Pod Save America - “Basket of Neanderthals.”

Episode Date: March 4, 2021

The end of the pandemic may finally be in sight, the House passes historic voting rights legislation, and Joe Biden offers his support to unionizing workers at Amazon. Then Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick talks to Jon Favreau about his new proposal that's been called the most radical reimagining of policing in the post-George Floyd era.Subscribe to Crooked's new sports pod Takeline: apple.co/takelineFor a closed-captioned version of this episode, please visit crooked.com/podsaveamerica. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include which podcast you would like.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Big show today. We'll be talking about how both parties are handling what is hopefully the final stretch of the pandemic, the fight for voting rights in the states and in Congress, and President Biden's support for a massive union effort in Alabama. Then I'll talk to Ithaca Mayor Savante Myrick about his new proposal that's been called the most radical reimagining of policing in the post-George Floyd era. But first, one very exciting piece of news. Many of you know and love Jason Concepcion from Binge Mode and NBA Desktop. He's now part of the Cricket team, and we can finally tell you what he's been up to. Jason will be hosting a

brand new sports show called Take Line with former WNBA All-star and the new co-owner of the Atlanta Dream, Renee Montgomery. It's all about sports, culture, politics, and the intersection of all three. It is fun, fast-paced, thoughtful. Jason and Renee are a fantastic duo. The trailer is out now. Subscribe today so you won't miss the series premiere

on March 16th. You can find Take Line on Apple Pods, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Cool, huh? It's so awesome. I'm so excited for it. I am subscribed. I have hot takes coming for all of these products. Get ready. Perfect. Perfect. Can't wait. All right. Let's get to the news. One year later, the end of the pandemic may finally be in sight. And the Biden administration has to do three big things to get us there. First, pass a COVID relief bill that will help fight the virus, fix the economy.

Second, vaccinate every American as quickly as possible. Third, avoid another surge of cases while we wait for everyone to get vaccinated. Let's start, Dan, with the American Rescue Plan, which has now moved to the Senate, where Republicans aren't just content opposing the bill. They want to delay the relief as long as possible. Ron Johnson, Wisconsin's biggest dipshit, plans to force the Senate clerks to read the entire bill out loud, which would add another full day to the schedule and do nothing else, basically. Can you detect a strategy there or anywhere in the larger Republican opposition to this extremely popular piece of legislation? I mean, to the extent, I don't know if it's a strategy. It seems mostly like performative assholery. It's just to show, just to be as

big a jerks as you possibly can be to no end. It is, I mean, this is interesting. Like, we're not surprised that Republicans are opposing what Biden wants to do. This is sort of how they have been for a very long time. So they did when Obama was president. It is interesting that they have picked here to be the place where they were going to demonstrate their opposition. The American Rescue Plan is shockingly popular. It is supported by 70% to 75% of the American people. The more they learned about it, the more they like it. And when you think about it, it's getting around 50% of Trump voters like the American Rescue Plan. And 70% of Trump voters like the American Rescue Plan and 70% of Trump voters think Biden's an illegitimate president.

So the fact that this many, that people who not only do that like Joe Biden, they think he stole the election, still like his plan and Republicans are picking this plan to sort of signal their opposition. It is also getting more popular the longer we go and the more that people know what's in it. So our friends at Data for Progress ran an experiment where we split the sample. So half the sample of polling respondents were told simply that there were two pandemic relief plans, one that's $1.9 trillion

and the other that's $600 billion. That's the one that the Senate Republicans countered with. They were then asked which plan they agreed with more. The other half of the sample was asked the same question, but this time they were shown a chart that outlined the details of both plans. So you showed how much they're spending on vaccination, school reopenings, direct payments, state and local governments. And they had like a chart to compare both plans. That chart was even more effective than the control. On net, voters are 14 points more supportive of the American Rescue Plan when they're shown the chart compared to the baseline. Among Republicans, 34 points more approval when they actually saw the charts, what's in both

plan, even knowing that there was a $600 billion plan versus $1.9 trillion. So again and again and again, no matter how you do this, no matter what details you explain, Ron Johnson can read the whole fucking thing if he wants on the floor. But it is the more people learn about it, even Republicans and maybe even especially Republicans, the more they like it. And I guess to the extent if you're trying to to understand why they're doing what they're doing, it is pretty typical for a party when they lose an election to try to find a moment of unity. And the Republicans are quite divided. They're divided on the question of whether Trump is a criminal. They're divided on the question of whether and when Mike Pence should be hung. And so this is a place where they can all get

together. Every Republican in the House voted against it. Mitch McConnell and John Thune are predicting that every Republican in the Senate will vote against it, including notable moderate, quote unquote, moderates like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. And so they're picking this as their place to demonstrate unity. I think that this, and I believe they think they're successfully rerunning the play that worked so well for them in 2009 by opposing the Recovery Act. And I think there are a lot of reasons to think this is a very, very different situation and the results could be lot of reasons to think this is a very, very different situation and the results could be very different. This is a much different bet

than the one they made in 2009. I wonder what Murkowski is going to end up doing because she has not ruled it out yet. She seems American rescue plan curious in a lot of her public statements. I mean, that's sort of her shtick always is to be the last person who may not vote no before they generally vote no. I remember working in the Senate for Senator Tom Daschle

after we lost the majority in 2002. And people want to be part of the team. And there was real efforts to come together to oppose certain things that the Bush administration was doing. to come together to oppose certain things that the Bush administration was doing. And I imagine maybe she will buck the party, but she to what end? Right. It's not clear to me to what end she would do that. So, you know, with Republicans opposed, the only negotiations left are among Democrats. Senate moderates told the president that they wanted the relief in the bill to be more targeted, which means stingier. They asked for a smaller expansion of unemployment benefits, which Biden said no to. And then they asked for a lower income cap for the fourteen hundred dollar checks, which Biden agreed to. So basically, individuals making between 80 and 100 thousand dollars will no longer get a check.

And couples making between 160 and 200 thousand dollars will no longer get a check. and couples making between $160,000 and $200,000 will no longer get a check. So that's 17 million people who got a check from Trump that won't get one from Biden for grand savings of $12 billion out of a $1.9 trillion package. Do you have any idea what the moderate Democrats who demanded this got out of the deal? Feel better about themselves? It's so stupid. It is so stupid. We talk all the time about lessons of 2009 and et cetera. But the one that I think is the most important lesson for all Democrats to recognize is err on the side of the strongest

economy possible. You're not going to get brownie points for these symbolic displays of fiscal responsibility. And the idea that there are going to be 17 million people that Donald Trump sent a check to that Joe Biden doesn't is insane. That is an insane thing. It is so stupid. This is not what the Biden administration wanted to do. This was clearly, it must have been, I think there's relatively limited report on this, but it's pretty clear that this was what it took to get, I assume, Joe Manchin and maybe a couple others to be the 50th vote for this bill. It is incredibly stupid. The overall bill is still an incredibly progressive, important piece of legislation. Because of Joe Manchin and others, it will not be as good as it could be, no $15 minimum wage, no the checks being stingier than they should be. The general rule in an economic crisis

is err on the side of helping more people rather than fewer. And they made the wrong decision here. Well, it's also, it's one thing if you want to say, we don't want, we want to target this so it doesn't go to the very rich. Like, are you going to go back, going to go back to your, back to your state and say, I really stuck it to people making $85,000 a year. Like that's not, that's, you know, I just don't, I don't really understand even from the moderate Democrat perspective, what you get out of this. I do understand why the Biden administration agreed to it because as we keep saying with everything else, you need every single Senate Democrat. You don't, you lose Joe Manchin, you lose Kyrsten Sinema, you lose the whole entire bill. So they are held hostage a little bit to, or to a great

extent, actually, by these Senate moderates. So they had to give in. But I still don't understand why they asked for it or why they wanted it in the first place. I don't know what it gets them. It's dumb. All right. So that's the status of the COVID relief bill. Second big thing the Biden administration needs to do is vaccinate every American as fast as possible. Great news on that front. President announced on Tuesday that he now expects the U.S. to have enough vaccines for everyone who wants one by the end of May, moving up his previous end of July timeline by two months. The shift is being driven by the agreement that the Biden administration brokered between pharmaceutical giants Johnson and Johnson and Merck, who will now collaborate on vaccine production together. So, Dan, it does seem like within a month or two at most,

the coverage is going to shift from stories about a lack of supply of vaccine to stories about a lack of demand. There's been a lot of discussion about vaccine hesitancy among communities of color, but a bunch of new polling indicates that vaccine hesitancy is even more strongly correlated with party affiliation. Civics found that 41% of Republicans do not intend to get the vaccine. CBS found that only 42% of Republicans would definitely get or have already gotten the vaccine. What do you think that's all about? And what can we do about it, given that we need 70 to 80% of all Americans to be vaccinated to actually reach herd immunity and crush this virus? Well, back a few months ago when we had Dan Wagner, who's the head of Civis, a Democratic data firm, on to talk about the polling error in 2020

election, he said to me that there was a high correlation between the Trump voters who were less likely to take public opinion surveys and people who subscribe to anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. And what it is, is it's a question of low social trust. That's where that sort of Venn diagram is. And part of that is that this is true of the population overall, but particularly of Republican voters is they live in hermetically sealed, ideologically homogenous information bubbles. And the typical messengers who help you know to do things like get vaccines have no capacity to influence the conversation there. And so this is actually not super surprising, given what we know about the prevalence of

other conspiracy theories in large portions of the Republican base. I mean, to this day, upwards of two thirds of them don't believe Barack Obama was born in America and a whole bunch of other things. The question is, can you find people who are trusted in this low trust community and tell them about the value and importance of taking the vaccine? Yeah. And I think, you know, to that end, we found out the other day that Donald Trump and Melania Trump actually did get the vaccine before they left the White House and just decided not to tell anyone. That would have been pretty helpful for Donald Trump to publicly get the vaccine and encourage everyone else to. There was like a line in his CPAC speech slipped in where he told everyone to go get their shots, but you couldn't really pick it out because he was just screaming out the names of Republicans who impeached him.

So he might've missed that line about the vaccination. But it does seem like, I mean, because we've had, we started off with supply issues, it seems like we don't yet have sort of the full force of a public service announcement campaign from the White House or from celebrities or athletes or musicians or everyone, everyone you might think would sort of participate in that kind of campaign. people, you know, who were Democrats or who vote for Joe Biden, but we need that for Trump voters too. And we do need people in that community to talk about the benefits of getting the vaccine. I just heard like anecdotally in a lot of, even in a lot of red counties in California, there are a ton of vaccine appointments open because like the redder the place,

the more hesitant people are to go get the vaccine. I mean, this is like, there is a commercial that runs every time you turn on a game on NBA League Pass that is Bill Russell, Celtics legend, getting the vaccine. And what's striking about that is it's the same commercial every time you switch in between games. So you can see it like 10 times a night. But there's so little of that happening elsewhere in media, right? You're not seeing other people who are within the categories, either by age or by freshen or pre-existing conditions that would get the vaccine.

You're not seeing that. In a normal role with a normal former president, he would be doing a public service. He would go to the White House and speak from the Rose Garden about the vaccine, right? You would see all the former presidents would get together and do this. That's not happening because of Trump. And it's interesting because the development of the vaccine is something that Trump could take some credit for. He was president when Operation Warp Speed happened. He was president as it was developed. He's also responsible for why it's been so hard to distribute. But his problem is Trump isn't really a leader in the

traditional sense. We talk all the time he's the leader of the MAGA movement, but he isn't a leader. He sort of asks his followers where they're going, and then he just gets to the front of the line. Because they are anti-vax, he is not touting the vaccine that he helped play some role in getting developed and got himself. And so it's creating this this feedback where his supporters are not getting the vaccine because he won't tell them because his supporters are not getting the vaccine. Also, because he doesn't give a shit about his supporters, he only gives a shit about himself. Right, but that's the thing is this would be an opportunity to take credit, right? To like, this is an actual achievement.

I mean, I also think that's why Biden has been, you know, very careful not to politicize the vaccine or criticize Trump too much. Or even when they talk about how there wasn't much of a vaccination campaign plan nationally when they got to the White House, you know, states were doing their thing. They've been careful to sort of criticize Trump too directly on that because I think they want to make sure that Trump supporters get the vaccine as well. I think that probably could go as far as, you know, the Biden administration giving Trump some credit for Operation Warp Speed, at least on the development side, not necessarily the vaccination campaign. So, of course, you know, Republicans aren't just more likely to be anti-vax, but anti-mask. This week, the governors of Mississippi and Texas made the Biden administration's goal of avoiding another surge in cases more difficult by announcing they're lifting all statewide mask mandates and allowing all businesses to operate at full capacity.

CDC guidance be damned. Here was Biden's response to this. We are on the cusp of being able to fundamentally change the nature of this disease because of the way in which we're able to get vaccines in people's arms. We've been able to move that all the way up to the end of May to have enough for every American to get every adult American to get a shot. And the last thing, the last thing we need is the Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime, everything's fine. Take off your mask. Forget it. It still matters. So Neanderthal was, of course, trending on Twitter all day yesterday. Republicans are, of course, jumping on this. What else can President Biden actually do besides criticize governors for lifting restrictions? Very, very little.

Right. He can continue to use the bully pulpit to communicate with the people in that state. Right. Just because Governor Abbott takes the mask mandate away doesn't mean that other Texans have to stop wearing a mask. Right. that other Texans have to stop wearing a mask, right? And so it's not just about criticizing them. It is about public health messaging to the people in that state about what they are supposed to do.

But this has been the problem from the very beginning is President Biden is in some cases at the mercy of deeply irresponsible state and local officials who will do whatever they want. And because there are not walls built up around Texas, perhaps for the chagrin of some in Texas, people from Texas that will the spread could go up there and then those people will go elsewhere. They will visit places, they will travel and bring that higher infection rate to other parts of the country.

It is a tough challenge for the Biden administration, too, because we are in this, and I think March especially will be like this, maybe some of April, this in-between time where a critical mass of people aren't vaccinated just yet, but it's coming. Cases are cases have fallen. We've sort of plateaued a little bit at a still a pretty high level, 60,000 cases a day. It may seem like it's a lot better, which it is. It's much better than it was in December and January. And it seems like the end is in sight because the vaccinations are coming. So you might have a lot of people who say, oh, well, Texas lifted the mandates. Yeah, vaccine's coming soon. Everything's great. Let's

party. And it's tough because we're not yet at that critical mass of Americans vaccinated that we can really breathe easy. So I think it's not just how to deal with people like Abbott in Texas who are just lifting all mandates. It's how the Biden administration and their public health officials sort of communicate to the rest of the country that the end is in sight and that like there is a much better hopeful future out there if you go get vaccinated. But that like you still have to have some common sense precautions when you're out in

public, at least for the time being. Yeah, I think that is so important because you hear all the time, get the vaccine and you're still going to wear masks and you're going to have to do this, you have to do that. And it feels like life is never going to return to normal. We're never going to be able to go see our friends or our parents. That's a huge problem because that's a problem for like if you really want everyone to get vaccinated, you need to give them a hopeful reason to get vaccinated. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel. And so just stay on the train for a few more months and then we are going to be in a much better place.

But, you know, the other thing about this interest about Texas is I didn't realize this, but when I was reading about why Abbott did this, did you know that Abbott is sort of under assault in his state from the right for being too responsible? No, I didn't. Yes. It's Alan West, who is the chair of the Republican party. There's another woman who was arrested for opening her beauty salon, you know, in contravention. So this says so much about modern Republican politics is Greg Abbott, one of the least responsible people in all of America is under attack for being too responsible on COVID. So I mean, you also you hear this all the time from public health officials. It's not just an on or off switch. You know, I asked Dr. Fauci when I interviewed him the other week,

you know, what did he think about California sort of lifting some of the restrictions a month ago? You know, Newsom and some of the local officials got criticized because they said, OK, we're going to open outdoor dining again and we're going to open some indoor stuff at this, you know, lower capacity. And now we're going to have this surge again. Well, they did that. We didn't have the surge. In fact, we're at our lowest level ever right now, or we're on our way to our lowest level ever. And it's interesting because Fauci said, look, you know, I don't think it was necessarily a bad idea to reopen outdoor dining as long as you don't open indoor dining. Right. So like there are it doesn't have to be everyone locked down or everything open. And I do think that the Biden administration and Biden as a candidate was like this, too, was very effective at trying to sort of stake out that middle ground where you tell people to take all kinds of precautions.

But you also make sure that everyone knows that, like, there are some things you can do and there is light at the end of the tunnel. All right, let's discuss what to do about the Republican assault on the right to vote. As of a few weeks ago, the Brennan Center for Justice counts 253 bills across 43 states that would restrict access to voting. With Arizona and Georgia leading the way, the two states Democrats flipped for the first time in decades in November. Republicans in these states are trying to prevent things like automatic voter registration, same day voter registration, early voting, absentee voting, and collecting absentee ballots for others, among other measures. The best and maybe only way to stop this voter suppression is H.R the for the people act which the house passed wednesday night with no republican votes the bill would require states to offer automatic registration early voting and absentee voting it would also prevent partisan gerrymandering

through non-partisan redistricting commissions and it would institute new campaign finance and ethics reforms first question how worried should people be about these voter suppression laws that are being pushed in the states right now? Like how much of an effect could these laws plus redistricting have on the next election and future elections? People should be scared shitless about this. That's probably not a hopeful, hopeful message, but that is the reality. Think about how narrow the margins were in Georgia and Arizona. Now, imagine if you made it much, much harder for Black and Brown and young voters, the core of the Democratic base, to vote, which is what these laws are designed to do.

Dave Wasserman, who is an expert in redistricting to the point where his Twitter handle is at redistrict, has said that Republicans could get the seats they need to take the majority simply through redistricting without even having to flip another seat. And so this is the ballgame. And it's not just the ballgame for 2022. It's the ballgame for the next decade. That is what is at stake here, if not longer in Democratic politics. That's important to recognize, too, that this is a problem that snowballs so that if because of partisan redistricting, Republicans are able to take back the House. Then now that they're in control of the House, then you get to 2024 and they and a lot of these state voting restrictions are in place. And suddenly now on the presidential level, in the presidential race, in these swing states, now it's easier for Republicans to win in place. And suddenly now on the presidential level, in the presidential race, in these swing states, now it's easier for Republicans to win in 2024 if they take control of all of the House,

the Senate, and the White House in 2024. Suddenly there are laws they can pass in Congress that would basically make these state-level voter restrictions national. And so then even in blue states that have had more expansive access to voting, you would have some of these laws as well. And Ron Brownstein sort of points this out in his column this week. Rick Scott has a couple of bills to do this. So like you, if we don't stop this train now, we have a very small window while we have a majority in the Senate, majority in the House and a Democratic president to not only expand voting rights, but just to protect the voting rights we have. And if that window closes and it will close before the 2022 midterms, it could be closed for a decade or even more.

And that is not an exaggeration, right? duration, right? Yeah. I mean, there is a reason Crooked Media calls it past HR1 or we're fucked because we can't, it's just, you cannot overstate the consequences of this. It is a gigantic challenge. And it's not just to the Democratic Party, which it is, it is to democracy itself, because you have two forces having the same time as country. The overall American population is getting more progressive, more diverse, yet political power is shifting towards a shrinking, mostly white conservative minority. So democracies do not survive that level of tension when the population gets locked out of power despite having the votes to have that power. And that is what is happening. And it is going to get, as you point out, so

much worse. This is not one election. This is not whether we can pass some bill this year or next year. This is the very fate of our democracy before us. And, you know, David Shore, who's a data analyst uh did a long interview with um eric levitz in new york magazine this week and david is usually on the more pessimistic side about democrats chances um to hold the house uh in 2022 and he said that if we passed hr1 and we you know changed it to non-partisan redistricting and added, you know, D.C. and Puerto Rico as states, that alone would increase our chance of winning the House or keeping the House in 2022 by a factor of three, three times more likely to win. And that's from a baseline where he thinks we're like doomed. Yes, that's the exact word is doomed. That is

how he describes it. Yeah. And he thinks if we don't, you know, if we don't pass this, then it becomes, you know, of course, it depends on what Joe Biden's approval rating is, which, you know, to a large part determines how midterm elections go. to do with redistricting. If there is no H.R. 1 passed, they could make up the number of seats they need to flip the House through redistricting alone before we get to any elections. It is forget all about even the voter restrictions, just the districts. It will end up sticking House Democrats who are in competitive districts into districts that are like Trump plus 10. That's an example of what happens through drawing the maps again. And so your your Democratic representative who you thought were safe, who didn't really have a competitive race, suddenly is the underdog just because of redistricting. That's how important this is. So let's talk about how to fix this. H.R. 1 passes

the House. Now it goes to the Senate. This week, a reporter asked Joe Manchin if he would ever reconsider his opposition to getting rid of the filibuster. And this was his quote. Never. Jesus Christ, what don't you understand about never? So you're saying there's a chance. Is there a video of this? Did he wink? Is there a perceptible wink there as he said that?

Like, so what do we do here? Like, how does every discussion about policy not end up in the fucking Joe Manchin cul-de-sac? Like, how do we prevent democracy reform and I guess democracy itself from dying a slow death in the Senate? I think one of the challenges for this is that it's very easy to become defeatist because of Joe Manchin. And to say, well, he said never, he said, Jesus Christ, don't you know what never means or whatever it is? And then so why are we even bothering? And that working backwards from a assumed defeat is how change never happens. Like there are some things we have to do first.

The first and most important thing, we talked about this a little bit on a recent pod, is when we did that poll with Change Research, the most recent poll, the thing we found was Democrats and Republicans, and everyone loves the elements of H.R.1, the For the People Act. Democrats liked it, but there was very little urgency behind it. So step one is simply we have to increase the urgency. We cannot expect senators who change their position on this bill or on Senate traditions or norms if the Democratic voters do not express urgency. It does not become a high priority. That is step one. And you can worry, you know, Adam Jentleson, who's a former Senate aide and a very strong opponent of the filibuster, said that Joe Manchin is an Act 3 problem, and we're still in Act 1. And Act 1 is we have to build momentum for this bill. So let's do that right now. There is time to do that. The House passed it. The Senate is very slow,

in part because Ron Johnson must read every word of the bill before we even get to this bill. So there's work to do right now to change Joe Manchin's mind. And I will just say for everyone who says there is no hope, I was around in 2013 when every Democrat, including Harry Reid, said they would never get rid of the filibuster for judicial nominations and presidential appointments. And then Mitch McConnell decided that he was going to block Barack Obama's EPA administrator and labor secretary and would basically shrink the second most important court in the land to prevent Obama from getting any appointments on there. And everyone changed their mind and voted for it. So there is precedent here for people saying never. And then when it's no longer a

theoretical discussion of norms and traditions, it is about the specific blocking of specific things. People's minds change. And so that we have to get to that point. So we can't quit now. voting rights legislation since the Voting Rights Act in 1965. This is the civil rights issue of our generation. Like, I think we, the first step here is to really amp up both the importance of the legislation and sort of the extent of the threat that we're facing in states like Arizona and Georgia and from a partisan redistricting process, because I don't think a lot of people understand that yet. Everyone should go to votesaveamerica.com slash for the people to learn more about the bill, what's in the bill, and also gives you tools to connect with your representatives so you can start calling Congress. Because what we need to avoid more than anything is it passes the House, it gets to the Senate. You know, Joe Manchin says something like, I don't think I'm into this.

And then it's not talked about again or covered again because people are just counting that, oh, we don't have enough votes. And so that's that. Like Democrats, starting with Joe Biden on down, need to make this the big fight after COVID relief has passed and talk about it all the time. And then the last thing about this I think is important is we have to connect this to all the other fights. If you care about climate change, if you care about civil rights, reproductive rights, workers' rights, healthcare, any of

those things, it depends on this. Because our opportunity to do those things, to make progress on the things we care about, that in many cases, the majority of the American people support, it depends on having a functioning democracy. We will be locked out of power until the planet melts if we do not pass this bill. That's right. Well said. All right. Let's talk about a progressive and fairly historic action that the president took without Joe Manchin and the rest of Congress. The White House released a video on Sunday in which Joe Biden offered his support for the right of workers at an Amazon facility in Alabama to unionize, quote, without intimidation or threats by employers. This would

be the first Amazon warehouse to be unionized anywhere in the United States. The voting period will run through March 29th. Let's listen to some of Biden's video. I've long said America wasn't built by Wall Street. It was built by the middle class and unions built the middle class. Unions put power in the hands of workers. They level the playing field. They give you a stronger voice for your health, your safety, higher wages, protections from racial discrimination and sexual harassment. Unions lift up workers, both union and non-union, and especially Black and brown workers. I've made it clear, made it clear when I was running that my administration's policy would be to support unions organizing and the right to collectively bargain. I'm keeping that

promise. So let me be really clear. It's not up to me to decide whether anyone should join a union. But let me be even more clear. It's not up to an employer to decide that either. The choice to join a union is up to the workers. Full stop. So, Dan, the president didn't explicitly endorse the unionization effort itself or call out Amazon by name, but the labor movement is thrilled. And historians are saying it was the most pro-union message that's come from a president since FDR Harry Truman. Pick your pick your president from a century ago. Why was Biden's video such a big deal? It represents, I think, a changing of the politics that is born of a changing of the economy. You say it's been since Truman or FDR, and union membership has been on a steady decline in recent decades as power has been concentrated among large corporations and the wealthy.

And there is a real connection to both that decline in union membership and the overall political power and economic power of unions and a rise in economic inequality. And that has been particularly true in the middle of this pandemic where workers are being exposed to, in many cases, life-threatening situations, whether it's at these poultry plants and meatpacking plants in South Dakota and the upper Midwest. And so Biden's stepping up here and speaking at this moment, although he did, as you say, did not mention Amazon. Amazon is the biggest company in the world. It is the preeminent sort of avatar for this level of corporate concentration and power. And to speak up about this so early in his presidency is a gigantic deal. Why do you think he did it? Why do you think he chose to step in on this specific organizing drive? I think he, you know, what was a really, I think, encouraging sign is that labor issues and proposals to help

collective bargaining and the strength of workers in this country were kind of at the center of our primary. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren both had hugely progressive plans. All of the candidates endorsed and in some way, shape, or form, I believe, marched with the McDonald's workers fighting for $15 minimum wage. There's just the support behind $15 minimum wage. And so sort of bringing that into the White House to recognize that that must be an important part of our, not just our political strategy, but our economic strategy is strengthening these unions is, you know, and following through on that is really

important. And it is, you know, and I think that's also Biden, to his credit, has been very closely associated. He was often the liaison with a lot of the unions in the White House when we were there because of the long relationships he had over the years. So it's consistent with what he's done. It's a recognition of the change in politics and the economy and following through on campaign promises. It's also, you's also this specific drive

with this specific company as well. I mean, Amazon is the nation's second largest employer. They have not been unionized in the United States yet. The last attempt, I think, was in 2014 in Delaware and it failed. Many Amazon warehouses in Europe are unionized. So in other parts of the world, there are unions are on Amazon, but they have prevented unionization here in the United States. During this drive, they have Amazon has been disparaging the union.

They asked the National Labor Relations Board to force workers to vote in person during the pandemic. This union, they have been, you know, putting up flyers in break rooms, scheduling mandatory meetings where they talk about why the union's bad. Amazon is certainly bringing to bear all of its power here. And I do think if the workers in Alabama win and they form a union, not only will other Amazon employees all over the country, you know, as the second largest employer, start looking around and thinking, OK, now we can we can form a union, too. But other industries, you know, this is the retail, wholesale and department store union. Other workers in that industry will look and turn around and say, OK, they did it in Alabama. We can do it here.

And Biden noted this in his video, too. Most of the I think something like 80 plus percent of the workers are black at this at this Amazon facility, and most of them are women as well. So it's also sort of changing the nature of who's in a union and what unions look like. They, of course, become much more racially diverse over the years than they used to be. It is, according to exit polls, which are notably flawed, but Biden won union members by 16 points in the most recent election. And the decline in union membership and the power of unions is not something that is just a after effect of globalization and corporate concentration. It is also part of a very

specific political strategy of the Republicans. Much of the efforts to reduce collective bargaining rights and hurt unions have been funded by the Kochs over the years. That's what happened in Wisconsin. And they do that because for decades, unions were the sort of ground troops for Democrats. They were huge funding sources for Democrats. They were organized forces for Democrats. And it is absolutely critical that we fight back on these issues because strengthening unions is at the exact intersection of something that is great substantively and great politically. And so there is a double imperative to do this. politically. And so there is a double imperative to do this. And I've said this already in this podcast a couple of times, but it's just incredibly exciting that it is clear the

Biden administration recognizes that and is doing something about it. I think that's such an important point because obviously union organizing is good for workers for a whole bunch of reasons, higher wages and benefits, better conditions, also protections against sexual harassment and racial discrimination. Unions can help with that. But it's also good for organizing for the Democratic Party, right? Like you said, what used to happen is, you know, unions would endorse a candidate, a Democratic candidate, and then they would communicate to all of their members about that endorsement. And that endorsement would carry a lot of weight with the members. And as unions have been on the decline, that sort of organizing force in the Democratic Party, which also, by the

way, is an organizing force that builds the sort of multiracial working class coalition that we know is most potent for Democrats. And so if you have unions organizing white and black and brown workers together on behalf of Democratic candidates, that's a really powerful force in politics. And it has been on the decline in recent years. And if we can sort of build that up again, it'll be both good for workers and it will help us, you know, maintain political power. What are some of the other steps Biden can take to help strengthen unions, both on his own and with Congress? He's already done some very important things, which is appointing a very pro-labor Secretary of Labor in Marty Walsh and a very pro-organized labor head of the National Labor Relations Board. So that makes a huge difference. He's already signed a number of executive orders that are

primarily undoing anti-worker things that Trump did, but are still very good. makes a huge difference. He's already signed a number of executive orders that are primarily undoing anti-worker things that Trump did, but are still very good. The most important thing also ends up in the Joe Manchin cul-de-sac, but is a piece of legislation called the PRO Act, which would make it much easier for workers to organize and make it much harder for companies to penalize workers, penalize workers trying to organize, penalize strikers, and puts real teeth into corporate misdeeds when trying to stop a union drive. That piece of legislation passed the House in the last Congress. It will pass the House again. It will face an uncertain fate in the Senate, but it's yet another argument for getting rid

of the filibuster, obviously, and could have 50 votes in the Senate. Joe Manchin has a lot of things we disagree with him on, but he has been a pretty pro-union member. Labor is a very big deal in West Virginia, a big part of his political base. And, you know, Jamel Bowie has a good piece about this in the New York Times, and he listed some other executive actions that Biden could take. A $15 minimum wage for federal contract employees. You require federal contracts to go exclusively to employers who remain neutral in union elections. It would bar contracts for employers who illegally oppose organizing. And then, of course, as you mentioned, Biden's going to be able to fill some vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board. He already fired the Trump guy. But with two more vacancies or two more slots that he can fill, we'll have a pro-labor majority on the NLRB, which is very, very important. OK, when we come back, my interview with the mayor of Ithaca, New York, Savante Myrick, about police reform in Ithaca. On the pod today, the mayor of Ithaca, New York, Savante Myrick. Mr. Mayor, welcome to the show. Thank you very much for having me. It's a real honor. It's a real privilege. It's an honor to have you. You have recently proposed what was called by Wes Lowry at GQ, the most radical reimagining of policing in the post George Floyd era.

You want to replace Ithaca's police department with a department of community solutions and public safety that's made up of both armed public safety workers and unarmed community solution workers. So I want to talk all about how it works. But first, what made you come to the realization that Ithaca needed to try something big and ambitious on police reform that hasn't really been done before? Yeah, sure. And it was just the current state of affairs. I mean, look, I've been I've been blessed to be in office here for the last 14 years and 10 years as mayor. And so I've had a front row seat, and not just front row seat, I've often been in the driver's seat, watching our current police department struggle to meet the demands of the 21st century city. And I see all of our police officers themselves working so hard and going out of their way and being selfless and being brave. And still the system and the structure setting us up for mistrust, for failure, and for a lot of outreach, right?

It's nationally and it's happened here locally in Ithaca as we saw uprisings all summer into the fall and into the winter. And so you say, well, if you've got good people and the outcomes are still wrong, then this must be a structural problem. And that really came out as we did a nine-month-long deep dive into our data, from our calls to our stops to our arrests to our tickets and our focus groups, particularly around marginalized communities. It became clear that if we're going to deliver public safety in the 21st century, we need more tools than what we had in our toolbox. You know, it's the saying, and when you have only a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Well, screwdrivers and Allen wrenches and bolt cutters, we need more tools.

So can you sort of walk through the process that led you to this specific proposal? You mentioned, you know, looking at data and some focus groups, like who did you talk to? Where did you get the ideas from? What kind of meetings did you have? Yeah. Very difficult meetings. Very. I imagine. Yeah. It's not easy. And especially with our law enforcement officers. I mean, this is their, this is a career, but it's also an identity and to feel attacked, to feel underappreciated is really tough for them. But you have to remember that a police department is only as good as the trust the community has in it. So particularly if it comes to solving crimes, right? Unless our officers are on the scene, I think folks watch CSI and think, well, officers have all sorts of ways to solve crimes. Unless

officers are on the scenes, most crimes get solved because people speak to us, because people trust us, because they give us tips, they talk to us. And when nobody's talking to you, it's impossible to get the guns off the street and to keep the community safe. So we did focus groups, right? We let the law enforcement officers have their own private focus groups where they can speak their truth, have that truth recorded, made anonymous, and then presented to the decision makers. We did the same for the most vulnerable

populations, homeless folks, members of the Black community that for generations, we have been, we have gotten inequitable treatment from the entire criminal justice system, beginning with police officers. And we found actually our big finding was on both sides of that equation, which was that there was deep dissatisfaction because the officers felt like they were asked to do too much and set up for failure. They're being called to, because there's a homeless person, they're being called because somebody's acting erratically. And then they're being blamed when something goes wrong, or they're being blamed for enforcing laws like trespassing. And then on the community side, we actually didn't hear that they wanted the police to go away.

What we heard instead is that they wanted a different footprint. They wanted more foot patrols. They wanted officers who weren't armed, so it didn't escalate tensions when you saw them immediately. They wanted people that were from the community. They wanted diversity in the department, which we often think of as ethnic diversity for good reason and racial diversity, but they also wanted gender diversity. And there's a good reason for that too. It turns out that women in law enforcement are better de-escalators. They're better at conflict resolution. I say in law enforcement, this is also the trend in my experience. Every aspect of life, yeah. Yeah, all over. And so those same people that we want to see our department become more diverse, we want to see more women, more people

of color, they're not applying for these jobs right now. They're not applying. If you go into my neighborhood on the south side and you say to a 19-year-old, hey, would you like to become a police officer? They'll say no. Well, do you want a job in a unit that works 24-7 on the street helping people solve problems, responding to non-criminal emergencies? Maybe it's medical calls. Maybe it's missing people. Maybe somebody is just broken down on the side of the road and needs a ride. Does that sound like a job that you'd be interested in? And they say yes. So once we had those two different findings, the officers are stressed and need a new model. The community is fed up with the current situation. That's when it became clear we need to build something from scratch. You can turn, you know, John,

they say that the systems give the results that they're designed to give. And we built police departments and then have been nibbling around the edges ever since. And it's like trying to turn a refrigerator into an air conditioner. And you can do it, but it's not great. What you need to do is build an air conditioner

from the ground up, and we need to build a 21st century department from the ground up. So what does that look like? How does this work if this proposal were to come to fruition? Yeah, well, it would take a couple of years. So the Common Council of the City of Ithaca approves it this month.

We would enter into a design phase for a couple of years. We would fill out the design phase for a couple years. We would fill out the design of each type of job description. We would fund the positions. And then press play, switch over, and you'd have a civilian head of the department. And there's a few good reasons why you want to be able to hire a civilian. Maybe that civilian has a background in law enforcement, but there's a few reasons that you want a civilian at the head. Overseeing both units and those units working together.

So if you live in the city of Ithaca, what you'll experience is you'll see more officers on foot. You'll see more officers in your community. And you'll see them engaging in a different way. You'll see them being friendlier, being more engaged, and knowing, because we're starting from a fresh culture from the ground up, that a big part of their job is community trust and connection. And so, and some of them are unarmed, and what is the job of the, and the role of the unarmed

officers versus the ones who are still armed? Is the armed, well, the first place you can start to sort that out is by looking at the call types. Any call type where you say, geez, 50% of these calls end up resulting in arrests. If we know we're going to the scene and the dispatch is saying somebody's been stabbed, if we're going to a scene and we say there's a bank robbery, you know for sure you're sending the armed people. But then you start to look at the call types that result in an arrest 5% of the time. Or in the city of Ithaca, the calls that result in an arrest 1% of the time, which is our mental health calls,

only 1% of the time does that lead to an arrest. But then here's what we found. There are nine different call types that taken together represent 35% of everything our officers do during the day, nine different calls, 35% of the time, zero arrests. They never result in arrest. So if it's a stranded motorist, right, you send an unarmed officer. It's that simple. It's a stranded motorist. You're not going to have to arrest that person. And when that person shows up, because here's the deal too, that stranded motorist, you never know what sort of traumas they're carrying, right? You

never know what kind of things will be triggered by seeing a police officer or seeing somebody who's carrying a gun and avoiding that. Sometimes that's just necessary. That's just a necessary part. In a country with more guns than people, you're going to have to have armed officers. But if you can't avoid it, you should. So that's where we'll start with those 35% of all the calls that the police do will be handled by those community solutions workers. And then all the community building stuff, showing up at events, blocking off streets for festivals and parades. You don't need a weapon to do that stuff. And we feel like we could recruit and retain a more diverse workforce to do it. So what are the next steps and what do you think the prospects are for this passing through the city council?

Yeah, it's it's it's tough. It's tough. This is a big change. And our council is is rightly nervous. Our police union has been very vociferous in their opposition, which I think is unfortunate. I think they know that there has to be a change but they're a bit afraid of it. And I understand that. In local government, we know that the only thing people hate more than the status quo

is change of any type. And so they've been opposing. Our council is in a really tough spot, but they're a very deliberative, bright group. They're going to be working throughout this month and then voting on March 31st on whether or not to approve it. So you mentioned the police union, obviously, you know, they don't seem like the biggest fans right now. They said it's extremely dangerous, that it amounts to union busting, that it would make it more difficult to recruit officers. What would you say to police officers or city council members or residents who might find some of those arguments compelling? Yeah, I think, look, you do have to move carefully because the

right to organize is sacred. I believe in it. The reason I was, I am even here and got a chance to be here is because my grandparents took us in out of a homeless shelter. We were living off the street because they were union teachers who made a fair wage and never enough to buy a second house, but enough to put carpet in the basement and to put literally to put clothes on our backs so we could go to school. And so we're not union busting. The union, if the officers want the union to continue to exist in the new department, it can and will. That's their legal right. But I would just ask them to step back out of panic mode, to think about the things that they've told me over the

last years, which is that it is already impossible to recruit people right now. It already feels as fraught as it ever has out there. And if you've ever done a ride-along, you know the world looks different from behind a cop car. There's more stairs and fewer hand waves. And that increases officers' feeling of danger, which is bad for the officers and bad for the community. So I'd ask folks who are opposed to just ask yourself, is the status quo working for you?

And if not, it's time to build something from the ground up, design it for a 21st century city. You told GQ that Fox News will probably lose their shit over this. I think that's a safe bet. Wes is a very good reporter. He's an excellent reporter. You also pointed out that this proposal will likely result in more funding for public safety and more public safety officers. You know, even though this kind of reform has been described by activists often as defunding the police or police abolition. What have you learned from this process about the most effective way to message police reform to a community?

Sure. And I learned it mostly by the way I learned everything, which is by doing it wrong first. How to do it better later. Anyway, better later. Yes, that once you have words like defund and abolition that become so weighted with other meanings, they're no longer useful as words. I mean, they become labels, and labels are only good for soup cans, you know? Like, what you have to do is describe

what will actually change and what it will mean for people's families. And in this context, what it could mean is a safer community with less crimes. The crimes that happen will have a better chance of being solved. And everybody will feel comfortable calling the police, which we just also have to be very honest. Right now, not everybody feels comfortable calling the police, particularly, you know, my family, feels comfortable calling the police is particularly, you know, my family, I were being a young black guy, my two brothers, my sister, when we heard the sirens, there are multiple tiers of concern that you have when you hear the siren go by. You hope that your family is safe from harm,

from external harm, and you hope that they'll be safe from the officers who arrive at the scene. And that is the kind of thing that no American should have to live with. So that's on the message side, on the organizing side, you know, police reform legislation on the national level may end up getting stuck in the Senate like everything else because of the filibuster. What advice would you give to other mayors, city leaders, activists who want to see ambitious police reform come to their city? Sure. Well, the first is that you have to, you do have to take your time, right? We can just come up with this plan in a weekend and press send. I mean, it was nine months of hard,

deliberative work, data behind it. And you do have to work collaboratively. You have to get feedback from everybody in the community. But you cannot allow the police unions to have veto power at the end of that process. And for too long, that's the way this has worked. I mean, I have seen it. We've had at least three cycles of this. There's been concern of Trayvon Martin was killed. You do a big round of community meetings. You come up with all these ideas. We're going to do a residency requirement in the city. The police union says, we don't hate it. We don't like that. The council says, okay, well, they don't like it, so we're not going to do it. What that does is leave you stuck in a rut, but also further erodes people's trust in the

system. The next time you ask them, come to a city council meeting and give your input. system. The next time you ask them, come to a city council meeting and give your input. We care about you. You have to work collaboratively, but then make a decision and stick to it and don't let the police unions veto what a community has put together. Mayor Sivante Myrick of Ithaca, thank you so much for joining Pod Save America. And good luck to you on getting some real reform up there. Thank you. And bless you for everything. I've never missed an episode. So thank you for everything you do.

It's really terrific. Well, thanks for being a good friend of the pod. We appreciate it. Of course. Take care. Thanks. Thanks to Mayor Myrick for joining us today. And I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Rustin,

and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmal Konian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos every week.