Pod Save America - “Bernie is my friend.” (Debate recap special!)

Episode Date: January 16, 2020

Jon, Jon, Tommy, and Dan talk about Donald Trump’s impeachment trial and the final Democratic debate before the Iowa caucuses, hosted by CNN and the Des Moines Register in Des Moines. BIG NEWS. Pod Save America is going on tour. Presale is January 15-17 using code CROOKED2020 and public on-sale is Saturday January 18. Get tickets: http://crooked.com/events 

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's pod, we'll talk about some wild new evidence that has emerged just in time for Donald Trump's impeachment trial, which starts next week. And we'll talk about last night's Democratic debate, the first of 2020 and the last before the Iowa caucuses. First, a few housekeeping notes from us. Tommy, I believe there's a new pod Save the World out today. There is. First, the headline out of it was Ben Rhodes knows a lot about

Megxit, which is Meghan Markle and Harry leaving the UK for a guest candidate. He's our royal correspondent. But we spent most of the conversation talking about the latest from Iran, the tragic shootdown of a civilian airliner, the protests in response,

and what it all means with a great guest, Jason Rezaian, who is a former Tehran bureau chief for the Washington Post. So don't miss that one. And something else. A CNN contributor? Wasn't he in prison in Iran for?

Yeah, he was in prison for 544 days, Dan. But do you want to be defined by the worst thing that happened to you? He wrote a book about it. Yeah, I'm just kidding. He wrote a book about it. It's better than being defined by a CNN contributor. Sorry Yeah, I'm just kidding. He wrote a book about it. I should definitely applaud him. It's better than being defined by a CNN

contributor. Sorry, Dan. Former CNN contributor. Like Corey Lewandowski and Jeffrey Lord, I'm a former CNN contributor.

And sometimes CNN contributors do feel pretty trapped. That was so devastating. God, John. It was just right there. I didn't know you had that in you.

Also, if you haven't yet subscribed to The Wilderness, and you listen to this show, which is most of you, please do me and yourself a favor. Go subscribe right now. I promise you'll like it. You'll learn something. You'll be inspired. You'll be energized for 2020.

So go subscribe. Look, if you hate groupthink and conventional wisdom, thank you for listening anyway. But The Wilderness will break you out of that because you'll go to real focus groups with people all across the country but yeah you'll be you'll be uncomfortable but you'll also you'll also be inspired too david pluff might scare the shit out of you right uh dan what's going on with untrumping america as folks may remember last week we announced a promotional giveaway where if you pre-order the book between now and this friday

you can get a poster of the cover that has... Not of Dan. Not of me. Which I thought. Not yet. Stay tuned. It's a calendar. It'll get more racy as we go.

That is exactly Lovett admitting he did not listen to the Thursday episode. I listened to it. I did listen to it. I know exactly. I know. You know what, Dan? I will prove I listened to it because you're signing every single one and they offered you the opportunity to have an auto pen. And you said, eat shit, Pfeiffer.

Like Joe Biden on a rack. I apologize. Man, this is a punchy. This is like the Warren Sanders part of the debate right there. I'm not shaking your hand. And so this is a reminder that if you pre-order the book, you go to untrumpingamerica.com and you upload your purchase. You can get a poster.

We are extending the deadline from midnight Friday to midnight Monday, which is in part because of high demand. And also because it's a holiday weekend. I think no one at my publisher wanted to update the website over the weekend. So you now have until Monday. The poster says on November 3rd, let's untrump America. It's a great thing to hang up to annoy the MAGA people in your life and to remind the people in your life who are disengaged from politics that they have to fucking vote on November 3rd.

Perfect. No one talks more shit about their publisher than Dan Pfeiffer. You know, it really attests to whether they listen to the pod. Yeah, that's true. Finally, some fun news from all of us. Pod Save America is going on tour for 2020. The pre-sale is live today from january 15th to january 17th on crooked.com slash events with code crooked 2020 and tickets go on sale to the

public on saturday january 18th get those tickets come hang out crooked.com slash events we're going everywhere we're not going everywhere i know there's a lot of every time we announce this people complain that we're not coming to their city. But, you know, we'll be somewhere nearby you. Yeah. And we're excited. We're pumped. All right. Before we get to the debate, we've got quite a bit of news on impeachment.

The House is voting today to send articles of impeachment to the Senate for a trial that may begin as early as next Tuesday. Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced this morning that the impeachment managers from the House, the people who will act as prosecutors, will be Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Hakeem Jeffries, Zoe Lofgren, Val Demings, Sylvia Garcia, and Jason Crowe, the impeachment Avengers. That's who it is. What do you guys think of this crew? I think we had all hoped that it might include former Republican Justin Amash. It does not.

But, you know, what do you guys think? Any thoughts on uh and the crew here they seem great it's a good they seem great i think so look you got adam schiff on that team he's a fucking all-star no complaints val demings is great yeah people on there val demings is great zoe lofgren has been through we were just talking yeah we were talking about she worked on the nixon impeachment she's been around she's been through two impeachments she's been out of she's been involved in two out of the three so far this is the fourth god i wonder who the republicans are gonna pick just the worst people on the planet yeah which you know they have a big pool um one thing that unites all the democrats is they all have backgrounds as litigators uh which pelosi pointed out yeah um so that's it for the House. House is done now.

Over in the Senate, White House officials told CBS News on Monday that they expect a group of at least four, likely more, Republican senators who will force a vote to call witnesses and vote for witnesses, a group that might include

Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Cory Gardner, maybe even Rand Paul, Lamar Alexander. President Trump has pressured Republican senators to dismiss the charges entirely before the trial begins. But Missouri's Roy Blunt told reporters on Monday that the Republicans don't have the votes to make that happen. So we are going to get ourselves a trial. We're going to get ourselves a vote on witnesses. I'd say this is a pretty big win for Pelosi's strategy of withholding the articles of impeachment to highlight McConnell's attempt at a cover up.

What do you guys think? Yes. Unequivocally, yes. Absolutely. I know Chris Eliza doesn't think so, but. I didn't know that. I'm going to continue to not know that. I mean, like the polling suggested that people, the American people wanted to hear from more witnesses.

There now seems like there's a good chance we'll hear from key witnesses. Never did I think we'd get John Bolton to testify. Somehow Nancy Pelosi pulled a rabbit out of a hat here. This is great. I disagree with Crystalism. I think that Nancy Pelosi did not gamble on losing this. I will say that I will believe that we are going to get witnesses when John Bolton walks into the Senate floor because no one ever got to see the mustache on. Yes, I want to see the mustache.

No one ever got rich betting on the good faith and patriotism of Senate Republicans. So let's see it happen first. Yeah, that's right. I mean, we don't know. Here's what we do know. We know that Nancy Pelosi holding the articles made it possible to have this very long and lengthy and difficult debate for Republicans about whether to have witnesses. It seems that we've gotten to a place where many of those Republicans are open to witnesses. If we end up in a trial and they, you know, Mitch McConnell somehow manages to wrangle them all back in and there are no witnesses, it doesn't mean Nancy Pelosi's gambit was a mistake. It means it was worth trying. If we do end up with witnesses, then it's unequivocal that it worked. stake, it means it was worth trying. If we do end up with witnesses, then it's unequivocal that it worked. Yeah. I mean, working backwards here from a highly likely acquittal, right? And, you know,

a couple of weeks of fucking headlines, Donald Trump is acquitted. Our Democrats screwed now in 2020. It's going to be a horrible couple of weeks just getting ready for that. It's been a horrible couple of years. Yeah, that's right. But what are the wins here? What counts as a win for Democrats? I think it's a win if we get witnesses. It's a win if John of years. Yeah, that's right. But what are the wins here? What counts as a win for Democrats? I think it's a win if we get witnesses. It's a win if John Bolton is one of those witnesses and testifying. It's a witness if some Republicans break to vote for those witnesses and to vote for, to hear from John Bolton.

It's also, by the way, I think because Pelosi withheld the articles, they now think that it's likely that Donald Trump will have to give his State of the Union on February 4th while the trial is happening. We don't know that for sure yet. But yeah, if that happens, if he's not able to give the State of the Union after he's acquitted, I also think that is a very big win because that sucks for him. Here's my take. Democrats have already won. All right, let's hear that. Why? Why do you think that? Because the period by which Donald Trump had the best chance to strengthen his hand for the 2020 election was the period between Labor Day of last year and now. And he spent all of that time having a Twitter tantrum about impeachment instead of talking about the economy.

Like time is the only non-renewable resource in politics. Time is the only non-renewable resource in politics. And so every interview statement tweet about impeachment is an interview statement tweet, not about the economy or making an argument about promises, capture any of the other things we will see in his Super Bowl ad. It was just flailing. And he will he enters this year no stronger than he was before impeachment. He missed his opportunity. Maybe not weaker, but definitely not stronger. And he was pretty weak already. We've talked about this before, as it relates to Obama, is Obama's numbers on Labor Day 2011 were very similar to Trump's on Labor Day 2011. Obama spent the rest of that year making a case on the economy, talking about inequality, rolling out a jobs package, staring down Republicans on a budget vote. And he exited that year in both external and internal polling. He went from 41% to 49%. His approval on election day in 2012 was 49%. And Trump- Is right now at like 42.8%. Same where he was that time. So there is an opportunity cost here. So for all the predictions

about the politics, we don't know what's going to happen. We don't know how it's going to play out. People will probably flush it down the memory hole between now and then. But we do know what has happened to date. And there is a massive opportunity cost for Trump. And most importantly, Democrats did the right thing. What about McConnell made a promise yesterday, Tommy, that if Democrats do, if we do call witnesses, there's a vote to call witnesses that he'll promise to call witnesses the Democrats don't like. You know, I think that would maybe be challenging for the Biden campaign. And there's a chance that we will care a lot about bad stories for the Biden campaign if Joe Biden is the nominee. But I do think it's worth it. I mean, look, if he calls Hunter Biden and presses a private citizen who happens to be the son of a U.S. senator on his business activities, I think that's a hell of a lot less significant than Donald Trump using the power of the presidency to get a foreign government to

go after his political opponents. It seems self-evident to me. Yeah, I think you kind of just you got to show up at that point and just deal with it. And we sort of know the story right now. Like they're going to try to do their best to smear Hunter Biden and to smear Joe Biden using Hunter Biden. But I think the story is pretty clear what happened. We shouldn't be afraid of it. So you would make that trade? Yeah. I think if they're trying to call Joe Biden, which is fucking absurd, then I wouldn't make that trade.

But I don't think the votes are there for that. I think if they call Hunter Biden, then, yeah, I think I would make that trade for John Bolton. Is it a 50 vote per witness situation? I believe so, yeah. Yeah. So yet another reason that Pelosi's strategy to wait was smart is that new evidence came to light on Tuesday by way of Lev Parnas, one of the goons who's been indicted for the work he apparently did on behalf of Rudy Giuliani to dig up dirt on the Bidens in Ukraine. It includes damaging notes and text messages, including a crazy note that Parnas wrote on Ritz-Carlton stationery at the

Ritz-Carlton in Vienna that said, quote, get Zelensky to announce the Biden case will be investigated. It also included a set of texts to Parnas from a failed Republican congressional candidate named Robert Hyde, who said he'd been tracking Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch's movements in Ukraine, knew when her phone and computer were off, and wrote, quote, they are willing to help if we, you, would like a price. Guess you can do anything in the ukraine with money if you want her out they need to make contact with security forces what the fuck is going on here um yeah it does seem as though uh the pine barons episode of sopranos was sort of playing out in ukraine as they were following this woman i mean it's worth noting too scary it scary. It sounds as bad as it sounds, and it sounds incredibly nefarious.

It's also worth noting that these texts, the most damning texts you just read, were the last week of March in 2019. Within weeks, Yovanovitch is recalled and told she needs to come back, and perhaps because of threats against her in Ukraine. So we don't know how those things fit together. But, you know, Yovanovitch herself has now said that, you know, she finds this disturbing and it should be investigated. And the scale of it, I mean, we're so used to Trump scandals. The president of the United States, his personal lawyer may have deployed goons and henchmen to trail a U.S. ambassador, possibly threaten that

ambassador with violence. You know, I'm gobsmacked. That's what a U.S. ambassador, possibly threaten that ambassador with violence. You know, I'm gobsmacked. That's what I am. What did you think, Tommy? I just, look, we'll figure out. This guy, Mr. Hyde, seems like he's got, you know, a few sandwiches short of a combination platter. You know, he's, but if it's true,

like the kinds of people who would track an ambassador in Ukraine are the kinds of people you should really worry about. You know, these are like mafia, maybe KGB or, you know, Russian intelligence connected types of people. I mean, that's a big, scary deal. I mean, I'm sure this is a coincidence, but remember the very ominous thing that Trump said to Zelensky? She's going to go through some things. What were those things, pal? that Trump said to Zelensky. She's going to go through some things.

What were those things, pal? I mean, there's also another connection here we learned is there were text messages where the former corrupt prosecutor in Ukraine that Biden got fired, Yuri Lutsenko, tells Parnas that there's a quid pro quo. If Trump fires Yovanovitch, who he hates, he'll make allegations about Biden, which is just connecting Yovanovitch to all of the other qu allegations about biden which is an which is just connecting

yovanovitch to all of the other quid pro quo stuff because there was always a question well how she related to this other than they wanted to get her out of the way because they think that she was uh non-corrupt well it turns out that lutsenko uh wanted her out and said oh i'll make i'll make allegations to fucking john solomon about joe biden that are fake if you do this standing prosecutor yep exactly i mean it is worth noting that lev parniss and all the other people involved have never seen the wire because they took copious notes on a motherfucking criminal conspiracy i mean literally like just he's he's he's on he's he's on the phone at the ritz he picks up the pen he's just jotting things down on that piece of stationery was get rid of lanny davis it said nicely nicely hey hey

lev i have some bad news lanny davis does not take social cues but also like lev parniss is the forrest gump of corruption yeah there's photos of him with rudy there's photos of him with mike huckabee there's photos of him in the white house with trump i mean he with uh with mccarthy uh the the leader in the house i mean this guy is actually everywhere. And didn't Hines show up? And he's ready to cooperate and he's ready to talk. And didn't Hines show up at Mar-a-Lago and make a scene? Yes, he did.

I think it was Doral. Doral. Oh, Doral. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, he showed up and he's, like Tommy said, he's not, I don't think he's well. Yeah. I mean, it's just also like the quality of people that Donald Trump has sort of brought into American politics yeah well uh

next next and if there's a term to uh hyde will be the secretary of state so watch watch out for to that and also you know i gotta say i'm not sure if this has been good for the ritz carlton vienna you know no one i mean obviously it's not the most important piece of this but i'm sure it's a beautiful place it doesn't want to be associated with the scandal. Not since Elliot Spitzer has a hotel been so defiled by a politician. Yeah. The Ritz-Carlton has been involved in multiple impeachments. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Also where Monica Lewinsky was questioned by Ken Starr. Oh, that's right. At the, at the, at the Pentagon city mall. They fucking scared the shit out of her there. Assholes. It is a great mall. All right. Let's talk about last night's debate.

Is it? I'm standing up for the mall. Sean. It's a great mall. No one fights for the awesome blossom, the mall, and other. No one likes a mall like me. Let's talk about last night's debate, which was hosted by CNN and the Des Moines Register at Drake University in Des Moines. It was the final debate before the Iowa caucuses and the smallest one yet, featuring Biden, Bernie, Warren, Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Steyer.

So we're going to talk about some of the most notable moments in this debate. But what did you guys think overall? It seemed to me that they were all trying to balance the need to draw contrast with their opponents with the need to avoid seeming nasty, which doesn't usually help you with Iowans who don't like candidates to be nasty and also who are thinking about who their second choice is. But what did you guys think? Some debates make me feel great and some debates make me feel terrible. This one left me emotionless. Emotionless? Dan was emotionless.

Love it? What'd you think? Yeah, I mean, other than Sanders drawing a very stark contrast on the Iraq vote with Biden, there weren't that many true contrasts drawn throughout the debate. So I do think that's right. Yeah, I had the same sort of dull feeling that Dan did, honestly. Two thoughts. One, if you want to understand why being nice in the Iowa caucuses is important and why second choices matter, listen to episode two of my Iowa series.

On the ground. On the ground. foreign policy came up a lot in this debate because that's where the president actually has the most leeway. Once we got into the taped portion of the debate about Medicare for all, I was less excited, but the beginning was exciting. The beginning was a world of delight. I honestly, yeah, I was in heaven. All right. So let's start with the toughest and most uncomfortable exchange of the evening, which came when Bernie was asked about a 2018 meeting where he reportedly told Elizabeth Warren that he did not believe a woman could win the presidency. Sanders has denied the report, while Warren has stated that he did in fact say this.

They were both pressed on it last night, and things got a little heated. Let's play the clip. So, Senator Sanders, Senator Sanders, I do want to be clear here. You're saying that you never told Senator Warren that a woman could not win the election. That is correct. Senator Warren, what did you think when Senator Sanders told you a woman could not win the election? I disagreed. Bernie is my friend, and I am not here to try to fight with Bernie.

Bernie is my friend, and I am not here to try to fight with Bernie. But look, this question about whether or not a woman can be president has been raised, and it's time for us to attack it head on. And I think the best way to talk about who can win is by looking at people's winning record. So can a woman beat Donald Trump? Look at the men on this stage. Collectively, they have lost 10 elections. The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they've been in are the women, Amy and me. And the only person on this stage who has beaten an incumbent Republican

any time in the past 30 years is me. And here's what I know. The real danger that we face as Democrats is picking a candidate who can't pull our party together or someone who takes for granted big parts of the democratic constituency we need a candidate who will excite all parts of the democratic party bring everyone in and give everyone a democrat to believe in that's my plan and that is why i'm gonna. Okay. So we heard Warren's response. What did you guys think of first, what Bernie, how Bernie responded to this and then, and then Warren's?

First of all, just on what Warren said, I thought it was really smart. I thought it was smart because, you know, it takes something that is really a debate about her liabilities, right? About whether, you know, whether she as a woman can win, right, which is what the core of this question. And she says, A, that she can win. And B, I think she makes her best offensive argument for her electability, which is, you know, we talked a lot about the Democratic nominee needing to be someone who can bring the various factions of the Democratic Party to the table. And she's, you know, in some way implying like, look, you have Bernie who appeals to the left, but may struggle with moderates. You have Biden who appeals to moderates and may struggle with

the left. Well, I am somebody who is certainly an and it was an oblique shot at Pete and Pete takes taking African-Americans take for granted. And she's saying, I am somebody who can bring all these different factions together. And the person who can do that best is the best person in position to win. So I thought that was very smart. You know, that said, you know, we have now have Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, I think two people that are both thought of as people with who are honest people who who who have integrity to their politics and the way they conduct their campaigns, disagreeing about just a fact about what took place in that meeting. And, you know, that disagreement, you know, she can say, you know,

this is she is saying, you know, Bernie is my friend and I don't want to dwell on this. Bernie can say Elizabeth Warren is my friend. I don't want to dwell on this. But they're both basically saying that the other person is not being honest. I do wonder if the truth is that these are two people honestly recounting what they believe took place and simply having a disagreement as to the actual words Bernie used in that moment. And it is a shame that it has led to such acrimony online, because again, these are two of these are the two most progressive members of the United States Senate who in any other race, if they weren't a part of it themselves, would be for the other. Yeah. I mean, there's a ton of science on

the fact that one, we have terrible memories. We think we have good memories. We do not even in important moments. And we all tend to interpret different events differently. So both can sincerely think they're telling the truth here. I'm really struck by the fact that there's a lot of people, including reporters, who are just asserting as a fact that Warren's campaign leaked this story about this conversation because they wanted to talk about this issue. That is a it's not backed up by any sourcing that I've seen. b it is completely illogical to suggest that warren would want to have an electability conversation that can only hurt her and amy klobuchar in the in the last weeks of a campaign so i think people need to stop asserting that bullshit especially it's it's a conversation she's been studiously avoiding for the entire campaign as rebecca tracer pointed out in her excellent piece about this that i in the cut that i suggest you all go read yesterday it's just it may if someone did

leak it from her campaign, that person did something pretty stupid. And they're a pretty smart campaign. So I don't know why you would leak it. Right. And I also say, like, I think that Warren handled it masterfully. That answer where she roped in Klobuchar was,

it seemed big. It was funny. It was poignant. It also probably will help her get some of those second choice voters from the Klobuchar team if they are not viable. Bernie, in some ways, had the best talking point about how a woman can win because he was just like, Hillary got three million more votes than Trump. Of course, a woman could win. I was like, oh, yeah, that's a really good point. I wish people

would mention that. So like we almost got out of the woods on this. And then Bernie kind of well actually Warren about the statistic about you know who had won in the past 30 years and that was a little bit weird but 30 years inclusive or 30 years not inclusive are you including this year and the first year you know what i mean i don't think it helped it was weird like i think bernie legitimately did not hear that part of warren's answer oh he was so he was just like yeah i defeated an incumbent you didn't give me credit for that online that transition to the difference between 30 years and 29 years and nine months honestly i tried to avoid except this morning when you said twitter is fucking awful this morning

then i went and looked but i try i tried to avoid it all last night and i have muted so many of those people over the last months that tell you my Twitter experience is a lot better. But yeah, it was pretty bad. I agree, certainly, that I don't think Elizabeth Warren's campaign leaked this. It's just, regardless of, even if you think that it's, even if it's discordant with how she has run her campaign, just for people who have leaked lots of, like, done things like this in campaigns where you try to lay out an attack or make a strategic move, a CNN online story is not the way in which you would do that, right? It has all the makings of a story that has been circulating for a long time. And finally,

some very good reporters got enough people to confirm it, to put it into print. And then we were off to the races. Yeah. And maybe at a moment where there was a little bit of tension between them and somebody was mad in the heat of a moment. Yeah, totally. 100%, right? I think, a couple things. I think it is, Tommy, your point about how two people can remember two things differently is exactly right. I also think it's very possible for a man to say something that would be, and not understand how it could be interpreted by a woman, right? Yeah, for sure.

I think that's very likely what happened in this situation. The other point is, I don't know whether Elizabeth Warren wanted this conversation or not, but I am glad we're having it because it has been the unspoken elephant in the room for this entire fucking election, where everywhere you go, you talk to people who like they ask this question. People who are and this is not that the people themselves do not think a woman should be president. They think the mythological group of voters in Wisconsin who will decide the president don't think a woman can be president. So therefore, we have to reverse engineer our nominee from that process. And that has been hanging over Warren's campaign from the very beginning. Everything about Warren's Medicare for all electability issues was a proxy for this conversation because Bernie Sanders has all the same Medicare for all potential political vulnerability issues that Warren does. And we never talk about it. We talk very specifically about Warren. And so like, let's have the conversation, make the case against it.

Everything that we saw in 2018, put aside 2016, which is a very good point that Bernie made, 2018 suggests that perhaps the best candidate to mobilize an electorate that wins in the post-Trump realignment of the Democratic Party would be a woman. You know, Dave Wasserman, who you talked to in the wilderness, has made the point repeatedly that a moderate woman from the South or the Midwest would be the ideal most electable Democratic candidate, based on what he knows about the voters you need to persuade. Yeah, he thinks like Stacey Abrams could be the most electable candidate for those reasons. persuading yeah he thinks like stacy abrams could be the most electable candidate for that for those reasons no i look i i agree with this all and i think it reminded me a little bit of right you don't want to have this conversation right like like to tommy's point i don't think the campaign wanted to leak this and have a conversation about can a woman be elected president right

but it reminded me a little of obama and the race speech and rever Wright, right? Did we want those tapes of Reverend Wright to come out? Dan leaked them. We certainly did not. But after everything was said and done and Obama gave that race speech, I think we all agreed it was an important moment and he needed to have, he needed to make that speech eventually. If he was going to be the first black president elected to the United States, he needed to take on the issue of race directly. And I think even though she has avoided it through most of the campaign, what she did last night was very effective in making the case that yes, and like you said, Tommy, Bernie did too. Yes, Hillary Clinton won 3 million more votes than Donald Trump. Elizabeth Warren saying, yes, look at all the women that won in 2018. Look at the

only two people on the stage who have beaten Republicans, beaten Republican incumbents, and the men lost 10 elections combined. You know, I think it's probably good that she took it on. The one thing I was curious about is we never got to the bottom of what was actually said, which I thought the moderators would try to do. The fact that Abby Phillip, one of the moderators, after Bernie denied it, then went to Warren and said, so what did you say when he said a woman couldn't win? As opposed to asking Elizabeth Warren, Bernie says he didn't say it.

What did he say? That was a poorly worded question and Bernie world is very upset about that. And I think they should be. I understand why they're upset about that. Abby Phillips did not, I think she handled that wrong as the moderator.

Didn't bother me. Well, she just, she basically said, well, yeah, Bernie, you're just lying. She accepted it. That's fair, yeah. That's what she did by saying that. second it was it would be one thing if like just the that's just the way it played out with bernie was like i didn't say that she's like

elizabeth warren what is your response to the thing bernie said because everyone laughed like oh wow it was cheeky yeah uh it was what i it seemed cheeky to me but uh you know like the truth is i don't think it really matters exactly what was said. You know, what I thought was so good about what Warren said and to the Tracer piece, that is to talk about the fears of misogyny and sexism preventing a woman from winning is to add to the perception that misogyny and sexism will prevent a woman from winning. And it is just to be Elizabeth Warren is to be trying to defeat the fears that a woman can't win while combating the latent, ingrained, deep misogyny that makes it harder for a woman to win every day. That to have moments in which you're seen as an intellectual leader, brave, courageous,

smart, gritty, to have like positive attributes given to you is the threshold is raised so much higher for a woman. And to be embroiled in a scandal about your authenticity and your ability to win and to be a leader, to be seen as flawed is so much lower. And the difficulty of navigating that has just been so central to her incredibly smart and deft way of managing not just this issue, but every issue throughout the campaign. It really sucks that she both has to deal with sexism and now is getting attacked for mentioning what she thinks happened in this conversation.

That is bullshit and it's unfair. It was little noticed, but I thought Amy Klobuchar actually had a very funny line at the end of that segment where she said every opponent she beat got out of politics after the election. So how about that precedent for Donald Trump? It was like very well done. It also, by the way, talking about all the men who lost a combination of 10 elections exposed something that we've talked about before in this Democratic primary, which is the concept of electability, while real and important to a lot of voters because Donald Trump is president, is incredibly hard to measure in this field. Who we have left doesn't have a lot of people who can run around saying, oh, well, I'm electable because look at all the elections that I won. Yeah, I mean, in the last...

Bernie Sanders has been winning in Vermont and lost to Hillary Clinton. Joe Biden won by being on the ticket with Barack Obama and then being senator from Delaware for a long time. Pete Buttigieg won a couple of mayoral elections in South Bend. Yeah, I mean, in the last debate... Tom Sires never won anything. Amy Klobuchar basically ripped Pete's arms from his body and started attacking them with him. And basically, the point that she was making is that if he was a woman, he probably wouldn't be on that stage. And just true.

So first half of the debate we talked about was very heavy on foreign policy. Right off the bat, Joe Biden was once again pressed on his 2003 vote in favor of the Iraq war, both by the moderators and by bernie let's hear it but what i understood from right away in terms of the war in iraq the difference here is that the war in iraq turned out to be the worst foreign policy blunder in the modern history of this country as joe well knows, we lost 4,500 brave troops. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died. We have spent trillions of dollars on that endless war money, which should go into health care and education and infrastructure in this country. Joe and I listened to what Dick Cheney and George Bush

and Rumsfeld had to say. I thought they were lying. I didn't believe them for a moment. I took to the floor. I did everything I could to prevent that war. Joe saw it differently. Vice President Biden. I was asked to bring 156,000 troops home from that war, which I did. I led that effort.

It was a mistake to trust that they weren't going to go to war. They said they were not going to go to war. They said they were just going to get inspectors in. The world, in fact, voted to send inspectors in and they still went to war. From that point on, I was in the position of making the case that it was a big, big mistake. And from that point on, I voted to, I moved to bring those troops home. So I thought that this was Biden's best answer on the issue because he acknowledged the mistake, tried to talk about the lessons that he learned from it. What did you think, Tommy? So like big picture, you know, Bernie clearly obviously has the cleanest answer on the Iraq war. And it's also funny to think back to 2016 where foreign policy was seen

as a weakness for him because he sounds very fluent on these issues. He makes a compelling case and he's done real work in the Senate since on war powers resolutions in Yemen and Iran that is impressive and he deserves credit for. I agree that I thought Biden's first answer in calling the Iraq war a mistake. It was good. It was crisp. And then he pivoted to his relevant experience since then under Obama and his family experience of having a son who served. I just don't know how voters feel about this issue and how salient this vote is all these years later. It was also interesting, by the way, to hear Bernie pressed on his vote for the war in Afghanistan and the fact that he recently said that was a mistake. I didn't realize he had said that. And I thought it, you know, maybe voters will watch that and think, well, this is a wash. I

don't really know, but I'd love to see some research on it. Dan, what'd you think? I thought it was Biden's best answer on this. And he has struggled from the very beginning on this, as has everyone who voted for the war, right? Forever. Forever, right? We've been through that. We were through this with Kerry in 2004, Hillary Clinton in 2008, Hillary Clinton in 2016, Biden up until this point. Because the answer just seems so obvious, but people are so tortured over how they got that vote wrong. And in sort of the circumstances around that vote seemed so far and now to the people who were there at the time.

The answer is like, I got it wrong. I learned lessons from it. Despite that, the most famous opponent of the war, Barack Obama, picked me to be his vice president. And then I led the effort to get us home. Like that, it's an obvious answer, and he has just struggled to get there, but he did it last night.

And like Tommy, I am just incredibly curious how much vote, I think the substantive fact that Bernie got this right and Biden got it wrong and other people got it wrong is very important because I worked in the Senate when this was all happening. And Bernie's position was very brave. And we were like, because you have to remember that America went fucking insane at that time. We changed the name of French fries because we were pissed at the French.

The Dixie chicks were canceled before cancel culture was a thing. If you spoke out in the slightest way, a right wing propaganda White House supported by mainstream media anvil fell on your head and Bernie did the right thing there and he should get credit slightest way, a right-wing propaganda, White House, supported by mainstream media, anvil fell on your head. And Bernie did the right thing there, and he should get credit for that. I do not know politically whether voters in Iowa, how they think about that in terms of whether they want to pick. Does that really matter? They would prevent someone who might vote for Biden to vote for Biden. It's an open question. Yeah, I was watching for to see which candidates would try to move the foreign policy debate forward from a vote in Iraq. And I think, you know, Biden did that a little bit. Eventually,

Bernie got there on Iran. I thought Pete did a pretty good job with that during the foreign policy section. What do you think, Levin? No, I think that's right. I mean, my overall, I mean, I think what Dan said is actually important. I do think that we've been having every Democratic candidate who voted for the war has been struggling with it. And I think one of the reasons that they've been struggling with it is that I do think a big part of this conversation is to look at not just who was right and who was brave and who was wrong and who went along with the decision, but also the context of the decision and what happened to this country after 9-11 and the kind of fever that took hold and what it meant and what we've learned from it.

Because I do think that's a big part of what it means to learn from what happened in the year since 9-11. That said, you know, Pete did try to pitch forward on foreign policy, talk about cyber threats, talk about the way the next president will inherit a bunch of new and evolving challenges. But overall, I think one thing that was missing throughout the debate on this question and a bunch of other questions was taking cable news questions that were either designed to elicit conflict or they were just simply on the axis of what cable news talks about every day, often framed the way Republicans would frame it, and go

bigger, talk about values, talk about principles, talk about what guides a president in making a decision to use force or not use force, or on education, what the goals of education, on health care, why this issue isn't so important, the pain that on education, what the goals of education on health care, why this issue isn't so important, the pain that people feel, what have you. And so my feeling on this foreign policy debate, and I do think one reason I felt certainly like kind of a kind of dull feeling after the debate is too often questions were taken at face value. And I would just, I was so longing for candidates to kind of step beyond that and have a greater sense of vision and heart and

humanity and how they thought about these questions. I thought Bernie is usually pretty deft at doing that from a big picture values perspective. And then I think Pete Warren and Klobuchar sometimes are pretty deft at taking it to a more personal story or personal stories to talk about people. So there was another more policy-based issue that separated Warren and Sanders last night. Warren recently announced that she'd be supporting the USMCA, which is the trade deal to replace NAFTA. This is one of the biggest policy differences between her and Bernie. She defended her support of the deal, and Bernie took the opportunity to explain his opposition to it. Let's hear it. I wasn't here. I've been in Congress long enough to have voted against NAFTA.

But I led the fight against the trade deal with Asia and the trade deal with Europe because I didn't think it was in the interest of the American people, the American workers or environmental interests. But we have farmers here in Iowa who are hurting and they are hurting because of Donald Trump's initiated trade wars. We have workers who are hurting because the agreements that have already been cut really don't have enforcement on workers' rights. This new trade deal is a modest improvement. Senator Sanders himself has said so. It will give some relief to our farmers. It will give some relief to our workers. I believe we accept that relief. We try to help the people who need help. And we get up the next day and fight for a better trade deal. We need a coherent trade policy.

We need a policy that actually helps our workers, our farmers. We need them at the table, not just to trade policy written for big international companies. I'm ready to have that fight, but let's help the people. Thank you. Senator Sanders, can you please respond to Senator Warren? Well, I think that it is not so easy to put together new trade legislation. If this is passed, I think it will set us back a number of years. Senator Warren is right in saying we need to bring the stakeholders to the table. That is the family farmers here in Iowa and in Vermont and around the country. That is the environmental community.

That is the workers. So Bernie is the only candidate to oppose the trade deal. Dan, you also oppose the trade deal. Why do you think that everyone else, including Warren, came out in support for it? I believe that Warren substantively thinks this is the right thing to do because I don't understand the politics for her. I think Klobuchar thinks it's something the right thing to do. It's probably on balance in the short term, at least, better for the people in Klobuchar's state than,

and probably better for the people in Iowa than, status quo. But I think that's the wrong question to have. I think the question is not, is the USMCA better than NAFTA? Sure. I mean, if Sherrod Brown's for it, some of the AFL-CIOs for it. Some individual unions may be against it, but is it better than that? Sure. But that's not the right test in my view. Substance, right? Politics is a different question. Substance, the test is, is the USMCA better than a deal that a President Sanders, Biden, Warren, Klobuchar, Buttigieg, Steyer would negotiate in a year from now? Because we went through this in 2007 with a bunch of Bush trade deals, which were not, they were not the worst trade deals, but they were not good. And we waited, the Democrats did not pass and they controlled the House and the Senate and waited for President

Obama to renegotiate those on a better deal that was more favorable to workers and environmental standards. The fact that climate change is not mentioned in this deal sort of proves that point. So Jonathan Cohn at HuffPo had a smart piece about this, I thought, which I agree with, that this is also like the difference that there now is between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on Medicare for All, and that in both cases, she is focused on what can I do to deliver for people in the near term right now, as opposed to having an issue to fight about. And, you know, she brought up when she talked about healthcare last night, all the executive actions she was going to take to lower the cost of prescription drugs.

She's now going to try to get a robust public option passed in her first year with 51 votes. She's got a plan to eliminate student debt with an executive order. And I do think this is partly because having talked to all these voters for the wilderness, too, one of the reasons people are so cynical and disappointed with government is that they can't remember any time that it's actually delivered for them. And, you know, I talked to Stacey Abrams about this, and she said, you know, the low propensity voters, the people who don't vote often in Georgia, where I come from, their big problem is they come out, they vote once in a while, and then nothing changes and no one delivers anything for them. And I don't know if Elizabeth Warren is thinking about this

or not, but one argument that I could see her making against Bernie Sanders as the primary continues is Bernie Sanders has been very successful at moving the debate. He has moved the debate on health care. He has moved the debate on climate, and good for him for doing so. He hasn't done a lot over the many years in Congress to actually deliver on this kind of stuff. And she has, and she's not only a progressive, but she has a plan to actually make it happen. Maybe she'll take that argument. Maybe she won't. I think that your point about delivering now as opposed to winning another fight, to delay a policy or substantive benefit

of the American people in order to win a political fight is a very legitimate point. And I think if it wasn't, let's say hypothetically, somehow Trump and the Democrats negotiated some sort of public option or legislation to strengthen the ACA. You do it. You do it. You do it. You have to do it. The benefits of trade are much more amorphous and much more

downstream. I do agree with that. I mean, look, I think both Bernie and Warren, though, go into this debate knowing that this is not like an easy win for either of them. Like the way they approached it. I mean, this Bernie Sanders, when he wants to, can be much tougher. I mean, what he said was, well, you're going to make it harder to do the new trade deal because this one has passed, which is a very... Partly because he had admitted it is a modest improvement, as she pointed out. And, you know, the debate as to whether you take a modest improvement now versus something better you can negotiate in the future is one of the central debates

of politics over and over and over again. But it does seem like everyone on that stage recognize that the politics of this are pretty nuanced and difficult, and nobody is looking to really have a big fight about it. I think the politics in the Democratic primary are nuanced and difficult. I think the politics in the general election are quite simple. And Bernie's position is much stronger than everyone else's. Bernie has made the point about Biden, in our case, Biden's electability, is that Trump can say Biden voted for NAFTA. He can't say that Bernie voted for NAFTA. I think that is also true here, because as we know from our own polling, Trump's support

for a new NAFTA deal that is supported by the big drug companies, the Wall Street banks, other corporations, is a big net negative for him in battleground states like Wisconsin and Arizona. Bernie can make that case against him. The others can't. Bernie spoke pretty compellingly last night and several times about climate change as an existential threat. And him framing his opposition to USMCA around climate was smart and believable.

And it made it seem like this was a good faith policy dispute. I thought in this exchange, I was grateful that Amy Klobuchar brought it back to Trump and started highlighting the ways Trump's trade policies have hurt real people in Iowa and have hurt people she knew. That was smart and important. To his credit, Pete did a good job of bringing it back to Trump several times during the foreign policy discussion. He talked about Trump sending more troops to the Middle East, Trump lying about opposing the Iraq war. He talked about the need to renew the New START treaty. So I was just grateful to the candidates who remembered that we're going to run against

Trump someday. Would have been nice if there was a little bit more of that. Yeah. If there was a Democratic Trump, it would be so clear what they would be doing, which is worse than NAFTA. All the jobs are going to go away. They're going to ruin the Midwest because the results are diffuse and hard to see. Yeah, that's right. So the moderators ended the debate by asking each candidate a question about their electability. I want to go through each of the candidates' answers, and then we can talk about sort of each of their overall debate performances before we go. Let's start with Joe Biden. Vice President Biden, the eventual nominee will face President Trump, who has no problem mocking people, using insulting nicknames,

slinging mud and telling lies. The debate against him will make tonight's debate look like child's play. Are you prepared for that? I am prepared for that. Look, I've been the object of his affection now more than anybody else in this state. I've taken all the hits he can deliver, and I'm getting better in the polls, my going up. And by the way, I have overwhelming support from the African-American community, overwhelming, more than everybody else in this operation, number one. Number two, working class people where I come from in Pennsylvania, the places I come from in Delaware, I have great support. I have support across the board. And I'm not worried about taking on Donald Trump at all.

And with regard to the economy, I can hardly wait to have that debate with him. Where I come from, the neighborhoods I come from, they're in real trouble. Working class people and middle class people. When the middle class does well, working class has a way up, and the wealthy do well. But what's happening now? They're being clobbered. They're being killed. They now have a situation where if the vast majority believe their children will never reach the stage that they've reached in economic security. I love that debate because the American

public is getting clobbered. The wealthy are the only ones doing well, period. I'm looking forward to the economic debate. So it was, I thought, a very good response to a fairly weird question, like, what are you going to do when Trump's mean to you in terms of electability? But what did you guys think overall of Joe Biden's debate performance and sort of where he stands at the end of the debate? I think he came out of the debate right where he went in, which is still the front runner for the nomination and probably by a significant amount with the giant caveat of what happens in Iowa could change that. Huge. And people and he I don't it's I'm not saying he is lucky, but in debate after debate after debate, people preview an idea that they are

going to go after Biden. They're going to take him on on his record. They're going to take him on his electability. And it never happens. Other than the- No bankruptcy hit that Warren had sort of previewed. No social security hit that Bernie had sort of previewed. Just no one, except for the Iraq thing, no one really challenged Joe Biden. Yeah.

And that is, Biden will benefit tremendously from that because that is the last debate between now and Iowa. I thought in that answer itself, we saw the Biden that we have seen before, before this campaign, which is the happy warrior Biden and the one who is very, very passionate about middle and working class people in this country. Like that answer is one that we have heard a thousand times in a White House economic meeting whenever someone's putting forward some, you know, I'm sure well-meaning but eggheaded policy, and Biden will very passionately make the case, like, how does this help the people where I'm from? How does this help the people

of Claymont, Delaware, where he grew up? And that's the Biden who is, that is that Biden that is carrying the electability hopes of a lot of these primary voters thus far. What'd you think, Lovett? You know, it was, I think, I think it was a good debate for him. I think we see the strengths and weaknesses of Biden again and again. The strengths are what he laid out in that answer. The weaknesses are, I think, in the way in which that answer is still not that smooth. You know, I mean, we're now, I think, accustomed to grading Biden on a curve. And the curve is, did he get to the end of his answer, you know, without anything making us truly uncomfortable or hard to follow or incoherent? And he didn't. He delivered the

answer, I think, reasonably well. That said, on the whole, you know, there is a kind of absence of the joyful warrior throughout this debate. There's a kind of absence of the joyful warrior throughout this debate there's a kind of um uh uh darkness to his presentation um in the debates that i don't think is as evident in the campaign trail or um in the sort of the the person that that had that got him the name recognition that made him the person that's at the top of the polls but uh yeah that's it tommy what do you think i thought he was very good. It's one of his better performances. And look, I mean, the headline coming out of this thing is like, what did Warren and Bernie talk about at their non-handshake after the debate? It's either the storyline is largely a fight between Bernie and Warren, and that's a win for Biden.

Yeah. I think one of the other reasons that he was fortunate that no one came after him is that at these debates, Biden is usually at his worst when he is attacked because then he gets defensive. And when he gets defensive, then he can sort of go on and on. And that's when he's made some of his mistakes in these debates. And because he really wasn't that defensive or because when Bernie challenged him on Iraq, he actually had his best answer. He sort of made it through this time. I agree that the only thing with Biden is, we were talking about this last night, I remember him in 08 debates, both in the primary and then when he was VP in his debates with Sarah Palin, again in his debates with Paul

Ryan. And the defining characteristic of Joe Biden in those debates was that he was the happy warrior, emphasis on happy, right? Because he certainly was a warrior in this last question when he talked about fighting for the middle class. But I would love to see in future debates, Joe Biden look like he I'm sure he's not having a great time up there. Who is frankly, who is right, but look like look like he's having a better time smile a little more crack a joke a little more, you know, like and Bernie's pretty, pretty good at doing that for doing good at doing that for a grumpy old man, you know, but Bernie, Bernie can do that pretty's his best argument, which is he kind of ties the soul of America part of his argument to this hype speech. He sort of like tries to hype people up, a feeling of pain, a feeling of not knowing your country, a feeling of seeing, a feeling kind of. I mean, I think there's a lot of white liberal voters who, for the first time in their lives, are experiencing what it's like to feel disenfranchised and they hate it. that kind of get up and go spirit that he can bring when matched with him being a happy warrior is I think Biden at his best and helps him overcome some of the limitations he has as a

candidate. Okay, let's hear from Bernie. Senator Sanders, you call yourself a democratic socialist, but more than two thirds of voters say they are not enthusiastic about voting for a socialist. Doesn't that put your chances of beating Donald Trump at risk? for a socialist. Doesn't that put your chances of beating Donald Trump at risk? No, not at all. And that is because the campaign that we are going to run will expose the fraudulency of who Donald Trump is. Donald Trump is corrupt. He is a pathological liar and he is a fraud. Now, when Trump talks about socialism, what he talks about is giving hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. Donald Trump is a businessman, received $800 million in tax breaks and subsidies to build

luxury housing. My democratic socialism says healthcare is a human right. We're going to raise the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour. We're going to make public colleges and universities tuition free. We're going to have a green new deal and create up to $20 million

saving the planet for our children and our grandchildren. We are going to take on the greed and corruption of the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance company. That is what democratic socialism is about, and that will win this election. Will it, Dan? As we have talked about in 08, is it possible for an African American to win the White House? At the conversation we just had about whether a woman can win. This is also an untested proposition, right? This is a person who identifies as a

socialist, which is a term, even if the policies that Bernie advocates are quite popular across party lines in a lot of places and a lot of the people in your focus groups believe in and support. Also could easily be labeled democratic policies and progressive policies and not socialist policies as Bernie himself tried to lay out in a speech a while back when he said that it's just like FDR and yet for some reason calls them democratic socialism. And so like, I think that, I think that answer was fine. I think the, his definition of democratic socialism is probably the best way you can deal with that. His critique of Trump that Trump actually engages in corporate socialism by bailing out corporations and all of that, I think it's a good argument. I just want to see more. I would like to hear more from Bernie in his campaign about how they are going to navigate several billion dollars and a right-wing media machine that is going to try to

otherize him around this term. And I think this was the beginning of that conversation. Electability, like as we said, no one knows what electability means. I want to hear candidates. The only way that I can possibly interpret is hearing candidates' plans for how they plan to navigate the challenges they may have. We heard that from Warren on that question, and I want to hear more from Bernie on it. I thought it was interesting. To me, it was like, you know, Trump in 2016, he'll say it now, there's this sort of quality where the version of it is that, yeah, I'm a greedy sleaze, but I'll be a greedy sleaze for you. And this is the mirror image of that, which is to say, Trump is a socialist for corporations and the wealthy and people he knows,

and I'll be a socialist for you. It is the kind of mirror image of the Trump argument. And in that way, I found it interesting and compelling. Beyond that, I have the same kind of uncertainty around these questions that we all do, but I found it to be a fair and compelling argument. What'd you think, Tom? do. But I found it to be a fair and compelling argument. What do you think, Tom? It's a very untested proposition. It's a thing that electability concerns about every single candidate on that stage make me quite nervous. And this is one that's gotten somehow the least discussion. I think that if Elizabeth Warren were really looking to throw a punch about electability, she could have tried to drill

him on this. She notably did not. I think we are whistling past the graveyard if we don't vet these issues out in the primary. So I hope it is discussed in a bigger way. But, you know, Bernie's betting on the fact that he can bring in new voters and young voters and build a big new coalition. And if he is the nominee, my God, I hope he is right. And I'll do everything I can to support him. But you're going to have to prove it by winning. And I know that some folks on the left will say, well, Donald Trump and the Republicans are going to call Democrats, all Democrats, socialists. They've called us all socialists for decades. That is true. But it's a little different when you say, I'm not a socialist. And when you say, yeah,

he's right, I am a socialist. But I'm a Democratic socialist and when you say yeah he's right i am a socialist but i'm a democratic socialist and that's better i mean look i you know i sat in these four focus groups and there was mixed reviews here in in wisconsin and milwaukee with the obama trump voters and with some democrats in philadelphia they did not care about democratic socialism this they one of them actually said i don't care what you call yourself. I like your policies. I like your policies. So that's good. In Florida, in Miami, when the group was primarily, these were sort of disaffected voters who had sat home. They were primarily black and Latino. There were a number of immigrants in that group. And they were very, very concerned about socialism, partly because a couple of them

had come from socialist countries. And they said it was horrible in this country. And you try to explain to them that democratic socialism, they don't care about all that. They just, socialism is a word that carries quite a connotation in this country because of history. And you can explain the differences for sure. And a lot of college educated liberals will understand those differences for sure. The question is, what happens with those voters I talked to in Miami, in the Arizona group, which was Romney Clinton voters. They were very upset with socialism. They didn't like it at all. So I think it's something they have to navigate. And like you said, Elizabeth Warren, some of these other people have been dealing with their electability concerns, and Bernie Sanders has not

really addressed them. This has been an unexamined question because in 2016, the consensus of the media the entire time was Bernie was never going to win. So what was the point? And a lot of establishment folks thought Bernie was never going to win. So why poke the bear here, right? And then this time, Bernie, up until very recently, had been sort of unfairly and inaccurately written off as, look, he's polling below where he was in 2016. It's either going to be Biden or Warren or Pete, Bernie, and then he had his health issues. But now he is surging here or has strengthened at the end and is a very, very, very legitimate contender. And you could argue in some cases,

maybe the favorite to navigate the next part of the calendar and be the nominee. And I think that question is going to come up and his campaign is going to have to deal with it. Yeah. Let's hear from Elizabeth Warren. Senator Warren, what do you say to voters who like your policies, but they're worried they will scare away swing voters you need to win this race in November? So I was born and raised in Oklahoma. I have three older brothers who are all retired, who are all back there still. And two of my three brothers are Republicans.

And sure, there are a lot of things we disagree on and we can take to our corners and do the Democratic-Republican talking points. But the truth is, there's a whole lot we agree on. You know, my brothers are just furious over Chevron and Eli Lilly and Amazon, that our giant corporations make billions of dollars in taxes, make billions of dollars in profits and pay nothing in taxes. My brothers say, I don't get this. I have to pay my taxes. Somebody has to keep the roads paved and the schools open and pay for our defense. They understand that we have an America right now that's working great for those at the top. It's just not working for anyone else. We have a chance to unite, unite as Democrats, but also with independents and Republicans who

are sick of living in a country that's working great for the politicians that are taking the money. It's working great for the lobbyists. It's working great for the corporate executives. It's just not working for everyone else. I'm building the grassroots movement, leading the fight. We're going to make this America work for everyone else. That is how we're going to beat Donald Trump. Tommy, what'd you think about that electability argument from Warren? I think it's strong. I mean, look, all of them are untested, but she makes a compelling case for herself.

Yeah. It was pretty much the argument she gave me on Pod Save America a couple episodes ago. She's been, this is her argument on electability. She talks about her brothers. She talks about sort of building a coalition of people against corruption and special interests, which I think is probably the best way to go. An argument she used in the last debate

that's like puts us on a more finer point is the best person to take on a corrupt president is someone who's willing to fight corruption. And that I think is the shorthand version of that answer. That is her bet. Like that's the why her part, right? Everything else there other than the brothers is something that certainly Bernie and some other folks on stage who have been on stage could make that case. I think the part that she can uniquely do because she's made it a bigger part of her campaign, although it's gotten sort of washed away in the sea of Medicare for All discussion, is she has the most aggressive anti-corruption

plan of anyone in this race. And I think you remember when you talked to her, you talked to her, and when Tommy talked to her in the Privacy of America, it was, what is your first piece of legislation? Was it going to be the wealth tax? Was it going to be Medicare for all? Was it going to be Green New Deal? No, it was her corruption plan because she believed that would make all the subsequent pieces more interesting. And that is her theory of change. And it also can be her theory of electability. Let's hear from Pete. Mayor Buttigieg, you say you've had trouble earning the support of black voters because you're unknown, but you've been campaigning for a year now and polling shows you with next to no black support,

support that you'll need in order to beat Donald Trump. Is it possible that black voters have gotten to know you and have simply decided to choose another candidate? The black voters who know me best are supporting me. It's why I have the most support in South Bend. It's why among elected black officials in my community who have gotten into this race, by far most of them are supporting me. And now, nationally, I am proud that my campaign is co-chaired by a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and to have support right here in Iowa from some of the most recognizable

black elected leaders from Mayor Hart of Waterloo to former Representative Berry in Blackhawk County. Now, the biggest mistake we could make is to take black votes for granted, and I never will. The reason I have the support I do is not because any voter thinks that I'm perfect. It's because of the work that we have done facing some of the toughest issues that communities can, not from the luxury of a debate or a television panel or a committee room, but on the ground, issues from poverty to justice in policing. And I'm proud to say we've been nationally recognized for our work as a race-informed city on delivering greater economic justice, that we have reduced use of force by leading the region in transparency

around the use of force in policing. Of course, there is a much longer way to go in my community and around the country. But I will be a president whose personal commitment is to continue doing this work. What do you think, Lovett? I think it's the best answer he's given on this question. And I did appreciate the way the question was asked, because there has been something a little bit patronizing in the way Pete has answered them before. They haven't gotten to know me yet. And it sort of put him in a position to make more of a direct case. You know, that said, this has been dogging him.

It will continue to dog him. You know, both Pete and Warren have sort of political challenges to their electability case. And so they tend to read down to an argument that is rhetorical. That's around the case that they're going to make. Right. So Pete has seen this as a huge liability for him. So when he makes an argument about electability, he makes a rhetorical argument about his contrast versus Trump. Elizabeth Warren faces questions about her electability. And so she makes a rhetorical argument about how strong the case she's going to make against Trump. about how strong the case she's going to make against Trump. Biden and Bernie, opposite to that, Biden just flat out walks through the demographics and says, here's how I'm doing in these demographics. Here's how I'm going to win. And Bernie talks about bringing in new voters

and makes a more kind of on the ground political argument about how he's going to overcome some of the liabilities you're talking about. But on that answer, I thought it was a better answer than he's given in the past. Anyone else have thoughts on Pete's overall performance? We haven't talked about that too much. Pete speaks in paragraphs.

I mean, everything is a well thought through complete thought. There are dependent clauses. There are emotional portions. The risk with that is it can sometimes sound very practiced. The benefit is that he gives great answers and makes important points that other people are forgetting to make. This is completely superficial. I thought he looked very young last night. I've never felt that way about him in a debate before. Maybe it was too much makeup or something or the haircut, but I don't know. And then Tom Steyer, funnily, kept trying to jab Pete over random

things about his age, a trade he might have dogged him on something. So maybe that highlighted it for me. I thought Pete, in his electability case, got back to first principles, which is he is the candidate who represents the biggest change from the status quo that is Donald Trump. His life choices, his experience, his age, his background, where in the country he's from. And over the last several months, the campaign had taken that Pete electability argument and transitioned it to, I'm the most talented moderate candidate in the field, and I am more electable because I'm for a public option, not Medicare for all. But his best argument is that he is the embodiment of change. He is different than the

other people in the top four, because they are politicians in a more typical sense with longer records and that he is sort of the high variance candidates, the replica versus the replacement theory where Pete is, at least among this group, the biggest contrast to Trump. I agree with that. And I think he has to, in these next 20 something days, make that case quite a bit more since he got a Des Moines register poll that wasn't as great for him since he got a Des Moines register poll that wasn't as great for him because he had a little bit of a slide there. And I think he was steady last night,

but he's at the point where I think he needs to get something going and have a moment or two in these next couple of weeks because, you know, in order to win the caucuses. He's going to have to stay to himself. Well, that's, yeah. He's like, witnesses, five witnesses. Hunter Biden testified. Joe Biden testified. Keep this going for a month. It'd be so funny if he put out a statement himself well that's yeah that's he's like witnesses five witnesses hunter biden testified

joe biden testified keep going for a month it'd be so funny if you put out a statement calling on hunter biden to testify the other just one thing also just to remember too like pete is so smart like he's on this stage he's made it this far because he's very very smart and i think to tommy's point sometimes he has the right words he has the right thing to Sometimes he has the right words. He has the right thing to say. He has the right contrast. But sometimes it just feels a little bit rehearsed. Amy Klobuchar. Senator Klobuchar, you're pitching yourself as a practical candidate who can get things done. And even tonight, you've dismissed some of the ideas that are offered in this primary as pipe dreams. How are you going to inspire Democratic voters with a message of pragmatism? Our voters, actually all Americans,

have seen now a number of years of a guy that has, I think, told over 15,000 lies. He is someone that literally has a rap sheet of divisive rhetoric. And I think what Americans want is something different. I am going to be able to stand across from him on that debate stage and say to my friends in Iowa, the Midwest is not flyover country for me, I live here. I'm going to be able to look at him and say

you've treated these workers and farmers like poker chips. For me, these are my friends and these are my neighbors. I'm going to be able to look at him and say, you know what? You got $413 million over the course of your career. That's how you built your fortune. And what I'm going to say is this. My grandpa worked 1,500 feet underground in the iron ore mine, saved money in a coffee can

in the basement to send my dad to a two-year community college that's my family trust and when you have been given an opportunity like that you go into the world not with a sense of entitlement donald trust donald trump but with a sense of obligation. What do you guys think of that? It was similar to Pete's case about the Midwest too. She made the most like Iowa specific case throughout the debate, I thought, and in her electability point there at the end. I mean, I think Klobuchar had a good debate last night. She didn't have a game changing debate.

And I think she probably needs to, I was expecting her to do a little better in that most recent Des Moines Register poll than what was it, 7%. I kind of thought Amy might have jumped to 10. And she's going to need to really double or triple her support to actually get delegates out of the caucus process. She needed to have a big night last night. I don't know that that happened.

I also talked to a couple of random Iowans who thought that the constant talking over the moderators came off as rude. Are you conducting a focus group as we do this? Dan, I got sources all over the place, man. In campaigns outside, I'm a renaissance man. He's connected to the 515. But it's just a funny thing. It's a funny thing people take away from these events, right? I mean, the cable news brouhaha last night

was what happened in that little five-second conversation after the debate, not what was discussed in. Then you talk to to a couple Iowans and it's like these stylistic things I'm so proud of us for not talking about that yeah because we forgot we still haven't all right we could I say one more thing about Klobuchar is I think Klobuchar is perhaps the most strategic debater of all of them she comes in with a plan she does not care what the question is she doesn't care what the dynamics are she is going to execute her plan. She's going to tell her story. She's going to draw the contract. Debate coach's dream. I mean, really, I agree with Tommy. I don't think she had the game-changing moment that a candidate

who was polling so far behind the top group needed, but just she's very good in this format. I actually think Klobuchar, one reason it's quite useful to see her is I do think she is really strong in these debates. And she does have a plan and she does she does execute on and even in the last debate, she did even better. But the fact that it hasn't resonated in the polls, I think just speaks to how hard it's been for someone to be an alternative to Biden in the race and why so many people that were on that stage in the in, you know, three, four debates ago aren't there anymore. Not by, not for lack of talent or even for lack of a strategy, but because simply Joe Biden has held that moderate vote so tightly for this entire campaign,

no matter how well Amy Klobuchar has performed. Last but not least, Tom Steyer. Mr. Steyer, you've spent more than $100 million of your own dollars on television ads. How do you convince voters that you're more than just your money? Look, we know how Donald Trump is going to run for president. He's going to run on the economy. He's already told Americans last month in Florida, you don't like me and I don't like you. last month in Florida, you don't like me and I don't like you, but you're all going to vote for me because the Democrats are going to destroy the economy in 15 minutes if they get in control.

So let's be clear. I started a business by myself in one room. I didn't inherit a penny from my parents. I spent 30 years building that business into a multi-billion dollar international business. Then I walked away from it and took the giving pledge and started organizing coalitions of ordinary Americans to take on unchecked corporate power. But whoever is going to beat Mr. Trump is going to have to beat him on the economy. And I have the experience and the expertise to show that he's a fake there and a fraud. Look, Mayor Pete has three years as an analyst at McKinsey. I have 30 years of international business experience. I can beat Trump on the economy.

We're going to have to beat him on the economy. And I look forward to taking him down in the fall on the debate stage. I was too distracted last night by Tom Steyer's eyes just boring into my fucking soul. Who told him to stare at the camera like that? It's weird. Worst advice. But then I rewatched the debate this morning and half watched, mostly listened.

And I actually thought he had like some sneaky good points along the way. He had some moments that exposed him as a very new candidate. Like one of the commander in chief questions, his response was like, I did a lot of business travel. And like, I don't know that hitting diamond on Delta is going to, you know,

have the nuclear codes. But, I mean, in our defense, Obama did argue about, did point out he lived in Indonesia as a small child. Once it is similar questions. I also remember staffing him in an interview where he talked about like

minoring in foreign relations. And I was like, please don't say that again. Yeah. The doing travel around the world is no less lame than i served x number of years on this senate committee you think so i see i think it's more lame i think that i agree with tommy like i think elizabeth warren being like we haul up these generals and we press them on why the afghan war in afghanistan is and did you know like i don't know i wish i wish warren on these commander chief questions, spent more time talking about her three brothers

and what it meant for them to serve and what it meant for their family because I think that's more likely to resonate. But anyway. I mean, the clip you played

of Tom Steyer, I think, captures why he's been surprisingly good as a candidate, but also... Because he paid us $7 million to air it? Yeah, no.

And obviously, that was something we weren't going to talk about. But no, we have to say Tom Sire- Wait till the mid-roll. Yeah, we have to say Tom Sire 14 times in this episode just to get the money. But no, you see the strengths he has and why he's actually been, I think, better than people even expected in these debates, given that he is someone who bought a ticket. But you also see that he is a new candidate. I mean, he just ran through in great detail Trump's main argument. He just like walked, he's like, he basically quoted Trump. He launched it as a hit on his fellow Democrats. And

I do actually think what he said was true. This is what Trump is going to say about the economy. But I did notice that it was Donald Trump quoting it on Twitter after the debate because Tom steyer did a little bit of trump's work for him look it's always tough when uh the reason that everyone's talking about you after the debate is because you couldn't tell people what elizabeth warren and bernie sanders were saying to each other in that exchange the one time he didn't make eye contact all fucking night four times every interview post debate they're like what did they say and he's like well i didn't hear what they said well why didn't you hear what they said what's your fucking problem your your face looked like you heard what they said there was a journalist named reed epstein who we believe

was joking who was like what does it say about shouldn't a president be able to hear that conversation between warren and bernie which is kind of a funny joke kind of funny though he said in an annoying way so okay that's it it. That's the debate, guys. So again, there will be no Thursday pod, but we will see you all again on Tuesday for a pod because Monday is Martin Luther King Day, and we'll be taking that day off, and so there'll be a pod

on Tommy is dancing. Fuck yeah, day off. We'll see you on Tuesday. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited you on Tuesday.