Pod Save America - "Best Wishes > Death Wishes."

Episode Date: October 4, 2022

Donald Trumps asks if Mitch McConnell has a death wish, Republican Senate candidates are polling better while the House is still in play, and Cody Keenan joins to talk about speechwriting for Obama and his new book Grace. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. In the fields. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, Donald Trump asks if Mitch McConnell has a death wish. Republican Senate candidates are polling better. The House is still in play. And later, we sit down with our old friend and colleague, Cody Keenan, to talk Obama speechwriting and his new book, Grace. Obama's speech writing and his new book, Grace. A few quick housekeeping notes before we start. Tommy, you've got a new series. Oh, I do. That's right. Tell us all about it. Yeah, I've been working on a limited series for a few weeks with a guy named Roger Bennett,

who hosts a fantastic soccer podcast called Men in Blazers. And we're going to talk about the 2022 World Cup, which is being held this year in Qatar. And that is problematic for a lot of reasons. It was awarded based on rampant corruption up and down FIFA, the body that governs international soccer. Qatar is a horrible place to live if you are a woman or an LGBT person. And it's intolerable if you are a foreign worker who are the people who are building all the infrastructure that went into the games when they were awarded in 2010. So we're trying to figure out what do you do as a sports fan when the game you love has been corrupted by money and these autocrats, especially in the Gulf, that try to do something called sports washing, which has burnished their reputation by getting involved in international soccer. And what can we as fans do about it what can players do about it and what clubs do about it so it's a lot of fun uh it's going to be uh released on the pod save the world feed and then in blazers feed so check it out starting this

saturday this saturday this saturday excellent and the trailer's out now everyone go check out the trailer's out right on the pod save the world feed it'll be fun also uh this is your last chance everyone to buy a pair of crooked carium shoes uh you can order your favorite today in the crooked store and as always a portion of the proceeds will go to vote riders the leading organization focused on helping people navigate voter id laws uh we got two designs they're both great uh check it out at crooked.com slash kicks and grab your pair today it's one of our best urls we've done yeah it's so simple it's easy yeah all right let's get to the news so one storyline of these midterms has been the uh will they or won't they

dynamic between donald trump and mitch mcconnell um the latest chapter started when trump truthed so many things start when trump truths he's really truthing a lot these days truth in his ass off all right so trump truth that mccon McConnell's support for the Democrats continuing resolution to fund the government means that he has a death wish and, quote, must immediately seek help and advise from his China loving wife, Coco Chow, which is Trump's racist nickname for former Trump Transportation Secretary Elaine Chow. So McConnell and most Republicans have said nothing in response, though Senator Rick Scott was asked about the comment during the Sunday shows. Here's what he said. You're a member of the Senate GOP leadership. Are you OK with this? Well, I can never talk about respond to why anybody else says what they said. But here's what is the way I looked at it is I think, you know, what the president is saying is, you know, we've there's been a lot of money spent

over the last two years. We've got to make sure we don't keep caving to Democrats. It's causing unbelievable inflation and causing more and more debt. As you know, you know, the president likes to give people nicknames. You can ask him how he came up with the nickname. I'm sure he has a nickname for me. It's never, ever okay to be a racist. I think you always have to be careful if you're in the public eye how you say things. You want to make sure you're inclusive. I hope no one is racist. I hope no one says anything that's inappropriate. So I'm going to do everything I can. I know this is down the list here, but do you like the birds chirping in the background? I mean, he's just dissembling on life. Here's the thing. Look, I think it's sad based on this clip that I want Mitch McConnell to be murdered less than Rick Scott does. And I think it's

especially troubling because if if someone does follow what Trump wants and Trump does want someone to try to kill Mitch McConnell, if that does end up happening, it's even worse for Rick Scott now because this clip will fucking exist. He's got a silver tongue though. No wonder they made him the spokesman for the NRC. So smooth.

Did we put that at like 1.5 x i i was gonna say like again this is low on the list of problems with that but just like yeah rick scott he should be the public face of the republican party get him out more but also just i want i want more rick scott from the republican party and just a quick note to rick staff when the presumptive nominee and former president of your party threatens to kill the minority leader of your own party you should probably prep that answer prep that answer yeah like a couple runs that might be coming might come up that might be a question are you guys a little surprised that elected republicans couldn't bring themselves to criticize their

party's 2024 front runner for threatening their uh senate minority leader's life and calling his wife a racist slur or no surprise sadly no, no. I think this all goes back to 2016, the primary when we watched Marco Rubio flail around and try to make dick jokes. And then Ted Cruz called Trump a sniveling coward for criticizing his wife and then phone banked for him a few weeks later. So I mean, like these guys have all decided just to never pick a public flight because they know Trump will go harder and will never stop. um so look mcconnell doesn't care really probably but he wants doesn't care about defending his wife he doesn't care about his honor or looking pathetic he wants power and lobbyist checks and to support candidates that will help senate republicans so no i expect nothing from these guys well but why do you think they're

being so quiet what would have been the problem mitch mcconnell saying uh no i i don't think that it was a good idea for the president to say that i have a death wish. And I don't like that he called my wife a racist name. You think that's what's going to happen then? Well, I feel like they've abandoned. So the reason to do that, obviously, is because Trump's reprehensible. And it's also just, you know, the most natural thing, natural response when someone threatens your life. Threatens your life and calls your wife a racist. Racial epithets at your family.

Yeah, you'd think. But look, I don't know if you've noticed, but Mitch McConnell is a pretty cynical guy. And I feel like if you're going to rationalize the amount of things these people have rationalized over the past six years, what's one more time? And, you know, they know that picking a fight with Trump, it won't it won't change Trump. It'll make the story bigger. And obviously, they care more about getting back to focusing on bullshit, crime related political attacks or immigration related political attacks or anti trans related political attacks. or immigration-related political attacks or anti-trans-related political attacks. They'd rather get back to that than have a news cycle about Trump and his awful rhetoric because they've sort of accepted that this is the status quo ante with Trump. They have no hope of changing it.

And the only thing they're afraid of is being on the losing end of it. I do like the Washington Post reported on this story and the way they described it was just perfect. The Post marked a further escalation in an increasingly strained relationship between the two Republican leaders. Increasingly strained. It's also like, you know, he did try to have Mike Pence hanged outside the Capitol. I know, I know. So they're sort of, you know, this is not, it's not a new escalation. It's just that this is his natural resting place at this point. This is not, it's not a new escalation.

It's just that this is his natural resting place at this point. I mean, even though Wall Street Journal editorial board said they were concerned that someone might take Trump seriously and try to kill Mitch McConnell. Yeah. I mean, this is not a right wing editorial board. And not only were they concerned, look, for the Wall Street Journal editorial board, there are two big problems. One is somebody may kill Mitch McConnell. And the other is it's a distraction from their midterm message. They actually was like, Trump shouldn't be threatening Mitch McConnell's life. He should be out there campaigning for these Republicans for deregulation,

threatening a Democrat. So Rick Scott was also asked about Marjorie Taylor Greene's comments at this weekend's Trump rally in Michigan, where she said, I'm not going to mince words. Democrats want Republicans dead and they've already started the killings. New York Times just ran a piece on political violence where Susan Collins was quoted as saying, I wouldn't be surprised if a senator or house member were killed. What do you guys think about that? Do you think it's important to highlight these threats? Yeah, I mean, the fact that the Times had to do like a trend piece on this does show that we have the memories of goldfish in politics. Like, remember the insurrection that happened last year? Yeah. But I mean, I think Marjorie Taylor Greene is a genuinely stupid person. She she's seized on lots of conspiracy theories that are wacky, the Jewish space lasers, QAnon, like broken brain Facebook group stuff. broken brain Facebook group stuff. The allegations here, just so people know, seem to be baseless.

They're clearly baseless, that there's some sort of broader fight against Republicans from Democrats. But even these individual cases she's referencing, like there's a North Dakota man who was drunk, had mental health issues, hit someone with their car. There's no evidence of a political motive. And this Michigan shooter says he was an accident and apparently he's a Republican or has voted in Republican primary. So just made up nonsense. It is incredibly dangerous though, because we've seen how the great replacement theory has led to violence. We've seen a language about quote unquote white genocide and the way that is motivated some really disturbed people. And I think even an idiot like MTG can convince other people that they're at risk or under threat and inspire them to do things. And Trump has also been talking about this North Dakota incident at some of his rallies, too.

So I think this stuff is you should take it seriously. It scares me a lot. I do think there's also an asymmetric increase of like apocalyptic messaging on the Democratic side. There was a long, I think, post piece about that over the weekend. I'm not saying they're the same thing, but you know, you can just see how the sides get driven further apart.

And we've like, you know, back in the day, after elections, you would have this moment where everyone involved says, okay, now we need to come together. Let's sort of like put these fights aside. That just has not happened in the last half decade or more. And it's scary. Love it.

Right-wing political violence is rising. Right wing political extremism is rising. We've already had a series of mass shootings that were based in right wing hate and misinformation and bigotry. There will probably be more. It is, I think, luck that a member of Congress wasn't killed on January 6th. It is luck that others haven't been killed so far. And, you know, Trump doesn't care. He views it as useful. It's why he enjoys the support of QAnon. He likes that he has the backings of the most radical and dangerous elites of the Republican Party aren't doing enough to signal to the base and beyond that this is unacceptable and not part of their movement.

And so, you know, they're playing with fire and and we live in a dangerous country and it's only going to get worse. There's a lot of guns out there. I mean, it was going to say not only are they not signaling that it's that it's unacceptable. was gonna say not only are they not signaling that it's that it's unacceptable um the center for american progress did an analysis and identified 104 political ads from republicans this cycle uh that feature guns or weapons in the ads we've talked about some of these on on this show wasn't eric right into it rhino hunting in one of his ads like kick down the door searching for rhinos or there's like whole families holding you know ak-47s in a christmas car kind of thing that bullshit um look i think we have to keep talking about this because it is easy to get numb to this to forget about it like you said we our memories are too short on

this um i was when i was talking to the voters in pittsburgh for the wilderness i asked about you know what issues the media covers too much and a lot of them talked about january 6th and i said well are you are you not worried that something like that could happen again? And a couple of people said, well, it's just an isolated incident, right? Like it's just a one-off and it seems like that could happen anytime, but that's not like a real trend. And I think you read that, that New York Times story. It's like, you know, Pramila Jayapal has a guy with a gun outside of her house, like screaming things, you know, I mean, this is, look, members of Congress have had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars

on security because of death threats. And it's more likely that you will be threatened if you're a person of color or a woman in elected office. Yeah, I mean, I think they had, Warnock had spent like $900,000 since 2021 on security. There's a plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer. Which her opponent, opponent tudor dixon recently joked about right and like and then the 2018 midterms even before january 6 remember the

pipe bombs that were sent i mean this is it's it's been it's since 2016 specifically when trump uh you know came down that fucking escalator it has been on the rise. Yeah. And I do think that, you know, the take what people like MTG and Trump say to its logical conclusion. And then basically it puts our political system in those people's hands because at any moment those people can decide today's the day that we're going to have a violent episode in this country. Today's the day that I'm going have a violent episode in this country today's the day that I'm gonna be in charge of the news like today's the day we're gonna have a random act of violence and that kind of like stochastic terrorism that these people are inspiring and pumping into the world means it just it it's destabilizing it's dangerous and that's it also makes me will not want to be involved in politics.

Like why on earth would you run for office to have some nut job show up at your house with a gun? You're trying to pass like universal healthcare. Yeah, and run for office or just be like a nonpartisan election worker and get threats as well, you know? All right, speaking of the election, let's talk about the final month of the midterm campaign. Over the last few weeks, Republican candidates have started gaining on Democrats in the four big Senate races that could decide control. In Pennsylvania, John Fetterman's double-digit lead over Dr. Oz is down to a few points. In Georgia, Raphael Warnock is about two points ahead of Herschel Walker.

In Nevada, Catherine Cortez Masto is trailing Adam Laxalt by about a point. And in Wisconsin, Mandela Barnes has lost his lead over Ron Johnson and is now trailing by about two points. Just for reference, Democrats need to win at least two of these races to hold the Senate. If they lose three, they lose the Senate, uh, more, most likely. Um, what do you guys think is happening here? Uh, why are these Republican candidates doing better? Tommy? I think it's probably a bunch of different factors. Like some of it is probably just kind of mean reversion. Like we live in a divided country. The numbers are going to move around, but ultimately these races are going to be tight. And, you know, even when these polls were showing

the Fetterman team up 10, like they would be the first ones to tell you we ain't winning this race by 10. You know, they're like there's just no chance of that. I do think some of the best polls that we saw over the summer came when the Dobbs decision was fresh and when people were really focused on and concerned about abortion rights. You know, those headlines fade. Hopefully the concern about that risk has not gone away, but it's out there. I think, you know, people are, the news cycle has moved on. People were, I think, probably feeling a little better about gas prices consistently falling. There was a better economic sentiment. And then, you know, Mitch McConnell's super PAC has just

been hammering candidates for weeks now. They've been hitting them on crime. They're hitting Mandela Barnes on bail, getting rid of cash bail. So that's probably hurting their approvals. Biden's numbers still aren't great. Like the right track, wrong track aren't great. The stock market was cratering until today, basically. So we'll see. I also have zero faith that the pollsters have figured out how to deal with these response bias issues.

But that's another conversation. Right. And that that could be what was going on with some of those polls in the summer as well. After around the Dobbs decision. Lovett, what do you think's going on? Yeah, the other thing, the only the only thing I'd add that Tommy missed was the Dobbs decision also was paired with a series of legislative victories for Biden. And together, it was just a moment that I think Democrats felt really energized and like acutely focused. And, you know, we always knew that there would be the Republicans will turn out their base, Republicans will have a huge, huge number.

And I think the polls are bearing that out now. So I don't know. Yeah. I think the challenge is that the fundamentals of this election are still, you know, every single voter I talked to when I asked like, what are the issues most concerning to you? Inflation, right? And now gas prices are the most like sensitive measure of inflation. But for most of these people I talked to, housing kept coming up. It was just like, I can't afford my rent. And I never think I'm, I think I'm never going to be able to live on my own. I'm not going to be able to afford a home. And for people who don't follow politics closely, it's, uh, and I'm blaming the party in charge. Now, these people also brought up that they were angry about Dobbs, you know, but the thing that's

always on their mind every single day is, can I make the rent? Can I pay my bills? And I think that's working against. Now to go race by race, I'd say like in Pennsylvania, some of these polls, like you said, Tommy, they never thought they were going to win by 10. The Fetterman folks, some of the polls just show basically Oz consolidating Republicans. Right. So that's why he's sort of moving up. And that was always going to happen. They're always going to come home. Now, have you guys heard about the, the scandal rocking the polling nerd world? Which one? Go ahead. Give it to us. it has to do with the gang at trafalgar no apparently someone on twitter

noticed that their response rates in their polls across states and demographics are always the same which is just very weird because usually they vary from poll to poll or across different demographic groups so like do you need 10 000 people to reach 100 do you need to 10,000 people to reach 100? Do you need to call 15,000 people to reach 100? Like, it can vary dramatically. And some outlet called splitticket.org wrote it up, and they found that the Trafalgar response rate was almost always identical. It was between 1.43 and 1.46. I don't know what that means at all,

but that was not the case in their 2016 polling that everyone mocked. So, big scandal. Can we unskew some polls? We got to get some Nates to unskew this, whatever happened here. Isn't the real scandal that all of these pollsters now are trying to figure out how to poll and so they get some terribly small response rate and then just adjust the numbers to some expectation or party registration or some model for what they think the electorate will look like. So in reality, the model is dictating the outcome of the poll and not the poll model.

Yeah, you're here. Yeah. No matter what you're guessing on turnout at some point. And that's what's going to that's what's going to sort of influence your poll more than anything else, which is why we don't take individual polls. Polls are snapshots in time, and they're not always all that accurate. The trends of polls are usually more accurate and helpful. And that's the conversation we're having. That's the conversation we're having, noticing that the trend is getting a little tight.

A little tight. We're talking about trends. But you're right. So I think a lot of money on crime attacks, especially that's been hurting Fettererman and uh barns a little bit and then in georgia georgia is a case where there's just very few swing voters left in that state and uh rafael warnock is going to have to hit and same thing with stacy abrams they're going to have to make sure that the electorate ends up being 30 black and that they get um really high

black turnout and it was really hard to do that. And they shattered all kinds of records in the Senate runoff in 2021. But to repeat that again is very, very tricky. So that's going to be close. And then in Nevada, talk about like places where the pandemic hit the economy hard, like Nevada is one of the hardest hit states because of the tourism industry there and housing has been a disaster there for a long, long time. And so you have, you know, Cortez Masto sort of struggling as the incumbent there. And there's also a lot of independent voters in Nevada also. uh someone like mastriano or oz or ron johnson who on the on the on a daily basis or herschel walker that on a daily basis are saying something embarrassing ridiculous terrible so it's just not getting the same level of attention yeah no not at all which is ridiculous because like adam laxalt uh embraces the big lie and is a big trump guy but it's all relative at this point now right

well just it's not the same level of gaps coming out of, it's just not getting the same level of attention. Well, and the Fetterman folks have just done a good job of like making ads that are catchy, fun, go super viral. Now their closing message seems to be focusing on the fact that Dr. Oz is a snake oil salesman and he sold bogus miracle cures to people to make money for himself. And it folds into that broader message about how he can't represent Pennsylvania well because he does not care about you

and doesn't even live anywhere near you. Should we talk about the dogs too? Apparently, this guy did a bunch of evil testing on animals. It's the worst. I can't even read it. There was a whistleblower. There was a report today that a whistleblower basically said that as part of the research he was conducting, there were a lot of dogs that were terribly mistreated. And the details are horrific.

Horrific. Yeah. When he was at Columbia, Columbia ended up cutting ties with Oz. Over like 300 dogs were killed. And it's just, it was hard to read the story. And violated the Animal Welfare Act. And obviously, like, I don't want to be, you know, listen, it's gross. Don't read it. It's pretty bad.

Sport betterment. It's interesting to me watching Georgia, too, because Warnock, I mean, I think he's clearly going to try to keep disqualifying Herschel Walker and boy, if you need more information to do that, like I'm a little worried about you, but Walker, I was listening, I was reading some stuff in the AJC and Walker apparently seems to be worried about his lack of support from Republican voters. So he's kind of tacking to the right in these closing months. He said like the other day, he said, Jesus might not recognize you when you get to heaven

if you're a transgender person, like crazy shit. He also endorsed Lindsey Graham's 15-week federal abortion ban. He's been criticizing Medicaid expansion, whereas Warnock is still taking a much more traditional campaign path. He's talking about bipartisanship, working with Ted Cruz on things, Tommy Tuberville. The interesting thing that happened recently is the White House, the press secretary weighed into the question of whether the Atlanta Braves should change their name, which is like kicked up the completely predictable culture war debate that I think is

probably not at all what Warnock or Stacey Abrams wants to be talking about in the closing weeks. So, you know, this thing is very much in flux. Yeah. Let me ask, what do you guys think Democratic candidates should be doing to fight back right now, these Senate candidates? Like how much are these final weeks about disqualifying your opponent versus making a positive case for yourself? Tommy, you brought up Warnock. Like when I was in Atlanta with those voters, I sat with a group of young black voters who identified as moderate Democrats. And they Because you want people to know how bad Herschel Walker is, how bad Dr. Oz is, how bad all these candidates are. But at the same time, like, how do you balance that with, you know, the need to have a positive agenda? Lovett, what do you think? Yeah, it's also especially challenging when you're talking about Ron Johnson, when you're talking about Dr. Oz, when you're talking about Herschel Walker, when it's not just that you obviously need to drive

this negative message along with your own positive message for your campaign. It's that every day provides new fodder, new negative fodder about your opponent that you do think is useful while you still have to do this other work of finding a way to get your positive message out there too. Like, you know, the Washington Post

comes out with a story today. We were hearing this yesterday, walking through all the different ways Dr. Oz has spent years grifting and selling just completely debunked weight loss medicine, Alzheimer's medicine, cancer medicine, just to make money. You obviously want to drive that, but how do you get it back to what Fetterman will do on voting rights, what Fetterman wants to do to protect abortion access? I think that's, look, that's been the challenge for the last five years of dealing with these radicalized kind of goofy candidates. It's, you have to find ways to drive your positive message too. Yeah, look, I think that they all are going to have, it's going to be case by case. They're all going to have research. They're all going to know what seems to work, what drives a democratic voters, what might turn off Republican

voters. They'll all probably know their own, you know, what they think is a win number, how many voters they need to turn out to win the election, how many voters they think their opponent needs to turn out or is currently on track to turn out. So you'll make decisions accordingly. I don't know the right balance. I do think it's just going to be think it's going to be case by case. But with someone like a Dr. Oz or Herschel Walker, you have a lot more to work with. So you're probably emphasizing that an awful lot, or at least the super PACs that swoop in in the last month of a campaign are going to do it for you. Yeah. I do think some of the ads that end up being most effective are not purely positive or purely negative, but comparative ads. And so with someone like Dr.

Oz, they have now done a fantastic job framing him as this out of touch weirdo who's a grifter. And so you say that he's that and that, and he's going to then, you know, vote for these policies in the Senate that are also out of touch. Um, whereas John Fetterman is going to fight for working people by doing X, Y, and Z, you Z. And I do think even in the latest poll in Pennsylvania that has Fetterman only up by three, he was 45, 42. He still has an advantage 51, 29 for best understands concerns of Pennsylvanians. Even though Oz now has an advantage on policies that will improve voters' economic circumstances, 39, 32. So it's interesting that they still think Fetterman's on their side, but for some reason they think that some reason they think that Oz... There's a little bit of a backlash to all the Jersey stuff, I think. People were like, you know, you talk about him being from Jersey all the time. What are you going to do for

us? Like, okay, fair. But hey, you remember the Jersey thing. So it's an effective campaign strategy. Yeah. The other piece of it is that the Oz campaign is launching a bunch of negative attacks against Fetterman. Some really unfair kind of fear mongering on crime, for example. And they have to find ways to push back on that without giving into that. And I think they've really tried, the Fetterman campaign has tried to really not be defensive to kind of find ways to talk about Fetterman's record and what he wants to do on criminal justice reform while kind of brushing back some of the more outrageous assertions that these super PAC ads and these Oz ads are making. The person who did this best in 2020 was Warnock. He had the, we're back to dogs again. He had the

ad of him like walking that little beagle. It wasn't actually his, but it worked really well. He did an ad where he was like, I don't eat pizza with a fork and knife or something. It was just like kind of campy fun stuff being like, they're going to try to demonize me, but I'm just a regular human being. I have a pitch. Here's a pitch. We get somebody who in scrubs kind of campy, fun stuff being like, they're going to try to demonize me, but I'm just a regular human being. I have a pitch. Here's a pitch. We get somebody who in scrubs kind of who's meant to look like Dr. Oz and we put them in front of a wheat thresher and have them put puppies into it.

And then we just have, we just have Federman next to the thresher, had the thresher just being like, I'll protect abortion access. I'll, I'll protect voting rights. Like I, I believe in believe in decriminalizing marijuana. I mean, I think it'll go... Turn off the podcast. I think it'll go viral. I think it'll go far.

I agree with you on that. Sarah Palin kind of did that. Remember when there was that ad where Paul Ryan pushed an old person off a cliff and they were really upset? No. You know, you remember it. I do remember that. You remember it.

Yeah. Good one. I think Dan created that ad. All right. On a potentially happier note, the Twitter ratios must be working because one of the Nates is out with a take about how it's time to take Democrats' chances

in the House seriously. Great. Oh, look at that. Terrific. Nate Cohn argues thatans are still favored but that redistricting didn't give them a significant structural advantage and the limited house polling we do have shows extremely close races so democrats could pull it out with a few lucky breaks love it what do you think of nate's take you buy it first of all so much of the take the take's fine i'm, this is actually not, I'm not critical of the take.

It's a fine and fulsome take. Let it exist. It's great. I guess it's just sort of the whole point of it is saying that there's actually not that much polling of individual House races. And one of the points he makes in the piece is that we poll Senate races much more than we poll House races. Some of those Senate

races have shown positive signs for Democrats. Therefore, if we had the same amount of House race polls, maybe we would be seeing the same positive signs, except none of us believe the Senate race polls. So all I take away from this article is we could win the House and Senate. We can lose them both. Anything beyond that is too specific to be to be predicted. Now's the time of year when everyone makes sure they've written articles taking each side of an issue so that you can point to them after the fact. So I'd like to make sure we do that before November. Someone write that down. What is very hard, I think, for all of us to political junkies to internalize because we pay such close attention to this stuff and the stakes are so high is that most of these elections could go either way they could be decided by events that haven't happened

yet uh the outcome could be different if it was a week or two weeks earlier right i think 2016 if that presidential was a week after the access hollywood tape i think hillary clinton would have been president but it wasn't and that's sort of like maddening to try to come to grips with. So we'll see, you know, like I'd. And most people aren't like us. They're not political news junkies who've made up their mind one way or the other, either which party they're voting for, which candidate they're voting for, or whether they're going to vote at all. My biggest anxiety is around gas prices and the fact that the Saudis and OPEC

are now cutting production to keep prices stable and elevated, uh, and stopping the precipitous decline that we had seen because, you know, we're going into a recession. That is very worrisome to me. Yeah. Well, that's something that we can't control. I'll tell you one thing. I, uh, uh, earlier today, uh, look, I'm in, I'm in Pennsylvania right now, uh, talking to the people and, uh, Love it's at a diner for those of you. He's at a Wawa, I think. And, uh, uh, I was, I was, uh, I was, I, I, I was talking to people at, um, some sort of a market.

I don't know where people buy produce or something. I don't know. For me, it comes fully in a salad already. So I don't know. I've never seen some of these vegetables. It's a sweet pre-cut. No, no, no. This is like a supermarket.

Like it had lots of different vegetables, but separate little areas for each one. Not a salad bar independently. Okay. I never. And I was like, I didn't know what to do there. But I asked somebody a question and they were basically they hated Mastriano, but they were actually undecided about Fetterman versus Oz. And then I told them about the dog thing. And that was effective.

People do not like hearing about the dog thing. They don't. It's yeah. So I'm going to say that the dog thing is going to really matter. Especially with the normal people who don't pay close attention to politics. But they hear that. They're like, wait a minute. That doesn't sound good. I don't want that. I don't pay close attention to politics. But they hear that, they're like, wait a minute, that doesn't sound good.

I don't want that. I don't want that candidate. And some of the people that already like Fetterman, they said that the dog thing wasn't surprising to them about Dr. Oz, which I think is a really sad thing about Dr. Oz as a personal brand. Because he kind of just reads as a sociopath. On the House issue, I thought that just to get your head

around what it takes for the Democrats to win the House, like the New York Times in September 2nd had a very helpful interactive chart that was based on the Cook political ratings. So like if both parties win every district where they're currently favored, Democrats would have 191 seats, Republicans would have 213, and there would be 31 toss-ups. So you need 218 to win the House, right? So in that scenario, Republicans only have to win five toss-ups. Democrats have to win 27. Now, is that possible? Well, that's basically what Republicans did in 2020. And of course, Democrats kept the House, but we were a little surprised that we didn't do better. So it's still, it's possible, but that just goes to show you how

tricky it is for Democrats to pull the inside straight here. But possible. Of course that's possible. But another way to say that is if it does turn out that we retain the Senate and the House, it will mean that there was an underlying trend that we just didn't see. Yeah, that's also true. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, I think Georgia is going to be sort of the most interesting example of this kind of happening simultaneously, where it's clear that Stacey Abrams is really betting on higher Democratic turnout, a more motivated Democratic base based on the Dobbs decision. And Warnock is doing more of a I'll work with all parties kind of bipartisan approach to try to reach the middle.

We'll see which works. We don't know. They need to do both. Both of them need to try to reach the middle. We'll see which works. We don't know. Yeah, they need to do both. Both of them need to do both is what you can emphasize one in the close. And clearly there's a distinction there. I do have a little candle I light that just says this year we don't see the Dobbs wave coming. That's the candle that I've lit. But I don't I don't know. I don't know if it'll I don't know if it's real.

I hope so. I think the point of all this is because this is, this is going to be close because there are so many undecided voters because there's so many people undecided about voting. We can all make a difference here. Go to votesaveamerica.com, sign up, grab a region. We'll put you to work donating, volunteering, calling folks, texting folks. Like you said, I keep thinking of, you know, the Fetterman winning Pennsylvania by 10 points was never going to happen. Like all of these states have now been super close for many election cycles. They all come down to tens of thousands of votes,

which means that everyone can have an impact in the next couple of weeks. Yeah. And check out the Votes Save America page. If you click donate, there's lots of different ways you can put your money to work. You can go to secretaries of state and attorney generals, state legislators, the Senate, the House, voter protection, abortion funds. There's lots of different ways you can put your money to work. You can go to secretaries of state and attorney generals, state legislators, the Senate, the House, voter protection, abortion funds. There's lots of different options out there. And there's one that just goes to Tommy. Don't click that one. It's my Venmo. Yeah. Please click on that. All right. All right. When we come back, we will talk to our old pal, Cody Keenan, about his new book, Grace. On the pod today, our buddy, our pal, the former White House director of speechwriting and current author of a brand new book that's out today called Grace, President Obama and

the 10 Days in the Battle for America, Cody Keenan. Welcome to the pod. It's good to see you guys in the flesh brock obama's greatest living chief speechwriter right off the bat it's weird interviewing you it's just like people don't know this but you're like the you're like the member of our our friend group that's just that people don't hear on the pod i don't talk to anybody more than you guys and i don't ever get to see you either. These digs are amazing, by the way. Thank you.

Thanks. Thank you. The first time I did the pod, it was like the fifth or sixth episode ever, and you were still renting radio space. Yeah, we were some random radio place. Now we're here. Now we're here.

Look at this. All right, so you wrote this book. Still like Pompeii out there, though. I've got to trick people to come in. Okay, it's not going to be a debate about remote work, but Cody, tell us about the premise of the book and, and how you landed on writing about these 10 days in the white house of all

the days you were there, which we should say was all eight years, just 2,922 days. Okay. You're not, you're someone you were counting. So grace is about 10 days in June, 2015 that are bookended by the massacre in Charleston in a black church and Barack Obama's eulogy in Charleston where he sang Amazing Grace.

And in between, you also had this kind of extraordinary series of events where the Supreme Court was going to decide on Obamacare and whether or not millions of people got to keep their insurance and marriage equality, whether or not millions of people would be deemed second class citizens or be able to get married like the rest of us. After the shooting, the Confederate flag starts coming down over public spaces in the South. And all this happens over a span of 10 days. And it was like all these kind of great unanswered questions about America were coming to the fore in this exhausting and exhilarating way. And you were in there just writing so many versions of all of these. That's my favorite part. Like five speeches about one Supreme court case, given all the different possibilities. Yeah. And we'd done this before

you were there in 2012 when we had to do this the first time, uh, it was in front of the Supreme court and a sham decision. Um, so we had to prepare speeches for what if the Supreme court says, no, there's not a right to marriage equality. What if the Supreme court says, no, all of you are losing your health insurance right away. And those are those are pretty bleak um and then the background we're deciding whether or not to write a eulogy so your book made me deeply miss the white house barack obama all of our former colleagues it also made me deeply grateful that i'm not a speechwriter anymore because i was like tired reading what you went through that week weren Weren't you tired? Love it. Didn't it bring back memories of how like the drafts, all the people,

the committees of people giving you the fucking edits. Yeah. It's very anxiety provoking. And just the, the fact that it's never over till it's over. You never know what's going to happen when you hand it in. You know, I wasn't a speech writer.

The thing that really jumps out at me. And I remember this from you guys is the isolation. Cause like we all went home at eight or nine o'clock at night and you guys just sat there at your desks all night long until the thing was done until the sun came up sometimes yeah sometimes i go home tommy and i lived together for a few years and well i took love it's right yeah that's right um when i get to hollywood and there are a few things more depressing when i'd be working at our dining table and Tommy's coming down in the morning

because he's awake. He's just like, oh no. Yeah. Oof. You all right? Need anything? It was rough. You develop a really healthy relationship

with self-loathing as a speech writer. It's a horrible feeling. It's really reminding me of this. Well, there is a part about being a speech writer. We were white house speechwriters. Honestly, wouldn't take it off the resume. But but there's this part of it that I think is hard to describe, which is politics is a lot of hard nosed decisions. It's even policy. It's a lot of like it's numbers. It's math. It's politics.

It's it's it's 30 minute meetings, it's people moving really fast and trying to figure things out. And then there's speech writing, which sits inside of it that doesn't exist in 30 minute increments. It's days of thinking, it's trying to find art and magic and kind of beauty in these moments and nobody gives a fuck about it.

And everyone's like, well, this isn't as good as it should be. It's like, no, of course not. It's really hard. That part sucks. It sucks. And sometimes you don't come up with that art and beauty and magic. And everybody's, you know, we would shut our doors.

And I stole something from John when he was chief speechwriter at State of the Union time. We'd put like a skull on the door that means go away. I forgot about that. We ended up having a lot of stuff on the door to tell people do not come in. And they all came in anyway. There was like a joy meter. Do not come. People would barge in anyway. Yeah.

Can you tell the story in that part of the book where you're just sitting there and you have to write the eulogy for Charleston. And you have like basically just the heading and a blank page. And you're trying, but everyone just keeps coming to the office. There was a day. I think it was like day seven of the book. And, you know, at the time, you're not like, okay, today's day six. Like these days didn't really coalesce in my head until later. But there was this day where I was just trying to get to it,

and every five minutes someone would come in with something else. It was just my assistant called it, Susanna called it a little box of interruptions. And you just can't focus until everyone's gone and the email's kind of slow to a trickle. And Cody, there was this fundamental tension about whether President Obama was going to speak at the eulogy at all. You write pretty honestly about how he just didn't want to because he was so

cynical about having to give eulogies in the wake of gun violence. And then he ultimately made the decision to sing at this event. And you write in the book how you were like, Mr. President, Barry, I want to see you singing up there. Can you talk about how you convinced him to spread his wings? Well, as you said, we almost didn't do the eulogy at all because after Newtown in 2012, he kind of set his second term agenda aside to go after guns whatever way he could, whether background checks or whatnot. And that failed in the Senate. Well, it didn't just fail, it was blocked by Republicans. And after that, he said, you know, after that was about as mad and cynical as I've ever seen him. And he said, I don't, what do I do

the next time this happens? I don't want to give another eulogy after this. Cause it just, it like makes it seem like this is okay. And we just give a eulogy and move on. Um, Charleston was different. You kind of have to after that one, but, but he, he still didn't want to even six days afterwards. Why did he have to after that one? So you've got, you've got the first black president and you've got this racist slaughter, you know, carried out under the Confederate banner. And it just, it did sort of, we didn't have a hard and fast rule as to when he spoke after eulogies, but that one felt like it. So he had, there were some people in the white house pushing for it. He didn't want to, uh, until he saw what the families did,

which is they forgave the killer. Um, and that was powerful and that kind of brought him along, but, but to get to the singing, he, he had added to the lyrics to amazing grace the night before the speech. Um, and he tore this speech up, you know, you, I gave him a draft and it was, it was the only time he's ever just drawn a line through two pages and rewrote them longhand, which is, that was, that was tough. Um, and I described that in full detail in grace, which is out today. And so that morning he, he goes out to the Rose garden and gives a speech about marriage equality. The Supreme court finds a right to it. There's these joyous scenes, but we're still mindful that we're about to go eulogize nine

dead people. And he stands up on the helicopter and he goes, you know, if it feels right, I might sing it. And I was just like, okay, what do you, what do you say that? But he, you know, he had, he, he he he had a healthy um ego about singing which which is all because he's saying al green at some fundraiser like everyone in the audience went insane and he never let people stop hearing about that yeah he was like he was so proud of himself yeah he get the but if you're watching the eulogy which which you should it's great um he pauses for

11 seconds before he starts singing and there's only five of us on earth who heard him say he was going to sing. So I asked him afterwards, like, what was with the pause? You know, was that for dramatic effect? Were you deciding? He goes, no, man, you know, the thing about Amazing Grace. And I was like, no, he goes, you have to start really, really low. Or by the time you get to a wretch like me, your voice cracks. He's like, so I was just, I was like preparing. I find that E flat. Yeah. E flat. When I read that, I was like, had he tried to sing amazing grace before many times in public toothbrush i don't i i look i don't think that

was the first time that day he'd sang it i don't think he just went out there practice runs i think i think there was yeah i do think in the in the in the echo of a of a bathroom you think this is gonna work i can do this can I ask you all a question? One of my favorite parts of the book, Cody, you're talking about writing the State of the Union Address one year, which you all loved doing. It was my favorite. It was so much fun.

You turn in the best draft you've ever turned in. Obama calls you into his office to discuss it. The note included something about Miles Davis. Can you tell that story and how you felt about that guidance, whether it was helpful? Yeah. So it was the third consecutive Christmas I ruined drafting a speech and I gave it to him eight days early and felt great about it. And I hear nothing after I give it to him, which is really frustrating because he always asks for an early draft, right? And then he doesn't get back to you. So his assistant calls me upstairs. I go up, he's

sitting in the dining room off the oval office and he goes, sit down. And I'm just like, Oh God, am I going to have to like redo an 8,000 word speech? He's like, how are you doing? I'm like, I'm fine. What is this? How's the speech? And he goes, well, I think we're in the best shape we've been eight days out. I'm like, great, but we can make it better. So he goes, you ever listened to Miles Davis? And I'm like, I don't know. Maybe. Why? He's like, so everything's in here, and I need some quiet moments. I need some spaces.

You know what they say about Miles Davis. It's the notes you don't play. It's the silences. I'm like, whatever. So he goes, I want you to go home tonight, have a drink, listen to some Miles Davis, and find me the silences. I was like, okay. First of all, I believe that that's... Lisapson says that on the simpsons at a jazz

show and it's a way of her seeming pretentious she goes no listen to the notes he's not playing just wait a second here you go boss i added some pauses i'm not gonna say who it was but there was someone like the day of that speech too who staked out the bathroom and the ground floor of the west wing and as soon as i came out to go to the bathroom jumped up and was like can we add this to the speech no um something that struck me is so there's the this big debate in the oval office over whether obama should should speak at the at the eulogy and at one point he goes on this rant about the confederate flag still hanging up at the state capitol and he says it's not subtle black folks have to walk past it every day how would a jewish community feel if people hung a swastika somewhere the flag isn't an embrace of history

that's a talking point come on people and then he looks at you and smirks and says obviously we shouldn't say that so i put in the book but then like it's like reading it in 2022 my first reaction is like why why wouldn't you say that you know but it at the time, I get why he wouldn't have said that, but it felt like, wow, we really have... I wonder what Obama's presidency would be like right now and how his discussions about race would be right now. Can you talk about why at the time he felt like he shouldn't say that? he shouldn't say that. Yeah. I mean, it'd be impossible to know right now, everything has changed so dramatically because of the Trump years at the time. I mean, he would have gotten 12 red hands if he said that, right. All the DC pearl clutchers would be like, Oh, you can't, you can't equate the Confederate flag to swastika. Why not? You know, and in his point too, about the fact that the flag was over the Charleston state house, they put that up in this 1960s, right. You know, that was like a response to civil rights. Yeah. That was not just hanging on to,

to the civil war, but we always had to be mindful, even if it was frustrating as to how different audiences would interpret what the first black president said, you know, he had this, he had to walk this tightrope that nobody else ever did. And one of the,

one of the things that ever made me, that made me happiest was when Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote once for eight years, Barack Obama walked on ice and never fell. And it was just like a huge sigh of relief. Because that's exactly, that was, I mean, it was the best summation of what he had to go through on race from the moment he decided to step into politics until he left the White House.

And, you know, if you were outside the White House or you were not him, you could criticize it or you could do whatever. But when you're that guy, when you're the first black president and you're doing it, you have to, you have to think about all those audiences and the people that you haven't brought along yet. That's, and that's unsatisfying because we, we were all, you know, young progressives and wanted to shout right and wrong from the rooftop. And to, to tell yourself that you can't is a very frustrating thing to do.

Yeah, I do. I do think all that's true. I do wonder how the Trump years have changed a certain way of thinking about decorum and not riling people up and things you can say outside of race on marriage equality and a host of issues where there was an expectation that mostly falls to Democrats

that there's certain places you can't go, certain truths you can't tell. And I do wonder if one of the, like I think back now, and I wonder like if you knew someone like Trump was coming, how much more honest could you have been? Like what are the things that Trump opens up that we realize were rules

we actually shouldn't have been following? Yeah, I think about that all the time, what I would do if we could go back and write differently, knowing what was coming. But at the time we just, we didn't have the luxury of doing that. There was almost, we were constrained a lot in ways that were frustrating and difficult. I will say that I think the whole concept of, of grace, the theme of the, of the eulogy and the book still holds up today. I mean, to me, I mean, maybe we're just former Obama staffers who are, uh, who are still living in that time.

But like, I do think even it's funny reading it after the Trump era or still in the midst of the era that we're in, it still feels like grace is, uh, something that's, that we're short on right now, but that we probably use. Yeah. I mean, I feel like people still want people like this in the white house and everywhere in, in, in life. I have to, cause what, what, what alternative is there? Yeah. Uh, I love in the book. I mean, look, we, so as we mentioned at the top, Cody and I lived together for several years. Um, three of us in a group house, we paid like three grand a month, which made government salaries go a lot further. And then your now wife, Kristen, basically moved in. And I love how you talk about Kristen's job at the White House on the research team and how that rolled the occasional grenade into your marriage.

Can you tell that story a little bit? Yeah, Kristen was one of our fact checkers. That's how we met. She would fact check everything we wrote. And it was so frustrating. I already see Lovett ready to tee off. I have nothing. I'm just trying to get something. We kill her. We kill ourselves on these drafts and then submit them. And you know, these wonderful fact checkers, including my then girlfriend, we'll just send you back here,

all the things you got wrong that you need to fix. And it's just relentlessly frustrating. And the fact that we ended up getting married, uh, I think is a true testament to our love. Let's be honest. Some of those fact checks were a little overly cautious. This is the one I always remember, which is I was writing a speech for President Obama to deliver at NASA, or maybe it was just a speech about science generally. But regardless, I made reference to the first photo of the Earth taken from far away called Earthrise. And it was a photo taken after eight revolutions of the capsule in space. The capsule rotated eight times. And then the astronaut took a photo

and the fact checker response was, well, the capsule had been facing away, which means that it had to spin eight and a half times, which meant it was more than eight times. They're good. And I was like, I hear you. I hear what you're saying i receive this uh if we get in trouble i'll take responsibility for not adding them more than eight times what do you think who do you which speechwriter do you guys think is that was the angriest in the uh in the responses to the fact

checker was that the trip when you pissed off buzz aldrin uh no i believe that was a second incident that was a second incident. That was a separate trip where Buzz Aldrin was punching me in the face. And in hindsight, honestly, my only regret is that I didn't go further because this is an anecdote about Buzz Aldrin not punching me in the face. How much better is an anecdote about Buzz Aldrin actually punching me in the face? I'd have loved a black eye from Buzz Aldrin. I'd speak it as eulogy.

That'd be awesome. Punch me in the face, Buzz Aldrin. I'll come to you now. He's still around. Don't you think? You were among the fact checkers least favorites but rhodes has a special place in their hearts because he just wouldn't reply oh really yeah yeah yeah ben would not ben would just ignore them um you you write about always like feeling like you'll be exposed as a fraud in the white house which i think is like a feeling all of us had every day in the White House.

What am I doing here? Like, how did you, how did you deal with that? I don't know that I ever did. I dealt with it by killing myself to like, just get every draft as good as I possibly could. Like, what right did we have to be there? What right did I have to be, you know, chief speechwriter for the first black president at 32 years old? That's insane. But I also think it is a testament to our White House that I think a lot of people had imposter syndrome and felt that way because how many people do you think in the Trump White House had imposter syndrome? They all felt like they deserved to be there. And you still

look what that got us. Yeah. No, it is. I think when you look around at some point, you look around at everyone else you're working with and you're like, we're it. That's it. There's no one else. I actually think, think i disagree i think the trump people didn't know they were imposters and they were unfortunate i think the issue is not that they didn't have imposter syndrome i think they thought they were imposters and they were right like they were imposters and they were they were unqualified they were the drugs of the dregs and they deep down they knew it that's why they always took photos behind the oval office deck like tourists you know they knew on some level that they were just visiting. And but that doesn't mean they won't be back.

Just saying, you know, it's on this point, one of the one of the most important emails that Favs ever sent me. And I don't know if I've ever told you this was when we were all just struggling with with speeches. You emailed me at midnight one night on a Saturday when you were working on the 2012 convention speech. And it was just this really unique rant from you that you don't usually do is like, I can't do this. I don't know what I'm doing. I hate this. I got a bunch of them struggling. I got a bunch of those from John. And it was the first time I was like, oh my God, John feels this way too. This is great. I can't do this. Yeah. And the only time you ever, the only time you ever talked to me like

that is when you took that edible that was too big and you called me in the middle of the night. Yeah. And I was like, you're not going to die. You're not, you're going to actually be fine. I was like, John's calling me. Oh, something's wrong. You're not having a heart attack. You're not going to actually be fine. I was like, John's calling me? Oh, something's wrong. You're not having a heart attack. You're okay. No. Well, speech training too is all about like how many people you have helping you. Like in the beginning of the Obama campaign when it was just me and Adam Frankel, even before we hired Rhodes, there was a time where I was like, I think I have to quit.

I can't do this. There's too many speeches. There's like three sets of remarks a day. Like you just, there's only so much you can write every day. And then we got to the white house and we had a bigger team it was it was a little bit better but it never fully goes away no can i ask a question like you guys are all genuinely humble people at least two-thirds of you and but like you know everyone everyone sees the feedback that comes in right you see the the the praise the the profiles of people how did you guys deal with knowing that like there was part of a speech you could control

you could write something that's really great great prose but then sometimes there's just a moment that elevates whatever it is he says whether it's the draft you wrote or the singing yeah it's kind of out of your control right it's totally out of your control you know people ask did you tell him to sing like no you don't write sing here sir um what was always kind of out of your control, right? It's totally out of your control. People ask, did you tell him to sing? No, you don't write, sing here, sir. What was always kind of frustrating was some of the best moments came from him. We would try as hard as we could, and then he would take it to a higher place. I guess I always liked that and was always okay with it. Maybe because when I signed up to work for Barack Obama,

he had just done the 2004 convention speech one of the most famous convention speeches in history wrote it himself didn't think he needed a speechwriter and i was like i'll work for this guy but like i'm never gonna i'm never gonna be at his level because he's fucking barack obama he's the one running for office so it's like if i can give him drafts that are like decent and he takes them to the next level, that'll be enough. And I always like one of my favorite moments in every speech writing process

was actually getting back his edits. Now, if the edits came back and it was like a, a line through the paper or a come see me, that was not my favorite part. But when he really dug in and there'd just be like a ton of writing on the page, I would get excited.

Cause I'm like, all right, what did he do to this to make it really, really good? You know, and it's a little bit of a cheat because I'm like, yeah, I guess that was my job. But whatever. He did it. And it's great now. Yeah. There was the most satisfying, right, is like small edits throughout and then an arrow on the side of the page.

You turn it over and there's just two paragraphs to go right before the end. And you're just like, oh, those sound just like him. And the way that I always felt about it was that like, and I think part of it is, actually I think part of it is like the like, you know, the brokenness of the people that go into politics. But it's a benefit, which is that, you know, you're, I always felt like both practically and emotionally, you're not trying to please the world. You're trying to please the one person. Which is what you write about really well in the book. Their job is to know what the world needs. Their job is to have spoken to many more people than

you ever could, been the person, been on the road, talked to everyone, had the life experience. They are supposed to know what goes out into the world. Your job is to give them the tools they need to get what they want. And so if you've done your job and gotten it through this ringer for them that they wouldn't have the time to do otherwise, even though I feel like we all worked for people that if they had all the time in the world could write the speech themselves, but you're there to help them get what they need. If you've given them what they wanted and they know what people need, then you'll have done your job.

And so I felt like the most satisfying part of a speech was not seeing it being delivered. It was the moment it was accepted as like, oh, great, this is done. That was better. That's what you were always playing for. I think that's a little bit of a problem in politics, the kind of the way inside of an organization you kind of become like, you know, you serve the principle. And I think that's for good and for ill. But in that case, I think that's the only way being a speech writer is possible because you're not a president. You're not the person you're there to help them. Yeah. That was always my favorite moment in the speech process too. When I would kill myself on a draft and just be a ball of stress. And then the second you send it to him, everything, my body

would relax. Cause I'd know now it's out of my hands. Right. He might come back and tear it up, but, but he, I write about this in the book. This was the night before the eulogy, and he called me back to the White House at 10 p.m., which you know isn't good. And this is after I've just been killing myself on this. And this is when I go in and sit down with him, and he drew just two lines through it. And I actually apologized to him because I really did feel like I'd let him down.

But he said kind of what you said, love it. He just walked back down the stairs, and he put his hand on my shoulder, which was rare. And he said, listen, brother, we're collaborators. You gave me what I needed to work on this and get it done. And when you've been thinking about this stuff and he's talking about race for 40 years, you'd know what you wanted to write to. And like that helped a lot just to get that just be like you're not an abject failure, only a partial failure. Just be like, you're not an abject failure, only a partial failure.

No, I looked the race speech and in Philadelphia during the campaign when he like sent back his edits, which was like a huge rewrite of that speech. And it's like, I can no more disown my pastor than I can my white grandmother. I'm like, I'm not going to give him that. I wasn't going to write that line for Barack Obama. Like, that's only something that he could do himself you know um all right so what was harder uh sharing an office with love it or sharing a house with tommy oh wow there we go giddy up uh well they were both they were both great joys love it love it love it didn't come in till noon and when he did and when he did he'd be wearing shorts and riding his electric scooter. Yeah.

Okay. First of all, two points about this. One, I was riding electric scooter and e-bikes, pedal-assisted bikes, a decade before they were popular. I was mocked. Early adopter. Rightly so. And I would wear a t-shirt and shorts because even on an electric scooter, I would just swamp the whole thing out, the whole system. But would you change out of the shorts and the t-shirts?

Yes. I would change the moment I had, if I had to leave the room again, I would wear the shorts and the t-shirts to cool down until I had to leave again. Then I would change. Again, at this point, it's noon. It's almost time to go home. At this point, I'm like, Lovett is working on this draft. Is he around?

Do we have edits? The president wants to see us. Is he coming? Lovett would ask, do I have to put a suit on to go to the bathroom? What do you think? That's true. What if people see me? I wasn't meant.

Look, I honestly, look, I wandered around that White House like a donor for years. I can't believe they let me in here. I guess I paid. Cody, you actually gave me great advice about what to wear to work uh as a roommate because on the day of the bin laden operation our then other roommate michael o'neill for some reason hosted a cooking class in our kitchen and it was a shared kitchen and living room and you and i were like what the fuck is going on here so we started watching a basketball game and just trying to like nurse a hangover and the celtics were on so i was wearing a celtics jersey and i got called into the white

house and i was like i can go in like this would anybody care and you were like you should absolutely not go in like that yeah we didn't know you were going in to be informed no we did not no we did not it was good advice i was there too and i didn't it was later on no blackberry it's like rhodes was like oh yeah here's draft here's here's a set of draft remarks and i'm like remarks for what i'm like oh the killing of Osama bin Laden. Okay. Sick. I guess we're doing this now.

Yeah. Thank God. I think I wasn't wearing a Larry Bird jersey. Tommy was a great roommate. There's one of my favorite pages in the book is where I compare and contrast you and our other roommate, Michael O'Neill. There's a little much like Tommy's this monk, like early to bed, early to rise Tommy. I'm like, what the fuck? He was, though uh excuse me sir

okay i think i was a very i was a badass i spent some time there please the book is grace president obama and 10 days in the battle for america uh cody you have written a fantastic i love this everyone the pod save america audience you guys will absolutely love this book it is inspirational it makes you hopeful about politics. It's like every, it's the antidote to everything

that exists in politics right now. Yeah, read a chapter then go knock some doors. So go check it out. Buy it today. I'm really, I'm really,

really proud of it and so thank you guys for having me on. Of course. Thanks for coming on. Also, yeah, do we do plugs here? Yeah, plug whatever you want.

We already just plugged the fuck out of the book. What are you looking for? No, I'm on tour. I'm on tour. I'm on tour. Go see Cody on tour. Codykeenan.com. All the events are there.

Tommy and I did an event in LA already. The whole VHive showed up. It was awesome. Fabs and I are going to be back here in LA next week at the LA Public Library for their Loud lecture series. So please come on out.

It's fun. Writing a book is great. Selling a book is not so great. But these live events are just awesome because you get to meet people who are really, really wonderful. Codykeeney.com. Come say hi. Thanks, Cody. Thanks, guys.

Thanks to Cody for joining us today. And we'll talk to you next week. Love it. Good luck on those Pennsylvania diners. Say hi to the Trafalgar gang. You bet. I'm out here talking to people, and they're sick of all this partisanship. You and Selena Zito out there. Take me seriously, but don't take me literally. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein.

Our producers are Olivia Martinez and Hayley Muse. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineer the show. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montooth. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crooked media.