Pod Save America - "Climate Change of Heart."

Episode Date: August 2, 2022

The fate of the Manchin miracle lies in the hands of Kyrsten Sinema, Democrats' prospects of holding the senate may be brightening with just 100 days to go, and later, Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin talks to Lovett about protecting same-sex marriage and democracy. 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. We haven't been together for a pod in a while. That's true. Lovett, you feeling better? I feel great. Did you get it from Biden officially now that we're past it?

I told an audience you did. Actually, I think I gave it to Manchin, Manchin gave it to Biden. That makes sense. What about Schumer? Schumer had it too. Yeah, I think one of the symptoms of COVID is making deals. You know? That's not... Boo.

Leave that one in there. Yep, leave it in. It's fine. I don't care. On today's show, the fate of the mansion miracle lies in the hands of Kyrsten Sinema. Democrats' prospects of holding the Senate may be brightening with just 100 days to go. And later, Wisconsin Senator baldwin talks to love it about protecting same-sex marriage and democracy but first uh episode two of another russia is now

out uh this week jana and ben dive into boris nemstov's political journey as he becomes deputy prime minister of russia and discovers whether his idealism can trump money power and corruption listen to new episodes of another russia Russia each Monday wherever you get your podcasts. It's such a good show. I was listening to the first episode a couple days ago, and Zhanna is talking about how her parents, when she was a kid,

when they went out to dinner or whatever, would just leave her home alone and then tell her there were wolves on the ground so that she would stay in her bed. I'm going to try that. Quite a cultural gulf between us and some of our russian friends but a fascinating story we could do it with coyotes yeah you love it has coyotes everywhere on the on the east side and that's fine um it's a brood i think just a pack anyway enough about your problems another

russia sure great podcast download it subscribe before we start, it's your last chance to see us live and on tour this summer. For these last two shows, we have some, we saved some incredible guests for the end. We got Stacey Abrams in Atlanta on August 13th and Tennessee congressional candidate Odessa Kelly in Nashville on August 12th. Got some other guests coming up too that we're going to announce. Big announcements. We will also be joined by Josie Duffy Rice, who you know and love from our What A Day podcast at

Crooked. She's going to be a co-host for both of our shows. Tickets are on sale now and selling out fast, so go get yours at crooked.com slash events. Come say hi. Alright, let's get to the news. This is the week we find out whether the mansion miracle is real or whether kirsten cinema yanks away the football one last time i don't want

that uh our boy from west virginia who we have always told you would come through in the end how many times have we said that on this program hundreds of times we always said that uh he was out on the sunday shows this weekend trying to sell what they're now calling the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. I like it. I mean. Simple. Simple. Easy to remember.

We'll never have to say the other phrase again. Nope. I don't want to say it. I'm not even going to pretend. Nope. Nope. Nothing. It doesn't exist.

This was Joe Manchin's message to his good friend from Arizona this weekend. I think that basically when she looks at the bill and sees the whole spectrum of what we're doing and all of the energy we're bringing and all the reduction of prices and fighting inflation by bringing prices down by having more energy, hopefully she will be positive about it. But, you know, she'll make her decision. I respect that. Yeah, hopefully she'll be positive about it. There's an understatement. So I know Tommy went over the deal's headlines on thursday's pod with adisu who's fantastic gotta get adisu back on the pod anytime great great but there's been a lot more reporting about the details over the weekend love it what's your what's your general reaction to the deal we

haven't gotten a lot let's get a take here on pod save america from you thank you for the opportunity uh so i know you had your variety show where you talked about the here's the thing first of all they always say we gotta dig into the details and you expect you're gonna find coal museums on the national mall

houseboat subsidies it's really good a coal museum would be a fine trade on the national mall we already have Spielberg's hideous World War II memorial we obviously support the veterans A coal museum would be a fine trade. I would take that in all heart. Sure. It doesn't have to be the size. We don't have Spielberg's hideous World War II memorial. We obviously support the veterans, but it's still ugly. It shouldn't be in the middle of the mall.

They didn't do a good job designing it. It's a good cause, but it's an ugly memorial. I officially quit the show. We've all done it. Obviously, I'd be fine with it, but I thought that's what it would be. I know. But it's actually really good. You talked about it with Heather,

that it meets four fifths of the goals of build back better. One, one climate of I, there was one climate expert and professor who just shouted on social media. This is real in, in relief estimates. My policy experts say this could get you anywhere from 31 to 44% of the reduction of climate pollution relative to 2005, that's a big leap from where we are now. By 2030, too.

By 2030. That's a big leap from where we are now. And the Biden administration goal, the goal is 50 to 52 percent. So it puts that in the realm of the possible. We'd have to do a lot more to get there. But getting to 44 percent on our way to 50% is a pretty amazing step forward. Yeah. And the Biden goal of 50%, by the way, was a goal that he arrived at after really being pushed in the primary by both other candidates and climate activists. So that in itself was a pretty laudable goal. It's a huge reduction. Like this would be a

very, very big deal. And, you know, the tax credits in the deal are more like direct payments. You get the money guaranteed for 10 years if you build a plant that generates carbon-free electricity. Up until now, it's been like a year, two year. The tax credits last, which is harder for businesses to make decisions around. Tax credits for electric vehicles, up to $7,500, though they're means-tested. So if you're super rich, you can't get it. Rebates for people who buy energy-e or make their homes energy efficient. Yeah, it's the biggest climate investment in history, four times bigger than the climate investment from the Recovery Act

in 2009. And that was the previous leader of the biggest climate investment in history. And one other piece of this too is we're obviously focused on climate change. This is a bill that's focused on reductions aimed at curbing climate pollution, but the knock-on effects of that on the kind of harmful pollution that causes asthma, that causes premature deaths, that causes a lot of illness,

that just causes our communities, especially poor communities, to just be worse places to live in. Like this will make a huge difference. There's one line, it's a small piece of this. It's $1 billion for clean, heavy-duty vehicles like buses and garbage trucks. And that's just one line. It's not a big piece of this. But just making those changes to put clean vehicles on the road would reduce a ton of pollution that just harms a lot of kids every single day. It will just make communities safer

and better places to live. Should we talk about the shitty parts? Yeah, sure. Tom, do you want to do the shitty parts? I mean, they're shitty, but they're shitty in the short term. Short term shitty. Okay. Does that work? So it will require, well, it could be long term shitty too. I don't know what that meant. It will require the US government to open new locations for oil and gas leasing in Alaska

and the Gulf of Mexico. And it will forbid the government from selling leases to install solar or wind on federal lands or seafloors when it isn't also open oil and gas. And then at some point in the near future, it hasn't been written yet, literally, there's going to be a bill about permitting reform that will probably make it easier to create fossil fuel projects, but it could also make it easier to create wind farms and renewable projects. So there is some bad to take with the good, but I think on balance, almost every expert I've read thinks this is a wildly important bill. And one thing just to add, because that was my question too about sort of what is the impact of these leases, these estimates that the reduction that could be as high as 44%, those incorporate the effect of expanded oil and gas leasing.

They are trying to include the effects of those kind of all of the above provisions in making those estimates. Yeah. So some calculations on that, the National Resources Defense Council ran the numbers. They said that the emissions cuts would be 10 times greater than the effects from the support the deal extends to fossil fuels. So another way to think about it is for every one ton of carbon emissions that the deal puts out, it takes away 24 tons. It's a good deal. It's a pretty good deal. And also, you know, it's a good deal because the coal industry says that it will hurt the coal industry. The head of a trade group there said that the West Virginia would actually be one of the states with the largest number of coal retirements due to the wind and solar tax credits.

They're upset about that, but that's a good thing. Yeah. And like this permitting reform, like it's a big question, like how will they come together to make this work? But it's also true that you see a lot of NIMBY types who won't let solar farms or wind farms go up on their property or in their area. And we need to make it easier to create those projects or else we're going to get stuck in bureaucratic morass and never do anything. Tommy, what else do we know about how this thing came together? There's a couple of big pieces about that over the weekend. Yeah. Look, victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan,. There's a couple of big pieces about that over the weekend. Yeah, look, victory has a thousand fathers,

but defeat is an orphan, right? So a lot of people are taking credit here. And mothers. Sure. And just parents. Yeah. Okay. Non-binary people create political victories too, Tommy.

Okay, that is factually right. So the White House is out there talking about how Brian Deese, who runs the National Economic Council, made a trip to West Virginia, was keeping an open line to Manchin. Every senator or member or congressman who's talked to Joe Manchin in the last six months is dishing on whatever they did. You know, I forget who it was. Someone was talking about how they were printing out climate change news for him and passing it. I think it was one of the both of the Delaware bros are taking credit for this.

Coons and yeah, Coons and Car carper there's like here's a flood both of both of dan's potential opponents um you know we're hearing about ceo we're hearing about ceos like bill gates calling him and talking about jobs that could be created in west virginia our friend larry summers liberal lion liberal hero liberal icon yep uh larry summers called to talk about how the bill would not uh lead to more inflation i think one of larry's points is there's all there's a provision in there that would give the irs more resources to do its job and get taxes from people who owe them and larry thinks that the congressional budget office and the way they've scored the impact of that additional spending is is wildly uh under the estimate that he thinks the impact he thinks it'll have he'll think it'll recoup lots estimate that he thinks it'll be impact.

He thinks it'll have, he'll thinks it'll recoup lots more money. Oh, he thinks it'll be better then. Yeah. He thinks it's better than the CBS. That's good. That's a nerdy point. Ultimately, I do think we have to take Manchin at his word that he was worried about inflation. He was worried about the deficit and that this current bill is just vastly different

than the $3 trillion build back better bill that was basically the entire Biden agenda stuffed into one package. I also think Manchin was genuinely worried about energy security and he didn't want to just phase out fossil fuels immediately. A cynic can say that's because he's a fossil fuel state resident. He has fossil fuel donors because he makes money off of coal himself. But I think there's also a fair conversation to be had about whether, if we're gonna need oil and gas in the short term, do you want to get it in the US or do you want Joe Biden jumping on a plane to Saudi Arabia to lavish attention on Mohammed bin Salman

to try to get them to release more oil? Like, obviously I'd rather we have all wind and renewables today, but you know, I don't have a vote. It's also, it is funny too that like, this is now, when I talked to Jen Psaki vote. It's also, it's, it is funny too, that like, this is now when, when I talked to Jen Saki on the pod in January, it was, it was at a period of time when it seemed like this might all be kind of lost. And we were joking at the time saying, well, why don't we just let Joe Manchin go off and write the fucking bill? And then he did. And it's the obvious answer the whole time, right? But what's interesting about it is,

it's this sort of irony that then, okay, this West Virginia coal senator gets to take credit for the biggest investment in clean energy and climate change policy in American history, when really what he has done is just made his yes vote the hardest vote to get or the second hardest vote to get so far. Yeah. And he gets to frame it how he wants to frame it. That's right. Which is an inflation thing. But even at the end, even as he was writing it himself or working with Schumer to write it himself, That's right. Which is an inflation thing. Clearly by us or people like us, but certainly by sort of like the broader institutional set in Washington, D.C. And and I think it felt like he he might have worried that he was seeming unreasonable towards the end. And look, I think it seems like what happened here was that Joe Manchin was a persuadable voter and who genuinely like you said, genuinely wanted to do something about climate change, wanted a solution that would help his state and his own politics, and was genuinely

worried about inflation. You can disagree with him. I do. We do on a whole bunch of issues. The guy is just a conservative Democrat who has conservative positions on a bunch of issues that I don't agree with at all. I think where I know I made the mistake is, bunch of issues that i don't agree with at all i think where i know i made the mistake is like i think assuming that someone is operating in bad faith which i by the end did i didn't start there but by the end i was definitely i was convinced he was operating in bad faith you started by calling him dumb well i think i think i think there's some details that john hey hey glass half full we don't say those kinds of things about our friend Joe. I did. I started by calling.

The whole time I was like, is he just dumb or is he, is this a bad faith play? And then by the end I was like, oh, it's bad faith. But the mistake there, Joe Biden always says this, you should never assume people's motivations, is because if you assume people's motivations, then you give up in trying to persuade them. And maybe they are operating out of bad faith. But what if they're not and you just gave up on trying to persuade them. And maybe they are operating out of bad faith. But what if they're not and you just gave up on trying to persuade them? Clearly, a whole bunch of senators that work with Joe Manchin, climate activists, business leaders, a bunch of other people that he trusted, Larry Summers, economists, all work together to get him in the right place. And he was clearly persuaded over time. And that is, I think,

a good lesson in politics in general. And I also think one piece of this is we sort of lamented that his statements had been confusing and sometimes contradictory. And it turns out one of the reasons that at times it seemed open to a bill than at times would close the door is because he got pissed. It wasn't that he was operating in bad faith. He admits it himself. I got angry. Do I think he should have gotten angry about that statement? No, he should not not. It was absurd. He also played his politics really well. His approval went from 40 to 57% approval in his state. He played this brilliantly for himself. Yeah. Though if he really wanted to, I'm like, I do think that politically for him, if he did no deal at all, he would still be in a great political position, you know, which was like the politics. The politics are definitely

in his favor here. But as you just heard the head of that coal mine industry group say, like a bunch of West Virginia coal mines are going to get retired because of this bill. If Joe Manchin really wanted to just play his politics at all, he would have done no deal. And he didn't do that because there's multiple motivations at play here. And I do think like, you know, you could play the counterfactual. What if Senate Democrats had said, fuck Joe Manchin, let's take away his committee assignments. Who cares if he leaves the party? We would have no chance of a climate deal right now. I'm not going to say climate deal because we don't have it yet, but we would have no chance of a climate deal.

I mean, I also think Manchin is smart enough to know that that coal power plants are going out of business because the economics are no longer working for them. That is correct. You know, natural gas, there's other cheaper forms of energy. I do think the lesson, the meta lesson for me is it's always better to be in the majority and have power no matter what, right? A lot of people got so frustrated with Manchin and they said, let's kick him out of the party.

We don't need him. That is dumb. That is dumb. Be in power. Then you can do things. You get judges passed. You can pass this bill out of nowhere, pass the CHIPS Act,

pass the roads legislation, the infrastructure bill. We've got a lot of things done now in hindsight. Well, let's just look at your choices, right? Do I wish that Joe Manchin was replaced by a more liberal senator from West Virginia? Of course. Is that possible right now? No, it's not. So you work with what you have. Love it. We haven't heard from Kirsten Sinema. Let's talk about future problems as of this recording. But what do we know about where she is on these provisions and how much trouble she might cause here? to put her in a position to declare victory. He said, Kyrsten Sinema is a friend of mine.

We work very closely together. She had tremendous, tremendous input in this legislation. She basically insisted on no tax increases. We've done that. She was very, very adamant about that. I agree with her. She was very instrumental on prescription drugs. So I think he's trying to give her the space to say,

yeah, I'm out here taking the credit, but this can be your victory too. And the only, I think she's not said anything. We've been like sort of, as we've been getting towards this recording, just waiting to see if we hear more from her. But I think the hope has to be, and we don't know, I think the hope has to be that she knows she's in a position to get something

and that it's not something that kind of undoes anything that's part of this deal, but some additional funding for solar or other kinds of technology for Arizona, some kind of victory for cinema that she can, you know, get her pound of flesh and, you know, then go celebrate at Hot Topic or whatever. I mean, the thing we think she's going to be mad about is the $14 billion in tax increases by closing the carried interest loophole, which basically makes hedge fund guys pay their fair share of taxes. That's a tough fight to pick for her.

The question is whether she calls that an increase, right? It's a closed loophole, right? Has she been really upset about rates? When you work at a private equity fund or a hedge fund, you get paid by a management fee, which is usually 2% of assets under management, and then something called carried interest, which is usually 20%. They treat that 20%, which is the primary way they make money, as a long-term capital gain and not as income, which is what it really is. And so they pay about half of the tax rate that anyone else pays on their income taxes, which is outrageous. Even the richest of rich, Bill Ackman hedge fund guy is out there saying, this is a crazy loophole. This should be closed. I don't know how she which is outrageous. Even like the super rich, the richest of rich Bill Ackman hedge fund guy is out there saying,

this is a crazy loophole. This should be closed. Like, I don't know how she carries water. Trump said he was going to close this. I don't even think this provision closes it completely either. It like comes halfway to, which is maybe gives her a space

for to declare victory too. It's also, by the way, like you said, Tommy, it's $14 billion out of $389 billion in the deal. It's 3% of the deal, right? It's not. Now, she said she's going to wait for the parliamentarian to score this, right? The Senate parliamentarian, for everyone who remembers talking about this last year, has to go through and make sure that every provision affects the budget and that there's not provisions in there that don't affect the federal budget.

So the parliamentarian will score the bill, say how much it actually raises, how much it will affect the deficit, how much taxes, all that kind of stuff. There's also like, I think that Sinema basically has agreed to all of these energy provisions in the past. She helped write the prescription drug reform part of this, the ACA subsidy she's on board with.

So it can only be in the taxes. The other big tax part of this bill that we haven't talked about is the corporate minimum tax, which is another crazy thing. Like right now, there are some mega corporations that basically move their profits overseas so they can avoid paying taxes at all, or certainly less than the 21% corporate rate. And this is basically saying, hey, there has to be a minimum 15% tax for all corporations that have over $1 billion in profits. And by the way, and even there, there's still exceptions because they get to take advantage of tax credits. So the question I think

is, can Sinema claim she has successfully prevented the tax increases she claimed she was against because these aren't rate hikes, These are kind of loophole closing policy shifts that she could get behind. Can this not be her making any kind of concessions? Can she claim that? And Republicans are already out because the Joint Committee on Taxation scored this and said, oh, there are some people who make under $400,000 that will feel the impact of this, right? Their taxes won't go up. But what will happen is they're calculating that if some corporation who's paying no taxes now has to pay a minimum tax rate, that they will then have lower wages. They will cut wages for their workers ultimately.

So let's just cut the corporate income tax to zero. Right. It's a ridiculous analysis. It doesn't take into effect the health care subsidies in the bill, the energy subsidies that will help lower people's energy bills, the prescription drug stuff. It doesn't take account any of that, which is ridiculous. They also want to they also know, you know, they're now running around saying abolish the IRS. They don't want anyone, anyone wealthier to pay taxes at all. That is at the core of the Republican opposition to this

bill. They hate when rich people have to pay taxes. They hate it. Can we just, um, merit in one fun thing about this whole mansion of it all and then him going out on all these Sunday shows. Do you notice how Politico and Politico playbook their flagship news product focused not on what he said, but the logistics of doing five Sunday show interviews all at one time on one day, the full Ginsburg, as it used to be known in the early 90s that's what this was the debate i love that we can't we can't do this dumb lame debate about like whether it was technically a full ginsburg and then just dan quoted being like i would say don't do it it's not worth it just raining on their parade they did this for two days two days it was so dumb and boring i come back from vacation i'm reading playbook i'm like what what is going on two days

of of a discussion about the full Ginsburg? You know what? Joke's on me for raising it. Fucking early 90s. No one knows what we're talking about right now. All right. Allen Ginsburg, right? Late Ginsburg. Late 90s. Just kidding. Back to the Republicans in Congress. They are outraged about the deal, but they're not just planning on voting against it.

They want to take revenge on Democrats by voting against other legislation that they previously supported. Most House Republicans just voted against a bipartisan bill that will help the U.S. compete with China for jobs related to the semiconductor industry. Susan Collins told reporters that Senate Republicans might sink the same-sex marriage bill over the Manchin deal. And 25 Republican senators who had previously voted for a bill that would help veterans who've been exposed to burn pits just voted to block the final version of that bill last week. Tommy, what's going on with the burn pits legislation, which has gotten a lot of attention over the last several days? And why do you think Republicans are doing this? Is there a

political reason or are they just morons? So here's the background. The U.S. military on bases abroad in Iraq and Afghanistan would burn trash, basically. That included toxic substances like plastic, rubber, paint, other things that you don't even want to know about. There's a lot of evidence now in research that shows that people who are exposed to the smoke from those burn pits have much higher incidence of cancer and other really nasty medical problems.

And paying for that treatment has created a bureaucratic nightmare for a lot of these veterans. So it had to be solved. It was just grossly unfair. And so Congress finally got it tacked together. They put together a bill that would provide millions of veterans with expedited healthcare and disability payments for these illnesses related to burn pits. In June, that bill passed 84 to 14. Then it went to the House.

They did some technical fix to it, sent it back to the Senate for final passage. And last week, it was 25 or 26, I'm not sure what the exact total was, of Republicans changed their vote and voted against the bill. Pat Toomey, the was 25 or 26, I'm not sure what the exact total was, of Republicans changed their vote and voted against the bill. Pat Toomey, the Republican senator from Pennsylvania, who I don't think coincidentally is retiring, is the one out leading the messaging charge on this. He's trying to claim that he opposed it now because of some budgetary loophole. There are these impenetrable videos from Ted Cruz where he's trying to talk about mandatory versus discretionary

spending. I'm not an expert in this, but none of their arguments make sense. Every single veterans group is calling bullshit on it. It seems like what happened was McConnell was going to hold up the CHIPS bill, this China competition bill, because he didn't want Democrats to do anything via reconciliation, which is how you pass the Manchin-Schumer bill. Then he allowed the CHIPS bill to pass. Then Manchin and Schumer announced their deal on the climate bill, and they got mad. And so McConnell, I guess, had these guys vote against this burn pit legislation. Long story short, this is one of the most substantively outrageous and politically stupid things I've ever seen. It sounds like they might fix it tonight, Monday night. But I just, for the life of me, I can't understand what they're thinking here.

Truly. Love it. Can you? No, I think that they decided to take a dumb vote in a fit of pique and tried to come up with a fig leaf justification for it. That doesn't really work. And ultimately's very very bad politics but because but it's truly some of the worst politics that we've ever seen you just it absolutely these people are dying despicable despicable people are dying within weeks of this vote and so i do think they will they will be for they will be for it very quickly and this will ultimately kind of disappear as a kind of week-long vile gambit.

But that's it. I don't know. It's on us to make it not disappear. But veterans literally sleeping on the Capitol steps as we speak right now will not leave until they get a vote. So Pat Toomey's problem about the $400 billion is whether you put it in the mandatory or discretionary bucket. What that means is, do we make sure that there's this source of funding to help veterans who've been exposed to burn pits every year? Or do every year veterans have to come to Congress and sleep on the steps and hold hearings so they can get it into a budget every year, right? Now, the only thing you can say about Pat Toomey is he's at least had that problem since the beginning. This is why it's 25 or 26. So Pat Toomey had voted

against it before because of this problem, because that's his problem. It's a bullshit problem. That's a problem. The other 25 Republican senators voted fucking for it when the $400 billion was in. Yeah. No, no, no. It does. It helps. No, you want it. You want it to get. I want it to be mandatory. I want it to be funded in the future. But I'm just saying, like, it's not like more money is going to magically be. He's just full of shit is my point. He is totally full of shit, but he's not. But even more full of shit are the other 25 Republican senators who voted for it when it was mandatory spending. it when it was mandatory spending. It's also all the places were like, how could we possibly vote to have mandatory spending for veterans year after year without the ability to cut it to, you know, fund a tax break? I mean, this is all that just the technical reason so that you all know. But to Tommy's point, we have to actually like make the argument here. And the argument ahead of a midterm could not be easier here like you know democrats uh

tried to pass a bill that makes sure that corporations can't move their profits overseas so that they don't pay any taxes at all uh in order to lower people's energy bills and their health care bills and republicans didn't just block it they then to spite democrats voted against a bill to help sick veterans and the's crazy. The other really hard vote was, you know, on the House side, McCarthy whipped like 175 Republicans and forced them to vote against the big China competition bill, which look, there are legitimate policy criticisms of that bill, the reasons you could vote against it. But politically, that's a very hard vote. I also I actually don't understand that decision either,

because it was very clear that it was going to pass either way. They had all been for it before they got before. Look, everyone's been surprised that Democrats have discovered strategy. All right. It's been shocking. It's changed a lot of it's been hard to kind of process for Republicans as much as for us. But, OK, you're pissed that they they they got one over on you and they're going to do this reconciliation deal. You're going to make a point by having some but not all of your members try to stop a bill that's going to pass anyway. I don't know. I think their strategy going back as far as the early Obama days is, you know, the party in power. Democrats are in power. Democrats are in the White House. They're in Congress. We're going to break everything.

We're going to make sure nothing works. We're going to try to stop them. You know, they can't pass anything, blah, blah, blah. And that's going to redound to our political benefit because Joe Biden and the Democrats don't succeed. But I think they went a little too far this time because everyone knows now what they did. for, you know, understandably so like multi hundred billion dollar businesses getting huge tax breaks to create semiconductor manufacturing back home. I think it's good long-term policy to, uh, onshore this kind of manufacturing because it only exists in parts of Asia. Like 22% of it is in Taiwan. And if Taiwan gets invaded, like we're in big trouble, but, um, yeah, I Democrats decided to get in line and say, Nope, we're going to vote for this thing. they voted against protecting american jobs and helping sick veterans that's it there's this there you go that's all you have to know i think it's not good i think it's not good for them it's also like the burn it all down thing doesn't work if you don't have the house and things are getting passed out

of the senate i was just gonna say it doesn't work they didn't succeed they tried to break things they didn't succeed so it got passed and they don't get the political benefit from it because now they voted against protecting American jobs and helping sick veterans. And they'll well, they'll you know, they'll they'll still go around taking, you know, they still take credit for the for the relief bill they didn't vote for. They'll take credit for wherever they can. Infrastructure bill. Yeah, they go home to their projects. They take pictures.

But it's been a it's been a tough week for show show no votes in the Republican House. With just less than 100 days left until the election, there's a decent amount of evidence that the political environment might, might, might be shifting in the Democrats' favor. Our friends over at FiveThirtyEight.com still say Republicans are favored to win the House, though they're now basically tied with Democrats on the generic ballot after being two to three points ahead for the last several months. But in the race to control the Senate, Democrats are now slightly favored to win. FiveThirtyEight has their chances at 56, which is up from just 40 percent on June 1st. All right. With the obvious and important caveat that polls are just a snapshot in time and not always the most accurate snapshot, the movement here is notable. Tommy, what do you think

might be going on with these Senate races? I mean, I think it's you know, you could sort of go race by race and tell the story. I mean, Pennsylvania, there was a poll that had Fetterman up 10 points on Dr. Oz, which I don't believe that's too much, but it was jaw dropping. I think, again, like we talked about, Fetterman's done such a good job of defining Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania. Republicans are really worried about Oz's standing. We'll talk about that more later. In Georgia, Warnock's running a strong race.

He continues to do well. Herschel Walker continues to be a gaffe machine. He won't debate Warnock. There's a bunch of coverage of children out of wedlock and criticizing others for doing the same, lying about working for the FBI. Arizona, we might see Blake Masters win. There's Peter Thiel Stooge, who is a bona fide wacko. He's got a run against Mark Kelly, an astronaut who's very popular. Cortez Masto is looking better in Nevada.

Maggie Hassan is looking better in New Hampshire. There's grumblings about J.D. Vance struggling in Ohio, still probably a tough state, but there's just a lot of individual races are breaking in a better direction. So it just, I think, feels better out there. Love it. What do you think? Yeah. I mean, I think like stepping back from individual races, Roe's overturned and Democrats are putting Republicans on the defensive on marriage equality. The January 6 hearings are a kind of low hum of Republicans being extreme. Gas prices are down a bit. You have a bipartisan gun bill. You have a manufacturing belt. We have this mansion deal. It's not in the polling yet. Hopefully it happens. And news coverage just isn't where it was a few weeks ago. It's still not good and it's never good. few weeks ago. It's still not good and it's never good. But there was a period of time and it was just sort of President Joseph's stock plunge gridlock COVID stock plunge Robinette Biden. You know, say that again. Joseph's stock plunge gridlock COVID stock plunge gas prices, Robinette Biden. I forgot gas prices. Gas prices falling all the time now. You can't get gas prices. So and Dr. Oz sucks. And that's just sort of that took that one off the table a bit.

I think to that point, like Tommy going through the Senate races, there's a difference. The difference between the Senate and the House is as a House candidate, it's really hard to separate yourself from the national political party in the national political environment because these are smaller races and you don't have as much money in them. Senate races are statewide races. There's a lot of money spent on making sure that every voter knows who these Senate candidates are. And that can be a good thing if you're a good candidate, and it can be a bad thing if you're a bad candidate. So candidate quality matters a lot more in Senate races than it does in some of these House races, which is why you can sort of distinguish yourself as John Fetterman has, as Dr. Oz has, in a way that's not helpful to his- Or has, you know, Herschel Walker saying,

how can you accuse me of something I might have done when I was dissociating? That's not like the best message I've ever heard. Also, was I in the FBI? Who knows? Time will tell. Vote to find out. Yeah, it's really hard to deny a thing when you just said it. Yeah.

I was in the FBI. I didn't say that. I love that you mentioned this, but I think the issue environment changing matters too. I was in the FBI. issues that people said they were concerned about. That had obviously been a drag on Joe Biden's and Democrats' approval rating and just sort of the general mood of the country at that point. So the Republicans are a little nervous about this. I would be too. Especially about Pennsylvania. Politico ran a story this weekend that has multiple donors. It's always trouble when you have donors talking to reporters. Yeah, yeah. Love when it's Republican donors, not when it's Democratic donors. Shut up, Democratic donors.

So the story has multiple donors saying that the National Republican Senatorial Committee is, quote, sounding the alarm about Dr. Oz and, quote, freaking everybody out about his bad polling. Why do you think he's doing so poorly, Tommy? And is there anything Democrats can learn from this race or is this a unique situation? What do you think the NRSC alarm sounds like? Like a European fire hydrant, like a smoke detector. Sounds like Ted Cruz motorboating a statue of Margaret Thatcher. Is that allowed? Perfect.

Keep that. It would be funny if you just came up with it. You did a couple and we just kept running the tapes. The Republican alarm is the sound Ben Shapiro makes when he sees a gay kiss in a Marvel movie. It's like this. It's like this. The Republican alarm is the sound of Trump cheering when he realizes he can save on taxes

by burying Ivana on the golf course. That's a dark story. That was dark. Republican alarm is the sound Ginny Thomas makes when she's asked under oath if she was involved in the Dobbs leak okay okay

yeah that's it those are the ones I got that's a true thing if you want any more check out my sub stack I got one for you a rusty bower

sounds like something you looked up in urban dictionary and you don't like how gross and complicated it was how do you know you don't like it

until you try it Tommy how do you know a rusty bower isn't exactly what the doctor ordered you don you know you don't like it until you try it, Tommy? How do you know Rusty Bowers isn't exactly what the doctor ordered? You don't know. You don't know. I like that we just have moved on to Rusty Bowers.

Just moved on to this. Let's talk about that. Before it comes up. I don't care. Yeah, please put this anywhere. I mean, look, Dr. Oz is, he is unique. He's an oppo research staffer's dream.

First of all, don't run for a Senate seat in a state where you are not a resident. That's just a rule of thumb. You gotta live in the place. How insulting is it to the state of Pennsylvania for two people in that primary who are not from there to run for the Senate seat? We'd be for a fucking carpetbagger

if we liked them. Who gives a shit? I mean, listen, it was hard for Hillary Clinton. She had to move there first, though. Like Dr. Still lives in New Jersey. It's hurting him. He should have. He should have moved. It's not just that he's from another state.

It's that there's so much because he's a celebrity. There is so much footage of him just basking in the glow of being a New Jersey resident and talking about how much he loves being from Jersey. Yeah. Like it's today. I mean, also, he's a filthy rich and just wildly out of touch with most of it there's a video the federman team put out today where they have doctor i was saying that it's hard to discern the difference in happiness between someone who makes fifty

thousand dollars and fifty million dollars i don't fucking believe you at all buddy i'd love to learn i would love to be as unhappy as someone who makes fifty million dollars that's just an incredible it's a crazy thing. Honestly, he makes, he makes Mitt Romney seem like a working class hero. Ozzy's so bad. Ozzy's so bad.

They're like, why didn't we go with the hedge fund manager from Connecticut? We should've gone with that private equity guy. Then we'd have a shot. I mean, wait till Dr. Oz wins this. And then everyone plays this back.

Hey, hey, hey, time. Fuck you. I mean, also his campaign is bad. Oz is running a bad campaign. They went to one of the two

like tourist trap cheesesteak joints in Philly and then he tweeted about it like he was, you know, out of visiting from Russia. Like he looked like a foreign, you know, like tourist. And like, it's just,

it gave me flashbacks of like John Kerry eating the cheesesteak with tomato on it in 2004. I was on that campaign at that time. It was not great And like, it's just, it gave me flashbacks of like John Kerry eating the cheesesteak with a tomato on it in 2004. I was on that campaign at that time. It was not great. Well, once you're, it's really, this is why I think, you know, there's the, the Federer campaign has been so good about this because once you tag someone as a tourist, a lot of

what a politician does when they go around taking, they look like a tourist and he's got that fucking rich guy skin. You know, he goes from New Jersey into, into the Upper East Side for all of his treatments. You know, and he just looks ridiculous running for Senate. He made himself look ridiculous. And they got like Fetterman's seat to their great kid. They're hitting all the right notes, right? They were relentless about you being out of town and being out of touch.

Like, here's Dr. Oz kissing his Hollywood Walk of Fame star. But the turn they're making, and you're starting to see it more aggressively, is this guy doesn't give a shit about you, doesn't care about inflation or anything else. He just wants the job. And you know what? Look, if there's a lesson here for other races,

because I agree that, I think both Oz and Fetterman are unique candidates. So you can't just replicate their personalities everywhere else. But we spent a lot of time talking about how republican candidates are a threat to democracy we which we should continue to do we should also probably spend time talking about how republican candidates are like a threat to working people because they're out of touch uh and they care about rich people they're all about to you know they're they're outraged about a bill that's going to make a billion dollar corporations pay a dime

of taxes. This is who the Republican Party has always been. We've always done well when we've run against Republicans like that. And John Fetterman is doing that against Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania. And, you know, the other Republican targets are not going to be as rich in both ways as Dr. Oz. But they'll, you know, their positions are. Fetterman had a stroke and hasn't been able to campaign for months and he's still up 10 points. That is remarkable.

That's a campaign team and staff that is doing incredible work, especially the digital team and the video team. And the two other things, too, I would say is one. Well, Oz's digital team isn't doing any work. They haven't run digital ads in about two months. I don't think it'll help. Two other things. One, they're also just I think having fun they're making the campaign something fun and you'd want to be a part of and we've talked about this many

times nobody wants to be part of a sanctimonious and sour movement they are they are they're making politics seem like something you want to be a part of and they're making the Fetterman team a team you want to be a part of and I think're making the Fetterman team a team you want to be a part of. And I think that's really exciting. And the second point is they have been relentless. And so often, I think one problem Democrats make that Republicans don't, in part because Republicans are served so well by their right-wing propaganda apparatus, is Democrats too often look at polls as something they need to live by rather than something they can potentially change. The Fetterman campaign wanted to make Dr. Oz look out of touch by pointing out the way in which he was a carpetbagger,

making that connection. And they've been relentless and they've made it important. They made it salient. And like finding ways to just drive something, like to be relentless about it until people connect it with the campaign, the candidate, make it important, I think is another lesson.

And they've connected the carpetbagger attack to the out of touch because he's rich attack, right? Which like, because you originally said, if it was just that he was from out of state, I think is another lesson. loses to Fetterman. They're telling donors that their path is to hold Ohio, North Carolina and Wisconsin, flip Nevada, and then flip either Arizona or Georgia. Love it. What do you think? Is that a realistic path? Yeah, it is. Of course it is. We could wait. They can. Dr. Oz can go back to his McMansion and Republicans can still win the Senate is absolutely possible. It is obviously shameful that someone as unfit as Herschel Walker could get within a mile of the United States Senate. But a lot of people who shouldn't get in the mile of a lot of jobs seem to be stumbling into them more and more in politics. So yes, of course that can happen. Of course it can.

Yeah. I actually, my reaction when it was laid out like that was, oh yeah, no, this could, because Nevada is tough and Nevada in in the last couple elections has started drifting in the wrong direction. And I think that Catherine Cortez Masto has a really tough race on her hands. And then I think that, like you said, Mark Kelly and Raphael Warnock are both running great campaigns and they're great candidates, great senators. But both of those, we remember in 2020, both of those states were decided by a razor's margin. So I think it is very realistic that they could do it without Pennsylvania. In a tough political environment and at a time in which even when we're seeing these sort of shifts that make us hopeful about

the polls, can't really trust them. Yeah. And I would say on the other side of that, you know, they sort of assume they'll hold Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin. I don't assume that at all. I think now we have Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin, a very strong candidate. Tim Ryan, a very strong candidate in Ohio. Sherry Beasley, great candidate in North Carolina. So I don't assume that at all. I think now we have Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin, a very strong candidate. Tim Ryan, a very strong candidate in Ohio. Sherry Beasley, great candidate in North Carolina. So I don't think they'll necessarily hold those either. All right, so we'll know more about some of the most important midterm races after today's primaries in Arizona, Missouri, Michigan, Kansas, and Washington State. Tommy, what results will you be most interested in? I am very interested in Arizona.

Rather, I'm very worried about Arizona. Rather, I'm very worried about Arizona. Okay. Because you have really, you know, election deniers and truly fringe candidates sort of up and down the ballot yet. Carrie Lake, the, the Trump appointed, uh, election denier running for governor. Hopefully she will lose that primary, but we don't know. Blake Masters, who is basically, um, you know, Peter teal's ghostwriter is running for the senate seat he's likely to win that uh that primary and then you have a guy named mark fincham who's probably going to be the republican nominee for the arizona secretary of state race who is an election denier and very very bad um so a lot of disconcerting themes there for democracy generally or for the uh ability to run a fair race in 2024 mark fincham

member of the oath keepers yep terrorist fringe group yep bad aha like what i i didn't know that until i was actually reading about this today i read that today too that caught me by surprise unbelievable and then what will become of of course what will become of rusty bowers or the uh the speaker of the of the Arizona House who has primary intelligence. We told the truth to the January 6th committee. Did he flip-flop now? He said he would still vote for Trump. Now he's all over the place.

He had some answer that was sort of left it open. He didn't say... He's a monster. Yeah, he closed the door. Yeah, he closed the door. Missouri, of course. Does Eric Greitens win? Does Trump endorse him? Could be happening right now while we're recording.

I know that Trump was saying he's going to endorse in that race genuinely bad person loving any races you're looking at the look i emotionally i just struggle to pay attention to which right-wing fascist goon is is eking out these primaries i am watching the Kansas referendum on abortion. Obviously, it's important practically because Kansas is a respite and a place people can come from surrounding states. It's really, really important. But also, we will learn a lot about the power of arguing for reproductive freedom and access to abortion at the ballot box by whatever this margin is in Kansas. We'll just learn a lot from it. And on its own, yeah, without any candidate attached. I think it's tough too that you're at the ballot, the language and that amendment, it's really confusing. It's heavily tilted towards the right. Republicans are lying about it. It's very confusing.

So this is a tough, and it's obviously, it's Kansas, by the way, an extremely Republican state. There is a Democratic governor there, but of course, a very Republican state. It's very tough and it's chaotic. It's confused. But whatever the margin is, I think we'll learn something about where people are at on this. And then, you know, you just have to hope. They've spent almost $100 million in Arizona already. $100 million?

Yeah. Crazy. We're truly some of the fringiest candidates in the country i feel like you're rooting for rusty bowers arizona and pennsylvania are having are in competition for swing states with the fringiest right-wing candidates there uh and then there's michigan the mission is the michigan governor's race for the uh the primary there uh there's trump endorsed right-wing media pundit election denier tudor dixon tudor dixon the name yeah who also has the support of the devos family so between trump and the name, who also has the support of the DeVos family.

So between Trump and the DeVos family in a crowded field of nine candidates, we'll see if she can pull it off. All right, so we'll talk about more of those results on Thursday. Also, speaking of the midterms, thank you to the thousands of you who signed up during our 100 Days Out Week of Action. We have now had as many volunteer signups so far this year as we had in all of 2018. Clap it up. That's amazing.

Great job. You guys are amazing, which means that we have the next 99 days to build on those numbers. And unlike 2018, we now have our Vote Save America virtual volunteer community that can help support our volunteers

go above and beyond. So go to votesaveamerica.com slash volunteer. You can learn more. You can sign up. Join Team West. Team East. Midwest. Okay.

Good job, everyone. Good job. Midwest. You can fight for Fetterman. We can help in New Hampshire. I got Arizona. You just heard the problems there. I got Wisconsin.

Okay. Fetterman. Sign up. We'll give you plenty of work to do. Plenty of work to do. We got to stop Doug Mastriano. Not just. Fetterman. Sign up. We'll give you plenty of work to do. Plenty of work to do. We've got to stop Doug Mastriano. Not just tweeting, you know. Sign up.

Yeah, a lot of you haven't yet. Shame on you. Lovett, you were not at the Portland show, but you would have yelled at so many people. We did a game, an audience game, and we said, only raise your hand if you signed up for Vote Save America. And then a bunch of people raised their hands and we were like, what region are you in? And they're like, well, I'm signing up tomorrow. Yeah, signing up tomorrow, yeah. All right. When we come back, Lovett talks to Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin

about protecting same-sex marriage and democracy. Joining us now, she is a senator from Wisconsin and the first openly gay person elected to the United States Senate, currently working to pass the Respect for Marriage Act. Senator Tammy Baldwin, welcome to the pod. I am so glad to join you. So let's talk about the Respect for Marriage Act. Where does the bill stand right now? You need 10 Republicans on board. How many have agreed to support it? What's next? We need 10 Republicans to avoid a filibuster.

And probably we need a couple more than that to avoid the situation where every senator can be identified as the deciding vote. So, you know, it would be great to have 11 or 12. Right now, we have five who have publicly stated that they will vote for the Respect for Marriage Act. And we have several others who are in that category of having publicly proclaimed that they support marriage equality, but are only privately sharing with me and others where they're leading or where they are on the Respect for Marriage Act. And, you know, when that's the case, and they haven't said it out loud, you have to be a little cautious. So I feel like we're at 10, but we're not a lot, we don't have a lot more than that. And so a big question is, do we need to firm that up a little bit more? And instead of debating it this week, maybe kick it till after the August recess? Or can we can we fit it in the end of the week because we have the votes firmed up?

Can we fit it in the end of the week because we have the votes firmed up? So there's been some talk, I believe Senator Susan Collins mentioned this, that the compromise between Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer might make it harder to pass a bill protecting marriage equality. Why would increasing rebates for electric cars make Republicans more anti-gay? And isn't the whole point of being a Republican that they're gay for corporations? So the issues should have nothing to do with each other. And we should be adult enough in the United States Senate to be able to separate votes of conscience from votes about the economy and votes about other matters. But I have heard repeated more than once since the reconciliation agreement was reached that this has poisoned the well, if you will. You know, I just don't buy it.

I believe that if you were going to support the Respect for Marriage Act last week, you should be in support of the Respect for Marriage Act this week. So one thing that's been surprising is some of the yeses. And also when compared to some of the noes, I was surprised to see your colleague Ron Johnson say he was for it. Because technically speaking, I consider him one of the Senate's biggest dipshits. But so then you have someone, you have to acknowledge that. And then we saw Marco Rubio claim this thing was a waste of time, even though voting yes and no take the

same amount of time. Do you think he was frustrated when the elevator door closed after he said that to find himself trapped in there with the Senate's only lesbian? So to be absolutely accurate, he said it was a stupid waste of time. That's right. And then turned to his right and saw me standing there looking at him as the elevator door is closed. And I told him, very frankly, why I believe it's important to act and why it's important to give people in interracial marriages and same-sex unions the certainty that every other couple enjoys, every other married couple enjoys, because of how significant the legal rights and responsibilities conferred with marriage really are to protecting one's family. He pushed back, and you know, these are not the first conversations I've had on this issue,

and said, you know, the court is not poised to overturn Obergefell. I don't believe they will. But there is a lot of reason why we should be giving folks certainty. And frankly, for those Republicans who have been applauding the overturning of Roe versus Wade and have been seeing how anxious their constituents are about losing access to the rights and responsibilities of marriage, you know, this would be a great way of assuring your constituents that you are still for some freedoms. Well, what I don't understand about that is, okay, Clarence Thomas, who everyone now is recognizing as someone who is kind of on the vanguard of where these right wing extreme judges eventually go, is saying he wants to turn to these issues next.

Rubio just says privately, oh, don't worry, this isn't going to happen. What is the cost of passing this bill to him? I mean, that's a dodge. What's the cost? What's the harm? Well, one of the things I've observed during all of these discussions I've had with Republicans who I think should be supportive because they have said at one time or other, I don't think that I have a colleague of either party who doesn't now know someone who is married. Maybe it's the neighbor. Maybe it's a relative. Maybe it is an old friend from college. Maybe it's somebody they go to church or synagogue with. But this is now accepted and commonplace among American voters. And so they should have every reason to show that they're not on the fringe.

And, you know, if people in same-sex marriages are concerned about the certainty of their marriage, it's not only because of what Clarence Thomas wrote in his concurrence. It's because the majority of the Supreme Court said there is not a constitutional right to privacy. And there are numerous cases that have been decided on the constitutional right to privacy. Contraception, Lawrence, Obergefell. And so we need to shore these up. We need to tell people across this country that they do not need to live in fear. So the House has passed a few bills on some of those issues. There's been a lot of hope on part of people watching this saying, let's get these Republicans in the Senate on the record

on a bunch of these issues where they've kind of taken an extreme position on contraception, on access to abortion, on the right to travel, which there was a vote on, on a host of other issues. Is the lesson so far on this process, on the Respect for Marriage Act, that we should be taking more of these votes when you get these senators on the record? You know, for me, this effort to get 10 or more Republican vote yes is about getting the job done. And there are many issues on which I love to be able to bring a vote forward and show whose side people are on. You know, are you on the side of tens of millions of women

who have just lost fundamental freedoms and have fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers? But on this one, I've told all the Republicans that I'm working with and talking to, I just want to pass this and get rid of the fear and uncertainty. And I have no, I'm not playing any games. I certainly think that there are some of the opponents who are playing games, but I want to get this done. I'm very serious about it. So I was thinking about Marco Rubio dodging this in an elevator in part because I think

his current position is unpopular. His current position is that Obergefell was wrongly decided that we should be appointing Supreme Court justices that would overturn it. It's remarkable how quickly this has changed. You were the first openly lesbian member of the Wisconsin Assembly. People might not know this, that you proposed legalizing same-sex marriage in 1994, which was a radical thing to do at the time. This is at a time in which you are pushing back against don't ask, don't tell, even having gay people being allowed to openly serve in the military. How does it feel to have been in elective office during this immense period of change on this issue? Boy, it feels great to have seen the slow march of progress on this. I had this feeling back in the mid-90s when I was in the

state legislature working on this. And I was doing this in parallel track with back then domestic partnership proposals and civil unions. I just wanted ways for gay and lesbian couples to be able to protect their families. And I think too often when we say the word marriage, we think of the marriage ceremony, but we don't think about access to a loved one's bedside if they're gravely ill or injured. And we don't think about many of the rights and responsibilities that flow with that marriage certificate and subsequent marriage. that flow with that marriage certificate and subsequent marriage. So I wanted tools for people to be able to protect their families.

And I believed, maybe naively, that I would see that in my lifetime. Now, would it happen through the legislative action, happen through the courts, a combination of both, which was actually sort of the slow march to this point. It was sort of all of the above. And we took a lot of steps backwards before we took steps forward. By that, I mean, many states had constitutional amendments, like my home state of Wisconsin, that banned same-sex marriage and defined marriage only as a union between a man and a woman. If Obergefell were struck, we would have the federal law of the land would be the Defense of Marriage Act. And the state law of the land in my home state of Wisconsin would be a constitutional amendment that excluded same-sex couples. And it would be chaos, kind of like it has been with Roe

versus Wade being overturned and people needing to leave their states to access fundamental freedoms and control their own bodies, in this case, be able to protect their own families. And we cannot let that happen. And the Respect for Marriage Act is the way we prevent that. So you just described a lot of these progressive fights that you've been a part of for the better part of three decades. You just endorsed Wisconsin's Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes in his campaign to be a senator. You're a progressive senator. It is a competitive state. He has a tough race. You're familiar with those. What is your advice for Mandela Barnes heading into the fall? Well, I am so excited that even before the primary

has happened, that he's our presumptive nominee and can focus now on defeating Ron Johnson. Ron Johnson. For those of your podcast enthusiasts who don't know, of the leading four candidates, three have suspended their campaigns and endorsed Mandela Barnes. And for those who want to know more and want to do more, they can come to Wisconsin and knock doors and sign up at medellabarnes.com or even wisdems.org. But we have a tough campaign ahead of us, despite the fact that Senator Ron Johnson is viewed as the most vulnerable incumbent of either party in the U.S. Senate. He's sort of been in that place before, six years ago, and squeaked through his, squeaked out an election victory. So we need to be ready. We need to respond to all the attacks that will inevitably come towards Democrats and towards our nominee in particular, but strike back because, you know, whether it's Ron Johnson being, asking Mike Pence if he can deliver an envelope full of fake

electors from Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, or claiming all sorts of snake oil can solve the COVID problem or denying that Russia interfered with our 2016 elections or touting the big lie. And I'm just getting started here. We've got to we've got to win. And I'm very excited that we get a little head start on the general election. that we can get a little head start on the general election. Hard to come up with a better upgrade in 2022 than Ron Johnson to Mandela Barnes. It is hard to do better in terms of improving the representation that a state would have. So one reason Ron Johnson has been able to hold his Senate seat is in part because Republicans have done a lot to make it harder for people to vote and have done a lot to try to hold on to power. And a lot of people see the anti-democratic moves Republicans have used in Wisconsin

on gerrymandering, other power plays as a harbinger about what we're seeing now nationally. What have you learned in fighting to not just win elections, but defend democracy itself in Wisconsin that we should be thinking about as these fights play out in other states and nationally? So first, as we come up to the midterms, it's not just an open U.S. Senate seat, but our governor, our lieutenant governor, our attorney general, our secretary, our state treasurer, all of those statewide races are in play. And we need a governor with a veto pen because it's our overwhelmingly Republican legislature that has been trying to pass legislation in order to make it more and more difficult for people to vote. Next year, we'll have a Supreme Court election, which will be critical in terms of what sort of rulings the state Supreme Court

hands down on access to the ballot box and the freedom to vote in our state. But I also think that one of the best organizing tactics is to tell people the various ways in which people, Republicans, are trying to make it harder for you to vote and make people realize it's them that they want to stay home. And, you know, gosh darn it, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go to the polls and nothing's going to keep me. Not pouring rain, not snow, not COVID, as you've seen Wisconsinites do time and time again. But it's going to be especially essential this time. We also have to sort of think about what alternative, what the alternative could look like, making it much easier for people to vote absentee or vote early, to be able to plan their vote and not have to worry about child care. And all of these things, plus a host of other campaign finance reforms,

would really bolster our democracy. And it is on the line. It is on the line. So last question, the Beer Institute named you the 2022 Beer Champion. Congratulations. Thank you. I don't know if it's some sort of tour you go on. I have a trophy that's in the shape of a tapper. Unfortunately, it's just a trophy. And so when I move the tapper, nothing comes out. But I'm very, very proud. So I have this feeling, I have this worry that you are one of those people that likes

IPAs. Is that right? This worry? IPAs are great! I knew it. This is a gay lesbian thing. I knew you were going to like IPAs are great. I knew it. This is a gay lesbian thing. I knew you were going to like IPAs. It's a bitterswill, and everybody knows that,

and more and more people are talking about it, and more and more people are saying it. And so you're going to come on this show, and you're going to say IPAs are drinkable. That's something you're going to say. They're delicious, I'm going to say. Delicious. Okay.

Okay. Okay. That's just something you're going to put out in the world, with everything else that we're dealing with. Okay. Okay. That's just something you're going to, that's something you're going to put out in the world with everything else that we're dealing with. Yeah. And we don't have to get into the history of IPA and why it tastes like it does, but, um, yeah, there was a, there was a person who said, I've already having fun here. I have a different idea. I have a, you like, do you like something, um, that goes down smooth or you want something that tastes like, uh, uh, a burnt tire was dropped into a bud light.

That's how I feel about it. Wow. Those are fighting words. I can't wait. Senator Tammy Baldwin, thank you so much for being here. And look, everybody has different tastes. By the way, you know, there's a whole bunch of microbreweries in Wisconsin. There's a lot of beers that you can't get here. You can only get in Wisconsin, but I will be bringing you a spotted

cow, which is not an IPA, but the same brewer also makes something called Moonman, which is an IPA. And we can celebrate micro brews in Wisconsin and we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. Listen, we'll get to the bottom of it. All right. We'll agree to disagree. Thank you so much, Senator. Thank you. Thank you to Tammy Baldwin for joining us today. And we'll talk to you Thursday. Hot Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.

Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein. Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer. 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 Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.