Pod Save America - “Civility down the toilet.”

Episode Date: October 4, 2021

Democrats in Congress inch closer to agreement on Joe Biden’s agenda despite a few whiny centrists and bad media takes, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal joins to discuss how progressives intend to bring both bills over the finish line, and Jon, Jon, and Tommy answer some listener questions.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, please visit crooked.com/podsaveamerica. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Levitt. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's pod, Democrats in Congress inch closer to agreement on Joe Biden's agenda, despite what you may hear from a few whiny centrists and credulous reporters. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal talks to us about how progressives intend to bring both bills over the finish line. And we'll take a few minutes to answer some of your questions. I forgot we were doing Q&A. Me too. By the way, we already recorded the conversation with Pramila Jayapal. We did. It was delightful. It was a good conversation. She is a joy.

Before we start, be sure to catch the final episode of This Land, which is out now. Award-winning journalist Rebecca Nagel concludes her investigation into a string of custody battles over Native American children that all lead back to powerful right-wing forces trying to dismantle American Indian tribal rights. To hear how it ends, binge all eight episodes of This Land wherever you get your podcasts. It's a fantastic series. I am so impressed by this season.

The first season was great, but Rebecca went through 10,000 pages of FOIA documents and traced this. Yes, she did. This started with a small story about an adoption case, and it really, she unraveled something very big and impressive. And just like the first season, there's going to be a supreme court case yeah

love that love them uh all right let's get to the news last week ended exactly where we thought it would nancy pelosi indefinitely postponed thursday's scheduled vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill and joe biden told congressional democrats that vote quote ain't going to happen until they all come to an agreement on the rest of the president's economic agenda, which he calls the Build Back Better plan. A group of nine centrist Democrats in the House had tried to force the infrastructure vote, but the 100-member Progressive Caucus blocked it, fearing that once infrastructure passed, the centrist would walk away from the rest of Biden's agenda. Sure enough, they issued a bunch of whiny statements in response to the vote being postponed. Josh Gottheimer, who had predicted with, quote, a thousand percent certainty that he'd be celebrating the passage of the infrastructure bill with, quote, a nice glass of champagne,

attacked Pelosi and compared his progressive colleagues to right wing Republicans, while Kyrsten Sinema called the delay, quote, an inexcusable, ineffective stunt. But the president himself expressed optimism about both bills passing when he spoke this morning. I've been able to close a deal in 99 percent of my party. Two. Two people. That's still underway. I don't think there's been a president who's been able to close deals that's's been a position where he has only 50 votes in the Senate and a bare majority in the House. It's a process. It's a process. We'll get it done. Look, I need 50 votes in the Senate. I have 48. So Biden in the White House reportedly didn't even try to pressure House Democrats into

voting for the infrastructure bill. Lovett, why do you think that was? He wants to pass both bills. He's been clear from the very beginning. He wants to pass both bills and they're tied together because that is the only way to ensure that he has the full support of 100 percent of the votes that he needs. I don't know why. I don't doesn't seem to me to be more complicated than that. of a hundred percent of the votes that he needs i don't know why i don't doesn't seem to be to be more complicated than that but uh you know nancy pelosi she was uh she she was scheduling it anyway everyone's like why did biden do that blah blah blah why did he throw his lot in seems seems like like he's always wanted to pass both bills right tommy yeah uh i guess the legislative calendar doesn't end in september like um you might have thought if you read the news there there's more time. Actually, the world ends in about the world ends in September.

And part of this is like everyone has, especially people in the press have like the memories of goldfish. Like remember this whole episode in late June where Biden briefly said he wouldn't sign an infrastructure bill without Build Back Better passing. And then everyone freaked out and he had to walk it back. But even when he walked it back, he still said he was going to try to pass both bills in tandem. Yeah. And I think you see in the Sinema statement as well, kind of the like the continuation of that bit of kind of confusing politics, which, you know, there's like I think the Gottheimer statement is a fit of peak and it's a bit performative and it's, you know, not letting an opportunity go to waste to, you know, secure his bona fides as a moderate lashing out at some of the progressives. Fine, whatever.

He's having a day. Sinema and Manchin, which is for either her actual view or her negotiating position is the less they are tied together for her, the stronger her position is in debates over what should be in the final reconciliation package. Yeah. What kind of linked the Sinema and Josh Gottheimer statements to me was two people who seem to put the process of legislating again ahead of the results and the things that we're trying to pass. And I just think that like, if that's how you approach the job, you have lost the thread. I don't know what you're doing. What they're accusing progressives of, which is like holding the bipartisan infrastructure bill hostage to get their other bill passed, is exactly what they did when Godheimer and his crew said, we won't vote for the budget resolution in the House unless you schedule a vote on the

bipartisan infrastructure bill, which is like, well, my reaction to their statements is, you know, they're letting off some steam because they're pissed. But they could have if they really wanted to be assholes in their statements, they could have said, I'm not voting for Build Back Better until there's a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. No one said that in their statements when they were all pissy on Friday night, did they? Yeah, there was a little bit of, there's a little bit with the Gottheimer statement. It's kind of like centering himself in the narrative.

And I think that what is exposed here is like, this moment where he was like, you know, when he was like walking through the hall saying I'm a thousand percent confident, we're not done yet. Like, that's not where the action really was. And I think you can look at Pelosi's commitment in the context of hoping there would

be more clarity from the Senate side that by the time we got to whatever, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, which we're talking about from weeks earlier, that we'd finally have a bit more on the in terms of what Manchin was for, what Sinema was for, that they could get to some kind of a commitment. But that just didn't happen. That's actually that's not because of the House Progressive Caucus. That's not because of the moderate House members like Josh Conheimer. That's because of what's happening in the Senate, between the Senate, between Schumer, the Senate and the White House. So it's clear that like Biden, progressive Democrats, most other Democrats in the party, all of us, we all think that one of the reasons that the centrists want the bipartisan infrastructure

vote to pass so bad is because if that happens, then they can sort of walk away from Build Back Better. Or we're worried that they may walk away from Build Back Better. But even if you take them at their word and say that they're doing this all in good faith, here's what I can't figure out. I don't know what you guys think about this. Like, they keep saying, we have this big win on infrastructure. We should want to pass that. We promise we'll negotiate in good faith and Build Back Better after that.

We should be going home right now and taking credit for a bipartisan infrastructure bill right now. Let us have that victory. Let the president have that victory. Why do they want to go home in October of 2021 to take credit for a bipartisan infrastructure bill when we're like a year out from an election where that's going to matter? Can you guys figure that out? Because they're not very good at politics or smart. I mean, Kyrsten Sinema called it an ineffective stunt to gain leverage. I would argue it's pretty effective. And like, what is this like paternalistic tone about, you know, telling Joe Biden what

we should run on when? Like, why don't we pass all the really important stuff and then go campaign on all the really important stuff? Or you can pick and choose. You can choose whatever you want to campaign on. Go build a bridge on your own time well yeah it's like are you worried that the like there's gonna get some child care stink on your highway bill like i don't really understand and and the other piece of this too is it's like it really is like there is it would be one thing

if what you had was the progressive version of the bill the biden version of the bill and the like cinema mansion version of the bill but the but biden and the progressive version of the bill, the Biden version of the bill, and the like cinema mansion version of the bill. But Biden and the progressive caucus are aligned and they are together trying to fight for as much of the Biden agenda as they can get through the moderates in the House and the Senate. So, you know, we predicted that the most annoying reporters and pundits would freak out over a delayed vote, but they really outdid themselves on this one. New York Times called it a big setback for Biden's agenda, said he was, quote, throwing in his lot with the left and compared House progressives to the right-wing Freedom Caucus. CNN said it raised questions about the party's ability to govern. Axios led with the

left seizes control. But the big winner was The Washington Post's Annie Linsky, who tweeted the following about a picture of the president walking through a cemetery where his son, daughter, and former wife are buried. He was doing this on Sunday, and she tweeted, quote, Biden goes to church and walks through a graveyard in Wilmington as his legislative agenda is dying in Washington. Linsky later deleted the tweet, which had also been retweeted by New York Times reporter Michael Scheer, and she apologized for being insensitive. So the tweet was obviously gross and mean. But I thought that overshadowed just how bad the analysis was about Biden's agenda dying in Washington. Like, what is your take on the overall media narrative that we're getting from some of these political reporters, Tommy? They're looking for something exciting. I mean, it's not dead yet.

Right. I mean, they're just going to keep negotiating and that's a lot more boring than saying, you know, Biden's on the ropes, you know, the legislative agenda is done, whatever. They're not wrong that like this wasn't a great outcome that the more time that goes on, the harder it could be to pass things. Like you'll hear more issues pop up.

But yes, I mean, obviously the Inulinski tweet was ridiculous. But I mean, I think the rest of it is just sort of typically hyperbolic. Yeah, I mean, I think it's really hard. I think we don't know. I think you can look at this as a real setback in terms of getting to two bills passed.

Or you can look at this and say, for the first time, it seems like they're really heading towards actual numbers, which is something we've talked about in this pod. Yeah, I actually, I think it's, it think it's, it was, I think it was a good outcome. Right. Like now we're really talking numbers. Like you just, this is something

that felt like we were missing in the previous two weeks. We talked about it on Monday. You talked about it with Dan, like where is the actual hard negotiation with a little bit of evidence of it in the public about like what we're driving towards. And now we know, you know, Manchin's at this 1.5 bar. We started at 3.5. Some things are going to have to come out. Some things may get delayed. Some things may be capped, whatever. But it's a negotiation. It's the hard, it's the part, it's the part where they're actually getting into the numbers. And I find that reassuring. I was actually really, I felt worse on Monday when the, the infrastructure bill was cooked and there was this really amorphous debate about what the reconciliation bill would be. Now it feels a bit more solid. Also, my one fear heading into this was that if Pelosi pulled the

vote or the vote failed, that you would have some center saying, well, I don't care that it failed. I am not voting for Build Back Better until I get a vote on infrastructure. And the fact that this happened and none of them said that and now they're all at the table is, I think, a good sign. Yeah. I mean, you know, Josh Gottheimer thought he was leading an army and he looked behind him to find only his ass hanging out. You know, I mean, there's not really a real movement there. I mean, the challenge is that Biden wanted the compromise to be two point three trillion. They were hoping to get Manchin and Sinema to two point one. It seems like they're still standing firm on one point five.

So that's a lot of money. They're still pretty far apart. Like, hopefully they can figure it out. But yeah, it's it i mean it is far from done the whole thing could of course fall apart but i do think you almost needed a moment like last week to get everyone paying attention and serious in the same room i mean jaya paul tells us this later but like you know now biden's really involved the white house is super involved negotiators they've been involved the whole time but now they're like really, really well. But even like even like Pelosi's office, even like, you know, the House leadership seemed frustrated that the president wasn't more involved. Like that was all over the press. So clearly they were the one

saying it. So, yeah, it's good. Yeah, that was a bad tweet. And I would just urge anyone listening like when you see a bad tweet, I think you can comment on it and have a great time. Everybody calm down. It was a bad tweet. I saw so many people like looping like the editors of the Washington Post, like demanding heads on pike. Like it was Sunday. Go outside. It was a garbage, crazy tweet.

And then she apologized for it belatedly, took her an hour, whatever. But at some point, even as a whole, we could have a a whole another conversation about twitter and stuff like that but it's like you apologize you got her she's done you got her you got her it's like well yeah the reason i raised it is i actually found it to be uh one of but not the most i think over the top uh takes out there and it was this one from the atlantic come halloween all that biden might have to show for his negotiations with congress over the past several months is a first ever U.S. debt default, the presidential equivalent of sticking your hand into the candy bag and pulling out a razor blade instead, which was one of the most bizarre. I thought that was going to end it like good and plenty

or something. No, it ends up at a razor blade, at a razor blade. That's what the global financial crisis is in this metaphor. Weird. I'm going to, look, whatever. We all send bad tweets. I'll take people at their word that they apologized and didn't mean them. It is funny that the folks sending and retweeting that tweet are also the civility police who are getting really upset at activists who dare to follow Kyrsten Sinema into a school or into the bathroom. Which, look, going into the bathroom, that's a little off.

I don't want anyone in the bathroom with me either, but it is funny that those people are policing that. Wait, everybody poops. Did you guys hear that? Everybody poops. Civility alert. Red Hen. Civility alert.

Paging Chuck Todd. Paging Chuck Todd. Tip O'Neill. Ronald Reagan. Oh, no. You are needed with a bourbon. It's still going. Tommy,

we do recognize your voice. Redhead. Redhead. Oh my God, it's a lot of dialogue. It's a lot of siren dialogue. You can cut it anytime. That's the sound you hear in Washington

when a civility debate breaks out. I hate them. I hate every part of them. I hate all the, like, as soon as I saw that that happened, I was like, I want to mute it from my feed feed i don't want to hear either side of it i think it's so fucking stupid like apparently she hasn't held a town hall in three years which would help you understand the frustration of activists who feel like they

can't get a question answered unless they go to a fundraiser yeah i mean which is a problem in itself one more thing about the press narrative like i think there's there's two parts of it that drove me nuts. One is the, you know, the press says everything is dying when it's not centrism. They always like to call out the ideological extremes in both parties. So this whole like Biden through his lot and with the left thing is such a misreading of the situation and a misreading of the history. Like just about every Democrat, including Joe Biden, ran in 2020 on a set of proposals that cost a lot more than this bill right now. And then they all won. They won by a majority of votes and they all took power. And then Bernie Sanders put out six trillion dollars and then they all compromised down to three point five trillion dollars. This was Joe Biden's agenda. It's not a surprise. It's not like he threw in with the left.

It's literally what just about every single Democrat in congress ran on and won on in 2020 it drives me fucking nuts that part i agree with i don't really think it's a big deal for the press to declare like what a big vote goes down because an artificial expectation was set by the leadership around that vote of course they're going to report on that as being a failure it doesn't mean it's like dead in the water like it was overstated but i agree with you on that like it yes. Yes, it is not throwing the left when 90 percent of the caucus is with Biden on this. Yeah, the Biden setback stuff from the press did not. It's I think it's silly and I disagree with it, but it did not bother me as much as the ideological stuff that Biden would love, because what the press wants is they want a

narrative that Joe Biden lost the midterms because he tacked too far to the left. They've been looking for that narrative since the beginning. And that's what they're driving towards because they're lazy and they're comfortable with that narrative and they've used it before. And also, like, it's a search for the new and, like, saying that Democrats no longer have the ability to govern. Like, there's one, I think, ironclad truth of the last decade in American politics, go back further, that there's a governing party, that's a Democratic party, there's a political party, that's a Republican party.

We are in the midst of a negotiation trying to figure out how to just get the debt summit raised because the Republicans have abandoned any pretense of helping to prevent a global financial crisis. It is not the time to say that, oh, can Democrats govern? We're the only ones trying. One other piece of this that has been, I think, something I hope we do in the future is, I think it's okay if we talk about uh what these bills cost per year and not

the full 10 year total i think that come on like we are in this like the the the press is obsessed with the top number they make it all about the top number and i think we can see but i will say we played right into this at the beginning of the negotiations because a lot of and progressives too this is we're like six trillion no we3.5 trillion. And everyone was sort of bragging about the number we got. I agree. Which was a mistake. I completely agree. That is not just the press, I think. Because I think when she, you'll hear this later, but Congressman

Jayapal talks about how we're not starting from a number, we're starting from the policies. Right. And seeing what kind of policies we can get through. And I think that we... Everyone's finally got there now. Yeah. It was a little late. Yeah. So the big question now is what does a potential compromise on Build Back Better look like? And how does this get done? Pramila Jayapal, who we're going to talk to in a minute, said on Sunday that she expects the final bill to spend somewhere between the one point five trillion dollars that Joe Manchin wants

and the three point five trillion dollars that the president and all but a few Democrats in Congress want. But bringing down the price tag will require some pretty tough choices. The Washington Post's Jeff Stein had an excellent piece on this that I highly recommend. He reported that, quote, White House officials are debating whether to drop many cherished priorities or keep a fuller range of initiatives in dramatically reduced form. Basically, do you fully and permanently fund just a few important policies and build back better, or do you try to fund them all with less money over just a few years? What do you guys think? I don't know. The devil is so in the details on this. I mean,

like a lot of the proposals are, do you do everything a little bit? Do you means test a bunch of things, which is to say, do you make dental benefits for Medicare kick in only if you're under a certain economic threshold? Or do you just pick and choose a few things? Like the one thing I really want in this bill is climate change funding, because I worry that this is one of our last chances to have full democratic control for a while. The planet's burning, you guys might have noticed, and Biden is about to go to this international conference at the end of the month where he's going to ask China and India and every other country to do something on climate change. And it kind of helps to have done something

yourself. So that's the thing I really want there. But I don't know, you're seeing really smart people argue both sides of this and it's hard to know. Yeah, I agree. It is, you know, you hear, you'll hear some with respect to like do a few programs, do them really, really well, do them fully funded. We talked to Congressman Jayapal. She talked a bit more about like show people a bunch of different ways their lives can be made better. And then all of a sudden you'll find the will to make them permanent after the fact. The one, well, I agree with Tommy on the climate pieces. I also think that the child tax benefits that we know have had such a positive impact on child poverty. Like I think that that is something that should continue. And the, there was a,

there was a moment even in the negotiations over the 3.5 where it wasn't about capping or sunsetting certain provisions to save money, but actually not having them kick in for three, four, five years. And I find that to be like an odd decision. Like, oh, we don't worry. We passed a dental benefit. It kicks in in 2025. Like I have trouble understanding the politics of that. But beyond that, I think I don't have trouble understanding the politics of that. They're shitty. Terrible. Of course, I have trouble understanding the logic of that. I have never heard a justification for that. That makes sense. By the way, the House did that. Biden're shitty. Terrible. I have trouble, of course, I have trouble understanding the logic of that. I have never heard a justification for that that makes sense. By the way, the House did that.

Biden, the White House's position is that they should kick in immediately. And for some reason, the House did the weird 2028 thing. That was strange. But all that's a way of saying, like, I want people to see positive benefits in their lives

as soon as humanly possible. Beyond that, I think these are hard choices. And there's good arguments to doing a few fully or having a few sunset to get them all in. I totally agree with both of you guys on climate. I have written down here, you have to do climate because we're facing extinction.

That's my note. Yeah, that's a good note. I think that you should do as much health care as possible because A, we need it and it's important to people and B, it's the most politically popular. Again, we've all seen a million polls now of the Build Back Better agenda. And at the top of the polls, the tax increases on the rich and the corporations. So that's going to happen to better it because that's how we pay for the thing. But number two is always prescription drugs through Medicare. It's expanding Medicare for dental and vision. It's some of the ACA subsidies. That's all the next kind of stuff. So I would do that. I do think politically the challenge is, I think there's a couple challenges politically.

If you do a few programs and do them well thing, you have a very large fractious caucus where everyone has different opinions and different interests and you have a bunch of different interest groups out there and activist organizations, stuff like that. You start killing off programs altogether, you might not have the votes to pass the bill,

which is why I feel like they're going to end up doing a little bit of everything, because they're in a situation where you don't get every Democrat minus three in the House on board. You don't have a bill. Which is why I do think you also end up coming back to some means testing in some of these places, because it's a place where you can make up some money while still delivering people who need the most help. And there's good arguments for not doing means testing. And I think one thing that I think progressives point out, which is true, which is like,

sometimes you have like, in order to get the actual financial benefits, the cost benefits of mean testing, you actually have to lower the threshold because there's so many administrative costs associated with it, but. It's just, yeah. I mean, some of the things you're talking about, right?

Climate funding, national paid leave, child tax credit, universal pre-K, free childcare, affordable housing. I mean, it's so hard to choose. I mean, my fear is that we are so bad at means testing things. Look at what happened with some of the most recent COVID stimulus bills. And again, on this putting dental in Medicare, I mean, they're talking about cutting it off for people making over $39,000. I mean, if you've, let's say you're poor and you have not gone to the dentist for a long time, you go and you have like three root canals. It's going to cost you thousands of dollars, maybe even 10 grand

to get that done. And all of a sudden a quarter of your income is gone. So I don't know how you do this well. Yeah. I think sometimes when you hear means testing, people are like, well, rich people shouldn't get these benefits. I get that. But that's not where a lot of these thresholds are, as you point out, which is 300% of poverty. Yeah, I think that doing more for a couple of years, especially if you can get some of these programs to last through 2024, then if you're Democrats, your bet is either Democrats win in 2024 and we extend them or Republicans win and they face a cliff of all these very popular programs being run out. And then maybe at that point, Republicans extend them because they know they're popular and they'd rather fight culture wars than fight on some of these economic issues, which is basically what you saw in the Trump years, especially around some of the COVID relief stuff. And by the way, you know, it's been a long time since the Tea Party.

We're talking about spending multiple trillions of dollars. There's no massive outpouring of protests. Yeah, I mean, I do think that that logic makes sense. Because by the way, if some of those programs don't get continued, and they do get sunset, to have them kind of kick in earlier and use the money now, that's no better than having not created them in the first place. Yeah, most of the Tea Party protests had more to do with the race of the person spending the money than it did about the spending itself. Another thing that, you know, 10 years later, people haven't really wrapped their heads around

when they're doing punditry about the Tea Party. Yeah, that's an interesting take that the Tea Party was more a cultural and identity war than a war over taxes and budgets. I mean, it was completely astroturfed by like the Koch brothers and stuff too. All right, when we come back, we'll ask Pramila Jayapal what her preference is and how she thinks Democrats can land this plane.

We are back with the member of Congress who is probably most responsible for getting the original two-track strategy back on track to help ensure that Joe Biden's entire agenda is passed. The chair of the House Progressive Caucus, Pramila Jayapal. Congresswoman, thanks for coming back on the show. Thank you. I'm so happy to be back with you. We're happy to have you. So you seemed pretty confident on Sunday when you told Dana Bash that Joe Manchin's $1.5 trillion offer is, quote, not going to happen. How much confidence do you have that Manchin or Sinema isn't going to say at one point, this is my final offer, take it or leave it, I'm willing to walk away with nothing? Well, you know, I just feel like we're at the beginning of the negotiation, which is what we wanted to have a negotiation. I mean, we thought it had already been negotiated at 3.5, but clearly that's

not the case. So I feel like we're at the beginning of that, but I wanted to clearly signal that the number comes out of the priorities and the president's agenda, the Build Back Better agenda. And so there is a point at which it's simply not possible to do the things that we want to do. And that's how I feel about the 1.5 number. But, you know, obviously, I understand we're going to have to get everybody on board here. And we are completely committed to doing that and have told the president that, you know, told people who have said that Senator Manchin wants to speak to progressive leaders, that I'm happy to do that with him anytime. This is the important part, John, right? Like we're in the

process of delivering transformative change for people, and we're going to do everything we can to get that done. You also talked about including more programs and Build Back Better, but maybe for a shorter period of time. Could you make the argument for that approach over selecting a few of the most important programs and permanently funding them? Yes, absolutely. So my feeling is that we have several key things that are appealing to different kinds of families. So paid leave, for example, if everyone got 12 weeks of paid leave, that would benefit an enormous percentage of people across the country. At the same time, we've got families who've got young kids who desperately need childcare. And we've got families who've got young kids who desperately need child care. And we've got people who really need to go to community college or trade school for two years so that they can get the jobs that we're going to create in the infrastructure package and other places. And so I don't want to pit one thing against another.

But I do believe that if we fund things for, say, five years or six years instead of 10 years, then people will see what that means for their lives. They will be able to wake up in the morning and not just see a road that's been built, which may take a little while or may not be in their district. But they'll actually be able to say, hey, now I can go back to work because I have child care or I can take care of my loved one because I have paid family leave. Those kinds of things. Or I can take care of my loved one because I have paid family leave. Those kinds of things. Have you found Josh Gottheimer's sleeping form surrounded by Red Bull cans and problem solver business cards somewhere in the Capitol? And did you consider tucking him in like a little cherub?

I leave all of that beautiful imagination to you guys. Dodging the question, did you make sure he wasn't chilly or not? Have you not noticed that I wake up very zen every morning? I love all of my colleagues and I want them all to be on this final bill. You've shown incredible restraint, I thought. Let me ask a real follow up about that, actually, which is, you know, it seemed like Congressman Gottheimer. You're going to ask me if I was going to bring him a blanket. No, it seemed like Gottheimer was pretty frustrated when he released this kind of statement. And one thing he did in that statement was he took a an idea from The New York Times that somehow the progressive caucus is behaving like the Freedom Caucus, like the Freedom Caucus, which I found strange because this is a group of people trying to pursue what the majority of the caucus wants, along with what President Biden wants, and that

the better comparison to the Freedom Caucus is what some of the moderates are doing. What do you make of that comparison to the Freedom Caucus? Well, I've never liked the comparison to the Freedom Caucus. You guys might have asked me about this when I was on your show once or twice before. People always want to make that comparison. Why on earth would we want to be anything like a caucus that doesn't even believe that January 6th was real? You know, I mean, this is just not a comparison that makes any sense. And then, as you said, we are behind the president's Build Back Better agenda, the same agenda that all Democrats ran on in the House, the Senate, and what we ran on to deliver the White House. And fundamentally, we had 96% of

Democrats in the House and the Senate on board with the $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act. It was really only just a 4% that weren't. And so I don't think, look, I think people have to say whatever they've got to say, and hopefully everyone gets upset and then comes back to the table recognizing that we're all on the same team. We're all trying to deliver transformative results. And so I've tried to stay in that place, but I don't think that the country sees it that way. I think that the reality was we had a deal. As the president says, here's the deal. You know, we had a deal. And the deal was that the two bills were going to move together. That was the position of the Progressive Caucus. And right after we said that three and a half months

ago, the speaker took that same position, the Senate majority leader, the president, everybody. And that was also the deal by which at least 11 senators voted for the bipartisan bill out of the Senate because they were assured that the two would move together. It was really the small group of people, and I don't even want to call them moderates. This is not a progressive versus a moderate fight. This is everybody in the 96% of Democrats in the House and the Senate and the White House, and then the 4% that don't agree. All of that said, the reason we're at the table is because we have such slim margins that we need to get 100%. It's not enough just to have 96%. We got to get everybody on board, and we understand that.

Joe Manchin seems to have drawn a few red lines in negotiations. One of them is around the Hyde Amendment, which restricts abortion coverage. He said that the bill would be dead on arrival if it doesn't include the Hyde Amendment. You said on Sunday you wouldn't vote for a bill that does include the Hyde Amendment. Wouldn't that sink the bill? Or is there some potential compromise I'm missing here that could satisfy both parties? Well, look, I've been clear that I want to repeal the Hyde Amendment. That is also what the president's position is. But what I was actually saying, and, you know, I think sometimes these things get just, it's difficult

on TV in a short thing. But what I was actually saying is that the Hyde Amendment is the law, unfortunately, for people like me that believe it shouldn't be. I would like to repeal it, but I'm not suggesting that we put the repeal into this bill. What I am saying is that the Hyde Amendment is already law. So why would we add it into the bill as a political statement when it's already the law? We don't need, this happens a lot here in Congress where people are like, oh, I want to show everybody that I'm anti-abortion, you know, and I don't want federal funds to go to abortions. And I'm like, well, they don't already. So don't put it in the bill because you make those of us who actually want to repeal it vote for it again.

And we don't need to, number one, because we don't believe in it, and number two, because it's already law. And we're not proposing in this bill to repeal it. We have a separate bill to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which I am proudly a co-sponsor of, but we do not, it just is ridiculous to talk about it in this bill because that's the law currently. Got it. And then on climate, Manchin said he supports investing in clean energy but not making fossil fuel companies pay. Can you imagine a clean energy standard that could work without those kinds of penalties? You know, I can't imagine it, but that doesn't mean, you know, we have to talk it through. And I feel like on every single one of these things, if I just, it kind of happened with the Hyde Amendment yesterday, you know,

it's sort of like then you negotiate it in public. And I just don't know what he wants. I want to see in detail exactly what it is. For us, the priority has been to have the clean electricity performance standards, and then to have a set of tax credits that also are like both the stick and the carrot of helping companies to do the right thing. And I just don't really understand what it is he's asking for. And I think at the end of the day, if we don't really have both a carrot and a stick, we're not going to cut carbon emissions. And the president is going to go to COP26 in a couple of weeks. And he's not even going to be able to say that the United States can be a leader on fighting climate change. Yeah. Let's talk about the other holdout in the

Senate, Kyrsten Sinema. You know, she put out a statement as well that was also pretty frustrated, talking about the fact that she feels as though she has been forthright with some of her demands. Do you feel like in the past few days you've gotten more clarity on what her negotiating position is? Not. I know that she is making that clear to the White House. I don't know that we're privy to all of that as yet. So a lot of the negotiating is happening behind the scenes. And I've tried to tell my colleagues who are, you know, on the progressive side who are saying they're frustrated because they haven't said what they want. I actually don't think that's true. I think they are, particularly her, I think she is saying some of what she wants. I'm just not privy to all of

that. There will be a point at which, you know, hopefully either we all sit down in a room together or we sit down in rooms right next to each other and there's subtle diplomacy going on. I mean, I'm open to any of those ideas, but I do think that there's been amazing progress made, and that's why I think it was so important. I mean, actually, I feel like everything we thought would happen, I'm just saying, give me the globe and the crystal ball, because I feel like everything we thought would happen did happen. When we split the two apart, we pitted roads and bridges against childcare, something we never should have done. The infrastructure package is important. It's got 15% of the president's agenda in there. The other 85% is contained within the Build Back Better Act.

And I knew that if we split them apart, this would happen. That's why we wanted to link them together. And then we saw when it tried to be split again with what some of my colleagues did, the same dynamic started happening where we were arguing about passing one bill and leaving behind the other, because you guys know politics better than anybody else in the podcast world. And you know that five and a half months was spent on this infrastructure bill. We are already at in the beginning of October. And if we don't get this reconciliation bill done as quickly as possible, it stretches into next year.

It stretches into the end of this year and it just becomes harder and harder. So delay, in my mind, delay means death on the reconciliation bill. And that's why it's so important we keep them together and pass them quickly. death on the reconciliation bill. And that's why it's so important we keep them together and pass them quickly. Hypothetically, if you were a senator blocking a reconciliation bill and then were protested by people who wanted to see action and those protesters followed you into the bathroom, I know that if I was in that situation, I would give up. I would just say whatever you need me to say, I am for if I can have some privacy in the shitter. That's sort of what my position would be. Especially if they took the shitter. That's sort of what my position would

be. Especially if they took the toilet paper. Right. They might have taken this. We don't know. We don't know that that's a separate track. That's another negotiation. What would your posture be in that circumstance? How quickly would you concede to all their demands? Well, I would never be in that situation. You know that, right? I would be doing the right thing right at the beginning. So nobody would have to follow me into the toilet and take my paper away. We will. I'm glad we have you on record there. I can't believe you made me say that. This is just, it's wild. Is there anything else the president and the White House could be doing to be more helpful right now? I know there's all these anonymous griping that they're not doing

enough here and there. How do you feel about what they're doing and could they be doing anything else? No, I feel like, look, I'll say that I think they could have started earlier. I'll just say that. I think I tried to say that a couple of months ago. Now, on their behalf, I can also say that, you know, Afghanistan, you name it, we got a lot of things that happened. But I was worried that we were spending so much time celebrating the bipartisan bill and not enough time actually working on and negotiating and talking about what the Build Back Better agenda has in it, or the Build Back Better Act. And so in some weird way, all of this attention has allowed us to describe on national television over and over and over and over again what is in

the Build Back Better Act. And so I think that's been good. I do think that over the last week to two weeks, they've been deeply involved, very deeply involved, some of which I know about, some of which I don't know about. And I think that they knew we were serious. I mean, they knew, I'm not somebody who just does this all the time and then doesn't have the votes to deliver. If I say we've got the votes, it's because I'm really confident we've got the votes. And we had the votes. We had more every day, actually. The more shenanigans went on, the more people got frustrated and said, no, I'm not going to went on, the more people got frustrated and said, no, I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to leave people behind. And so I think the White House knew that and they were really trying to get us to a place where maybe both on content

and on process moving forward, we could find some agreements, but clearly there wasn't enough time. So now I heard that the president is going to Michigan, which I'm really excited about. I want him to be out there just talking about what this does, everything that's in the Build Back Better Act, the tax piece of it. I mean, this is a president that is proposing that the wealthiest corporations and wealthiest individuals that made billions during the pandemic as people were being evicted from their homes, actually finally pay their fair share. And that is a phenomenal idea. And that's why when I was at the White House the last time, I guess it was about a week ago, and I said, Mr. President, I really hope you talk about this as a zero dollar bill. And I was very happy. Am I claiming this as mine? Kind of, but I don't know if it really was. But

the very next day, he went out and started talking about it as a bill that really doesn't cost anything because it's all going to be paid for with these taxes on the wealthiest paying their fair share. I've seen politicians take credit for doing far less. So I think I should take the credit. I will say that you seem pretty zen. I don't know if that's just a savvy negotiating stance, but you feel pretty confident that we're going to get a good bill at the end of the day? I do. I really do. And here's why. 70% of the American people support what's in the Build Back Better Act. More if you add in the taxes. The president of the United States came down five months ago, rolled down Pennsylvania Avenue from

the White House to the Capitol and delivered this in his speech to us. This is not, as I said on one of the shows yesterday, this is not some crazy left-wing wish list. I have that, by the way. But this is not that. This is the president's agenda, an agenda that Democrats agree on and that people, the American people want to see get it done. And I think the very last reason I feel confident about it is we, I'm an organizer and the best things come out of the worst crises. Like the things that really make a difference and transform people's lives come out of those moments of crisis where everyone kind of wakes up and says, oh, my God, it can't continue this way. And I feel like that's where the country is on child care, on paid leave, on health care, on care for seniors to have dental vision and hearing, on immigration, on housing. on immigration, on housing, like these things that we have picked as progressive caucus priorities five months ago are the things that are most necessary and most popular and very much now

part of the president's agenda and the democratic agenda. Yeah, very much agree. Last question. A dazzle of zebras. It's not, it's not, I promise. A dazzle of zebras about toilets it's not it's not i promise a dazzle of zebras is on the loose in maryland that's a great name for a group of zebras uh please help us decide on a good name for a group of centrists here are some pitches a playbook of moderates a swamp of moderates you stop me when you get to when you like a means test of moderates, a focus group of moderates, a super pack of moderates, a fundraiser of moderates, a triangulation of moderates, or final option, a green room of moderates. Where's your head at? This is important. It's important stuff. Well, because I take these answers extremely seriously. Let me think about that. In fact,

I'll put out a poll to my Twitter followers and see who likes what. That will do it. We'll take it. That's a great deal. Perfect. Another deal made. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, thank you so much for joining and making the time. Good luck on the negotiations and come back soon. Thank you both so much. All right. Before we go, let's answer some listener questions. Questions.

Here's a combo of questions. Some of these are for Tommy. Rebecca asks, is Tommy planning on watching season two of Emily in Paris or has he regained taste in television? Kate asks a similar question, but with a creative twist. Has Tommy started writing his Squid Game Emily in Paris mashup fan fiction yet? And then Caleb asks all of us generally favorite shows you guys are watching or who have watched recently. Tommy?

My pitch, Kate, was Squid Game and Great British Bake Off. Now, I love it. Sort of poo-pooed it. Okay. I just think... No, I think that seeing Paul Hollywood fight someone to the death is a cool idea. With Prue with a gun. Yeah.

Spoiler. It's like, hey, Prue, you fighting dirty? Fighting dirty, Prue? What's the game, Prue? Are you going to watch the season two of Emily in Paradise? I don't Yeah. Spoiler. It's like, hey, hey, Pru, you find dirty? Find dirty, Pru? What's your game, Pru? Are you going to watch the season two

of Emily in Paris? I don't know, I might. I might. I don't know. It's not even a question. You know why? Because you don't even

have to look up from your phone once and you kind of know what happens. It's a person is in Paris, there's no conflicts and then the show's over.

That's what happens. That sounds like a guy that's setting up to watch season two of Emily in Paris. Any other favorite shows you guys are like a guy that's setting up to watch a season two. Any other favorite shows you guys are watching that you want to share with everyone?

The other two? Yeah. I was hoping someone would say that. It's not a show, but I'm playing the DLC for the game Outer Wilds. You got mad at me

when I called you DLC. Downloadable content, not Democratic Leadership Committee. What is downloadable content? It is when a game, they release an additional part of the game that you can download to kind of continue to explore the world oh kids these days that's cool all kinds of crazy things in the video games and the game outer wilds like

an extra nintendo cartridge sure it's like an extra nintendo cartridge and missed it's sure it is actually not it is i would say I would say spiritually not an unfair comparison and not unfair to call it a successor away from video games for a while Outer Wilds play Outer Wilds one of the best games ever made it's not a long play the little bit of a learning curve give it the time don't do what Akilah did which is Google the ending it's really frustrated I just rewatched about it secession is uh oh i can't wait coming up can't wait very excited for that uh caleb also asked us um psa tour soon question mark

no absolutely yes what oh do you think oh we're not tommy's not coming 2022 get ready unless fauchi cancels that as well as Christmas. You know that Dan and Tommy can't be in the same place. Okay, a quick PSA to liberals. When Fauci says something like that is being misinterpreted by some Republican on Twitter, don't quote tweet them and spread their insane claim that Fauci is trying to cancel Twitter for your mostly mediocre jokes. Screenshot it. Yeah, learn to screenshot.

I have to remind myself. It's a tough thing to remind yourself to screenshot. I have to remind myself. It's a tough thing to remind yourself of, but you have to do that. Danita asks, if you had to go on a weekend couples retreat with a Republican lawmaker,

who would it be and why? Tommy? Matt Gaetz. He's down at the party. That's just so bad. That's a joke. That's not appropriate. That's a joke.

John Boehner, because the weed and the wine would be on him. Oh, that's interesting. That's right. Okay. And you're going somewhere sunny because that tan's not doing itself. That's better than your initial take that will surely get you canceled.

Oh, God, he's turning invisible like Michael J. Fox. He's being canceled. He can't play the guitar anymore. We're watching it happen right now. It's in real time. Marty, it's about your kids. They've been canceled. Your boy tweeted something.

Marty. That's not the voice that Christopher Lloyd uses. That's pretty good. Zach on Twitter asks, What would you bring to a dinner party on Joe Manchin's houseboat? I feel like Manchin is a bourbon guy i just bring them some bourbon huh some chips and dip maybe some handcuffs so they can't leave until they're done figuring out what they need to figure out yeah no i would um i've said this before but i would pull up the anchor on the almost heaven i'd bring the rest of the um

the rest of the democratic i'd bring biden pelosi schumer yeah sanders and then just drift out to see until they strike a deal yeah just a god godheimer and a little um a little raft behind us just pulling them a little dinghy just every day we float over a couple bottles of water some saltines love it uh angela asked what's your most embarrassing interaction with a celebrity that's such a great question and i'll tell you uh you you asked for this question so clearly you have a good uh uh you see there's a theory on the internet called darth jar jar this is a theory that suggests in episode one of uh the uh star wars prequels that george lucas was setting up jar jar banks one of the most annoying characters in the history that George Lucas was setting up Jar Jar Binks,

one of the most annoying characters in the history of cinema, as a villain, and that that would have been revealed in episode two. That the whole plan was to make this annoying character, but planted inside of the film were the seeds of the fact that this was actually a Sith Lord

that was going to reveal themselves as the supervillain, the twist of this series in the way that Darth Vader being Luke'sain, the twist of this series in the way that Darth Vader being Luke's father was the twist of Empire. He talked a lot about the episodes rhyming. That was the theory. But when everyone hated Jar Jar Binks so much, he abandoned it and then introduced Count Dooku and General Grievous and kind of the films went off the rails and there was no kind of satisfying twist. So Ronan brought me as a plus one to a party.

I saw George Lucas at the event and I decided to psych myself up to ask him about this. Ronan turned to me and said, do not ask him about George Lucas. Don't do that. We're at a party. Do not go to George Lucas. And so I did something which was so embarrassing,

which is I went up to George Lucas at just a private function to ask him a question about Star Wars lore. And I said, I don't, I said, I don't know if you ever heard this theory before, but there's this theory about Darth Jar Jar. Is there any truth to it whatsoever? And he looked at me like I was the dumbest motherfucker on planet earth. It was one of the most withering, like not no joy in his voice no enjoyment of the proposition just an entirely his face scowled and he just said no absolute what no never nonsense and then

then i saw the back of george lucas wow wow you think he felt bad i got very sweaty wouldn't you want to talk about that that's like his thing why was he so mean about it i think that a lot of nerds have gone out to george lucas at events and said i'd like to talk to you about star wars this is like my free time i am at a white house correspondence center once i stepped on the train of juliana margalisa's dress and i apologized immediately and profusely and she just was not having it she was very angry at me I just I stripped I'm klutzy wasn't great I prefer to be out there with the people you know me in a shovel ready job you know one time Tommy really embarrassed himself in front of Dan actually it Slept broadcaster Dan Piper. Jackie on Twitter asks, has Steny Hoyer ever been on Message? No.

Easy. I don't know. A couple ones we're cutting here. Anisha on Facebook, who do you think will be potential primary challengers to cinema? Ruben Gallego, congressman from Arizona, I believe. Just getting my donation finger ready. Thinking about it.

Fat congressman, progressive, Arizona. Could be interesting. Fingers casting about, looking for an act blue page. Love it. You once listed the 10 best fast food items, and there was not one Wendy's item. Do you wish to address this most heinous oversight? No.

Next question. Wendy's is just mediocre. It's Carl's Jr. with baked potatoes. Let's move on. Indica or sativa, love it? Sure, yes. You're like, hey Isaac, who asked this, you're kidding yourself if you think there's a real distinction. There is not.

Yeah. It's all the same shit. They've been crossed over so many times. I think more importantly, I think there is, I think the nuance, it's not that there isn't a distinction, it's that the distinction is more nuanced. I think the distinction is entirely subjective. Like some person along the way is like, this strain is chill and this one is energy and you're just it's there's no like real science i mean let's get into it i mean the reality is that each of these strains have a

mix of different kinds of what are they called cannabinoids that are inside of them that are totally different that are slightly different in certain ways and they're all in different combinations and like indica sativa as a divide as i think um honestly it's like the progressive progressive moderate divide in the house you know actually when you dig into it that's not really what we're dealing with here not in this case all right well i don't know i'm really stoned so i'm not sure that's right that's it he is pretty stoned it is monday afternoon uh that's all the time we have that's all the time we have thanks to pramila jaya paul for joining us and telling us what she prefers in Dekar Sativa.

She did. She did not do that. No, she did not. And we'll talk to you later this week. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Flavia Casas.

Our producer is Haley Muse. And Olivia Martinez is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Mews. And Olivia Martinez is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Katie Long,

Roman Papadimitriou, Brian Semmel, Caroline Reston, Madison Hallman, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn,

Phoebe Bradford, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.