Pod Save America - “After Balloon Delight.”

Episode Date: February 7, 2023

Dark Brandon obliterates Beijing’s big balloon ahead of his State of the Union address. And outgoing Chief of Staff Ron Klain stops by to talk about Biden’s speech, US-China relations, and his tenure in the White House. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

People were pulled over on the side of the road. If you've ever seen the movie Independence Day, where people are coming out to their porches, they're pulling over their cars. It really reminded me of that. Yeah, nobody had a TriCom spy balloon on their bingo car. It's true. Welcome to Pod Save America.

I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, Dark Brandon obliterates Beijing's Big Ball balloon ahead of his State of the Union address. Just leaning right into it, huh? And outgoing White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain joins to talk about the speech, U.S.-China relations, and reflect on his tenure in the Biden administration. But first, we're officially in the phase of the George Santos news cycle where

it's time to make some merch. As you know, merch usually comes right after the ex-boyfriend talks to the media phase. So the Crooked Store now has mugs and teas for a few venerable institutions that George Santos did not claim to found, but it's only a matter of time until he does. The George Santos Center for Middle East Peace and Bird Rescue? That's just a good idea. He should lie about finding that. This is the first I'm learning of all this in my life. Me too.

As I'm reading it. By the time this episode comes out, maybe he has. Check out all three designs at crooked.com. That seems like it was written by either Hallie or Lazarus. Let's not name names here. You're just going to offend somebody.

Which, I mean, those are just compliments. Someone else wants to take credit for it. They're excellent jokes. They're great. They're great jokes. That's why it was very funny. All right, let's get to the news. President Biden is set to deliver

the State of the Union on Tuesday night under the enormous shadow of a Chinese balloon that has really sucked up all the oxygen in the media and political world. You're doing it. The U.S. military first spotted the unmanned surveillance blimp over Alaska about a week ago, and Biden gave orders to shoot it down once it was safe, which took place over South Carolina on Saturday after the balloon drifted slowly across the United States. Secretary of State Tony Blinken also indefinitely postponed his trip to Beijing over this incident, though none of this was good enough for Republican politicians and some pundits who promptly lost their minds. Did that balloon take off from Wuhan?

How about COVID-22, 23, whatever year it is? If they know Joe freezes at the first sight of a balloon, the next balloon might be filled with another virus. Pop, droplets all over. We're all on ventilators again. It didn't drop and disperse surveillance products powered by solar energy to allow unlimited surveillance. We had plenty of capacity to scoop that balloon out of the air. We used to do it all the time.

Whoever is working with the Chinese government to sell our farmland near our bases, I don't know if those are investment firms, real estate agents. I don't know who's providing cover for the Communist Party and Chinese. That's treasonous. I have another question. Why haven't we shot this balloon out of the sky? Oh, Joe Biden is the president. Or how about you ram it with the Goodyear blimp? The only reason they shot it down is because it made it into the news. Well, and they felt forced to as a matter of politics rather than national security. Since the Chinese are telling us it's a weather balloon, I'm almost thinking it's a weather balloon.

I almost think it's a double bluff from China. This goes back to Chinese subterfuge for centuries. Double bluff. I do love the Ted Cruz one because he's like, yeah, he shot the balloon down, but his heart wasn't in it. I like, is that thing Newt Gingrich? Like we used to scoop balloons all the time. What was that? When did we scoop balloons?

I think he's talking about the sky hook from Dark Knight. I don't know. I mean. I just want to, can I just put a pin in this balloon star for a second? Get it out. Get out of your system. Look, obviously Republicans have tried to overinflate this story. And the media has been pumping it up too.

But even so, I'm surprised by how much lift it's had day after day of hot air. Are these the famed notes that you took for this episode? Yeah, that's part of it. That's the top of it. That's right there. Love it's notes are balloon jokes and the words Joe Biden. You wrote down. It's underlined.

So, Tommy, before we get um some of the more hysterical reactions uh can you walk us through what else we know about this balloon so far and and why the biden administration is taking it so seriously tony blinken did did cancel his trip tony did i think he might have just wanted his weekend back what do you think i think he wanted to yeah he wanted to consume all the balloon coverage. He's got small kids. He wanted to make sure he could see all those memes.

He wanted to see Yung get up. So, this is one of, it sounds like this is one of several Chinese spy balloons that have come into US airspace or been released.

There's one in Latin America right now. There's balloons partying all over the place. Chinese balloons are all over the world. Now, my first hand knowledge

of spy stuff stopped in 2013. So, I'm working with like an iPhone 5 worth of technology. You know what I mean? So like take it with a grain of salt. Presumably this thing is loaded up with high resolution cameras, signals, intelligence collections, stuff. So not shaving cream.

So not shaving cream. We know that it went over a bunch of sensitive military installations, including nuclear missile launch sites in Montana. So, you know, stuff you don't want photographed by the Chinese government. It is generally not acceptable to just fly into someone's airspace. There's a principled reason, but there's also the practical reason. Like, what if this balloon deflated and then it was in the flight path of a jet? That'd be very, very bad, right? So a lot of reasons to be mad about this.

It's not clear to me what this balloon can do that a Chinese satellite, spy satellite, isn't already doing. That's sort of what I don't get in the big freakout. I read some weird DOD paper on this. You can definitely get much higher quality photos and videos from cameras at lower altitudes. Balloons can loiter over these sites for a lot longer and collect more intelligence. I think you can do a better job of collecting radio signals and other signals. But again, I'm not sure that that volume of collection and intelligence makes it worth this kind of embarrassing diplomatic dust up because the Chinese wanted Tony to go to Beijing for this trip. They've been trying to lower the temperature and this incident puts that effort on pause. What do you think? There's been some speculation that

and it puts that effort on pause. What do you think? There's been some speculation that maybe the reason that they sent this, you sound so ridiculous, sent this balloon is that there's some sort of group of people

that were actually trying to get this trip canceled. I mean, I guess the question I have is like, how much can you really control how fast the balloon moves? Because what it seems to do is there's an algorithm in there

that controls the altitude and it catches prevailing winds, which make it go to different directions but that doesn't mean you can put on cruise control and say like hey tesla go 55 get me there this is not a remote no one's sitting there with the remote control like speed up slow down i mean maybe they are but i think that happens by just adjusting your heights and catching different jet streams but so so that it's not like a motor they did go on quite a tour. Went to Alaska, went down the coast. Absolutely. Checked out Montana.

A purposeful route, it seems. The St. Louis Arch. Yeah. So it was about 60,000 feet above into the sky, right? That's the altitude for this thing.

You were mentioning Chinese spy satellites that are already in lower altitudes in space. So basically, this is just getting a clearer picture.

Maybe. Just a sharper image, like HD. Yeah, I mean, you can get a lot better pictures. I don't know. Who knows what they were looking for? I think the fact that we waited to shoot the thing down and now we're going to go through it inch by inch and figure out what it was collecting and what its capabilities are, we'll have a lot more information on this. And Levi, when you were

talking about the speculation that some people were trying to ruin ruin this visit by blinken that's referring to there's some some speculation that the chinese military or sources within china or different or there's some dissensus within the chinese government right so that some people want the visit some people don't right that maybe president somehow didn't know that this was happening. I find that very hard to believe. That's what I was going to say. Xi Jinping rules with an iron fist. He has since 2012. Just recently, he moved out a lot of other potential power centers from the Politburo and put in his own guys. I think if someone in the military or the intel world tried to mess with him and mess up the Blinken trip and cause a controversy that he

wasn't dictating the terms of, Xi Jinping would throw them in jail for a long time. Do you think it's possible that this is the result of what happens many times in our own government, which is just someone fucked up? Yeah, that would be my guess. Yeah. Someone fucked up, didn't intend to sabotage Blinken's visit. Did not plan for a situation in which Joe Biden would do to that balloon what a windy Thursday did to the cat in the hat, the 1997 Macy's parade. Oh, man. Wow. That was a tough one.

One of you, I think, mentioned the Pentagon acknowledged for the first time that they've previously seen similar balloons from China three times during the Trump administration, at least once during the Biden administration. What's different about this latest incident? So there's just a report that NORAD said publicly that they failed to detect the previous balloon incursions. And they learned after the fact from- I think we should call them balloonings. Balloonings. We've been ballooned. Derived by balloonings. And they were notified of them after the fact by the intelligence

community. I don't know if that means they were notified about what had happened in real time, or if you figured out sort of the signature of this balloon based on the last week's events, and then looked back in some old data and figured out all these things that had happened. It's not really clear. It sounds like the previous balloons kind of peeked into US airspace and then left it. This one obviously flew into Alaska. This one extended its trip. You know what had a long road trip. You know what? I'm having so much fun, and honestly, I'm going to stick. Is that crazy?

Should I stay a couple more days? I never do that, but I'm feeling spontaneous. I mean, should we go to Times Square? I mean, we're in Montana. We've already, I mean, the hardest part is crossing over. We're here. The Pentagon said five chinese balloons have circumnavigated the globe and they've done the china's conducted 20 to 30 balloon missions

globally over the past decade look look here's the here's the other thing too this is all about trends uh and what's hot right now is 1930s politics it's all about it's all about dirigibles and fascism and that's like that's like super in right now and sort of looser suits and kind of bigger suits we're moving away from the kind of that's that's all it's all coming back it's all coming full circle you guys are laughing but republicans are angry they're furious more like asama balloon laden folks we've been hearing about this one all day i'm gonna do it a couple times because i want to get the best one. The main criticism from Republicans seems to be that Biden didn't shoot down the balloon over Alaska the second that they detected it. Should have shot it down.

Tommy, what's the best response to that? The best argument against shooting it down over land is crashing 2000 pounds of metal the size of a regional jetliner onto a human being. This is what the word balloon obscures for like what the thing is, which I learned today as I was reading about this, is that, yeah, it was the same weight as two to three buses. So like that's a big balloon. I think people are picturing like a hot air balloon.

This isn't a Mylar thing. Like remember when there was that boy that was supposedly in the balloon, but it turns out it was just a stunt? People are picturing, I think, that scale of balloon. This is a big balloon. The balloon itself is dangling below it, a two to three school bus long hunk of metal that's collecting all this information. What about when they saw it right over the coast of Alaska, before it got to Alaska?

Could you shoot it down then? I mean, I think they probably had to figure out what it was going on. Before you just start shooting into the air. Also, I read that somewhere the Pentagon modeled out options for how to deal with the balloon. And one of those options found that if you shoot a missile at the balloon and it tears it instead of exploding it, then the landing zone could have been several hundred square miles

for where all that material lands. So I think the worst thing Joe Biden could have done is order a military operation that kills an American. You think so? Can you imagine what Republicans would be saying then? I just imagine if it, yeah. And then there's some articles saying that by allowing this thing to transverse the U.S., we were able to, I don't know, cover up sensitive military sites.

And again, everyone, these Minuteman II missile silos, they're dug into the ground in Montana. You know, there's 150 missile silos there. I'm sure that you can figure out something worse. There's things you don't want people to know about those, but everyone knows that they're there. And satellites have been flying across them for decades. And also presumably they had some notice that the balloon was coming.

Yes. You know, I mean, if Joe Biden had shot it down over land, but it fell on a drag bunch, I think it would have really scrambled their response. Jesus Christ. I asked Ron about this. There have been some reports that the United States collected more intelligence

about the Chinese balloon capability by watching it, by monitoring it, and maybe jamming its signals than they would have if they just immediately blown it up. I mean, I always say that- That feels true to me. Chinese surveillance balloons are more afraid of us than we are of them.

You know, that's something that I've always said. Oh boy. I'm sorry, this is so that I've always said. Oh, boy. I'm sorry. This is so stupid. I can't. What are we going to do? One other thing to do is that as silly as Newt Gingrich was, apparently, according to David Ignatius, the Pentagon did weigh whether it might be possible to partially deflate the balloon and capture it at lower altitude. But officials said no technology exists that would allow such a butterfly net capture operation.

And shame on us. Shame on what's become of this country that we don't have a giant butterfly net you ready to catch these fucking balloons that'll be trump that'll be trump's thing you know we're more similar than we'd like to admit i gotta say i don't i don't often miss being in government being in the balloon capture or kill options meeting would have been sweet so far and also just like i like that it's the it's the bin Laden, the sit room picture, except when you turn it around, there's just a big hole. It's the birthday party.

Hillary Clinton's like, ooh. The other thing too is like, we sent an F-22 to kill this thing. It's the first time the F-22 has done an in-air kill, like an actual air-to-air kill. And just like, man, you know, I'm sure it's quite stressful, but you're really not at great risk

from the balloon fighting back. And so you just like go up there, shoot a hole in that fucking balloon. That has got to be a satisfying day. That is a good day at work. That pilot is the king of that Air Force Base race. They're the best time. That's a cool day.

That's a cool day. The day you shot down the Chinese spy balloon. The real threat is our's a cool day. That's a cool day. The day you shot down the Chinese spy balloon. The real threat is our ballooning national day. Oh, there it is. No. I think that'll be

a real take away. There it is. At a time when the country's mood is far from buoyant. Jesus Christ. Playbook's Monday morning headline. This is so good. Speaking of enraging.

This is wild. Was China deflates Biden's so-to swagger. Should he resign during the speech? Do you guys think because of this? Love it. You start. Yeah, I mean, obviously.

But assuming he doesn't. He shot down the balloon. I feel like I'm losing my mind. But it's too late. He shot down the balloon. It knows everything about us already. It was too late. He shot down the balloon.

It knows everything about us already. I honestly think... The balloon's got all your nudes. The balloon's got my nudes? Just overhead nudes? Then the nuke secrets. It's got the nuclear codes and everything else too late biden biden biden dithered but it's i it's like really like like hey i know you all did your final takes before the weekend on friday and he made the idiotic mistake of shooting the thing down on a saturday

but he shot down the fucking bullets shot i know so then he did what you wanted i mean i asked i asked ron about this headline so everyone get excited for his take on we basically made him play uh one shot take appreciators on this nice did he give the playbook headline a full playbook he did not love it uh i'll say let him speak for himself on this i mean just a little bit of context here i mean the thing that's so dumb about this is like no matter what happens right republic Republicans are going to spin it as a negative for Joe Biden. It's just so silly that we take those claims seriously. In 2001, a US spy plane was flying off the coast of China. It actually collided with a Chinese fighter jet. They had to make a crash landing. They landed some island. George Bush had to write an apology letter to

the Chinese government to get them to release 24 airmen and get them home. And as far as I can tell, both countries continue to exist. You know, we're all doing okay here. Like we treat these things like they're this, like this life ending event, or it's just, it's absurd. The hyperbole is absurd. Also, just from a purely political perspective here, most people who heard about this incident in the country heard that we shot it down, that Biden shot it down. And more people will hear about Biden's explanation of the incident when he addresses it in the State of the Union than they will hear Republican criticism about the incident. I'm sorry. They will also probably hear during the State of the Union

more about issues they care about, probably more than the balloon. If there is such an issue, I can't think of one. But I will. Yes yes i do not believe in a year or even two weeks we will that a key argument republicans will be making is joe biden didn't shoot the chinese balloon fast enough i agree i don't think yeah i don't think they're thinking ahead though on a more serious note how do you think this incident affects biden's politics on China, where there seems to be a bipartisan competition over who can be toughest on China? I am very worried about this. And I think it's worth just setting the context here, which is that Joe Biden has been extremely tough on China. The United States banned the

export of semiconductors and semiconductor making equipment. That is a huge deal. Ever heard of the CHIPS Act? And could have enormous implications in terms of their ability to develop new tech. The CHIPS Act, the IRA, the giant climate bill, like that's this sort of like nationalist, one I support, effort to make the US the leading maker of clean energy technology. We gave nuclear subtech to the Australians. We're expanding military alliances in places like the Philippines and Japan. Australians were expanding military alliances in places like the Philippines and Japan.

Joe Biden has repeatedly said that the U.S. would defend Taiwan militarily if China invades. That is, to be clear, not the U.S. position. So there are real reasons to be worried about the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government under Xi Jinping. I'm not belittling that or diminishing it at all. But it's very worrisome to see this like red scare thing happening in Washington. It's a race to the bottom to see who can be more hawkish and jingoistic. And we just psych ourselves out as a nation. It's like, it's a balloon.

But the language is so psychological. It's like, we're humiliated. Well, yeah, it's all very much. It's all very much. We're the ones who say we're humiliated. What are we doing? Well, it's all very much it's all very much we're the ones who say we're humiliated right that's the thing it's like what are we doing well it's also like okay well it's also it's yes it is it becomes that like the sending of the balloon is a test of what what will happen in the future when they send something far more dangerous and what did china learn about america

from our failure to shoot down the balloon within minutes the chinese the chinese send a balloon over here we all go crazy it's a real monster to do on maple street we just we just yeah it's not yeah look look for the chinese spy balloon in our fucking hearts i would i would look to the hundred billion that joe biden and the united states just gave to the ukrainians to defend themselves against a russian invasion maybe that's more telling but like you you see the mike pompeo's of the world posting themselves pointing guns into the sky like mock shooting thing that it's like it radiates small dick energy as a nation and as individuals it is so embarrassing did you read his fox news op-ed where he did also attack the biden administration for inviting tiktok influencers to the white house the White House when TikTok is possibly controlled by this. He is by balloon on our phones.

Mike Pompeo attacked Joe Biden for withdrawing from Afghanistan when Mike Pompeo himself personally negotiated the deal with the Taliban. Like none of this is on the level. It's very stupid. But the reason I worry about this is I think the media gets pulled into these conversations. The conflict gets played up, the humiliation language, the demands to take military action. Like there were not a lot of voices on cable over the weekend being like, what if we all chilled out? And what if we all remember that we spy on the Chinese all the time, all day, every day, they spy on us. That's why you come to Pod Save America. This one's just visible. That's right. There are satellites, Chinese satellites are flying

over the United States. American satellites are flying over China every single day. Look at the snow-didden documents. I mean, there's a lot out there. Do you think that this was their, do you think they sent their newest balloon? Or do you think they had a feeling this thing might end up in the ocean? They sent kind of like a, you know, a balloon they didn't mind losing. An old balloon. Well, here's my question.

Why not paint the balloon blue? Then he can't see the thing. Wow. Holy shit. Don't tell them. 99 red scare balloons? Nice. That's pretty good.

I'll take that one. Nice. That actually worked. I think that's it. That's everything for the balloon. That's 24 minutes of balloon. These Republicans are treating it like Osama Balloon Laden. I just want you guys to know, the whole balloon thing started.

First, it was some jokes. I was like, oh, I can't wait to listen to this on Pod Save the World this week. Then it just ballooned to something bigger. Suddenly, I'm like, oh, no. This is hitting Pod Save America. This is now the biggest news story in the fucking country as of today. I saw the coverage and I said to myself, oh, the humanity. That's a reference to... What is that? Oh, the humanity. It's just... That's a reference to...

What is that? Oh, the humanity? That's what they said when Hindenburg went down. Oh, there you go. I was waiting for Hindenburg reference. I think there's a rigid airship.

Okay. That was a bad one. When we come back, Tommy will talk to Ron Klain, outgoing White House Chief of Staff, all about this and more. A little bit of balloon, yeah.

Yeah. We get some more balloon coverage coming up right after the break thanks wolf we are hypocrites i am thrilled to be joined by president biden's outgoing chief of staff, Ron Klain. Ron, I was reading a lot of coverage about you. I was blown away when I read that you started working for President Biden when you were 28 years old. You are at least 35 now. So that is a hell of a run.

I just want to start by saying, you know, congrats on a job well done as chief of staff and, you know, an amazing two years. Thanks, Tom. It's been a wild ride, 36 years off and on with Joe Biden. And here at the White House, we just have the most amazing team. It's very hard to say goodbye, but I think it's time to pass this along to somebody else. Yeah, well, I think it's hard to explain to people who haven't had your job or worked in that building how close you get. It's the sort of shared foxhole feeling, the shared sacrifice. So again, congrats to you and the team. So Ron, the headline of Politico playbook this morning was China deflates Biden's so-to swagger.

Just wanted to start there and see where that ranks among the most absurd headlines that you guys have dealt with during your tenure as chief of staff. You got a ranking for us? headlines that you guys have dealt with during your tenure as chief of staff? You got a ranking for us? I'd say, you know, I hesitate to rank these things, but I'd say it's definitely in the top 10 stupid headlines of the Biden presidency. You know, Joe Biden's swagger, if you will, in the State of the Union comes from the fact that when he took office, this country was closed, our schools were closed, our economy was economy was closed 3 000 people a day were dying from covid uh we had left the paris agreements we had broken our alliances around the world and look where we are just two years later a record job creation uh the unemployment

rate down more than half since he took office the lowest in 50 years our schools are open covid deaths down 80 percent covet cases down 80 percent uh we're back leading globally on climate change we're bringing 800 000 manufacturing jobs back to our shores we're leading the world in clean energy we've passed the most significant gun control bill uh in 30 years the list goes on and on and on. That's where Joe Biden comes in to the State of the Union with swagger. And I think, look, as to this incident with the Chinese balloon, the president ordered the military to take it down when they could do so safely. They did. They're now recovering the key elements of the spying devices, whatever it was, surveillance devices. So I think mission accomplished on

the balloon there. And more importantly, a mission accomplished on a number of key domestic and global priorities. See, he took a question about political playbook and made a case for the reelection. That's how you become chief of staff people. So obviously, you guys are taking this spy balloon joyride very seriously. Planes were grounded. Tony Blinken indefinitely postponed his trip to China. You shot the thing down. Can you help us just cut through some of the hyperbole that we've seen over the weekend and just help listeners understand how seriously they should take this incident or how much of this is great powers spy on each other a lot?

That's just kind of how it is. Well, look, we take it seriously. China violated our airspace, and that's something we can't accept. Now, it did it three times under President Trump, and he either didn't know, didn't care, didn't understand or whatever happened then. But President Biden took it seriously. But we also take the security and safety of our own country very seriously. the security and safety of our own country very seriously. We weren't going to shoot something down from 60,000 feet and have it land on a church or a school or a hospital, even in the more rural parts of the country. So I think we responded and handled this appropriately. Look, our relationship with China is a very important relationship. It's one of competition. We seek it not to be one of confrontation. But there's no question there

are great differences between our two countries. The president has spoken with President Xi from time to time over the course of his presidency. It didn't make sense for Secretary Blinken to go in the middle of this incident, but we'll find a time for his visit to get back on the books and at an appropriate time. And we have important business to do with china there's no question about that yeah last balloon question i've seen some reports that suggested letting this thing uh across the u.s and then shooting it down not only made made it safer to do so but also let the us gain more information intelligence about the spy balloons capabilities uh is that accurate it is i have to be careful what we say here, but certainly we, as our military commanders have already said, and we had a briefing today from the commanding general of NORTHCOM, it did allow us to collect intelligence on the balloon on what the Chinese

were doing. We were able to gain a little more understanding about how the system operated and what we think they were trying to do. So I think we did some intelligence gathering ourselves here. And I think it was helpful for the long run. And I just want everyone to know that you're probably listening to this. The balloon's corpse is behind Ron, tacked against the wall. So it's just, you know, important visual. So this, we're talking on Monday afternoon. This will come out Tuesday morning. What should people expect to hear in President Biden's State of the Union speech later tonight? Well, what they're going to hear, Tom, is a combination of, first of all, the progress we've made. I think it's important to remind the American people where we were,

we got started, and what's happened to get us to where we are. But even more importantly, they're going to hear his plan to go forward from here. Look, we've made tremendous progress on the economy, but there's a lot of important work left to do to bring inflation down further and to make sure we're building that kind of bottom-up, middle-out economy that's so important to the president. We've made progress restoring our alliances around the world. We've been managing the largest land war in Europe since the end of World War II. But we have a lot of progress to make there, more work to do there to combat Russian aggression and to make sure the Ukrainian people can be free. We have progress building a new clean energy economy for the future that's going to create hundreds of thousands of jobs here in America, combat climate change, make our air cleaner, make our water, everything healthier

here in the U.S. But there's a lot of work left to do there to implement the Inflation Reduction Act, other measures that we passed along the way. So, and look, we've made even progress on health care. This is something we started when you and I worked together in the Obama administration with the Affordable Care Act. Since then, we've passed additional measures. More Americans have health insurance today than any time in American history. We capped the price of insulin for people on Medicare at $35. We need to take that cap and make it true for everyone in the country, paying less than $35 on their insulin, bring down the cost of prescription drugs across the board. So you're going to hear the president update the country on the state of the union today, but also lay out his

plans for how we can have an even better union a year or two years from now. You know, as you know, you and I have been in politics, I think every year there's some article the day after the State of the Union about ratings are down that tends to be entirely correlated to the number of people cutting the cord, right? We're all watching on YouTube now, watching clips on Twitter, but the expectations around the State of the Union haven't changed. It's still this like massive event in the year of a presidency. How are you guys thinking about the State of the Union in terms of the broader tapestry of President Biden's desire to or efforts to communicate with the American people about what you're doing? Well, Tom, you're absolutely right. Compared to five years, 10 years ago, certainly when I worked here for President

Clinton compared to then, the idea that this was like roadblock, primetime network viewing for every American, which was true 25 or 30 years ago, is not true anymore. But on the other hand, we have a lot of ways to push clips from the State of the Union, excerpts from the State of the Union to a wide range of people on our platforms, on other platforms. And so I think in the end, virtually everyone sees some part of it in some way, shape or fashion. What we know is it's a night when a lot of people who don't otherwise tune into politics do tune in and do listen to what the president has to say. It's an opportunity for people to focus on our messages and for us to get them across. So it's not the kind of, and I think the other thing about it is it may be less impactful on one night than the State of the Union was 20 or 30 years ago.

But it's probably more impactful across a range of time as people pick up these clips on social, on other forms of sharing and other platforms. So it's a big content generation night for us. And we're looking forward to getting that message out. Absolutely. And presumably, I mean, parts of this speech will become, you know, part of the campaign's reelection effort. There are some reports that you might leave the chief of staff job, take some time off, hopefully, and then be a part of the president's reelection campaign. Is that accurate? Well, as I said at my farewell speech, I worked on Joe Biden's 1988 presidential campaign, on his 2008 presidential campaign,

on his 2020 presidential campaign. And if he runs in 2024, and I expect that he will, I will find some way to be some part of that campaign too. A little debate prep action. You're very good at that. Well, if the president winds up debating his opponent, Donald Trump has said he's not going to debate this time. So we'll have to wait and see how that goes. But I'll find some way to be helpful, I'm sure. Maybe stuffing envelopes, whatever it is. But whatever I can do to help Joe Biden get reelected, I'm going to do. Yeah. I mean, the best debate prep with Donald Trump is an N95 mask, as we learned last time. Yes, indeed. Yes to do. Yeah. I mean, the best debate prep with Donald Trump is an N95 mask,

as we learned last time. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed it was. I mean, outrageous. He's Chris Christie over the weekend, taking more shots at him on that. Okay. So one challenge for President Biden seems to be democratic enthusiasm. There was a Washington Post poll over the weekend that found 58% of Dems or Dem-leading independents want someone other than President Biden as the nominee. I think if you read those same 58% of Dems or Dem-leading independents, the list of policy accomplishments you just named, they would probably say, well, that sounds pretty good. I'm wondering why you think that delta exists between what you've gotten done and support for President Biden and maybe what they need to hear to bring those Democrats and independents home.

Well, Tom, first of all, without getting into some technical attack on the poll, I have a lot of doubts about that poll this weekend, which showed that young voters prefer Donald Trump to Joe Biden, which has not been the performance of young voters at any single time, any time in the past three years. But look, I think if you want to ask about Democratic enthusiasm, we had a meeting of the Democratic National Committee on Friday in Philadelphia. And that committee, which consists of Democrats from all over the country and Democrats of all shades of ideology in our party and all kinds of things, showed the overwhelming enthusiasm that Democratic activists, Democratic leaders have for the president. And I think that's what you're going to see across the board. I think that if he runs,

and as I said, I expect he will, I think he will have the overwhelming support of the Democratic Party, and I think he'll be reelected. So look, we know that, you know, there are challenges to being an incumbent and challenges to having to get your message out in a certain way when you're the incumbent. But I'm quite confident that President Biden, if he runs, will wind up with the overwhelming support of the Democratic Party and, again, as I said, a united party taking on the Republicans next year. You know, I've heard President Biden and you and members of the team talk a lot about President Trump, it's a unique threat he posed to our democracy, maybe still poses. I haven't heard you guys talk as much about Ron DeSantis, who some people argue is really the front runner for the Republican

nomination. Do you have a view of Ron DeSantis and maybe what a DeSantis candidacy or presidency would mean for the country? Well, look, I think, first of all, I think Donald Trump is the undisputed leader of the Republican Party. I understand they have some wish fulfillment exercise going on over there trying to avoid Donald Trump. But when Kevin McCarthy couldn't get elected speaker, the phone call went out. It was Donald Trump. They got Kevin McCarthy elected speaker. And you go down the line and every key moment for. It was Donald Trump. They got Kevin McCarthy elected speaker. And you go down the line, and every key moment for their party, Donald Trump is the person who decides. He decides who gets nominated. He decides who wins for them. He decides where their party goes. So I think they can pretend that they've solved their Trump problem, but I don't see really

any evidence of that. Beyond that, we'll just let the Republican Party politics play out as they may. And as I said, I think if the president runs, he will have a whelming support from Democrats and independents. Look, I heard a lot of these same doubts about Joe Biden, his record, what he stood for before the 2022 midterms. I heard a lot of the same questions about polling numbers and all these kinds of things what we saw was as you know a historic result the first president ever to get every senator in his own party reelected uh a historically uh low number of states given up in the house actually gaining governorships gaining state legislature seats you saw what happened when when you know joe biden brought his team and his talent and his message to the ballot box. And I think really,

that's what I look to when I assess how he's going to do in 2024. It's a hell of a good midterm, a lot better than 2010. You're about to leave the job. Jeff Zients is going to take over. Just wonder if you could look back for a minute. I mean, you've been through some pretty historic moments. In particular, I just was wondering what it was like for you, someone who's in the PDB, who's reading intelligence constantly. At that moment when you guys realized like, okay, Russia is actually going to do this. They're going to invade Ukraine. You're sort of sitting on this information.

You're going home at night, like trying to be normal over dinner with your wife and friends, knowing that this sort of catastrophic event is going to happen. Can you sort of take us back and, you know, just remember what that moment was? You know, Tom, it's interesting because in in fact we weren't really sitting on it we had sent the president out to say this was going to happen we had called our european allies to say hey this is going to happen and of course we had a lot of communications with president zielinski and others in ukraine saying this was going to happen far from kind of hiding the information the rest of the people doubted it you know no people people said, no way that'll happen.

We were telling anyone who would listen, hey, we need to get ready. The West needs to prepare for this. We need to get sanctions ready to go. And in the end, right, although there was skepticism, what we were saying, we were able to very quickly get the West lined up to impose these unprecedented sanctions on Russia.

We were able to quickly get key aid and assistance to the Ukrainians. And I think that, you know, the most amazing part of this was seeing the Ukrainians with their courage, with their guile, with their flexibility, with the weapons we provided and other Western allies provided, hold off what was thought to be the second largest military in the world, to hold them off from taking their capital, which most of the experts thought would happen in two or three days. Hold off from the overrunning the country, as most of the experts thought would happen in two or three weeks. So just seeing that unfold day by day was just an amazing thing and something I think all of us here are very proud of.

Last question, because I know you have a busy day today. Is there a moment or an event or a foreign trip that you'll think back on as sort of your favorite time in this White House that you want a story to tell? Yeah, you know, I think really the moment really was the month of August of 2022. It was a strange month here. The president had COVID for a solid chunk of the month, and notwithstanding the fact that he had to work remotely and work the phones, we were able to get the Inflation Reduction Act passed. We were able to conduct a major successful anti-terrorism mission in Kabul. We able to get the chips act passed get the the pack deck passed to help our veterans uh and so it was a a time of two or three week period of

tremendous progress on the legislative front on the National Security front um and it just was uh just one of those periods where everything kind of clicked and we really had an exceptional couple weeks there and that's I'll always remember that time remember that time as what we call the season of substance, a time when we really got a lot of things done here. And I hope, and I think a time when the things we got done are going to pay off benefits for years and years to come in terms of the economy we'll be building, the progress we're going to make at home and abroad. That was a really critical period. Every White House always tells're going to make at home and abroad, that was a really critical period. Every White House always tells the staff to take parts of August off, thinking it's going

to be slow. And it just never is. Never in history. August is the month when it all happens every single year. Don't travel in August, White House staff. Are you the only guy in the country who hasn't gotten COVID yet? I don't know about that, but knock wood. Thanks for cursing me, Tom.

I have not gotten COVID yet? I don't know about that, but knock wood. Thanks for cursing me, Tom. I have not gotten COVID yet. And yeah, but again, if I do, I'll take Vaxlovid. We've got a great medicines now. That's why if you look, the people don't really appreciate the progress we've made on COVID. If you look at the charts and the graphs you see in previous winters, cases went up, hospitalizations went up, ICU admissions went up. This past winter, we've kept ICU admissions very low because we have a treatment that this administration purchased and has distributed widely that keeps people who get COVID from getting very sick. I'd also note that you're someone who, when I see you in public, you are wearing a mask. I do wear a mask. Pretty religiously. And it seems like it does the work. Ron Klain, thank you so much for doing the

show. Thanks for all your hard work for President Biden. And we really appreciate it. Thanks, Tom. Thanks for having me. Before we go, let's talk a bit more about the State of the Union. Every speechwriter's

favorite set of remarks. We just heard Ron preview the speech in his interview with Tommy, which will now include what I'm sure is a seamless insert about the Chinese balloon. The speech is also a chance for Biden to make... Can you guys try to write that in real time?

What's the pivot? Much as we have to bring down inflation, we also have to bring down Chinese spy balloons. Well done. You nailed that. That's it. Can't improve on that. The speech is also a chance for Biden to make his case for a second term ahead of an expected re-election announcement this spring. And there's a new Washington Post-ABC News poll that shows Donald Trump leading the president 48 to 45 percent in a potential rematch. Yikes.

With around 60 percent of Americans saying they'd be dissatisfied or angry if either man returns to the White House. And there are plenty of other rough numbers in that poll for both Trump and Biden. No one speech can fix any of that. Not pretending it can. But if you're looking at polls like these in the White House, what are you hoping to get out of the State of the Union? Love it. Yeah, I think there's sort of two broad tasks.

Neither easy. One, I think, harder than the other. asks, neither easy, one, I think, harder than the other. The first is to tout what I think is fair to call an incredibly successful two years, given the hand that President Biden was dealt. And he can point to bipartisan bills like gun safety, infrastructure, semiconductors, which we talked about, health care for veterans. He can also talk about the Inflation Reduction Act, which has investments in clean energy. And he could talk about lower prescription drug costs. He could talk about at least pushing for student debt relief and hoping it is held up.

He can point to inflation coming down. He can point to a low unemployment rate. He has to do that at a time when the country is in a pretty bad mood, deflated, as you said, in a part that we cut. Sure, it's fine. So he has to find a way to do that. But that is something I think

every day. That's that was what we struggled with when President Obama was giving State of the Union is how do you tell your accomplishments when people aren't really in a mood to hear them because they feel unhappy with the state of things. But I think it is important that he does that. And then the other big task is finding a way to speak to the desire for for unity and bipartisanship, which is so central to the case Joe Biden makes for himself as a candidate, while also finding a way to paint Republicans as extreme. So that is, I think that's the slightly harder task to figure out how you talk about what you want to do with the Republicans in Congress while still painting them as radical and out of touch and why we need to

elect more Democrats. I think it's important not to disparage all balloons because angioplasty. I think it's important not to disparage all balloons because angioplasty. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I mean, balloons play a vital role in children's parties. That's right. Serious question. What do you guys think the balance is in this bad boy, the State of the Union, of foreign policy versus domestic, given that you have to talk about Ukraine and you have to do a bunch of balloon nonsense? I'd still confine it to that one section.

As we must be strong at home, we have to also be strong abroad. Give us a percentage. I would... I think you've got to do 25%. Because here's the thing. That's all I get? That's all you get.

Here's how, off the top of my head, here's how I try to organize it. You've got to do your accomplishments litany. You've got to get through that fast. I know they all want to type the accomplishment. I know they're your accomplishments litany. You got to get through that fast. I know they all want to- I think they're going to lean into that. I know they're going to, but they got to get through that fast because like Levitt said, people aren't feeling it in their own lives. And by just saying it, you're not going to set it there. No one's going to sit home in a dour mood and then be like, oh, well, he just actually told

me that unemployment's low. I feel great. That's not going to happen. It's still good to do it. I'm glad he should do it. I'm not saying he shouldn't. But I think you have to frame the accomplishments within the context of what else you're fighting to achieve and who's standing in your way. Right. So I think you do the accomplishments. He's also going to have to do a big section on or I'm guessing some section on the debt fight. What's to come. Right. Yeah. There's also McCarthy's previewing that McCarthy's previewing that on Monday. And I would he wants he wants to hit the economy, jobs, inflation, all that hard. Right. That's going to be the crux of both his what he's talking about with the accomplishments and his policy prescription. And just on the debt, I do think it's like I think that that's a framing of you don't frame it as therefore cutting spending. I think you would frame it as we can either work together or you can destroy the economy, right? Like this is something where we shouldn't, we have to work together. Come work with me, come get this done with me. This is something we have to do together. And then we just talked about accomplishments, economy, debt ceiling fight, Ukraine, China, and then somehow

you got to do all the other issues that matter in like one section you know like whether it's probably going to talk about immigration tyree nichols family has been invited to the same union we'll go talk about police reform you want to talk about all these other issues both issues where he's made some progress and issues where he probably hopes to make progress i'll probably mention student debt reform right like all of this stuff he's got up he's got to put in there. And I also think that the challenge here is, basically what you want out of this speech is it's a night's worth of free airtime for your message, your re-election message in front of a big audience

and maybe 12 hours worth of good coverage afterwards. That's it. There's no more State of the Union coverage goes for a week or a couple days anymore tonight was the night he became president tonight so you want your message to get out which means that of all that litany of things that you have to put in the speech you also need some kind of theme to emerge from the speech and for him if he's as expected going to run free election um the re-election theme needs to come out and i think what he'll probably do is show

like i'm the guy who has been working with some in the other party to get stuff done that matters to people and i'm still working hard at that i'm still fighting for that while these jokers are just like a bunch of children who are working for the extreme elements of their own party with a whole bunch of political stunts. Yeah. But he's not going to say that that explicitly. He's going to be much more presidential.

I think he frames that as a choice for them. Yes. Like you have an opportunity. You can give in to the most extreme elements of your party or you can work with me to solve these problems. And the message is going to be like, I'm serious. They're not. Yeah.

You know, I care about you. They care about power. Yeah. The most recent. Calm competence versus chaos. Right. The most, the best example we've had of that message in the last few months is Joe Biden standing next to Mitch McConnell doing an infrastructure event in Kentucky. Yes. While Kevin McCarthy is,

you know, promising organs to Matt Gaetz to get the speakership and not the organs. You know, it's worth down a few right now. Yeah. And Matt Gaetz got the organs you think. You know what? We're down a few right now. Yeah. And Matt Gaetz got the organ he wanted. It's worth saying. I'm so sorry, everyone. This is a good contrast for Joe Biden, right? Because we've talked a lot about, you know,

the challenge Biden's poll numbers are facing right now. That was a weird passive voice construction. But there was a reason. I know for White House press secretary. The balloon has been shot down. Mistakes among us have been made. But there's a CNN poll from late in January that found that nearly three quarters of Americans think the House Republican leaders haven't paid enough attention to the most important problems that they're facing. So he Biden can play off of them in a way that I think will be beneficial to his message we've we've said it a million times as has joe biden don't compare me to the almighty compare me to the alternative that's the whole that's that's what he's going to go for in this speech

that's gonna be the whole re-election campaign and the story of his life love it we've been through this uh special hell a few times the state of the union what's our friend uh vanai ready who's joe biden's chief uh speechwriter what's he been through these last few weeks and now and what's the process like in these final 24 hours before the speech well we know that even in the last 24 hours they have the white house has said that this final message of the speech isn't done right which tells you that his life is a fucking nightmare right now i just want to say last year remember right before the speech they were rewriting it because of putin's invasion yeah it's tough the second time something some foreign policy thing has upended the state of the union right

before right i if i were if i were so i think it has been weeks and weeks of conversation uh obviously they want to tout their accomplishments white house put out a kind of litany of accomplishments a few weeks ago. And that I think is probably the blueprint for the for most of the section that's looking back over the last two years. And probably it's a matter of emphasis and what they cut and what they keep. That's not easy. But I assume the real debate has been about what policies to announce you're pushing for and how much to lean into what you'll want to get done in Congress, how much you're going to want to do administratively, and how

much you're saying is going to be, you know, that you can't do without more support or what have you. And I assume that's been a lot of what the internal fight has been about. There's been a lot of conversation about how much to talk about things like the child tax credit and other issues like that. And how did it resolve? We don't know. What about that fun, that one hopeful 30-minute meeting where you just kick around ideas about how we're all doing it different this year? No, no, yes.

30 minutes. That's the first meeting, which is this year. This speech is going to be really short. It's going to be different. We're going to be punchy. We're going to be tight. Who crushes those hopes?

Every person involved. Everyone who works in the government. It's like murder on the express. Policy. No one person holds the knife. uh lawyers lawyers what's their problem just like the fact checkers they have some documents to read when they're going through classified notes in trouble who we love and protected us for many years right they protect right yeah no but yeah i love their probe i will say though for them was like was biden's i have

some i wouldn't be surprised if they actually successfully have a slightly shorter State of the Union. I'm not going to bet it. I'm not going to predict it. We'll get to predictions in a second. What you're doing in this last week of any sort of State of the Union speech is you're fighting off cuts. I'm sorry. You're fighting for cuts. You're fighting for cuts.

You're fighting off additions. You're fighting off words. Yeah. And you want to try to make that message come through. You're pretty delirious because you haven't been sleeping. You're going through speech prep. Ludd, I just want to read you a paragraph that sent a chill down my spine from the New York Times story about the speech. The president huddled at Camp David over the weekend to go over the latest draft of the address with top advisors, including Mike Donnellan, Bruce Reed, Anita Dunn, and Stephen Reschetti, as well as Vinay Reddy and John Meacham. This is what I was worried about. This is the part I was referring to.

Now, here's the thing. I have worked with Donnellan. I've taken edits from Bruce and Anita. They're all, like, great people to take edits from, I will say. Where are we going with this? I don't know. great people to take edits from. I will say.

Where are we going with this? I don't know. But the idea of in the final weekend being cooped up with them at Camp David in a room with the president and them, I'd fucking lose my mind. Yeah, it's a lot of, it's a lot of,

and they're great. They're great people, but I'd lose my mind. I've been a part, in a big speech like this, this is the worst case scenario is ending up in a room with a bunch of advisors because here's what actually happens in practice. Everybody has a conversation.

The conversation ends, and then everybody – and everyone says a million things. You got that? Yes. They turn to the speech ready to go like, you got that? You got that? And you're sitting there, and there's just like steam coming from your head. And it's 7 p.m., and everybody else wants a drink. Yeah.

And it's like – They all go out for a drink. They all go out for a drink they all go for a drink like you got that you got that you can you got you want to do it you want to do a pass you got everyone's at you got everyone's comments and by the way everyone made a comment because when you're in that room with the president united states you gotta say something you gotta make a comment you gotta because you gotta be part of the otherwise why are you there why are you there you gotta say something you gotta make a you gotta make an impact you can't just say oh i think it's great i agree with what everyone else said you won't be at the next one.

I really think you two are making too much of this. You gotta just let Joe be Joe. You gotta get out the yellow legal pads. And you start... Oh my goodness. I just think we gotta be

a little more grounded. Now we're channeling Axelrod. This is what Axelrod would say. I just think we're like... I think we're just... We're at 60,000 feet. We gotta meet the moment. You're at a balloon height. We're way up here and we've got to just we gotta ground

it a little bit more uh the other the other sad part this is really therapy you guys are great at this and i'm i leave it to you you guys are the masters here but the wordsmiths the words yeah it's like uh what jack it's a lot of um the jack donag line from 30 Rock, which is, I'm not a writer, but do that. The other sad, I think one of the most kind of, it's an admission of defeat. It's when the speech has now ballooned to several thousand words longer than you want it to be. And you're going through and you're cutting just dependent clauses and like the tightening that just sort of denudes it of any beauty. Right. Yeah, that's the other. Just lose every fucking flourish to run through every policy. That's the other danger is that you get to the point where you're literally just reading policy

items and like poll test language that some advisor told you to put in. Yes. And it is the danger, but it's also, I think the crux of why the State of the Union is an important speech that people who pay attention to politics hate and don't care about, because for people that do pay attention are aware of a lot of, say, Joe Biden's accomplishments or the contours of the debate with the Republicans in the House, the speech is boring and probably will ultimately be unmemorable. Very rarely are sentences from State of the Union memorable. But for people who don't check in that often, it is the rare time where the president speaks to everyone. And inevitably, State of the Unions are viewed far

more negatively by the press and experts than they are by the public who sees them. They inevitably poll quite well after the fact, even when they are just boring fucking litanies. Yeah, the Biden folks, as they should, probably we will too, will be tweeting and sending around Insta polls that will be like 78% of Americans loved the speech, you know, which is great. But yeah, then they'll get a bunch of annoying comments on cable as usually happens. All right. So let's jump back into the prediction business with bets on how long the speech will be. And then let's give our picks for what we think the most cliched so to take will be on Tuesday night, because there's a lot to choose from. Now, I want you to know that I wrote I wrote this take wrote is a strong word. I wrote it in my mind. I didn't take a note down. But before I read one of the Times pieces that

actually was the preview that makes this uses this cliche. But I do think the most common response will be a president who promised unity delivers a speech at a time of incredible division. That will be the overall. Can he bring the country together? Probably not. But God, will he try? See, I'd my post my number one. If we're drafting my number one take would be Biden That will be the overall. Can he bring the country together? Probably not. But God, will he try? I'm going with cable anchor recites bad poll numbers, turns to pundit. Did he do anything tonight to turn things around? Did he change any minds tonight? Did he quiet the chorus of doubts? Okay, which of these subjects will be in more Republican press releases?

Joe Biden's speech didn't fix inflation. Joe Biden's speech didn't bring down gas prices. Joe Biden's speech didn't secure our border. Oh, the border't bring down gas prices. Joe Biden's speech didn't secure our border. Oh, the border. Border. It's all about the border. You'll hear adult in the room, bully pulpit, soft launch about the campaign. Soft launch.

Oh, yeah. There will be a balloon. Yes, the unofficial launch of Joe Biden's presidential campaign. I see a lot of inflection point around. There'll be a lot of inflection points. Now, all of this is predicated on like in the uh in the piece uh in the times they did make a point of the fact that like it's also about joe biden's energy and delivery and that will be a big part of the coverage like like age concerns the kind of pundits look around i think pundits look around did he kill did he did he just like

slump over on the yeah how how hard am i allowed to go on this based on how did he how he presented during right and if he and if he you know god forbid he stumbles over a word that'll be a whole thing well one way to make it memorable is just put a bunch of lies in there about like a rock wmd and stuff yeah right and then it's like a timeless right address he'll say the state of the state of our union has never been stronger you think we'll get that we'll think that like superlative i i think it'll be more of a strong and getting strong getting stronger because we're building back better oh boy all right 61 minutes last year what do you think how many minutes i'm gonna i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it 48 wow i'm gonna say it 48 48 i'm saying it tommy 65 that's what i have down here

you're getting notes it's right here in my notes. 65. You also wear the same fucking shoes. We got a balloon topper. You are dressed like a bumblebee. What am I? What is it? What am I dressed like, Tommy? Tell everybody what I'm wearing, fucking freak.

Yellow shorts and a yellow tee. All right. Thanks to Ron Klain for joining this pod. Sorry, the speech didn't lift the dead ceiling. Did he tell you what he's doing next? Does he want to be a co-host on Pod Save America? We didn't get into it, but that was not the vibe I got. Joe Biden has a taste for blood. You're welcome here any time, Ron.

He's going to shoot down the Goodyear blimp. He's going to start taking out people in those hot air balloons. People get into those hot air balloons. Those't people get into those hot air balloons? Those things are dangerous. I cannot. I wouldn't do that. People wear masks for two years and get in a hot air balloon?

What's going on? Elijah would be very disappointed if I didn't say to all of you, we're going to be on Group Thread Tuesday. Group Thread! That's right. Just go to the Pod Save America YouTube page and check it out.

Bye, everyone. the Pod Save America YouTube page and check it out. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein. Our producers are Hayley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Sandy Gerrard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. Thank you.