Pod Save America - “Darkest before a deal.”

Episode Date: October 21, 2021

Democratic officials express optimism about a potential deal on Joe Biden’s economic plan, journalist Amy Westervelt from the climate podcast Hot Take joins to talk about whether we can still save the planet with Joe Manchin in the Senate, and Dan and Jon discuss why reporters are whining that President Biden's not taking more questions from them.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 Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, Democratic officials express optimism about a potential deal on Joe Biden's economic plan. Journalist Amy Westervelt from the climate podcast Hot Take joins to talk about whether we can still save the planet with Joe Manchin in the Senate. And as the president prepares to take questions from voters at tonight's CNN town hall, reporters are whining that he's not taking more questions from them. Two quick notes before we start. Check out the final episodes of 544 Days,

where host and journalist Jason Rezaian remains in prison as the clock ticks down on the possible nuclear deal between Iran and the Obama administration. Find out how Jason finally escaped after being wrongfully accused of being an American spy. Listen and follow for free only on Spotify. Also, we need your help. Vote Save America is working to raise one and a half million dollars through our No Off Years Fund. Donations will go to help voter registration efforts in states where reaching new voters will help make the difference in our ability to win next year and beyond, places like Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. We've raised over $270,000 so far, and we're almost halfway to our goal of

reaching $600,000 by the end of October, but that's quite a goal. We need your help. Help us get there by heading to votesaveamerica.com slash donate. All right. Hey, hold on. Hold, hold, hold, hold, hold. Is there no offline with Jon Favreau promo in this episode? You know, it wasn't in my marketing materials, Dan. No, I did the, I did, I did the offline promo. I did the offline promo on Monday. I know people, you got to hammer at home repetition. You think people run a commercial once and then just hope people buy their product? No, people, you got to hammer it home. Repetition. You think people run a commercial once and then just hope people buy their product? No, go listen to Offline.

It comes out Sunday. It is an idea. I am very angry that John came up with and I didn't because it is phenomenal. So go listen. It's gonna be awesome. Thank you, Dan. See, Dan's sold a bunch of books.

You're a big book guy. So you know what it takes to pitch. Yeah, don't you wait. But yeah, I know. Yeah, offline offline is coming out this sunday the first episode is with uh gia tolentino it is fantastic we talk about um why the internet has driven us crazy g is very smart on this she's written an entire book on it so um check it out sunday morning offline it's right in the pod to save america feed a lot of people have been asking how to subscribe don't worry about it if you're Pod Save America subscriber, it'll be in your phone first thing Sunday morning. So you are good

to go. All right, let's get to the news. And for once, it may actually be good. Democrats from every wing of the party are starting to sound hopeful that a deal may be near on Joe Biden's economic plan. The reporting is still all over the place in terms of what's in and what's out. There are still some pretty big issues to resolve that we will talk about in a second. And obviously, the final deal will not include everything that most of us, most of us care, elder care, housing, infrastructure and climate change paid for by taxes on the rich. Again, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have killed a lot of important shit and continue to be very annoying. Um, but, uh, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, who was on the show the other week, uh, was just saying yesterday that the progressive caucuses priorities are still in the bill. And, uh, our friend Senator Brian Schatz told reporters yesterday, I haven't seen this much optimism since right before we passed the American rescue plan.

What do you think, Dan? Are we all jinxing it? Uh, would you like to, would you like to rain on this parade? I woke up today and chose optimism. That's my thing today. Tomorrow could be something else. But for right now, I chose optimism. Yeah, I am not going to rain on anyone's parade. I'm not going to do that today. I know that is a thing I tend to do. Look, I think we I think the tone the Democrats are using is right, which is it feels like for the first time in months, the car is moving forward. We are going somewhere. We don't know where that is. So it's not it's not in the ditch.

It's not in the ditch. No one. No one listening to this knows. No one even producing this show is old enough to even know that wine that you masterminded and made so popular. Just Google, Google car ditch Obama. You'll find what we're talking about. Anyhow, I knew when I was doing this, I was stepping in it with the car metaphor. Either way, it seems like we are, when you and I did this podcast one week ago today, we were going nowhere fast. And now it feels like there is some momentum

behind the idea that something has to get done. People are finally having real discussions about what's in what's out. They're making decisions. The obstinate ones are coming to terms with the fact that something is going to move and they're going to have to figure out where they want to draw the line and where not. And, you know, a lot of the progressives who, you know, not even just progressives, the vast majority of the party who had perhaps, I include myself on this list, naive hopes about what we were going to convince Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to do are coming to terms with the fact we're not going to get everything we want. So these things have a feel to them. There's a rhythm to them. And right now we feel like we're in the moment where we have sort of stared political apocalypse in the face and we're beginning to move forward. A lot of distance to go here, but progress. A little darkest before the dawn action. Why do you think it's happening now? Like, why do you think Democrats are finally getting serious about this and making progress? Well, we're running out of time, right? The clock is ticking. I think when the combination of Joe Manchin saying in some way, shape, or form that he's against a clean energy standard and Kyrsten Sinema saying that in some way, shape, or form, which I know we'll talk about this a little bit later, against a whole bunch of

the most popular and important parts of the bill, now it's sort of like now we know the ground on which we're going. I think there is – the president has gotten more engaged. He is heading abroad soon. He sort of has created a deadline to try to get something done, which I think is very important. I think people are starting to feel pressure about Virginia. You've had both Terry McAuliffe and Senator Mark Warner making a push to get the bipartisan infrastructure bill done before the Virginia election in a couple of weeks. And I think people are looking at the polls in Virginia and are quite concerned.

And so you sort of feel a desire that what we have been doing is not working. So we've got to try something else. And that's actually trying to get something done. Yeah. Three big deadlines all within days of each other. October 31st, money for transportation runs out. And so if the infrastructure bill isn't passed by then, you actually could get into some issues where, you know, roads and bridges that are currently being fixed run out of funding and

they would have to, you know, they'd have to reauthorize more temporary funding, which means another vote in Congress, which is a pain in the ass. So that's October 31st. November 1st, the next day, is the beginning of the climate summit in Glasgow. And then the next day, November 2nd, is the Virginia election. So, yeah, might want to get things wrapped up before those big deadlines. And I do think you're right about Joe Biden's involvement. Wrapped up before those big deadlines. And I do think you're right about Joe Biden's involvement.

What do you make of that whole thing? Because, you know, the White House is like, well, he's been involved the entire time. Democrats in Congress are like, well, he's sort of been involved, but he's been really involved lately. And that's really helped. Like, what do you think? What do you make of all that? Here's one thing I know from our time in the White House is that whenever things aren't going well in the Congress, it's always the president's fault. He's either too involved. He's not involved enough. He's golfing too much. Why isn't he golfing with members of Congress? Like, I don't know. The problem here ultimately was, there's like a pyramid of blame. It's like when things aren't going well in Congress, it's the, it's the White House's fault within the White House. When things aren't going well, then, then it the White House's fault. Within the White House, when things aren't going well, then it's the communications team fault. Yes.

So first, the Congress blames the White House, the policy people in the White House blame the comms team, and the comms team blames the press. Yeah. At the end of the day- Which is actually the correct place to lay all the blame yes at the end of the day everything and i mean everything is politico's fault yeah anywho anyway but you were you were saying something about biden yeah something somewhere about biden yes um yeah i think he's got more involved for sure and i think it's because this was the moment to get involved you can't there's, I'm sure he was way more involved than he was getting credit for before. But it was impossible to have a real brass tacks conversation about what to do when you don't know the parameters of what can be done. And Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin were setting the parameters of what came in.

And Kyrsten Sinema, in particular, according to the reports, has been very vague and frankly, quite unavailable for very important discussions about the future of the planet in recent weeks. It seems now that because of these deadlines, because we're sort of running out of runway here, everyone is getting in a room together. We're sort of past the part of performance and leverage making and all of that. We're just people are sitting in a room. And this is one thing that you and I know probably work with that Joe Biden is very, very good at. This was sort of his value proposition as a candidate, was that he could get in a room and he could get things done. Now, in some versions of that argument, it was Democrats and Republicans. And to his credit, he did do that on the BIF, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework. But here,

it's like even almost perhaps harder than brokering a deal between Schumer, Pelosi, McCarthy, and McConnell, maybe brokering one deal between Schumer, Pelosi, McCarthy and McConnell, maybe brokering one between Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema and the rest of the Democrats. And, you know, and so it's it's happening. And I think we're going to see where we go from here. Yeah. And you're hearing this from members of Congress, not just from us about Biden's negotiating skills here. Punchbowl News did sort of a rundown of some quotes from different members of Congress coming out of various meetings this week. Representative Mark Pocan, who is a progressive member of Congress from Wisconsin, he said, I got to admit, as a guy who traveled three states for

Bernie Sanders, I'm impressed. Biden does most of his stuff behind the scenes. He only brings something to the public when he has to bring it to a public fight. And then from the other wing of the party, Jon Tester, who's more moderate, said, you know, I think I told you all that nothing has happened in the last 10 days. I think Biden has done a lot in the last 10 days. I just wasn't aware of it. So I think we're getting to a point where we can move pretty well. We're not where we need to be yet, but we're getting pretty close. And I just read those, especially Tester's quote, because I think as you're trying to, as you're reading the coverage of this fight and these negotiations over the next few weeks, just keep in mind that the incentive for reporters is to highlight as much conflict as possible.

a lot of these pieces and headlines that make it seem like everything is falling apart because that's how reporters want to write the story because more conflict gets more clicks, you know? And that's just, and even if they're not thinking about clicks, that's just their natural tendency to gravitate towards the conflict. That's not an interesting story to say, yeah, a lot of progress was made behind the scenes today, the end, right? They're going to highlight all of the differences and conflicts, but you should know that, you know, as Tester thought, like, he's a member of Congress. He didn't think a lot of progress was being made. And sure enough, behind the scenes, a whole bunch of progress was being made. So there is a lot probably happening that we are not aware of that could be positive. And this is one of the incredibly hard parts about whenever a White House

and a president is involved in trying to pass a difficult piece of legislation, particularly when you are passing that piece of legislation entirely through your own party on a party line vote, is there is an unsolvable incongruity between legislating and messaging. Legislating is often done in quiet. It's also done having to highlight some of the dumbest things to associate yourself with Congress, which is incredibly unpopular under all – like for history. Three decades running, yeah. Yeah, forever it has been incredibly unpopular. And hanging out with unpopular people tends to make you unpopular. And so Biden has been doing all this work and he couldn't talk about it because if he did talk about it, it would decrease his chance of passing the bill.

And ultimately, when you are – he's playing the long game here, which is a – he can either score some short-term political points or messaging points now and put the ultimate goal of passing the bill at risk, or he can take some water on in turbulent seas and hopefully get to port. I'm going to do a lot of transportation metaphors this week, but you get what I'm saying. How much detail do we know right now about what's still in the bill and what might have fallen out?

Well, we'll talk about this with Amy, but the vaguest part thus far is the climate provisions. It seems that we, other than knowing that Joe Manchin has an opposition to the clean energy standard, we don't know what else they're going to do, what else they can agree on, what other things he's opposed to, what other things other people may be opposed to are. We know that. And it's interesting on that, on the climate thing. So you're right. We don't know. thing so you're right we don't know and yet what we are hearing is um one the white house keeps saying it remains the biggest part of the bill so the most whatever however much money they're

going to spend on this the most money is being spent on climate and the bill still even after the mansion killing the clean electricity performance program and we also know a bunch of progressives and moderates, because this is an issue that unites just about every Democrat in Congress, except for basically just Joe Manchin. Kyrsten Sinema is on board with the climate stuff, too. We know from them that they're like, well, we're not going to support a bill that doesn't still meet President Biden's goal of reducing emissions 50 percent by 2030. And so somehow, everyone still believes there, and we're going to talk about this with Amy, that they're going to find a mix of policy that could

go in this economic plan that passes Congress and executive actions that still gets to Biden's goal of reducing emissions 50% by 2030, which, you, which he really wants and needs ahead of Scotland. And everyone has an incentive because they live on the planet to get there and politically to ensure that they believe that that is what is going to happen, right? Correct. So some of what we know in and out is, so let's talk about, we'll put aside the revenue or the pay-fors or how we're going to pay for this bill for one second. What it seems like is in the debate between do a few things permanently or a few things fully funded, they're leading to doing as many things as possible over a shorter time horizon.

For example, the child tax credit, instead of being made permanent or for five years or 10 years, could be just for two years and have it come up for expiration right before the presidential election. We know that instead of permanently funding the Affordable Care Act, it looks like it's going to be a three-year funding most likely. And all of these numbers depend on, you can only spend as much as you can raise. And we haven't figured out what tax increases there are going to be. We haven't figured out yet whether whether if any version of Medicare negotiating prescription drug prices will be in there, which is one of the biggest raisers because it actually makes money because the government saves so much money on prescription drug costs. So everything is very

fluid. We know that he's prioritizing child care and early childhood over higher education in the funding. We know that Medicare expansion is still on the table, although it may take a different form and not be as robust as Bernie Sanders and some of the progressives have wanted. One example being discussed is a debit card for Medicare recipients for dental. It gives them a certain amount of money to spend on dental as opposed to just changing the benefit program to cover dental just as a regular benefit in the plan. So there's a lot of moving pieces, but it seems like we're trying to get as much of Biden's agenda in either a less generous form, and I hate to use the term generous, but less generous form over a shorter time horizon than was originally planned. This is all very hard to do because you're cutting the funding total from 60%,

in some cases, depending on the math. Yeah, it seems like the only things that are completely out of the bill are the clean energy performance program that Manchin killed and free two years of community college, and that everything else is reduced. But in the bill still, universal preschool still on the bill, which would be hugely transformative paid family leave. But again, there they're talking about now four weeks of paid family leave instead of 12 weeks. You mentioned that another year or two of the child tax credit, some kind of expanded Medicare benefits for seniors. Expanded Medicaid is still in their lower Obamacare premiums. But as you said,

funded for three years. And then a couple hundred billion each for home health care, child care, affordable housing are all still reportedly in the bill. And the big question marks are prescription drugs, as you mentioned, and also immigration, which is interesting because, you know, Pramila Jayapal has been saying there were five important priorities for progressives. And as of yesterday, she said, I'm happy to report that all of them are still in the bill, you know, reduced funding, but they're all still in there. And immigration is one of those.

And so people seem to think that there's still going to be something done on immigration. And yet I don't quite know how that's going to happen if the parliamentarian has ruled out two immigration proposals already. But people still seem hopeful on immigration. Yeah, I'm very curious to get some details on what that would be. Is it funding for some programs that could make our immigration system more humane? Is it something around DREAMers? A lot of the things that are really incredibly important we need to do have been nixed by the parliament term. I don't know if there's a chance to rewrite them and go back at it. So I'm very, very curious

to hear and see where that goes. There were multiple reports yesterday that Sinema has said she won't support any increases in the individual or corporate tax rates. How do Democrats pay for pay for the bill without raising tax rates? Great question, John. It gets really hard really fast. A couple of things that are on the table reportedly, and this is another one where the reporting is all over the map about what Sinema is for and what she's against and how hard the line is drawn in various places. information at any moment here, but some of the things that are being talked about are some esoteric changes in how capital gains are calculated, something called mark-to-market. I would not even bother to try to explain how that works. Some taxes on billionaires, that there are some other raisers. We might get a wealth tax. We might get a wealth tax in here. Elizabeth Warren, a version of Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax is seriously being discussed.

Ron Wyden in the Senate was calling it in a billionaire's income tax, but it would be some kind of tax on billionaires assets that looks like a more moderate version of Warren's wealth tax. I'm very skeptical that this is something Kyrsten Sinema is going to sign off on, but who knows? We'll see. Who knows? Democrats are also likely to, and I 100% endorse this, adopt the dynamic scoring plan that Republicans used on their tax cut, which is a way where you factor in predicted economic growth and therefore additional tax revenues to make the bill paid for, something we hammered Republicans for,

and they did without any fear of political consequences. And so this is what we have to do to save the planet. That is a norm I am okay running over. Yeah, they're also talking about instead of an increase in the corporate tax rate, you know, Biden's been talking a lot and Democrats have for years about how there are many multinational corporations that pay zero dollars in taxes because they fucking take all these deductions. And so you have these like multi-billion dollar companies and then they don't pay anything in taxes. So there would be a minimum corporate tax of 15% so that no corporation could get away with paying zero dollars in taxes. Of course, it's a great idea that that would be great to do it. Also thinking about a tax on corporate stock buybacks, where corporations just buy back their

stocks to help increase the value of their their stock price, which is also bullshit. So look, there's there's a lot of good ideas out there about how to pay for this that would still hit the very richest Americans. But you don't raise the individual income tax rate or the corporate tax rate. When I say raise, I mean, just restore them to what they were before the Trump tax cuts. You're leaving a, A, you're leaving a lot of money on the table. B, it's fucking politically stupid because there's few more, there's few ideas more popular than raising taxes on the 1% in big corporations, except for, I don't know, letting Medicare negotiate for cheaper prescription drug prices, which is also becoming a problem,

thanks to fucking Kyrsten Sinema. So it's really disappointing, the tax stuff. Happy that they're going to be able to pay for the bill because a lot of the investments in the bill are critically important and would change a lot of people's lives. But in terms of doing something serious about economic inequality in this country, you can all thank Kyrsten Sinema and remember that in 2024 when she tries to maybe run for office again. I mean, she alone, Joe Manchin, 100% on board with restoring the corporate tax rate to what it was when Donald Trump was president. Kyrsten Sinema alone is standing in the way of a substantively correct, morally important, politically potent issue and making everything harder for everyone. And it is so infuriating because it's based on nothing.

It is nothing. There is, you know, we, you know, we did a whole thing on the show a few, a month ago or so about centrist versus moderates. I actually think that centrist is now an incorrect way to describe Kyrsten Sinema. Because centrism is a political strategy, one that we think is outdated and incorrect, but it's a political strategy. It's the idea that if I act a certain way, I will get elected. That is not what she is doing. I think the way to describe Kyrsten Sinema is, I was so struck by this, which is a few weeks ago, Howard Bryant, who's the sports reporter, quoted someone in the NBA describing Kyrie Irving, the NBA star who won't get the vaccine, but is an anti-vaccine. He also is unwilling to admit their earth is round, called Kyrie Irving a contrarian without a cause. And I think that is the perfect way to describe Kyrsten Sinema. Because you know what? Kyrsten Sinema voted against Donald Trump's tax cuts in 2018. She put out a statement decrying

them for being a giveaway to the rich and corporations and bad for Arizona families. rich in corporations and bad for Arizona families. And then in 2018, she voted to make the individual rates at the lower Trump rate permanent. And now she is opposing returning the corporate rate to where she thought it should have been two years ago or four years ago, whatever it is. It makes no sense. It's illogical. There is no policy to it. There's no principle to it.

It flies in the face of good politics. It is truly baffling. And it is going to cost the party dearly. It's going to hurt what we can fund. It's going to hurt our ability to win elections. It's only going to hopefully hurt her ability to win another election. And it is wild. Like Manchin, I can understand. I hate it. I disagree with it. Some of his policies are dumb and cruel and self-defeating, but I can kind of put myself in his shoes and understand why he does that. Kyrsten Sinema is just like, she wakes up every day, throws a dart at a board just to see who she can annoy that day. And maybe her plan in 2024 is to just, I don't know, become a lobbyist and ride off into

the sunset which you know that's that that's possible but if she wants to run for office again let me tell you i'll be i'll be the i'll be first in line contributing to that primary opponent i just you know someone someone on twitter asked me this morning like because i was asking about the tax revenue stuff and it's like how are are you not expressing more rage about Kyrsten Sinema? And I was like, look, I don't know that it's really productive to express a lot of rage right now. I will be trying my hardest to get even

when 2024 rolls around and we find a primary opponent for him. That's what I'm going to do. You know, like nothing else I can do now except to scream about it into a microphone, which doesn't really seem to be helping. I mean, it helps me. It's cathartic for me personally it helps me it's cathartic

for me personally yeah it's not moving the ball forward for anyone else no she's not listening um all right let's allow ourselves to uh dream for a second and pretend this thing gets passed joe biden's average approval rating is dog shit right now it is 43 percent um huge majorities of voters are pessimistic about the economy and the direction of the country. There will be plenty of Democrats disappointed that a lot of important proposals got cut. There will be independents and Republicans who think the price tag is too high. And then there will be plenty of people, probably most people who have no fucking idea what's in the bill. What are the challenges of selling this thing and how should Biden and Democrats go about it?

The problems of selling this or the challenges of selling this are immense. And I would just note, what is worse than dog shit? I don't know. Well, because Donald Trump's approval ratings were worse than Joe Biden's at this point. So I just want to know where we are on the shits. They were worse than this. And then he came within like 40,000 votes of winning. So yeah like that's they were worse they were worse than they were worse than this and then he uh and then he came within like 40 000 votes of winning so yeah that's it yeah yeah i mean it's something to think about that's right don't despair people we too could be once we know one

overly compliant secretary to stay away from getting back into the white house oh my god look this is incredibly hard like we said this before no one would ever do your climate agenda your health care agenda your jobs agenda your tax reform agenda all in the same bill like that makes no sense by the way dan i i saw some a bunch of reporters and other people have been saying this this week like why did democrats choose to do this all in one bill why did democrats choose to do i'm are you, how fucking dumb are you? Like Democrats didn't choose to do this all in one bill. We had no choice.

The only way you could pass all this was through reconciliation because it requires 51 votes and doesn't require getting rid of the filibuster, which Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema won't let us to do. It was do it all in one bill or do nothing. That was the choice. It's like, learn, spend five minutes learning something. Or just remember something from two months ago. Two months ago.

You don't have to tweet something you don't know anything about. Unless it's about sports, then feel free. And so I think the choice that Biden, the White House, members of Congress, the larger democratic political apparatuses are going to have to make is in a world of large but finite resources, how much are we spent telling people what we have done and how much do we spend telling people what Republicans might do or will do if they get back into power?

And it's a big choice because there's a lot of evidence in recent years, and particularly in this year in particular, that voters are voting for reasons that are very disconnected from what may be their individual economic self-interest. As we've said before, Joe Biden mailed a check to like 100 million people, and his approval rating did not go up. That's not to say something about Joe Biden or checks or anything like that. The checks are incredibly popular. It's just said about where people are entrenched in politics. And that is sort of how I feel.

I think we have to get this bill done. It is the right thing to do for the world. It is a way to go to our voters and our volunteers and our donors and say, see, it was worth it. I think that's incredibly important. You have to sell it the world. It is a way to go to our voters and our volunteers and our donors and say, see, it was worth it. I think that's incredibly important. You have to sell it to them. But the best of the opportunity that comes from passing this bill is that we can focus on the fucking Republicans again, because they are being pushed off the stage. They're not being paid attention to. They are just undermining elections, pushing anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, and they're all doing it. And no one's noticing because for for I think what are not necessarily incorrect reasons, the bulk of political coverage is on

whether Democrats can pass Joe Biden's agenda. And when that is done, we can hopefully move the spotlight back to them. I would also say that the out party wants to make elections about a referendum on the party in power, right? So Republicans want to make this the midterm, a referendum on Joe Biden's performance in office. They're already doing it, right? If you're the party in power, you want to turn it into a choice. We've talked about this before. And so I do think talking about the Republicans have done and will do, and then contrasting it with what you have done and will do is also an important part of the equation. So for example, say they get the child tax credit into the bill and they extend it for a couple of years.

Now you can run saying to people, okay, you put Republicans in power, taxes are going to go up on a bunch of families with children because they don't want to extend the child tax credit. We gave it to you. They want to take it away and they want to raise your taxes. That's just one example out of many policies in the bill where you can do this once you pass it. And so but I think like you're right. What's missing, what's been missing from the equation over the last several months is you rarely hear any Democratic official talking about Republicans much because Republicans have already decided that they're going to vote against the bill. So there's nothing much to say about them. And it's all about, you know, Joe Biden and most of the Democratic Party against Joe Manchin and

Kyrsten Sinema. And if that's all you see in the headlines and that's all you read about and nothing's getting done in Congress, you're going to blame the party that's controlling Congress and Washington. It's just natural. Like, I can't help but remember that Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress were at their lowest approval when they were trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act and pass their tax cut. They failed at repealing the Affordable Care Act, thank God, and they succeeded at passing the tax cut. But the process of trying to do both of those things when Republicans were in charge and Donald Trump was in the White House made them more unpopular than any other time over those last four years. And Donald Trump did a lot of unpopular shit in our view, but it was the mess in Congress that made them the most unpopular. One more thing here is we got a, our friends at Data for Progress

sent us a poll that they just did last week. It was a poll in the field from the 15th to the 17th. They polled 1,325 voters about the Build Back Better plan. So as usual, when they read a description to voters about the plan that included expanded Medicare benefits, home and elder care, child care, and clean energy jobs is how they phrased it. 65% of voters supported it. Only 28% oppose it. Then they asked whether you'd approve of Biden's job performance if the economic plan passed. And they asked that question and his approval jumped from 46% approved, 51% disapprove,

which was the approval rating at the beginning of the poll. And then if the plan passed after hearing about the plan, his approval jumped to 58% support, 37% disapprove. What do you think about that? Because I find it hard to believe that any president in this era of polarization could ever get a 58% approval rating. But that does suggest that maybe doing popular stuff and passing a bill like this could help Joe Biden. Yes, I think it absolutely will help Joe Biden's approval rating. I do not dispute that. I agree with you that 58 seems higher than is reasonable to expect, but what do I know? But I think the way to think about this is, where do we want Joe Biden's approval rating to be? We want it to be right around his win number in 2020, right? Which is 51%. So if you were at 43, there is 8% or so of people who voted for you

for president who are over Donald Trump, who are not happy with something that you were doing right now, or they're holding you accountable for general malaise in the world, in the economy, in the pandemic, whatever else, that eight percent is the easiest to get back. It's not easy, don't get me wrong, but it's certainly easier than persuading someone who voted for Donald Trump to support you. And so having success will help certainly bring Democrats home and bring back some of the Democratic-leaning independents back into the fold. You then have to sustain that success over time and build on it and keep a narrative of success. I really think because of the oversimplified nature of our hyperactive Facebook-driven media environment, people can only sort of – there is no nuance available in political narratives.

You're either winning or you're losing. You're either strong or you're weak. And ever since August, the narrative has been is that Biden is losing, right? Whatever it is. He's not doing well. His poll numbers are down. He can't get his agenda done. And if he passes this, that's a circuit breaker on that narrowest opportunity to set a new narrative, which is that he is succeeding. He passed this huge agenda. It'll be incumbent

upon everyone involved in passing it and people like ourselves to explain to the world why that was important and why 1.9 trillion or 1.5 trillion, whatever it is, is a historic achievement that should be judged on its own, not in comparison to 3.5 trillion or whatever else was potentially out there. But yes, it should help increase his approval rating. Will it necessarily? We don't know. But succeeding is better than failing. And right now, the narrative is failure. I think it's an unfair narrative. It discounts a lot of really positive things happening. But that is what you open Twitter, you open Facebook, you watch cable news. That is what you're hearing every day. And just to highlight the magnitude of the challenge that the Biden administration faces,

even if they pass it in selling it, in the Data for Progress poll, 35% of voters said they have a general understanding of what's in the bill before the description of the bill was read to them. Only 35% said they had a general understanding. Only 7% said they know specifics of what's in the bill, seven. And 58% said that they know nothing or only a little about the bill. Then Data for Progress did an open-ended question, which are always fascinating because it's more like a focus group and you can just let people say what's on their mind. And they asked, what have you heard about the bill? Top words, infrastructure, roads and bridges, taxes. So it's like good for the good for the infrastructure stuff. But I think we could talk about this forever. But this goes back to the whole like child care is infrastructure and prescription drugs or infrastructure, which

I never understood at the time and still don't understand why we tried to define everything as a fucking word that no one really knows what it is anyway. It boggles my mind that we didn't just have an infrastructure bill and then call everything else a jobs plan or an economic plan, but whatever. So that was, that was what, those are the words that came up most in the open ended response. And then there were some I'll give you some some good comments and some bad comments about the bill from voters. Some good comments. This person has to have been a plant, even though it was a 45. It was a 45 year old Republican woman who said this. I think the bill is geared towards getting

our country back on a better foundation. Like what? That's amazing. And then someone else said, the Build Back Better agenda is an ambitious plan to create jobs, cut taxes, and lower costs for working families, all paid for by making the tax code fairer. Male Democrat, 45. Like, was that Ron Klain? Was that John Anzalone, Biden's pollster? I think it's time to admit that I, at least for another couple of months, am a male Democrat who's age 45. So I can admit that I was polled there. You were polled. And then some of the bad ones were $3.5 trillion wishlist of spending, pork laden bill for blue states, $3 trillion that's going to inflict debt. And then a couple other interesting ones.

Someone said, all I know is that two senators are holding it up. That's all I've heard, which tells you a lot. And then someone else said, I've heard a few of the components, but have heard more about the dissent and getting it passed. And then someone else just said, everyone's arguing, which there you go. I don't blame people for having that reaction. That's all you see in the press. Can I leap to the defense of the Biden communications team for a second? Please. Was I attacking them? No, no, no, no, no, no. But there's a lot of critique of the messaging of this.

And people always point to this poll number that's like, no one can name specifics in the bill. Do you know who can't name specifics in the bill? Anyone, because we haven't had any. You and I are professional political observers. We host a podcast. We read every single thing that's written. We know people work in the Biden White House. We know people work in Congress. And we're here just like trying to read between the lines and political stories about what might be in the bill. Members of Congress could not say they know what's in the bill. Anyone who says they know what's in their bill is actually mistaken. Like that has been the problem here

is this is not a messaging failure. It's a legislating failure because we haven't had a bill with specifics to sell this entire time. Like I totally agree with you. Well, even the White House, right? Like if, you know, because we've made the argument before

that Joe Biden should be on the road selling the shit out of this bill. Well, what if Joe Biden for a month had been like at every single stop, years of community college two free years of community college said it over and over and over again and then it got dropped from the bill which it is so it's hard to sell something it's like you know fucking jello right anyway but i think uh i i think the the important thing here is look if they if they pass this thing, you're right. It is a very black and white narrative.

It's winning or losing. And if they're winning because they passed it, then they have an opportunity and they have probably a narrow window to really talk about and to have every single Democrat elected into office and every single person in the progressive media universe talking over and over again about what actually got passed, because a lot of the headlines will be about what didn't make it into the bill, and then Republicans will start criticizing it. And so it will be our job to talk about what policies are actually in the bill that are going to change people's lives. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be disappointed about what

didn't get in there. That doesn't mean we shouldn't criticize what didn't get in there. But it is important for the American people to know what's going to happen now that this bill passed, because for most of them, it's going to be their lives are improved in a significant way. All right. When we come back, we will talk to Amy Westervelt from the ClimatePod hot take about climate negotiations in Joe Biden's economic plan. With climate negotiators from nearly every country gathering in Scotland in less than two weeks to negotiate a new deal to cut global emissions. The White House continues to say that President Biden stands by his promise to cut U.S. emissions 50 percent by 2030 and that clean energy investments will still be the biggest part of his economic plan, despite the fact that Joe Manchin has killed his clean energy performance program. Here to help us sort through this debate and talk through some potential solutions is Amy Westervelt, an investigative journalist and co-host of the

excellent climate podcast Hot Take. Amy, welcome to the show. Hi, thanks for having me. What was your reaction to the Friday New York Times story about Manchin killing the clean electricity standard? Manchin, you walking lump of coal. No. Correct. That's right. That was the answer. was my my immediate reaction yes um i mean yeah it's it's it's disappointing but i i think that i don't know i mean honestly what i think needs to happen is that that progressives need to kind of toe the line and i know that biden's trying to get something done ahead of this deadline of,

you know, wanting to take something great to Glasgow, but like, um, I don't think that, I don't know. I don't know that, that, um, they're going to get another opportunity to actually get emissions reductions if they don't sort of, um, fight to get something else in there that replaces those cuts. So, yeah. Can you talk a little bit about why that program was so, or is so important? Yeah. I mean, the biggest reason, like the simplest way to put it is that it was the only one that actually comes with some punishment for not reducing emissions and not transitioning. that actually comes with some punishment for not reducing emissions and not transitioning. So the way that SEP works, and it's also, I mean, unfortunately, it's like, it's extremely wonky. They've done a terrible job messaging around it, you know?

Right. So that's unfortunate. But basically, it incentivizes power plants and utility companies to transition to cleaner energy. And it also penalizes them if they fall under this sort of, you know, 4% per year goal, which is what, you know, has been sort of modeled and calculated as what needs to happen to meet the 2030 emissions reductions goals, which is it's 50% of our 2005 levels by 2030. So right now everyone like Joe Manchin's like, oh, but we're already doing it. We're not doing it. There's, I think maybe two utilities in the country that are doing it, you know? So they are like, they're transitioning, but it's just too slow. It's about half as quickly as they need to. Um, and this would both, you know, give them money to help them speed up, but also have a little bit of that stick. And that's the piece that I think Manchin and his fellow Republicans, um, don't like, like they don't like, uh, they don't, they don't like regulation of any kind so um yeah yeah it was a good point about the messaging i always wondered why they didn't just say oh it

rewards clean energy and makes polluters pay like yeah sort of simple yeah now we're talking about incentives and carrots and sticks and percentages and it's like four percent a year what does that mean nothing who the hell knows? Dan, some reporters have said that we shouldn't be surprised that Manchin killed this because he's been telling us he's against it for months. Others have reported that Manchin was actually negotiating over this plan before he finally decided to kill it. Were you surprised? What do you think happened? I was surprised.

Should I have been? Probably not. It's probably my own fault for getting my hope up about it. I mean, Manchin is a truly inscrutable human being. He says things that could be taken to mean anything that is very conflicting. There's clearly a lot of people in his orbit or purportedly in his orbit who are telling reporters various things. He has expressed some vague support for the idea in previous interviews. Then there's the New York Times report that says he's against it.

Then there are other reports that say that he was negotiating on it and wanted to include natural gas in it, which seemed like an unfortunate but compromise, like nothing that any of us want, but it seemed like it suggested he was trying to get to a place that was comfortable for him, or at least allowed him to go back to his friends in the fossil fuel industry and say, look, I delivered this for you. But we are, you know, in this place where Joe Manchin, you know, where we have, you know, it's one of those decisions where there probably wasn't an alternative, but putting the senator from the coal state that Donald Trump won by 40 points in charge of the Energy Committee was maybe not the best move in this situation. But it's sort of – but even if he was in the Energy Committee, he's still the 50th vote who is standing in the way of progress. And I agree with Amy that this is, I truly believe, our last

best chance to do something significant. Because if you just look at the political, the map going forward with the stakes and selection, it could be if we lose the Senate either in 2022 or 2024, we may not get it back for decades. And so whether we win the White House, whether we keep the House, we are not going to be in a position to do anything on climate. So we have to do everything we possibly can. It may not be everything we want to do. We have to do everything we can right here and now. Yeah.

So, Amy, the White House is still saying that they will meet their emissions goals under the Paris Agreement by a mix of other climate policies that can pass Congress and executive actions. Do you think that's possible? I think it's possible. I have heard from various folks that there's a lot of talk about actually doing a standalone SEP that people think they can get Murkowski and or Collins and or both to back and not need Manchin. I'm not sure I know why that was not the plan for the overall bill, except that like no Republican wants to vote for a giant Democratic spending package, period. So there is some talk that, okay, well, we could have, you know, a separate policy that's just looking at doing SEP on its own. There's some talk of, there's like, there are several executive actions that Biden could take. He could declare an emergency and, you know, put an end to the fossil fuel

exports, for one, which is something that people have been talking about for a while. He could suspend leasing and drilling on federal lands. He could, you know, I mean, the EPA could use all of the authority that it actually already has, even without any kind of expansion of, of, of policy there too. So there are some things, but I don't know, like they're gonna, they have to come up with some kind of policy measure that requires emissions reductions.

And I haven't seen anything that's been proposed that isn't like, oh, well we can do, you know, set part two, you know, separately, maybe. Or I saw today some something about trying to convince Joe Manchin to do it with a West Virginia cutout, like everyone else will do set, but West Virginia can do its own thing. I'm like, really? Okay. Yeah, sure. I guess, I mean, I guess that would be better than nothing, but I can't imagine how that would work. So, yeah. Well, even if they did a standalone clean energy standard, you'd need more than Murkowski and Collins, right?

Because you already used your reconciliation package, so you'd have to go back to regular order and get 60 votes. That's right. So they're like, maybe Romney, maybe this person. But I'm like, you still have... Oh, God, now we're counting to 10. I know. I'm like, now you still have Sinema, you still have Manchin. Got to count to 11.

Yeah. I mean, I do think there's promise in the executive action around sort of the EPA using their authority to regulate power plants. But that runs into Supreme Court problems, right? Well, only if only if you expand the standard, like the way I mean, you could go with what already exists, right? And instead of allowing the states to dick around and do whatever they want, like let the EPA actually regulate it the way that they actually already have authority to do. But that would also require properly funding and staffing the EPA. So, you know, there's that whole component too. And the thing that I haven't heard discussed much at

all, which I'm worried about, is that actually, I don't think Manchin's done getting rid of climate measures in this bill. I don't think he likes the methane fee at all, for example, and that's another huge component of this. So I'm concerned that they don't seem to really have a plan to replace this one third of emissions that this was going to deliver. And that also, I don't think that he's done whittling away at the climate, you know, the climate policy in this bill. Dan, what do you think the political stakes and geopolitical stakes are for Biden in terms of this deal and the summit coming up? Like, how hard would you be pushing to get something big done? Well, you know, we obviously as a political podcast, we talk about politics. I think climate

is good politics in a whole host of ways. The politics are obviously so much less important than actually saving the planet, right? And so it almost feels dumb to be trying to figure out like, what's the best way? Like the focus should be, what's the way to message it to get it done? And then once we get it done, we can figure out how to go sell it to people so that we get political credit, Republicans get political being for opposing, whatever that is. But ultimately, it's like whatever we can get done that comes as close as humanly possible to meeting the task we need to make. But I think, but because you brought up politics and really, I've just exhausted my knowledge

of climate policy and I have to pivot to politics immediately. I'll start with the geopolitics. It's obviously deeply embarrassing for the United States that as one of the world's largest admitters, Joe Biden's party is in control of the entire government and he can't do even a fraction of what he wants to do because one member of his own party is in control of the entire government. And he can't do even a fraction of what he wants to do because one member of his own party is in the way. Like that just, like you met, like the Chinese are laughing at that, right? Like, come on now. And so it limits our authority, it limits our ability to go to these other countries and pressure them to do

more. We just have little authority and credibility and it undermines whatever, some of the credibility we gained back after Trump left. It was obviously incredibly embarrassing when Trump pulled out of Paris and then became one of the few countries in the world who's actually putting in place policies to make the climate worse, not better, or at least... And then so we finally get a president who acknowledges that climate change is real, gets in there, has a plan, he controls all of government and can't get significant piece of agenda., that's not awesome. Politically, I think the thing I worry most about failing to do something that people can truly believe is real here or is as good as we can possibly hope for is –

there were a lot of studies after the 2020 election about how surge in youth voters helped push Biden over the top, particularly in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. And in all of those surveys, climate was the number one issue behind COVID for almost all of these voters. And so if you say to these voters, you worked your tail off, you got the House, the Senate, and the presidency, and still, we barely got anything done. That is a dangerous message about how engaging in politics doesn't matter on the most important issue. And so politically, whether it's for 2022, 2024, the long-term health of the party, we have to deliver here because we have to show people in tangible ways that their vote mattered on their most important issue or they will tune out. And for the voters most likely to tune out after this election, this is their most important issue.

I'm already hearing that from like Gen Z climate kids. They're just like, really, you told us that if we got behind Biden, he would like deliver on climate and we feel like we were sold a bill of goods. They're already feeling like that. Um, so if this doesn't get fixed, like they're losing, they're going to lose that coalition of people. And that's really scary. Yeah. And to that point, Amy, it's, you know, the Biden administration can say, well, it's Joe Manchin's fault. It's not our fault. Look, we proposed these significant reductions in line with Paris. But that message doesn't translate well and it can kind of get lost along the way, which is,

you know, one of the reasons I think if you're the Biden administration, you do everything humanly possible to not only get the most ambitious climate proposals you can in this bill, but then do everything possible via executive action and show up in Scotland with something significant. I mean, I think the point about China is interesting, Dan, too, because China's overall argument is that democracy is messy and doesn't get shit done and that it's an antiquated form of government. And if they show up in Scotland with a bunch of policies to reduce their emissions and the United States doesn't, that helps make their argument. And Joe Biden has been making that argument, to a lot of Democratic members of Congress. I heard to some effect, which is which I think is a pretty good argument for some of them who may not be as excited about some of the stuff like Joe Manchin,

because otherwise it's an argument that China's kicking our ass. Amy, I know you've criticized the media's failure to cover the climate crisis with the serious seriousness and urgency it deserves. What is better coverage look like to you? I think I mean, well, I think the best example of how not to do it this week was Politico framing this as, you know, mansion wins and environmentalists lose on like that type of coverage, the sort of like points on the board, political coverage of climate policy is really, really problematic and really needs to change. It's not that it like climate is not a pet project of environmentalists. It's not, you know, environmentalists are not some like weird special interest group. Climate policy is something that will impact absolutely every person on the planet and um to frame it that way is really irresponsible i think um so yeah not doing that anymore would be great um it was just that gets you know we uh we rate bad takes here with one to four politicos.

And four politicos is a full playbook. And of course that, what you just mentioned, was in playbook. Winners and losers. Losers, environmentalists. Like, also losers, the planet. Also humanity. Yeah. Humanity, the human race.

Loser. Yeah. That was pretty ridiculous. Dan, what do you think? What do you think about better climate coverage? Well, I would encourage everyone to read Amy's article in The Nation about this, which I was also angered by that political thing. So I started to write a message box about this exact topic. And then I read Amy's article and was like, instead, I'm just going to send everyone Amy's article because that's much better than I'm going to do.

I read Amy's article and was like, instead, I'm just going to send everyone Amy's article because that's much better than I'm going to do. But here's some of the ways I like to think about climate change coverage is whenever I read a political take on climate change coverage, I remove the word climate change and replace it with gravity and see if it still makes sense, right? It's like they are equally real. And imagine if we were in a situation where we were both sides in gravity, right? Democrats say they want to walk down the steps. Republicans suggest the window's an option.

Like, it's just, it's not. It's like, that is ultimately the problem is that it's become, it's like, as Amy points out in a really great article, is it goes in cycles, right? And it's different reporters, different moments in time. But ultimately, it's a very real thing. We should be covered like a hurricane, a encroaching wildfire is a real thing that is happening. And there aren't, isn't a dispute about what's happening. You have to accept it. And you have a stake in it as a reporter,

right? You live on this planet too, unless you have, you know, unless the folks at Axel Springer have a compound where on Mars, where they can send the political reporters, I don't know, but it's a real thing. And I think that that is like, it is terrible and it is damn it. And it has been incredibly damaging to the debate, to the planet because Republicans have, the right has won this debate in 2006, the climate change bill was, there was a general agreement between both parties that climate change was real. The climate change bill, the cap and trade bill at the time was McCain Kennedy. John McCain supported climate change was real. The climate change bill, the cap and trade bill at the time was McCain-Kennedy. John McCain supported climate change. When Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts, he supported climate. He

believed climate change was real. They acknowledge it. There were disputes about how to deal with it, but his acknowledgement was real. When John McCain ran for president in 2008, he had to disavow his belief in climate change. When Mitt Romney ran for president in 2012, he had to disavow his belief in climate change. And we're heading in the wrong direction at the worst time because we're allowing this to be a debate when it's not. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's not, we're allowing, we're continuing to allow it to be politicized and even more politicized when it's like, it's not, you know, like Mary Hegler and I wrote in this nation story, like it's not scientists saying this, it's science saying it. the way that the fossil fuel industry has totally controlled the messaging on, um, economy versus environment that is so insidious in all of these conversations. And it's like, yeah, the,

the economy depends on the environment too, guys, like the economy, economic growth depends on humans continuing to breathe. So like the idea that like, this is some sort of either or scenario or that what environmentalists want is pristine nature. This story keeps getting kind of pushed too, that we're all just trying to save trees and they're trying to save jobs. That is a totally false dichotomy. It's not what's going on. And I really wish that that media would stop kind of perpetuating that idea. Well, as we're talking about this on Thursday, this morning, I believe the Defense Department released a report, you know, talking about how climate change is one of the greatest threats to national security, right? Because they see what's coming. And so it's like hard-headed

military folks understand what's going on. This isn't just environmentalists who want pristine nature, which I didn't realize that that was something that you shouldn't want, but you know. How silly. How silly, right. So no matter what passes, it's not going to be the Green New Deal. Where do you think the climate movement should go from here in terms of political activism? Right. Like, what do you say to some some of those young people who who were so disappointed and wanted more and say, like, well, if I worked so hard in 2020 and and we didn't get an ambitious climate proposal, why shouldn't I just give up? What

should I do now? Well, there's two things. One is, um, is, uh, like, you know, voting, protecting, protecting the vote actually is, uh, is a big part of it, you know? Um, uh, but there, there again, I feel like people feel very stymied. I think, you know, we're seeing now with this, um, again, mansion, um, and his like, you know, freedom of the vote act or whatever, that the filibuster is a huge problem and that actually protecting people's right to vote is a huge problem. So I do think that that is a place to focus. And then I would say in terms of policy and actually getting things done and moving the needle on climate, local and state, you know, I mean, the Republicans started doing that a long time ago, right? But you, I mean, you do see actually a significant advancement in some state policies and even

in some local fights, even in oil and gas states like in Louisiana, where, you know, people organized in the Gulf Coast to put a stop to one of the biggest plants that was proposed in Cancer Alley. And that was just grassroots organizing at the community level. People, you know, got together and they, you know, they stopped what would be a huge, you know, contributor to climate change. So there are these, like these ways to kind of go back to grassroots organizing and, and actually deliver at, at that front. But, but I don't know. I mean, honestly, like it's pretty hard to feel optimistic about national policy right now. Yeah. So, you know, I wish that I had like a more hopeful message for people. But right now it's hard to find.

Hopeful is hard, but at least we can be determined. I do think that state and local is is is where the pressure should be applied. And again, and on businesses to, pressure on businesses as well. Yes, I do think pressure on businesses. I do, I mean, you are seeing, you know, in the absence of policy, you are seeing a lot of stuff happen in the courts. Actually, there's quite a few cases

that are active right now, both in the US and internationally. I think there's now close to 200 climate cases worldwide that are really sticking it to oil companies. And they will at some point get very tired of that and just agree to do certain things. So that is something that's happening. And then on the sort of local and state front, I think the other thing that's helpful with sort of community organizing is that, you know, we're going to need that community resilience to just get through climate change too. So it's like, it's not bad to build those bonds now and, you know, kind of get involved with where you live.

Makes a lot of sense. Amy Westervelt, thank you so much for joining us today. Everyone go check out the Hot Tech Podcast. It's fantastic. Thank you. All right. One more thing before we go. President Biden will take questions from voters at a CNN town hall this Thursday evening, but DC reporters are once again cranky that he's not taking more questions from them. Alex Thompson of Politico, of course, wrote a piece this week where he accused the White House of having a, quote, bunker mentality since Biden has only done 10 sit-down one-on-one interviews and none since Labor Day, even though he's taken many questions from reporters after events. CBS's Mark Knoller noted that at this point in their

presidencies, Barack Obama had done 131 one-on-one interviews and Donald Trump did 57. Those 16 of those were on Fox and God knows how many were on OAN or Newsmax or fucking Dan Bungino's podcast. This is, of course, a crisis of democracy and a threat to the First Amendment as the public has the right to know what their president thinks about questions like this. Biden, what scandal do you have coming? How's your allergies, Mr. President? Can this administration guarantee that holiday packages will arrive on time? And do you believe you'll be running against former President Trump? Come on. Why do you continue to trust the Taliban, Mr. President? Did Hunter Biden commit a crime?

Has he called Matthew McConaughey and urged him to run for governor? The first one is my favorite. What scandal do you have coming? That's as close to what about your gaffes as possible, which is, of course, my all-time favorite. What do you think, Dan? What's with the what's with the bunker mentality? I would note a few things about this one in the eyes of D.C. reporters.

The only questions that count are the one that Biden takes from them, them individually, not just even just general questions to, as was pointed out here. Barack Obama did a ton of interviews and fewer informal Q&As with the press, like Trump would do, like walking to the helicopter or before and after events. And during the Obama years, one-on-one interviews did not count, but informal Q&As did. Now that we've gone into the Biden years, the goalposts have clearly moved very far because informal Q&As do not count, but interviews are the end all be all of transparency. is, look, and I think it is in president's interest to do interviews and press conferences at the time and place of their choosing, looking like you were in a bunker, which Joe Biden is not, is not good for you. You need to communicate and you have to work hard to do it. And the media is one important way to do it. But let us, we should not pretend that even for as well-intentioned as the individual reporters are in their desire to hold politicians

accountable and inform the public, ultimately what they are arguing is that the representatives and employees of the Walt Disney Company, Comcast, AT&T, and Amazon should have more access to the president. I love, do you think this matters to anyone but the DC press corps? Like, is there any political risk to not doing more sit down one on one interviews with a fucking nightly news anchor or whatever, whoever else? There's not a political risk. The public hates the press. They do.

They I mean, it's not it's not just Republicans. It's Democrats as well, although Democrats not as much as Republicans. There is they rank right there near with Congress in terms of institutions that are not trusted by the public. The danger is not in whether you talk to enough reporters or you do enough press conferences or sit down interviews. It is whether you are getting your message out or not. And the press is not the only way to get the message out, but it is a way to get the message

out. So it makes sense that Biden is doing as we are. He's building momentum for his legislative agenda that he's doing this CNN town hall tonight. Right. That's exactly what I want. But those questions do not count because like 80 percent of them will come from people, not reporters. And if you've watched any of these town halls with Biden or any other politician, the questions that people ask actual people who vote are almost always much more substantive and policy oriented than the questions that reporters ask, which are about process or stupid shit like everything we heard in that last clip. So it's like, what about your scandals? What about Donald Trump? What about your allergies? What about Hunter Biden's laptop? Like, I would wager that the questions you'll get from people at the town hall tonight will not be necessarily softball questions for Biden. Some of them will probably be disappointed that certain policies fell out of the package, the economic plan. Some of them will hold him accountable for maybe not keeping a campaign promise yet. Like they could be very tough questions for Joe Biden tonight at the town hall.

But I guarantee they will be much more substantive about the policies that impact the American people's lives than the bullshit that you get from the D.C. press corps. And that is what the press corps hates, by the way. press corps. And that is what the press corps hates, by the way. And for the reporters who look down their nose at regular people and accuse them of being insufficiently able to ask horse race questions, in these town halls, Anderson Cooper will be there tonight. There is always a reporter who can follow up, right? If Biden inadvertently makes some news or he contradicts himself or he says something that may not be accurate. There's a babysitter for you DC reporters. You have your representative in the room to ask the question.

So it's not – yeah, I can understand why reporters wouldn't love it if networks just let politicians just take questions from e-voters, even voters they choose without any sort of follow-up because that's a power dynamic that greatly favors the politician. But these are great forums. Audiences have shrunk as the media landscape has grown. Political media is now – and political media is targeted towards political junkies, right? Even the New York Times, the number of people who did not make their decision about Joe Biden, the Build Back Better agenda, Donald Trump, the insurrection, or any of those things, almost none of them consume this media. And so the questions they're asking are not for the public good. They're for their audience, as they should be. These are people who work for businesses, who serve an audience. And so they're asking questions that are interesting to the political junkies and partisans who read their outlets or watch their shows and not to the broader public. And that is the dynamic.

That is not in – that may be in their interest, but that's not in the White House's interest. And so that's why he's doing fewer interviews in more town hall-like environments where he can maybe speak to a few more people or talk about more things that he thinks the broader public is interested in. Last question related to this. Do you think Biden should launch his own social media platform to compete with Donald Trump's new app, Truth Social. Yes. And he should launch a television network and he should support progressive media and he should do all of those things. What do you think? You think Truth Social is going to be a big thing? Have you invested in it yet? Have you invested in the media company? It's not just a platform, by the way. It's not just a social media platform, I should say.

It's a whole media company he's got going there. I like we are making fun of Trump because this is very clearly a get rich scheme for donors and others to pump a bunch of money to give him tens of not hundreds of millions of dollars in technically legal, but definitely in moral ways to influence him if he were to run for president again, like that is definitely what's happening. We should not pretend like this is real. It is so fake. Like no serious person would look at a deck that where Donald Trump's media platform is challenging Facebook, Netflix, Disney. Like what are we like? That's no one would give money to that unless they were trying to buy influence with someone who may be president of the United

States again in a few years. Like that is what is happening. But one thing that I think Democrats really need to learn from Donald Trump, and I recognize that that is a very freighted sentence, but Donald Trump fully understands about the importance of having a media ecosystem that communicates directly with your voters. Yes. And he not only- 100% correct. And it's not just build your own media platform or Trump Plus, whatever he's calling it, but he also spent a ton of time. Now, it was driven by insecurity and a whole bunch of just general Trump weirdness, but

he spent a ton of time nurturing the right-wing media ecosystem. He gave them traffic. He focused on them. He made sure that more people knew about books. And Democrats have done, there are exceptions to this, Bernie did a very good job in his campaign, of nurturing the progressive media ecosystem in the same way, to lay hands on them and try to lift them up and build that up as an important part of a messaging apparatus. Because if we say all the time, if we rely on the traditional media, we're going to speak to only a tiny fraction of the voters we

need to reach. And so we have to build up alternatives. And Donald Trump, this is a ridiculous grift, but the idea behind it is something that Democrats could learn a little bit from. And again, because Trump has been banned from Twitter and mainstream media isn't covering him as much as they used to when he was president or when he ran last time, it can sometimes seem like, oh, what's happening with Donald Trump these days? You don't hear from him much. Thank God. Great. We can all move on with our lives. is sort of an enclosed bubble. And because it is so large and has such reach and influence among Republicans,

there's a whole, Donald Trump is in constant conversation with his base. He is in constant conversation with these people. And even when he himself is not in conversation with them, his themes, his messages, his policies, everything he wants to communicate is being communicated, whether it's from Fox, whether it's from Ben Bongino's podcast, whether it's from, you know, Tommy's favorite new podcast, Steve Bannon's podcast, whether whoever it's from, they're hearing it every single day. used to have an iron grip on the Republican Party for that reason, because his messages and what he wants to say is being heard by all of them. And what fucking Mitch McConnell wants to say,

no one, anyone who's watching C-SPAN can hear it, but really no one else. And the same thing with all the other Republicans who don't want the party to fall to Trump, right? Which is not Mitch McConnell, but people like Adam Kinzinger or some of these like never Trumpers, they don't have, they don't have the, the, the media outlets that Donald Trump has to communicate the message. And that's why he's so powerful on the right still. And we should learn that lesson on our side. Just to leave us on a ominous note, which is it, which is why it's so funny that Donald Trump tried to launch a competitor to Facebook today. But here were the top performing link posts on U.S. Facebook pages in the last 24 hours from Kevin Roos of the New York Times' very important Facebook top 10 account. Number one, Occupy Democrats, which is a progressive page, which is great.

And they do very good for themselves. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, you feel good, right? Like, you think this is good news? No. Number two, Ben Shapiro. Number three, Dan Bongino. Number four, Top 13.

Don't know what that is. Maybe it's neutral. Maybe it's a white supremacist site. Who knows? Number five, Ben Shapiro. Number six, Ben Shapiro. Number seven, Dan Bongino. Number eight, Ben Shapiro.

Number nine, Dan Bongino. Number 10, Ben Shapiro. It's bad. Bad, Dan. No. It's not great. All right, everyone. All right.

We try to yell to progressive billionaires all the time on this show to stop investing in dumb organizations and other things that people don't know about and television ads for Democratic campaigns and to invest in some media companies. But so far, we're not seeing anything. Maybe they're not listening. We have to write an op-ed in The Atlantic. Honestly, that's probably true. 100%.

That's probably true. That's where they're looking. All right. Thank you to Amy Westervelt for joining us today. Everyone check out Hot Take, her climate pod. It's excellent. And everyone have a great weekend. Offline is Sunday.

Check that out. And then remember, Monday will not be PSA, but first thing Tuesday morning, the episode with me and Lovett and Tommy will be in your phones. So check it out. Have a great weekend, everyone. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producer is Haley Muse.

And Olivia Martinez is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrewaley Muse. 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 Semel, 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.