Florida Governor Ron DeSantis just signed a bill that would make tearing down a Confederate monument punishable by up to 15 years in prison. So, like, obviously, this is all monstrous and terrifying. But what do you think of the right wing Republican reaction as a political strategy? This is the manifestation of the, you know, we talk about this all the time, the decades long Republican message that the Democrats, the liberals, people of color, Hollywood, ironically enough, big tech are coming to take political power away from white people. That's what this event is about instilling that fear. It is about protecting you. I mean, this, what you saw that at all, if you, if you, I mean, it seems like a hundred years ago, but it wasn't during the campaign, all the crazy Trump ads and

Republican ads about looters coming to your home and destroying things. It's like, things are so dangerous that we have to give you the power to run people over to protect yourself. That's how it is, right? It is this image of America that looks more like Walking Dead, but instead of zombies, it's liberal elites and everything else. It is about instituting fear in your base to keep them fired up to turn out. That's what they've always done. It has a checkered record of success over the years, and you need to do more than that to win. But that is what is at play here. And they need to find these things because Joe Biden does not scare their voters in the way that Barack Obama did, or Hillary Clinton did, or they've tried to make Kamala

Harris do. And so they're looking for other ways to get people in their base fired up and afraid that someone is coming for their political power, for their culture, for their community. I do think once again, much like the right-wing reaction on television, that these Republican politicians who've passed these bills have over-torqued things just a bit and may have gone a little bit too far, even politically. Like, I think if you talk to the median American voter, right, they are probably one of these people whose attitudes may have been changed that we were talking about in the polling, you know, more likely to support the Black Lives Matter movement,

more likely to say that racial discrimination is a big problem, more likely to support the Black Lives Matter movement, more likely to say that racial discrimination is a big problem, more likely to say that excessive police force disproportionately harms black Americans. Those people probably have, those same people probably have the view that they don't like looting. They don't like, you know, destruction to property. They worry about all that kind of stuff, right? And that's probably like the median American voter. And so Republicans see that and they think, all right, we want them to think more about looting and destruction than we do about systemic racism. And so we're going to, you know, Fox is going to run their coverage and their B roll of fires in Portland and all that bullshit. And

they're going to try to get people to think about that. But then I think when you're when you pass legislation that says if you go out there and protest, then we're going to give we're going to give cops even more power to potentially harm you, that we're going to give the state more power, that if someone hits you with their car because you're out in the street protesting, which at one point, I think one in 10, a poll over the summer said one in 10 Americans had participated in the protests around George Floyd's policing. That is a lot of Americans. And so now you have a lot more Americans who have had the experience of either participating

in a protest or seeing a protest. And the idea that there are laws now where someone can hit you with their car and be granted immunity because that's what Republicans want them to be granted with. And so they're saying it's okay to hit you with your car. I don't know that it's going to work as well as they think it might.

Like always, we have agency in this, we Democrats, which is it only isn't going to work if we make them pay a price for it by talking about the laws they are not passing. What real problems are they not solving when they are trying to address fake problems? And that's a huge part of it. But I think we often, and we are very guilty of this, is we think of Republican politicians as these people who are in on the joke. They get that what's happening on Fox News is bullshit. And they are, you know, sort of masterminds behind the scenes, kind of like pulling the

puppet strings on the Fox News viewers. But we have to remember is the primary source of information for all of these Republican politicians. And I don't just mean state legislators in Oklahoma. I mean, Kevin McCarthy and Republicans in the Senate is Fox News. They're completely high on their own supply. They believe most of this bullshit. And so they actually think they are, it's, this isn't even some grand thing as they have been convinced by Tucker Carlson through this cycle of absurd

racist bullshit that starts at Fox News, that these are real problems and that they're addressing them and which is how they end up in this situation. Yeah. And like you said, the point of what I was saying is that Democrats should not be afraid of talking about this legislation and railing against this kind of legislation just because some consultant told you, well, you know, Republicans have an advantage on law and order issues. Because while there may be some kind of advantage on law and order somewhere, passing this kind of legislation is not it. And I think that you're right. Talking about that Republicans are doing this and not solving other problems and not working to solve other

problems, I do think could give Democrats a political advantage. And I don't think they should be scared of it at the very least. When we come back, Congressional Black Caucus Chair Karen Bass will talk to Dan about the latest developments in the fight to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Joining us now is Congresswoman Karen Bass, the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. Congresswoman, welcome back to Pots of America. Thank you. Thanks for having me on again. Of course. I just wanted to start by asking you, as someone who has been an advocate on policing,

reform, and racial justice issues for your entire career, what your reaction was as you watched the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial. Just one word, relief, relief, relief. I will tell you that the whole day and leading up to the verdict, since they went into deliberation, I was just having flashbacks on 1992. That's where we were so sure of what a verdict would be because it was so obvious what had happened to Rodney King that, of course, they would come back with a guilty verdict. that of course they would come back with a guilty verdict. And to see this jury do the right thing, all three, was very positive. However, I will not rest until there is a sentencing that's done. Because in the rare cases where the verdict is correct, because there was actually charges made in a trial, the judge then turns around and says, and gives a slap on the wrist. And so I want to see Derek Chauvin get the absolute maximum for torturing George Floyd to death. And I think that, you know, your experience and your,

and you have written eloquently about what it was like to watch that Rodney King verdict really puts in place, I think, for a lot of people who may be new to these issues or sort of focusing on structural racism and the problems with police violence against black and brown Americans since the murder of George Floyd, that this is a question of that it is progress, but there was a lot more to do. How do you think, you know, that this changes the dynamic around trying to get something through Congress, like your George Floyd Justice in Policing Act? Well, I will tell you that we have a small window because, you know, in our American culture, we have very short attention spans. And we have to strike now, which means we have to move our discussions from informal discussions to formal negotiations, make a deal and put a bill on President Biden's desk. And I believe that we need to do that in the next couple of weeks. And there is no reason why we should not. Ultimately, you know, you have passed this piece of legislation in the House twice.

It has been stalled in the Senate, remains stalled in the Senate, depends upon getting Republican votes because of the continued existence of the filibuster. Do you have renewed optimism or additional optimism that you could make more progress now since the verdict? There's been reports about Senator Tim Scott talking about bipartisan negotiations or at least conversations. Where does that stand and what are sort of the issues that remain to be dealt with? about Senator Tim Scott talking about bipartisan negotiations or at least conversations. Where does that stand and what are sort of the issues that remain to be dealt with? Well, I absolutely have additional hope and not renewed additional because I had felt strong

before. And Senator Scott and I have been in communications, Senator Booker, you know, the Republicans in the Problem Solvers Caucus, Josh Gottheimer, who heads it up on the Democratic side. So the next step is for conversations to be formal and us to look at the big issues. And so one of the biggest issues is qualified immunity. us to look at the big issues. And so one of the biggest issues is qualified immunity. Well, let me just say, the biggest issues are based on holding officers accountable. Derek Chauvin was looking at the girl, because she was a girl, who was taping him. He didn't have a problem looking at the camera because he didn't feel he had a care to worry about. And so making it making the profession of policing, raising it up to like any other profession. Could you imagine a doctor that didn't care if he or she went in and operated and didn't care whether or not the person came out okay or left an instrument

in the person's body, they're accountable. And the public knows. There's malpractice lawsuits. There's state registries where you can look up to see whether your doctor has been, you know, sued. And policing needs to be in the same way. If police officers thought that they would be held accountable, maybe we wouldn't have so many officer-involved shootings. Dan, you know, since March 29th was the day the trial began, there've been over 60 officer-involved shootings.

Since George Floyd was murdered May 25th, there've been over a hundred that have resulted in death. At some point, we need to take a break in our country and say, why do police in the United States are involved in so many shootings? Why? You brought up the issue of qualified immunity, which was not the the only but perhaps the primary sticking point. The last time there was a debate about this in the Senate. If something is going to get through with 10 Republican votes, I'm assuming that there has to be some compromise on that issue. If so, what do you where are you willing to compromise? And

what red lines do you have? Well, you know, I won't go into the details of what we're talking about. But to me, there has to be qualified immunity and officers and departments have to be held responsible. In the process of trying to get this passed, is there more that President Biden, Vice President Harris could do to raise the issue? Is there more that our listeners could do to help get people active and focused on this? Well, your listeners, absolutely. Your listeners can raise the issue on their social media that they want to see the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act pass,

and they want the Senate to act. And I know that this is national. And so you should contact your senators and ask them, where are they on this? Do they understand that this is a serious issue in our country? And I think that that would go a very long way. As you point out, the problem of police violence and officer shootings continues. It is happening all the time. In addition to what can be done legislatively, which I know you're working very hard on, what are the things you're looking for from President Biden or Attorney General Garland that can be done absent legislation to begin to address some of these problems, at least?

Yes. And you saw the Attorney General act in just the last few days by reinstituting the consent decrees, which essentially allow the federal government to supervise a police department that is very problematic. As a matter of fact, he said he was going to initiate an investigation of the Minneapolis Police Department, which I will tell you, they have an outstanding police chief there who has welcomed the investigation. And so that is something that can happen. And then yesterday, of course, Vanita Gupta was confirmed. And I know Kristen Clark will be confirmed very soon. Both of them are going to be outstanding. Both Benita and Kristen, I worked with last year on the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act, and I know that they will be there.

They will be there ready to reconstitute the Civil Rights Division because who knows what condition the Trump administration left it in. I would imagine not great would be the condition. Exactly. As a matter of fact, there might not be anybody home. I'm not sure. But in terms of the president, though, you know, the president's office, I mean, the president's administration has been terrific. They have not been directly involved, but we have been talking to them regularly, keeping them updated. So I don't think there's anything more. I'm certainly hoping that when the president gives his state of the union address that he will mention and lift up this issue.

of the Union address that he will mention and lift up this issue. As per usual, Republicans have been outlandish and ridiculous in their criticisms of this, of your bill. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a leader in the Republican Party these days, I guess, said that it would castrate the police and lead to lawlessness. This has been all across Fox News and right wing media. What is your response to that charge that this is undermining policing in America and making us less safe? And feel free to just laugh if you want. Exactly. I mean, from what I have seen of her, I doubt very seriously if she knows anything about the bill, has read anything about the bill at all. So I would have to disregard her words. And I will tell you that our conversations with her colleagues in her party have been extremely constructive, open, and supportive. Well, I think that's a positive sign that she's maybe the exception, not the rule

on this. I actually think she's a bit of a caricature on both sides of the aisle. Yeah. Before I let you go, is there anything else I didn't ask you about or something else you want our listeners to know about your legislation and what in the work you've been doing? Well, you know, I think in our country, we need to take a moment and say, what is policing in the United States? Why is it so militaristic? Why do police officers immediately jump to shoot? I mean, the young man that is being laid to rest today, Dante Wright, you know, I mean, they stopped him because his tags expired. In a state where many people's tags expired because of COVID, the Department of Motor Vehicles has essentially been shut down. I never knew it was against the law to have air freshener on my mirror. Obviously, they didn't need to ever stop him.

The police officer who had been on the force for 26 years made a mistake between her handgun and her taser. So this is a moment. I mean, I obviously want the bill to pass, but so much more needs to be done. And it's really a moment for us to stop and take stock of policing in the United States. I've been working on these issues for over 47 years. talking about police brutality. This has gone on for generations. When will it become unacceptable for so many Americans to die? Dan, if this was another country, we would be up in arms about human rights. Why isn't the killing of Black people on a regular basis by law enforcement viewed as a human rights issue when it happens in the United States? That is very well said. That is exactly right. Congresswoman Karen Bass,

thank you so much for joining us. And thank you for your leadership on this issue and so many other things. Thank you for having me on. All right, today is Earth Day. And actually, some of the latest climate news is pretty good, or at least potentially good. Well, I would say the climate policy news is good. The state of the planet is not good. No, that's bad. That's very bad. But the news about what we're going to do about it is potentially good. I'm going to give it a potentially. Joe Biden is convening a virtual global summit of over 40 nations today where he's expected to announce that the U.S. will commit to cutting emissions levels in half by 2030, a significant increase from past commitments in an attempt to convince other countries to do the same. About half of the president's American jobs plan is

devoted to clean energy investments, electric cars, public transportation, clean water, and climate research and development. And in transportation, clean water, and climate research and development. And in Congress, Ed Markey and AOC formally reintroduced the Green New Deal on Tuesday as specific legislation as opposed to what it used to be, which is a non-binding resolution. They also introduced legislation for a civilian climate corps that would put 1.5 million Americans to work on clean energy projects, an idea that's also included in Biden's jobs plan. So lots of very big and exciting climate proposals out there. What do you think can actually get done? Let's start with Biden and his team, what they can do just without Congress. Well, first they can, and they've already started getting officially back

into the Paris Agreement. That is a very big deal. It was a huge problem for global leadership. The United States was one of like three countries that were out of the deal. I think it was like us, Syria, and North Korea, or maybe North Korea got in the deal. It wasn't a good crowd to be in. Yes. It's not a list you want to be on generally. And so getting back in is very important.

Getting in is very important. Getting it is only the first step to actually achieving ourselves what our goals are and getting the rest of the world to do it. Although there is some hopeful signs. If you're going to have any chance of getting China and India to do more, the United States has to be leading. And with President Biden and his climate team, they absolutely can do that. The second part is using our regulatory authority on carbon and for clean air and clean water. That is happening. That begins with reversing a lot of what the Trump administration reversed from President Obama and then building on that with even more aggressive and climate-friendly regulations. That is in place. And I think it's worth noting the team that President Biden has put together

on climate really is an all-star team. A lot of people like John Kerry, Gina McCarthy, people who took jobs that were, you know, sort of theoretically below where you would think they would have jobs because they care so passionately about this. And it really is an all-star team that's very important, which allows you to operate on all these different fronts. And then, you know, the last part, which we'll talk about is what you can do legislatively, because there's real progress that can be done on with executive actions and regulatory authority. But it's not enough. And it is very dependent on the Supreme Court not being planet hating assholes, which is not something I would bet on. So, yeah, I mean, look, they say personnel is policy and there's a lot of climate nerds in that administration. And they're not just in the traditional areas like the EPA or the energy department or like, you know, we had a climate czar. It's basically in almost every single department within the White House and in the cabinet, there are even even, you know, agencies that you wouldn't think have to or traditionally didn't have to do necessarily directly with climate. And there are

people who've been working on climate issues, and who have been embraced by climate activists for their entire lives, now working in the White House and trying to basically, you know, they call it a whole of government effort to combat climate change and use basically the power of the federal government and the purchasing power of the federal government. The federal government obviously owns a lot of property, owns a lot of real estate, owns a lot of cars. Like you have all of that now just geared towards climate change, which is something new. What has happened to us? We spent years working aggressively to take the phrase whole of government effort out of every press release speech i mean i would never write

something stupid and here you are just now you're free of the cabinet and just say you're just on a podcast i see i see ron clain tweeting it all the time about the uh the vaccination effort and i was like yeah i guess that's what it is. It's a whole government effort. It seems like it would be like raised at a bilat or something. Yeah. I think to the perfect example on personnel being policy and the focus on climate is Brian Deese is the person in charge of economic policy in the White House. His last job in the Obama administration.

Big climate nerd. Well, he was the climate advisor. He ran climate policy in the White House. So putting a climate person in charge of the economy is something that 10 years ago, 15 years ago, would have caused everyone to freak out as terrible politics. What are you doing? And now it's being leaned into in a very aggressive way.

You can see it in the makeup of the American jobs plan that Biden is trying to pass. Climate is infrastructure. The planet is infrastructure. When we were working on the second inaugural address, Barack Obama decided that he wanted four big themes in the address around policy. And one of the four themes he wanted was climate change. He wanted to address

climate change. And I told Heather Zykle that, who at the time was running climate and energy stuff for us. And she literally broke into tears on the phone because she said, do you know how, she's like, I didn't fight for this though. She's like, do you know how hard I've had to fight in the government to make sure that we talk about climate everywhere we can. And now the president has just decided that a fourth of the inaugural address is going to be devoted to him. She's like, what happened? What did I miss? I was like, all right, thank him. So that's, we've come a long way. We've come a long way, but we shouldn't get too excited because as you mentioned, look, like these, Biden's announcement that they were going to

And look, like these, Biden's announcement that they were going to cut emissions levels in half by 2030. There is no way to get that done without legislation. There is no executive action. There is no sort of global climate agreement that can get that done in the United States side without really robust legislation. And obviously, that's much more of a challenge. Markey and AOC said that their Green New Deal legislation is bigger and bolder than what Biden has proposed. So you have progressives that want, you know, a bigger piece of legislation. Meanwhile, most Republicans still don't even believe in climate change.

The last vote they scheduled on it was in 2019, when Mitch McConnell put the Green New Deal resolution on the floor to make moderate Democrats uncomfortable. Though I guess there's been some progress since then. Lindsey Graham announced the other week that he does believe climate change is real. Congratulations to Lindsey Graham. And House Republicans are convening their own three-day energy summit this week, Dan, where they're going to propose climate solutions like technological innovation and tree planting. Tree planting.

technological innovation, and tree planting. Tree planting. Do you think the politics of climate change have shifted over time and where are they today? How have they shifted over time? Lindsey Graham believes in climate change for approximately eight minutes immediately after his most recent election. And then he goes right back to being a climate change denier

as he smells a primary challenge coming. Because in 2009, Lindsey Graham basically was an adjunct member of the white house staff. He came over to the West wing so often to try to find ways for he and John McCain to work with Barack Obama on climate change. That was a very different, very different Lindsey Graham than the one who transformed into Donald Trump's caddy. But so we'll put that aside for a second.

So I'm not putting a lot of hope at the future of the planet and Lindsey Graham's adherence to this quasi new position of his. The politics of climate change have definitely changed, if you will. You are, you know, I think it is fair to say that Joe Biden would not be president today

without his climate plan. And what I think is so like, you can see the politics of climate in this very clear way. Joe Biden in the primary ran on a climate change plan that by historical standards was quite progressive, but was more conservative on climate than most of the other people running for president, and certainly much more conservative than Elizabeth Warren, Jay Inslee, Bernie Sanders, et cetera. And when he won the nomination, which he did with a relative ease, he swept Super Tuesday, the states that came afterwards, he could have seen that as validation of his choice to be more conservative on climate. But instead, working with Bernie Sanders, he formed a policy task force. He put the author of the Green New Deal, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and John Kerry in charge of the climate task force. And he moved to the left pretty significantly on climate in the general election.

significantly and uniquely on climate to young people. And a lot of the polling that we saw that we worked on, some change research polls showed that the message that was most likely to get young voters who were either lukewarm on Biden or lukewarm on voting was climate. And in a, like, obviously in a race as close as this was in the states that put him over the top electorally, anything and everything can be attributed to the win. But I think if Joe Biden had not been willing to move on climate and then talk about climate, you know, if you remember his Positive America interview, he was on for 30 minutes and I bet he spent 25 minutes talking about climate change. Yeah. So what I'm saying is that interview delivered the presidency is what I'm saying.

I was hoping that was the point that you were getting. I would eventually get there. Yes. Here's a question. Why do you think it is that both Democrats and Republicans love talking about the Green New Deal? They can't both be right about the politics. They can both be right about the politics. Okay, tell me how. Well, we live in a polarized society where we are, well, we're heading into a midterm, and the first step in a midterm is firing up your base. Climate change and the quote-unquote Green New Deal fires up Democrats, gets young voters involved. The absurd false caricatures and conspiracy theories of the Green New Deal gets republican voters fired up and so this is like we tend to think of politics you know we end up the end of cows right farting cows the end of no more

hamburgers planes right you're no more cars ban hamburgers right yeah all that kind of stuff and that that works that works with their voters and you know obviously obviously, there's a point you make all the time, it was the core of the wilderness, is persuasion still matters. Democrats took the House by such a large margin because they were able to persuade a lot of people to vote for Democrats who had voted for Trump in 2016. But to even get to that point, you have to get turnout from your presidential year voters up in a midterm. And so the overwhelming victory of Democrats in the House, the huge popular vote margin, the 40-some seats we won, was because you had both.

You had near-presidential level turnout among your voters, and you persuaded some voters. So the predicate for success in the midterm is turnout. And this issue works for both. I think a lot of political analysis still adheres to a much to a very outdated and anachronistic model where an issue is either good or bad, because you're only viewing it through the prism of that small group of swing voters. But if issue now in this day and age can be good for both sides. Yeah, and we should talk about I mean, so there's a brand new Data for Progress poll out about the Green New Deal and about climate. And this is how they asked the question of voters.

Would you support or oppose a Green New Deal, a policy in which the federal government creates jobs and invests in low income communities, building energy efficient infrastructure, replacing lead water pipes and updating America's energy grid? First of all i i give credit to our friends at data for progress the way they worded that that's a pretty policy heavy wording right like you're talking about infrastructure you're talking about the energy grid right and also it's a pretty progressive wording you're talking about investing in low income communities you'd have a lot of democratic consultants and pollsters say oh do we want to mention low income communities we should talk about the middle class all the time, right? And even with that wording, voters supported that kind of Green New Deal the way

that it was worded. 59% of voters support a Green New Deal worded like that. Only 28 percent oppose that Green New Deal and 12 percent are unsure. Breakdown by party. You get 87 percent support among Democrats, 60 percent support among independents and 28 percent support among Republicans. Did that surprise you? No, not. We've seen polling on this before that is similar and the way that was worded is i think brave in the traditional outdated sense of politics that you include low-income communities etc but uh jobs getting rid of lead pipes that lead pipes is a people like clean water people do not want to be poisoned when they brush their teeth. They do not want lead poisoning. People are very anti-lead poisoning.

That's the kind of political analysis people come here for. And so that is a very strong place to start. But political messaging is dynamic. And so you say that. They say you're banning hamburgers and cows. You come back and say this. I think Democrats can definitely win that exchange. But you see the Republican number goes up as the more pure Republican messaging is delivered to them, in many cases, unfiltered because it's coming through the conservative media and their hermetically sealed ideological bubbles.

And that changes those numbers. and that changes those numbers. But I think the takeaway from that and all the experience in 2020 is that Democrats should not only not be scared to talk about climate, they should be excited to talk about climate because it can and does work for them. And not just with young voters,

but with a wide swath of the electorate. I think, I mean, sometimes you look at an issue and think, all right, progressives have the policy right. Moderates might have the politics right. It's a case on some issues. This is a case with the Green New Deal where I think that the progressives are right on the policy and the politics, because I think for a long time, more moderate Democrats had climate policy that was focused exclusively on what everyone has to sacrifice, right? Whether it's your energy use or a carbon tax or the car you're going to give up or, you know. And I think that what the Green New Deal does is it recognizes that climate politics also has to be focused on

what people can get from this transformation to a decarbonized economy. Good union jobs, lower electric bills, lower gas bills, right? Like there has been a lot more focus and a lot more investment in some of the communities that could potentially get left behind from a transition to a zero carbon economy. And, you know, economic justice, environmental justice, right? Like all of these ideas that can actually bring a lot of the disparate groups on the progressive side in politics together around a plan so that you don't have the traditional problem that you have in climate politics of, say, unions fighting environmental activists,

right? And you just had, you know, Joe Manchin the other day come out in favor of the PRO Act, which would make it easier to join a union, partly because he said, look, if we want to reduce emissions, which we do, we have to make sure that there are good union jobs for people, either whether they're energy jobs or whether there are other jobs. But like you can start to see both sort of centrist, moderate Democrats and more progressive Democrats realize that if we're going to tackle climate, we probably need unity on the Democratic side, especially to fight whatever the Republicans are going to throw at us. I mean, this is the true political inspiration and genius really behind the idea of the Green New Deal is twofold.

One, it's taking two crises that are happening in this country, growing economic inequality and climate change, and finding a way to tie them together for a solution that solves both problems. And that also creates cross-issue coalitions to fight for. People, like you said, it's unions who want these good jobs, and it's environmentalists and climate folks who care passionately about the planet. The second thing that it did, which is really important, is it inverted the messaging around climate, which used to be good jobs and over here we're going to do some good planet stuff too. We're going to save the planet and in saving the planet, we're going to create all these good jobs.

And I think that that is a more inspiring, urgent message than the opposite. So knowing all this, what should activists push for? What can realistically get done in Congress? You know, like we said, we've got $1 trillion worth of spending in the American Jobs Plan that is devoted to clean energy investments. You know, AOC and Ed Markey and a lot of progressive activists who are pushing for the Green New Deal say that's not enough. What do you think can get done? Well, I think it starts with trying to get the American Jobs Act passed. And there's a lot of work to do to get that done. And a trillion dollars in climate spending is a giant deal. That's a huge thing. And then once you get that, then you can build on it. I think this climate

core idea that AOC and Ed Markey are pushing and is in the Biden plan is a great idea also because it's a self-sustaining thing. It creates a world where we're going to continually invest in hiring people to do this very important work around climate change. It's something you can see continuing long afterwards because it's hard to turn programs like that off because it requires, it means you're going to fire a bunch of people from jobs. And so doing those things. And I think the lesson of all of this is the fact that Joe Biden is pushing a trillion dollars in climate spending, is having this giant summit, just pushed a climate goal that is so much more aggressive than the one the Democrats were pushing just a few years earlier, is a sign that activism works and Joe Biden is willing to listen. And I think that is a lesson for climate. That is a lesson for healthcare policy. That's a lesson for student debt, which is he is someone who will listen if

you push. And if you push, you can make progress. And so that's why I think it's so important that you have the Green New Deal coming out, which is to the left of what Biden is pushing, but it continues to motivate people and get people to push for something more. And so I think continuing to get behind the Green New Deal, get behind some of the bolder ideas out there will help over time continue to move not just Joe Biden, but the other Democrats in Congress here. Because you mentioned Joe Manchin. He's for the PRO Act, which is really a theoretical exercise as long as he remains supposed to get rid of the filibuster, but that's a problem for the day. Of course. Of course. But ultimately, he's also the person who signs off on energy policy in the Senate, not just because he's the 50, which is something that is certainly possible to do, then Joe Manchin does not become the person who decides

how progressive or conservative our climate policy is. You have someone else doing that. And so it should also be a motivating factor for everyone who cares about this issue to get involved and get engaged for 2022. Yeah. And since you brought it up, we should make the point about the filibuster and how it relates to all this. Climate is one of those areas that you can do a lot by spending money, which is good news,

so you can do a lot through a reconciliation bill. But to really achieve the emissions cuts that you need, you probably have to pass a clean energy standard, right? Or a carbon tax or something. You have to pass a clean energy standard right you have or or carbon tax or something you have to pass something that is probably not going to be just budgetary that may not make it through the fucking parliamentarians bullshit um and so to really get the full um you know effect of the green new deal you once again probably have to get rid of the filibuster. Once again, we are in the Joe Manchin cul-de-sac, where we have been for a couple months now. But anyway, the upside of all this is, like you said, activists should keep pushing. And Joe Biden,

you know, he has proven that he will listen before. He will still frustrate you at times, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't stop. And um and so happy earth day dan happy earth day can i uh read you a email marketing email i got from a brand good fabrics are good for the earth that is just you know what we welcome the brands to all these conversations about social justice and environmental justice but just think think a little harder before you put out your tweets brands all right everyone have a great weekend thanks to congresswoman karen bass for joining us today and we will talk to you next week bye everyone

pod save america is a crooked media. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Flavia Casas. Our associate producers are Jordan Waller, Jazzy Marine, and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Segland is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somenator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmal Konian, Yael Freed and Milo Kim

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