Pod Save America - “Go to Pod Save America 3-0-3-3-0.” (Debate recap special!)

Episode Date: August 1, 2019

Jon, Jon, Tommy, and Dan break down all the highs and lows of the second set of Democratic primary debates hosted by CNN in Detroit, Michigan.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. We're all here for the big debate analysis. Before we get to that, a reminder that our Los Angeles live show is taking place at The Greek on August 17th with performances from Maggie Rogers, Amanda Seals, Best Coast, and Jim James. Proceeds from the show will be donated to organizations at the forefront of the fight to protect the vote across America.

So grab your tickets now at crooked.com slash the Greek. Also, we have a great new episode of With Friends Like These that's going out on Friday. You can hear an interview that Anna Marie Cox had earlier this week with E. Jean Carroll. It's really powerful, and you should subscribe to the show and be on the lookout for it. Okay. America has just endured two straight nights of Democratic primary debates hosted by CNN in Detroit. For the first reaction, we go to Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper. And what a night. I've loved it.

He is literally the only one. I was going to say. Everyone else was like, who? Just a lonely opinion from John Hickenlooper. I was sitting in bed last night trying to calm down, watch a little Netflix, and I was like, man, that sucked. It didn't feel good. What did you watch?

I don't remember. Something boring on purpose. I watched John Wick 3. The plot's hard to follow if you're looking at Twitter. We watched two Broad Cities first to kind of get a laugh. We've been watching Schitt's Creek. It's fantastic. Anyway, we're going to get to why the second night felt so horrible. Let's start with the first night.

What'd you watch, Pundit? Let's start with the first night, which featured the following candidates. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Beto O'Rourke, Amy Klobuchar, John Hickenlooper, Tim Ryan, John Delaney, Marianne Williamson, and Steve Bullock. The evening began with a feisty debate about Medicare for All

that pit Warren and Sanders against John Delaney. Here's a clip. Congressman Delaney just referred to it as bad policy, and previously he has called the idea political suicide that will just get President Trump reelected. What do you say to Congressman Delaney? You're wrong. Okay, he's wrong um all right who do we think made the better case for their health care plan on the first night and why warren i think warren yeah i don't even i think bernie did a very good

job but warren was able to explain the policy in easily understood terms, but she also did it by telling stories about who would it affect and how. Yeah. I think she also, her point, she kept coming back to the point about insurance companies and what everyone really hates about insurance companies, which is you're filling out all this paperwork, you're calling them 50 times to try to get something paid for. And their whole business model is to take in more in premiums than they pay out in actual health care. And the reason they make you do all that paperwork is because they're trying to screw you. Why do you think that the non-Medicare for all folks are having such a hard time making the argument for their plans?

So I actually think what's happening, I think you saw sort of the debate, like kind of, it left the real substance of the policy difference between the Medicare for all advocates and the Medicare for all who wanted public option advocates. And so John Delaney's broadside against Medicare for all, I think is very kind of, it is using Republican talking points and it is sort of attacking the idea of doing something this big. And the response from Elizabeth Warren sort of attacked him on that level. But there was no real substantive debate about why switching to a Medicare for all system and the cost efficiencies that come with that and the access that comes with that and the fact that you remove it from employers and businesses and from the backs of individuals is a better approach than keeping the private system and having a public option in place.

You kind of allied that debate entirely. And so then it becomes a debate about values. And the debate about values is advocating for Medicare for all. You can just take such a strong position and say it so plainly. And you're left arguing with moderates saying, wait, wait, wait, we should do something more practical, less expansive, go not as far. I mean, I think Delaney's argument was not even values-based, it was political. And there's a reasonable case to be made that taking people's private insurance away is incredibly unpopular. There's significant evidence to suggest that. That's just a hard case to make to a Democratic primary audience. And the rejoinder from Warren at all,

as you said, was, I don't run for president to do small things. I run for president to do big things. And you kind of sound petty and small in that moment when you're responding to that. I'd say on top of that, Delaney was kind of annoying in the way he went after it. It just sort of like didn't land well. Yeah. I mean, I did cringe at both delaney and bullock saying things that did sound like republican talking points that i don't think were fair delaney talked about uh taking health care away taking health care away not not changing your health insurance but taking health care away which no democratic plan is taking health care away it's just false um and telling half the country quote your insurance is illegal, which is

like, okay. And then Steve Bullock, this is wish list economics. It just, it used to just be Republicans who wanted to repeal and replace. Wish list economics isn't a thing, right? No one else had heard that phrase before? No, that's like a, you know, some consultant from the 90s fed him a line.

Yeah, a play on voodoo economics? This would be cute to do on stage. It's a classic example of something we all should keep in mind in our daily lives, that a brainstorm can get out of hand. And inside of a brainstorm, something can make sense. It's a trunk. We have a trunk on our hands. Wishlist economics is a classic trunk.

You talk for a long time, you end up at something. But if you didn't see the steps to get there, you sound like a dweeb. Yeah, I mean, look, I think the heart of this debate where there's real differences and to $30 trillion plans and it would require tax increases on anyone making over $29,000 a year. Now what they say is the taxes go up, but you're not going to pay anything in premiums anymore. But that's still an argument to have. And they tried to pin Warren down on this both on stage and then chris matthews did later which is like but there is going to be a tax increase now bernie says yes but whatever warren was like well yes what total costs will go down which is a true thing to say

but the only thing i mean it's funny that no one made this case if you're if your employer's paying for your health care coverage and your employer's contributing to it. And suddenly they don't anymore because the government is. You're not going to – and now you have to pay more in taxes yourself to get that single payer. You're not going to really feel like you're paying less in premiums because your employer was covering a lot of that. And there are some people whose health care costs are less than the amount their taxes will be increased. And every policy has winners and losers. costs are less than the amount of tax, about their taxes will be increased. Yeah. And every policy has winners and losers and it's incumbent upon the advocates of that policy to make the argument for why that is the, why the winning outstrips the losing.

But I think the overall point here is there is a legitimate good faith debate to be had about Medicare for all as advocated by Sanders and Warren and some of the other plans out there. Just you can't have that debate if the chosen fighter to make the other case is John Delaney, who is essentially a rich guy who paid millions of dollars out of his own pocket to be on stage. He has raised almost as much money as anyone in this campaign because he's given it to himself to buy Facebook ads to be on the stage. And so we were sort of denied the health care plant debate we deserved because Biden and Harris had different plans, were on the

other stage, and Beto O'Rourke and Pete, who have different plans that sort of split the difference between, I guess Beto's plan splits the difference and Pete, who have different plans that sort of split the difference between, or I guess Beto's plan splits the difference and Pete is for a public option. They were doing everything they possibly could to avoid getting in the middle of this fight because they had no incentive to do so. And so we didn't really have the real conversation about the puts and the takes and the tradeoffs that come with these various things. And also, last thing, you can't have the debate in a vacuum.

Because the amount of money you spend, the amount of political capital you spend on health care affects the force you off your private insurance, take away your private insurance language, because it's just, it's misleading. You know, like under Medicare for all your private insurance becomes a government plan and it's more generous. Like it's not like anyone's really going to lose anything. There are costs and people should be debating those costs and those trade-offs, but that language is pretty lazy though. It's an easy political hit, you know? Yeah. It's, Yeah, it is frustrating. I do think that was the look Elizabeth Warren's face had was like, I can't believe that there are so many more serious candidates who support a public option. And I get to basically punch the Monopoly man in the face. Her face said, I have been blessed tonight. But yeah, and you know, it's funny, too, you can kind of like,

this is one of the reasons I think it's very good that this will be the ideally the last time the candidates are split into two nights, because I do think that there were other arguments made in the second part of the of the healthcare debate on night two, that might have been a good part of the more substantive and I think ultimately better debate we had in night one, you know, because the debate, I think, hinged on some of these attacks that aren't necessarily fair, we didn't get into the actual substance. I've actually thought Yang in night two made a strong defense of Medicare for all and what it would mean for people and why it's a good thing to separate insurance from employment that I think should

be part of the substantive case that the single-payer advocates make. But of course, that didn't come up in night one. It only came up in night two. So a big theme in the analysis of the first night was that it pit the most moderate candidates in the race, like Delaney, Hickenlooper, and Bullock, against the two most progressive candidates, Sanders and Warren. That led to a debate over pragmatism versus idealism that gave Warren two of the biggest lines of the night. Here's the clip. You know, I don't understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the biggest lines of the night. Here's the clip. You know, I don't understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can't do and shouldn't fight for. Do we also have the clip of when she talked about not being why we can't be afraid? Let's play that one too. I get it. There is a lot at stake and people are scared,

but we can't choose a candidate we don't believe in just because we're too scared to do anything else. And we can't ask other people to vote for a candidate we don't believe in. Democrats win when we figure out what is right and we get out there and fight for it. I am not afraid. And for Democrats to win, you can't be afraid either. Now, we talk a lot about electability. That's her electability argument. And that is going to be probably the central argument in the homestretch of this race as we get down to whether it's Elizabeth Warren or anyone else who's more progressive versus a Joe Biden or possibly anyone else who's an alternative to Joe Biden. What did we think of Warren's argument there? And did any of the moderate candidates make a decent

counter argument to that? Okay, let's just do the first one. I mean, look, I think it's a good line. It's good sentiment. It's hard to argue with. There's a pretty big straw man buried in there. believe in, but the realities of those plans, their impact on people and what Republicans will say about them. Yes, I agree with Pete that we shouldn't worry about what Donald Trump will say. Donald Trump will lie. But like, that doesn't mean we should be blind to the political realities of the things we're taking on as a party. It's like we've gotten fucking crazy. We shouldn't worry about what Donald Trump says. We shouldn't worry about what Republicans say. We shouldn't worry about what Donald Trump says. We shouldn't worry about what Republicans say. We shouldn't worry about what the insurance companies say.

We should worry about what voters say. Yeah, there you go. Because we are trying to win voters. So, like, don't make it. I mean, we've said this a million times on this podcast, what Pete said, you know, which is they're going to call you socialists no matter what. So don't base your policy on them. That's true. Do base your policy, at least in part, on what the American people want. Yeah, I just want to wake up in

October of next year and see the most devastating ads possible run on purely policy grounds. That would be a bummer if they were accurate. I think it is worth exploring the premise of the question, which is, as is discussed, pragmatism is tied to winning and idealism is tied to losing. And there is not a lot of political history, recent or otherwise, that says that trimming your sales is a great strategy to win elections. And so I think the pragmatism versus idealism, is it a very important governing discussion? Right? Like, what is the best policy we can get through the system? What are the consequences politically within governance

of trying to push for Medicare for all versus middle-class tax cut versus anti-corruption? What can the system bear in terms of actual implementation? Because the Obamacare, which is a fraction of the complication of Medicare for all in terms of the number of people it affects, was a huge undertaking to get done. So trying to do Bernie's Medicare plan in a four-year transition period is going to be hard, and that's worth exploring that. But just in terms of the pure politics, the idea that middle-of-the-road pragmatism means winning, I think we should not accept that premise. Yeah, I think that's right. So I think that part of the problem is right. Also, idealism versus pragmatism also becomes a stand-in for left

versus center and popular amongst Democrats and broadly popular. But of course, that's not true. You know, there are what have become, you know, mainstream Democratic positions previously thought of as too idealistic or too liberal, things like a wealth tax that are now broadly popular amongst Democrats, Republicans and independents. To me, though, what I found really important about that moment, what Elizabeth Warren said there, and I think ultimately, if she is the nominee, it will have been a pivotal moment, or at least shows the argument that she was going to make to put herself on a path to becoming the nominee is there's something undergirding what she's saying. She's saying,

you like me. You like the policies I promote. You think I'm smart. You think I'm ahead of some of these other people. You tell posters, implied in the polls is I may not be electable, but you like what kind of president I would be. I'm a leader on policy. Take the trust you have in me there and trust me that you don't need to be afraid of making me the nominee. Trust my judgment on the election that you trust that I have on policy and we'll win. I mean, and I think whether or not that's true, I don't know, but I do think it is the first time she has head on said, I'm not, you know, you like me and you think I'm smart and you think you can trust me on these incredibly important questions.

Come with me the last part of the trip, the last part of the trip. Yeah. And it's, look, and it's electability argument because what she's saying is I think it is easier to win with everyone backing a candidate they truly believe in than to win with a candidate that we are only backing because we believe that they're the most electable person. And she's making the argument that that passion, that intensity will help bring out more voters than purely focusing on who I think can win. And so that's her argument. And again, it's, we don't know. And it's also, you know, you see it in her conduct, right? Like, she is incredibly feisty and energetic during that debate. You know, she stays to go on television till all hours of the night. She does the selfie. She stays online. She's like everything she is doing is signaling that she is that she is fully committed and vested in the fight and confident in every step that she's making and trying to inspire people to have the same confidence. she's making and trying to inspire people to have the same confidence.

So Delaney's response was, you know, I think Democrats win when we run on real solutions, not impossible promises, when we run on things that are workable, not fairytale economics. So the whole exchange actually reminded me of exchanges that we used to have, that Barack Obama used to have with Hillary Clinton in 2007. And Bill Clinton. And Bill Clinton. And it just, and Lovett, you should talk about this too, being on the other side of it, but you just knew that we had her. When one person in a primary, one candidate in a primary is arguing for idealism and fight for what you believe in, and the other candidate's response is just constantly throwing cold water on that and saying like you know she used to say uh barack obama's giving people false hope you're making promises you can't keep i'm doing real solutions i think that was one of her slogans bernie used this exact argument very

effectively against her he almost won with this this line of attack i mean the challenge everyone's going to have to have is the yeah i like agree. Trimming your sales is not an effective governing strategy. It hasn't seemed to be an effective political strategy. I'm trying to hold that thought side by side in my head with polling that says like 66% of Democrats don't want to lose their private insurance. Right? So it's like how do we, or is it Democrats or is it people? Sorry, people overall don't want to lose their private insurance. It's like how do we balance those things?

I know. It's very hard. No, and that's what I'm saying. It was like the trick for the moderates is I think there's a case to be made for the moderates. But it's tough to make that case from the standpoint this other candidate is promising you something that you can't have. Believe less. You know, like I think, I mean, one thing I think you can say is one of the reasons the American people are so cynical about politics is that politicians over and over again

have made all these promises and then the election's over and they go to Washington and nothing gets done because they over-promise things. And if we really want to make progress, then we have to persuade the American people. And, you know, it's a tough fight. And I'm going to

fight for it, but I want you to know that I'd rather take something than nothing at the end of the day. You're getting into weeds. There's a missing sort of like, you know, I think Sherrod Brown would have been the candidate to do this, right? Because he would have, you know, you can't, I don't think you can attack

Sherrod Brown's bona fides, as they say, on being a progressive. I'm sure people would. There's a heartfelt argument to be made by someone who, say, supports a public option versus Medicare for All saying, I believe in this not because I want to do less or help people less because I think – Well, Pete said that. Right. Well, Pete is the one who I think has made the closest to that argument. Pete is the only person who is making the moderate

argument on moderate policy grounds, not political calculation. Everyone else is saying... Without calling himself a moderate. Which is why it's unfortunate we can't have a full engagement of this debate because no one wants to wear the scarlet M for moderate. They just want to maintain their electability but also

still seem super progressive on Twitter. But this is why I think it is important that we get to the next debate where we can have everyone on stage. Because the debate between Kamala Harris about her plan, Joe Biden about his public option plan, and then Bernie and Elizabeth is a much better debate than John Delaney

as a stand-in for something else, just doing RNC talking points. So quick takes just about some of the other candidates. How do we think that Bernie did? He chose not to go after Warren or contrast himself with Warren in any way. He sort of locked arms with Warren, as everyone's been saying, and sort of took on everyone else.

How did he do compared to the last debate? Did he help himself? Yeah, I thought he was good. I think he was a little sort of of reticent or not really he wasn't really present in the in the first debate in this debate he was he sort of reminded people of what they really liked about him in 2016 right there's a charm to bernie right when he says i wrote the damn bill like it's funny you like him i like that guy i like that version of bernie um and i thought it played yeah he was he was he was tough when he needed to be, but he was more happy warrior.

He's happy to dunk on Tim Ryan for a minute. Yeah, I thought he did a great job. I had totally forgotten Tim Ryan was in that debate until just now. What do we think about Mayor Pete? We just talked about that a bit. He came in fundraising leader. He's fifth in the polls. Last debate, he was okay.

I think he had a much stronger debate this time than last time. To me, there was basically kind of, there was Warren and Sanders, who I think both did well, but I think Warren did herself more favors by, I think, making the same similar arguments, but doing it with a bit more strength than Bernie. Then you had the moderates.

I feel like that was a bit of a hash, especially because John Delaney stole the microphone and then put a hotel on Park Place. And then but then separate from the moderates, I think Pete was kind of alone and didn't participate in that debate, but kind of stood outside of it. Sometimes he does his punditry thing where he says, here's what's really going on here. And that has some value. But I thought he did well for himself. Everything about Pete is kind of soothing, soothing you know even the way he talks he was sort of trying to calm it all down talked a little slower i thought he did well i think someone prepped him someone prepped him

after the last debate to jump in more and make sure you get your message out there even if uh the question doesn't lead you there naturally because there were a few moments he just jumped in and sort of pivoted to his electability message or something else. And I think sometimes it felt forced, but overall, it made him more of a presence in this debate. And you know what he stands for more. So I think it worked for him. Are you saying that it was a slightly awkward segue when he took a question about climate change and turned it into the political benefits of being a veteran running against Donald Trump. Yeah, I did think that was a little, that's what I was talking about.

That was a little forced one. But, you know, then people hear that speech and they're like, okay, well, now I know the message. Yeah, he did it. He did it well. I mean, as far as that transition goes, I was in, I don't know. Pete is at his very best when he's doing set pieces, right? When he gets to his core message and the moderators will not lead you there.

And so he went there on his own and i think sort of both pete and beto is the two other candidates on stage who had qualified for the third debate were sort of sort of their strategies their performance reflected that fact where they didn't need to hit home runs and they kind of it felt like both of them were happy to be there they took advantage of moments that came but they were sort of in belichickian fashion keeping their their plays their best plays in the playbook until the game that mattered. I'm coming along for this. I thought you would be there.

I was hoping it meant cheating by stealing the other team's playbooks. Pete had a video camera in the corner. Sports! Beto did, obviously, way better in this debate than the last debate. I mean, that was a low bar, but also I think I saw Bet work up there, and I was reminded

why I liked him so much during the Senate campaign. He's a thoughtful, decent, reasonable guy. I think he still has a few too many canned lines. I don't need to hear about the courage of his convictions ever again. Please erase that from the prep book and throw it in the trash. But other than that, I thought it was pretty good. I think you're right, Dan, that he needed to do better, which, Dan, that he didn't need as much of a... He needed to do better, which he did, but he didn't need as much of a strategy in this debate.

I think the next debate, he really has to figure out, where do I position myself among these candidates? And again, the question he hasn't answered, why should I be president at this moment in time, as opposed to all of these other characters on stage? I don't think he's nailed that yet.

Yeah, that's right. He has an argument like they all do, but why his argument is distinct has not been fully fleshed out yet. And the September debate with nine or 10 other people will be the moment when he has to do that. Anyone else help themselves? Steve Bullock's first time up there.

How do we think Steve Bullock did? As someone who expressed some frustration that Steve Bullock was not in the first debate because he was a sitting governor from a red state. Yeah, you were as excited about him as you are about the loop. I gotta stop being

disappointed by these mountain state governors. I just, you know, you fought so hard to get to this stage. You complained so much about not being on the last stage. And you came there with a with a smile and a talking point and nothing else. And it showed. I'm very frustrated. It's like you have a you you you could be if you were if there was more substance there, an alternative to Biden, you could basically say, you know, I offer all the electability argument that Joe Biden does,

but I'm actually one in a red state and I expanded Medicaid. I mean, there's a case that he could be making. He just doesn't make it. Yeah. He's got a really effective electability argument just kind of sitting there and it didn't totally come through for me. I thought he did okay in the beginning. It was fine. It dusted off some cobwebs. But then he got in this exchange with Elizabeth Warren about when you use nuclear weapons and just like exposed by the end of it that he literally didn't know what he was talking about. She was like, she was so happy to be in this exchange because he just was literally getting it completely wrong. Did he attack her? The moderator asked the question of her.

And then I think what then Jake or whomever just asserted that he disagreed, I think was how it went down. And he said, quote, we need to get back to nuclear proliferation. That was the first fumble. So then he said, I mean deep proliferation. He didn't quite land at non-proliferation.

What he wants is less nukes, everybody. Look, Steve Bullock and I get why you're excited about him. Steve Bullock on paper wins a red state, still took on campaign finance reform, was able to expand Medicaid with the Republican legislature. We have a lot of friends in politics who've been pushing Steve Bullock for a long time, people who I respect are very, very smart. And so I've always been sort of interested in Steve Bullock too, but when, I don't know, both when I interviewed him and then when I, you know, saw him on stage, it's just, it's a little underwhelming for me. And I know some more of the moderate pundits out there thought he,

he did well, but I just, I didn't see it. It was a little too, like there wasn't a lot of substance there. It was just a lot of talking points and not a lot of substance from Steve Bullock. He is a good typical politician. And that's why I think a lot of people who have been in politics for a long time really like Steve Bullock. But this is not a time that calls for typical politicians. That's a good way to put it.

Should we end the first night debate by talking about Marianne Williamson, who gave a stirring answer on reparations and ended up being the most Googled candidate following the debate? Think about Marianne Williamson. I feel like I want to set aside the answer on reparations because I did think she offered a lot of honesty and clarity about the history, our nation's racial history and how awful it is and how unresolved a lot of it is. Setting that aside, I thought what frustrates me about Marianne Williamson is she does a very good job of diagnosing the fact that we can't beat Trump with just white papers and with our brains.

There has to be some emotion and some sort of gut level connections with people. And then she goes on to offer absolutely no path forward for how to do that and just dismisses everybody else up there. It's a bunch of nerdy eggheads. And it's offensive when you haven't given a fuck about the Democratic Party until 15 minutes ago. Yeah, she definitely has much more of a I've been watching politics on TV

and here are my opinions vibe. Yeah. Which is very Trumpian. After the debate, someone was like, now you're talking about foreign policy. So you're like, what experience do you have?

She's like, oh, my family, they were world travelers. That was a verbatim quote, right? Like that is disqualifying. I just also forget the fact that she's only been paying attention to politics for 15 minutes. I don't think she's been paying attention to the ongoing primary in which she is currently a part because I am very sick, honestly, of her going on that stage and saying no one on this stage is talking about love. No one's speaking to the deeper emotional trauma that the country is going through.

Cory Booker does that. Yeah. He does it. It's his campaign. I just, I find it very frustrating because he's a far more serious and thoughtful candidate than she is. And she literally pretends he doesn't exist because she thought of the three sentences she wanted to say on the debate. So that is very specific to her problem, but it really frustrates me. It really frustrates me.

And now she's probably going to be in the next debate. Yes. Oh, I don't know. Is she? I would be surprised. Let's get the polling, yeah. I mean, look, and, you know, Vox had this story afterwards. The other issue with Marianne Williamson is because she hasn't gotten a lot of attention,

because she's been at 1%, you know, she does have some views that are troubling. Why is that, John? Why are they troubling? So, you know, she did call mandatory vaccination Orwellian and draconian. She later apologized, pointed to statements in the past where she said everyone should get their kids vaccinated she did say that it's just it's very she's one of those people who goes there and then doesn't go there and is so it's sort of and then you know she's also talked a lot about antidepressants being over prescribed though on that she's also said of course people should take antidepressants i think they're

over prescribed so like there's a debate to be had on these things, but you dig into her views on medicine and stuff like that, and you're like, it's not complete crazy, but it's troubling. It is unfair and ridiculous to compare it to Donald Trump. They're basically opposite people. But there is this element of a person with no experience and seemingly limited knowledge pontificating for years on what is happening in the world with no consequences for being wrong or changing their positions, now running for president. And you see that in all these quotes that come out from her books. Yeah, I don't need someone with a Bachelor's of Arts telling me when to take antidepressants or not.

That's not really how this goes. I'm an little MD. Should we talk before we get to the second night about the format and the moderators? We can, yeah. I will say, I don't find myself when I've been watching these debates thinking that the moderators are really responsible for the quality of the debate we're having. And I think you actually can make that case based on what we watched over two nights, because I came away from the first night thinking, yeah, the rhythm was weird in the beginning, and maybe there was too many times where people got cut off. But I thought it was

ultimately a substantive debate that I came away feeling kind of good about the field and how they behaved that night. And then night two, I went directly to a McDonald's drive-thru to get McNuggets, because I felt it was like sour combative small and made me think we were going to lose. And it was the same group of people moderating both nights. So ultimately, when people have a problem with questions, I do think mostly it is a problem with how the candidates responded. There's always an element of somewhat overcorrecting from the previous debate, right? There was too much interrupting in the first debate. So CNN set a set of rules to do that. There was, people really hated the one word answer and raise your hand questions. So CNN got rid of those. I think the debates were moderated fine. I agree. In the very beginning,

they were a little overly doctrinaire about the time limits. When you're cutting off Elizabeth Moore in the middle of a story about Addie Barkin, that's probably not ideal, but they adjusted for it. And it was better as the debate went on and it was better the second night. And I think generally, like we can disagree with the framing of the questions. We can disagree with sort of the perspective they're bringing to it. But ultimately, all of the debates thus far have been about policy and there have not been a bunch of the sort of political gotcha questions that have dominated debates in previous cycles. I think that is a positive. Yeah, that's right. It was moderated a little bit tight in the beginning, and they relaxed that.

I mean, people are, I think, rightly frustrated by the framing of some of the questions Bernie called them Republican talking points, but it's incumbent upon you, the person on stage, not to take that bait and to answer how you want to answer. And if you want to learn how to do that, watch Elizabeth Warren. She could teach a master class. I think the beef I had with the CNN debates generally

is just the amount that they are milking them for as much cash as humanly possible. Starting with the Powerball pick-em process and then the 15-minute pre-roll into a commercial break before we start the fucking questions. Like that's a little ridiculous. But it's not Jake. It's not Don Lemon. It's not Dana Bash. They're great journalists. They're smart people.

They're doing their best. It's not Don Lemon. It's not Dana Bash. They're great journalists. They're smart people. They're doing their best. It's hard. Do I wish that all debates were moderated by people who are issue experts in the areas and activists and then maybe they'd be more substantive and we get in the weeds on policy? Yeah. But as long as they are put on by networks and moderated by journalists, I think that journalists are going to and networks are going to search for conflict between the candidates. Now, some conflict is important to have. These are important debates and we need to have them. Some seem like they're a little sillier. But when you are a candidate, your job is to reject the premise of a bad question or an unfair question and to pivot to something that's more important and more substantive. That's what you learn in debate prep. When someone asks you a stupid question, you know, more important and more substantive. Like that's your, that's what you learn in debate prep. When someone asks you a stupid question, you say, that's a stupid

question. I also think there were a few moments to debate in the, throughout the two nights of debates where you saw candidates take advantage of the format and the kinds of questions that were being asked. It was honestly, de Blasio did this. I think Warren did this. I think Booker did this. Pete did this to some extent, which is take a moment and say, I'm going to step outside of this current debate that's unfolding and put this in the larger context of the fight that we're having to save the country. And to me, what was missing in the first NBC debates that was a bit more present now was a candidates willing to kind of step outside of the format to kind of remember that, yeah, the moderators from CNN or MBC are in charge, but you're running for president of the United States, you are supposed to be commanding, and you were supposed to be able to hold the stage. And sometimes that requires taking,

taking the microphone and resetting the debate and showing that you can do that in part because we need them to do that as president. And because president and because we need someone who's going to be able to do that when they face Donald Trump. I think there is a broader discussion to have at some point about the wisdom of the Democratic Party handing over the 10 most important nights of the primary process to media entities whose interests go far beyond informing Democratic voters about the Democratic policies of Democratic candidates. Yes. There is no reason in this age that the DNC could not put this on itself, stream it, offer

broadcast quality streams to CNN, MSNBC, Fox, who would almost certainly take it, and then have the debates conducted by progressives, subject matter experts. It is ultimately in CNN, MSNBC, ABC, whoever else's interest to make it good TV, because this is a profit-making enterprise for them. They have to get a return on their investment. You could do it in a different way. And I wish there would have been more outside of the box thinking about this instead of rerunning the same play that we've been running on debate since the 60s.

I totally agree with that. All right, let's talk about the second night, which featured the following candidates. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Andrew Yang, Julian Castro, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tulsi Gabbard, Jay Inslee, Michael Bennett, and Bill de Blasio. This is a night where most of the candidates took at least one shot at the former vice president. And it started once again with an exchange over health care between Biden and Harris. I think we have the clip. And to be very blunt and to be very straightforward, you can't beat President Trump with double talk on this plan. Your response, Senator?

Absolutely. Unfortunately, Vice President Biden, you're just simply inaccurate in what you're describing. The reality is that our plan will bring healthcare to all Americans under a Medicare for All system. Our plan will allow people to start signing up on the first day. Babies will be born into our plan. And right now, 4 million babies almost are born every day in America, or every year in America. Under our plan, we will ensure that everyone has access to health care. Your plan, by contrast, leaves out almost 10 million Americans. So I think that you should really

think about what you're saying, but be reflective and understand that the people of America want access to health care and do not want cost to be their barrier to getting it. So in general, Biden hits Harris on the cost of her plan, $30 trillion. Biden's $750 billion. The 10-year transition, he says, you know, be wary of anyone who tells you there's gonna be something good, but it's going to take 10 years. It's such a random hit. I know, it's weird. The fact that you lose employer-based insurance and then double talk, as you heard, on the plan because she signed on to Bernie's plan originally and then changed to this other plan last week. And then Harris' hit on Biden is that it leaves out 10 million people.

And she also mentioned that Kathleen Sebelius, who was Obama's Health and Human Services Secretary during the ACA, endorsed her plan. How do we think this exchange went compared to the first night exchange over health care? I mean, my very simplistic takeaway was it felt like Harris had a hard time explaining her own plan, which meant I imagine most people had a very hard time sussing out the differences. I'm sussing out the differences. Yeah. And Biden, too. I think both of them sort of, both of them did not have very sort of strong defenses of their plan, and it got into the weeds very fast. It gets at the challenge of almost single-payer, almost Medicare for all versus the clean Medicare for all, which is much easier to tell people what it is for Bernie and Warren.

Yeah. What did you think, Dan? I agree. Neither of them did a great job of making the case for their plan for Bernie and Warren. Yeah. What did you think, Dan? I agree. Neither of them did a great job of making the case for their plan for the sake of their plan. It was just sort of defending the individual parts of it. I am curious about the political rationale that brought Kamala Harris to this version of the plan.

Me too. Because the part – I think it's a good plan. Yeah, I like it. From a governing perspective, arguing that it's going to take 10 years rather than four years to get to universal coverage through a Medicare for All plan is a very – it's a very rational argument, which you can make a good case for. But the part where Biden has hit her for doublespeak is on private insurance and the getting rid of private insurance. But she has developed a plan that still does that. And so I'm not like, I don't know why you wouldn't just I don't think she has solved her political vulnerability that she got from solve from signing on to Bernie's plan.

I think perceive on her like she clearly thinks that there is real political risk in having signed on to Bernie's plan. So she adopted a plan that is less aggressive, but maintains most of the same political risk, but allows you this talking point about Medicare for Advantage plans, which is different. Some people are afraid of losing their private insurance. They are not dying for the opportunity to buy an additional private insurance plan that serves as a supplement to Medicare for All. Yeah. So Biden is technically correct when he says her plan would eliminate employer-based insurance. Employers would not be allowed to

give insurance to employees anymore. But employees then have, or every American has the choice at the end of this 10 years where you can either enroll in the government Medicare plan or you can buy a private insurance plan that is heavily regulated by the government and has the same regulations almost as the government plan so it's like yeah you can choose that but it does do away with the system of employer-based insurance which you could say like okay fine yeah it's it is it is genuinely interesting and honestly more bold from kamala harris than i actually expected based on, you know, she signed onto the Bernie plan, but I think a lot of Democrats did and then had the same

political concerns that Dan is raising. Um, so when, when she was coming out with a plan, I would have been less surprised to see her end up where mayor Pete is or where some of the other candidates are on a public option. This is not that this is is incredible. It almost feels, it's with a 10-year window and the keeping of options for people when they're signing up for a Medicare plan, it feels like it's in many ways answering practical governing questions more than it's answering some of the political questions, which I kind of respect in terms of reaching it. But then what I found striking during this debate, which I think speaks to the flip side of the strength she showed in the first debate, was she's a tough debater.

She can hit a line. But what I didn't feel was like someone dying to get out there and kind of pitch her plan and explain why it's the best plan. It just was a lot of very... The argument between Biden and Kamala around healthcare reminded me of the part of a comedy when two dads who've never fought before start fighting,

and they're pulling at each other and rolling around on the ground, but not really landing punches, and they both stand up, and they're covered in shit. Two dads? What movie is this? Is this My Two Dads? You know what I mean?

What the fuck are you talking about? You know the movie where two pudgy dads who've never fought before end up fighting? Paul Blart Mall Cop? You guys know what I'm talking about. I don't care. The hit on Biden's plan, leaving $10 million out, is, I think, a fair hit.

It's accurate. His own plan says it. Yeah, well, what happened is, now that the individual mandate has been repealed in the Affordable Care Act, that was the tool to make sure that everyone buys insurance. And you want everyone to buy insurance because if a whole bunch of wealthy and healthy people don't buy insurance then costs go up for everyone

else now there's no individual mandate it doesn't seem like biden's plan will bring back the individual mandate so while he has a public option while health care would be available to every single person in america um there's a lot of people who might choose to go without it and that could harm the overall insurance pool so it is a very it's a fair hit and he sort of was like my plan covers everyone that's not true and it's like well your website says 97 of people so that you know the other thing that was that was what part of this debate was so so frustrating it's like you know biden also tried to launch i think a hit on single payer that no one had made in the previous debate which is it's true that no one would pay a coay or deductible,

but because taxes go up for everyone, according to Bernie, in a way everyone does have a health care expense. The deductible is out of your paycheck in the form of taxes. Yeah, you're going to pay more taxes. Which is a fair hit. It's a fair hit. Everybody's going to collectively pay a yearly cost for everyone's health care, which is how it should work. everyone's health care, which is how it should work. But he just, there's a kind of lack of facility in delivering some of these punches that I just, you're not really following it. Yeah. I think Cory Booker did a good job when he sort of jumped in and said, you know,

Trump is enjoying this fight more than anyone, and we are dividing our party in the face of the real enemy here. Elizabeth Warren had said something like that the night before. Then he stabbed Biden in the face. Then he stabbed Biden in the face. So there was this exchange over criminal justice reform between Biden and Cory Booker. Let's play that clip. Pressing the syringe down into the arm. Why did you announce in the first day a zero tolerance policy of stop and frisk and hire Rudy Giuliani's guy in 2007 when I was trying to get rid of the crack cocaine Mr. Vice President there's a saying in my community you're dipping into the Kool-Aid

and you don't even know the flavor you need to come to the city of North and see the reforms that we put in place the New Jersey head of the ACLU has said that i embraced reforms not just in action but indeed sir you are trying to shift the view from what you created there are people right now in prison for life for drug offenses because you stood up and used that tough on crime phony rhetoric that got a lot of people elected but destroyed communities like mine who got the better of this one and uh and what do we think about booker's performance in general i thought it was quite good cory booker had a great second debate he really did and you know it's funny he is a happy warrior he's smiling big he's laughing he even then when he was hitting by even he kind of reminds me of when biden would debate in 2012 and 2008.

That big Cheshire grin, right? Like we saw that once last night from Biden. The rest of the time, he looked pretty unhappy to be up there, understandably. So I think Cory Booker went in with probably lower expectations and far exceeded them. He also didn't take a punch from anybody. This is my little quibble with the moderation. Like on the foreign policy questions, you could have asked Cory Booker why he's, I think, the only person on that stage who doesn't support getting back on the Iran deal and starting up negotiations with Cuba again,

returning it to that diplomatic agreement. And yet we didn't really get at that contrast point for him. What did you think about Booker? Booker was great. I think he had the best debate, perhaps, of anyone. And I put a small asterisk in that because Elizabeth Warren was phenomenal in the first debate. But it's just not – we need to see her debate someone other than John Delaney, right, to know for sure, right? Like it's just not – I think she'd probably be great with anyone, but we haven't seen her debate a top-tier contender. She's been a bit like when Kramer has to fight those kids in that karate class. And Kramer has to fight those kids in that karate class. No, I think Booker did what, love it, what annoyed you about Marianne Williamson,

which is you say that Booker always talks about sort of the healing and the bigger problem with Trump. I think he does do that, but he's, because he'd been taking on Biden in the press over the last couple weeks, that part of his message has sort of been lost. And I thought it was back last night, his opening and closing statements, which are usually awful for everyone, were quite good for Cory Booker, I thought. And then he had this balance where he got his message out, his positive message out, but he did draw a contrast with Biden when he needed to draw a contrast with Biden. And he didn't do it. None of it seemed too small or too nasty. It walked up to the line a few times, but I think it was all fair, and

he did it with a smile. Humor. And humor. I mean, that was the Kool-Aid line. The Kool-Aid line was the most tweeted line of the entire debate. Which means he's going to be president. Yeah, I also, you know, I was very frustrated with Cory Booker after the first debate, because I think other than his opening and his closing, there was no actual delivery on that

message around healing and love and being bigger, and then I think he actually, at a few key moments throughout this debate, did that. And it was incredibly welcome in a debate that was otherwise very small and very sour. I'm also surprised that Biden has not figured out a way to talk about the crime bill yet in a satisfactory way, which is like there's a version of this where he could say, yeah, you know what? It was wrong. It was wrong a lot of things we did in that bill. And it was a bill that was supported by the Congressional Black Caucus at the time, by a whole bunch of Democrats.

We all made a mistake. And we've learned over the years. And I spent my entire career since then trying to fix those errors and, you know, trying to end the disparities between crack and crack cocaine sentencing and all the rest of the stuff he talks about. Like, there's a way to do that, but it sort of speaks to his larger problem. Like you've got to get back to saying starting with and he did this on the Iraq war vote later. Yeah, I was wrong then. But here's what I've done since then. That rejoinder is so much more powerful than, hey, Barack Obama vetted me in 2008. He didn't have any problem with any of this stuff.

That sounds like you're using Barack Obama as a human shield, and I don't think it's going to work. I wonder if that works with some group of people, though, the Obama thing. I think it probably does. But Biden would make his life so much easier if he could just use the line he used in that Charleston speech when he was doing cleanup on his comments about working with segregationists, which is,

times have changed and so have I. Just saying that, voters will give you a wide berth for things that happen a long time ago. They're most interested in what you've done recently and what you're going to do if you're president. And Biden has a good story to tell there on all of these issues, including criminal justice reform, which he tried to do and perhaps not. He seemed more interested in attacking Cory Booker about what happened in Cory Booker City than making the case for himself. And I think that is a mistake because I don't I'm not sure what political goal that serves other than showing she'll punch someone in the face. Yeah. Yeah. There's a there's a weakness actually shared by Biden and Kamala, which is they're making their case against Trump. That's what their openings and closings are about.

You know, and Biden saying this is a fight for the soul of this country. The piece that I think I'm missing from Biden is this statement of, you know, I've been in the arena and I've been in the arena for 40 years and I've made mistakes and I've succeeded and I've and I've and I've failed. But, you know, I you know, I'm not I don't need to run for president, but I'm running because I care about this country. I want to defeat Donald Trump. And there's some really important things we need to do. There's no he doesn't go from saying we're in a fight for the soul of this country, a fight. We win if we win the election. Right. I mean, that's basically what he's saying.

And so it leaves him vulnerable when someone like Cory Booker comes after him because he doesn't have that that that that kind of high ground to return to of the kind of president he's telling us he's going to be, rather than just arguing about the past. Kamala has the exact same problem, because when someone comes after her, when she's attacked, she can't run up the hill and say, here's my larger case for myself, not just against Trump, not just about the past, but what I will do from day one. The best politicians turn their weaknesses into strengths. And Biden could take his long public life, which like these arguments about what Biden did in the 70s and the 80s are in some part about policy, but they're also a way of these politicians making the point that Biden is A, old, and B, part of this political system

you hate forever. And Biden should, if Biden could say a version of what Lovett just said, which is, I've been doing this my entire life and I've made mistakes and I've learned from them. And that experience and the things I've learned is going to make me a better candidate against Trump and a better president. Yeah. Like make your age and your experience an advantage, not a disadvantage. And he's been unwilling to do that. Because he's been on the defense the entire time in these debates. And part of that is just because

everyone else is taking shots at him. We're going to go through everyone else doing that, too. But and so it's hard. It's a hard thing to do. But in your mind, you have to be saying, OK, I'm going to defend this attack and then I'm pivoting and I'm going to talk about my positive message. He didn't get a chance to do that, really. One of the tensest moments was when Biden was criticized repeatedly by Julian Castro and Bill de Blasio over the Obama administration's record on deportations and Biden's support for the law that makes crossing the border illegally a criminal violation versus a civil violation. Here's a clip. First of all, Mr. Vice President, it looks like one of us has learned the lessons of the past

and one of us hasn't. Let me begin by telling you. of the past and one of us hasn't. Let me begin by telling you, let me just start out by answering that question. My immigration plan would also fix the broken legal immigration system because we do have a problem with that. Secondly, the only way that we're going to guarantee that these kinds of family separations don't happen in the future is that we need to repeal this law. There's still going to be consequences if somebody crosses the border. It's a civil action. Also, we have 654 miles of fencing. We have thousands of personnel at the border. We have planes. We have boats. We have helicopters. We have security cameras. What we need are politicians that actually have some guts on this issue. Thank you, Secretary. So do we think the critique of Biden on immigration and deportations in the past is fair?

Yes. I think Biden has, in the most unsubtle way possible, wrapped himself in the cloak of Barack Obama as part of this election. And so I think either Cory Booker – I think Cory Booker made this point on stage, was you can't have the good and not have the bad. Right. Now, I think there is more nuance to that critique than was apparent on that stage last night. Because what is true is that,

and I think Barack Obama himself would say this, was we did not do a good job of having ICE take a humane approach to deportations. In the first few years, for sure. But after that point, Obama took aggressive executive action, not just on Dreamers, but on a broader class of immigrants later on. It changed over time. And so I think you can write, it is a fair critique of those early years. And Biden, as vice president, has responsibility for that. He should answer for that.

But we have to be, I think, fair and appropriate to everything else that happened under Obama when it comes to deportations. The other thing I was surprised about from Biden is he was unwilling to defend any deportations whatsoever. By the end of the Obama administration, there were only two categories of people who were targeted for deportation. Dangerous criminals, which everyone would agree with, and recent arrivals, people who just came over the border, and then they're caught, and then they're sent back. And you should be able to stand up for deporting recent arrivals, because if you're not willing to deport recent arrivals to this country, people who just crossed the border legally, then you're not going to deport anyone, then it really is open borders. But I think there is a fear on that stage from Biden and others to defend any kind of deportations whatsoever. Though when you hear Julian Castro talk about, you know, we got into this fucking debate about 1325 again,

you know, you hear Castro say, look, whether 1325 is repealed or not, we're still going to be able to detain and deport people who come here illegally. And you're like, oh, yeah, that's correct. So then why are we having this huge debate? Like, the thing that's driving me crazy about this immigration debate on stage is there is so much agreement between all of these candidates on the major planks of immigration policy and immigration reform. Stop Donald Trump's inhumane policies. Stop mass detention. Stop mass deportation. Stop family separation. You know, make sure that asylum seekers get fair proceedings. And then, by the way, legalize 11 million people who are here who are undocumented. They all agree on that,

and all of them would push for that as president. Yeah, it's, once again, we were left with Bill de Blasio actually being the one to stand up and say, what are we doing here? You know, let's talk about the actual reality of our broken immigration system and what we have to do for the millions of people who are already here. You know, we have become trapped in this 1325 debate in part because of what John is saying, the sort of fear of saying anything that runs counter to the left position, but also because I think a lot of those candidates don't have a strong argument they feel comfortable making around broader immigration reform. They're just not comfortable inside of the issue. I think they're comfortable in the 90% agreement part. Right.

And that's the problem. This is, it reminds me a little bit of the healthcare debate in the 2008 campaign, which is healthcare was the most important domestic issue in that campaign, at least until the economy collapsed at the end. And Obama, Clinton, and Edwards had very, very similar plans. And we ended up fighting about the individual mandate, of which I would note Obama and all of us were on the wrong side of. But that became the issue.

It was like auto-enrollment versus the individual mandate was the core debate. And in a world where Donald Trump is locking kids up in cages and trying to basically put in place bans on immigration for all non-white people, the idea that we're arguing about a section of the law that is only quasi-related to the thing Castro says it's related to is, I think, a huge problem for the larger narrative about what's coming out of this primary. Yeah, and I've said this before, and I think Pete Buttigieg did a good job of making this point the first night. Like, you can make a good argument for Julian Castro's position that we should repeal 1325. You can make a good argument against it. But either way, it's not going to change a president's ability to either end family separations or still deport people who shouldn't be here. In fact, Pete made both sides of that argument.

Pete was the only one who may have created some problems for himself on this issue because it seemed like he was all for getting rid of 1325 in the last debate. In this debate, he didn't say so explicitly, but it does seem like he's maybe walked back to that position. And he ended by complaining, that's what's wrong with raising your hand type questions, which you can tell is him saying he didn't really want to be on that position. Right. I mean, you know, look, fundamentally, what Julian Castro says, the only way we can stop a president from conducting family separation in the future is by repealing 1325, when it seems like that's

not true. You could just pass a law as part of comprehensive immigration reform that bans family separations. There are a lot of things you can do legally, forget just executive orders, legally, without introducing this very, I think, politically risky criminalization versus civil debate. You can pass a law that says no asylum seeker ever will be subject to criminal prosecution and no family will ever be separated. And you can still say

that it will be a criminal violation just for people who are not asylum seekers and not coming with children. And you don't have to wait for comprehensive immigration reform. Nancy Pelosi could pass that tomorrow. Yep. And a president, by the way,

through executive action could do most of that also. Yes, because it's been on the books since like 1920 and it's only happened once. Right. OK, so in last night's debate, Biden wasn't the only candidate who took some incoming. At one point, Tulsi Gabbard unloaded the opposition research file on Kamala Harris's record as a prosecutor. Let's take a listen. Senator Harris says she's proud of her record as a prosecutor and that she'll be a prosecutor president. But I'm deeply concerned about this record. There are too many examples to cite, but she put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations

and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana. She blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so. She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California. And she fought to keep cash bail system in place that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way. Was Tulsi Gabbard's attack fair? What did we think of that exchange no yeah it was a little unfair i mean i think we were talking about this earlier in the office i mean uh kamala harris has been criticized roundly for not uh supporting the death penalty in the case of a police officer who was murdered in san francisco uh on the side, when she was attorney general in California,

she defended the policies of the state. So it's a hard thing to be a lawyer. Yeah, I think Gabbard's attack was like half fair in places, right? Having like really dug into Kamala Harris's record when I interviewed her for our series, it is very complicated. And there's some parts of her record as a prosecutor she should be very proud of.

And she was out ahead of. I mean, that story, digging into that story about the death penalty thing. I don't know if you realize this, like she so she declined to seek the death penalty for this cop killer at the funeral. Diane Feinstein stands up and says, this is not just a tragedy. This is a tragedy where the perpetrator should have been subject to the death penalty while Harris was sitting right there at the funeral and everyone turned her just like laid into a funeral and Harris took and said this is what I believe so like that's a very courageous thing to do later as she's Attorney General she defends the Department of Corrections in the state of California on behalf of you know

pursuing the death penalty so it wasn't as great when she said well that was job, that my client was the state of California. I had to follow the law. This is sort of what Kamala's dealing with, I think, is when you're the attorney general and you're not just purely a political figure, sometimes you, you know, you have to defend things you don't want to defend. Yeah, I got to say, I mean, I think it was a very effective attack from Gabbard, though. I mean, just to be a shitty pundit for a second. Um, I was surprised at how hard it landed. I was surprised that once again, no one on that stage was willing to say to Tulsi Gabbard,

uh, uh, I don't take criticism from someone who hangs out with Bashar al-Assad very seriously. Like that is, they all keep doing it. They all do it in the spin room. Now,

like I'm not saying that's a fair substantive critique, right? I mean, like, we're sort of in the pundit, in pundit land now, but you could punch back really hard. Now, I also think that Tulsi Gabbard

is going to reach a swath of the left that likes her anti-war, anti-interventionist, pro-marijuana legalization world, and I think she'll get some traction out of this.

I really do. I would make the point that Tulsi Gabbard's a very good debater. Yeah. She is good in these moments. She delivers her points clearly and succinctly and strongly. I mean, she crushed Tim Ryan in that first debate. We kind of forget that because we tend to forget Tim Ryan.

I forgot him in the last ten minutes since you last mentioned him. It's funny. Tim Ryan was dunked on twice. Once by Tulsi Gabbard, the other time by like a 77-year-old Brooklyn Jew, just sort of just getting batted around the court. How do we think that Kamala Harris did in general? I don't think her performance in general was as strong as it was the first time at all. And I think part of it was, you know, she wasn't as comfortable debating Joe Biden about health care as she was about the busing issue from last time. And I also think because she took

some incoming herself as now a leading candidate, you know, she was on the defensive a bit more. Yeah, I don't think she had a very good night. I don't think she did terribly, but I think expectations are really high. And her case is when you're not going to have a really clear vision for the kind of president you'd be, when you're not going to lay out exactly why you care so much and are going to fight so hard for this nomination, when your case is about prosecuting the case, winning the debates, you have raised the stakes for yourself in those debates. And she has to meet them. And I think she can. But last night night I don't think she did. Last person to pile on Joe Biden was Kirsten Gillibrand,

who sort of had an attack out of the blue on... Kind of out of the blue because her staffer accidentally previewed it. That's true, yeah. So this attack was previewed in the press before, and she used a Kamala Harris answer on equal pay to then pivot to an op-ed that Joe Biden wrote in 1981, where he argued against expanding a child tax credit for wealthier couples. Let's play that clip. I think we have to have a broader conversation about whether we value women and whether we want to make sure women have every opportunity in the workplace. And I want to address Vice President Biden directly. When the Senate was debating middle class affordability

for child care, he wrote an op-ed. He voted against it, the only vote. But what he wrote in op-ed was that he believed that women working outside the home would, quote, create the deterioration of family. He also said that women who were working outside the home were, quote, avoiding responsibility. And I just need to understand, as a woman who's worked my entire career as the primary wage earner, as the primary caregiver. In fact, my second son, Henry, is here. And I had him when I was a member of Congress. So under Vice President Biden's analysis, am I serving in Congress resulting in the deterioration of the family because I had access to quality, affordable daycare? I just want to know what he meant when he said that.

I just want to know what he meant when he said that. So the fact checkers have waited on this and have pointed out that she has completely mischaracterized the op-ed in his position. He never specifically mentioned women. was in the op-ed was that a child care tax subsidy should go to middle class and poor families. And those families should not, through their taxes, subsidize child care for wealthier families. And then he went on to say that if you're a wealthier family, then if you're just always leaving your children in daycare, then you are somehow maybe shirking your responsibilities, which is certainly something to take issue with. But it was not. But the other thing, and then Biden responded, and it was like, I have one wife who's deceased,

my current wife now, both of them work. They worked while I was in office. We had two parents working in our families. And also, by the way, I was a single dad and raised both of my kids. And so I know what it's like to be a single parent having to work, you know. So I don't know that it landed at all. I mean, two points.

One, just in general, don't telegraph your attacks. Like Biden knew this was coming. He was ready. He had a scripted answer. It's just like be smart about this, right? This would be like if Doug Peterson wrote a Medium post about the Philly special before the Super Bowl. Like, what are you doing? Like, it's just so stupid. And two, Biden's record is filled with problematic stances over a long

period, and a lot on choice and issues of women's reproductive freedoms. And Anita Hill, that's totally fair to talk about that. I just don't understand why Jill LeBron picked this one, overstated the case, and went after, it just, it made no sense. And then, so she did an interview at this morning on CNN

where she tried to defend this and they played Biden's rejoinder where he said, you said all these nice things about me before and the only thing that's changed is now you're running for president. And they asked her about it and she's like, you know,

I still love Joe Biden and respect him. It's like you can't love and respect someone, but then also think that they have this horribly problematic view about women that is misogynistic and outdated, et cetera. It just wasn't great. Yeah. I mean, look, there's a reason I think Cory Booker's exchange with Biden redounded to Cory Booker's benefit and this exchange with Gillibrand blew up in her face. And it's because when you're going to go into somebody's record, when you go into somebody's history, you're not doing it because that one incident all those years ago is incredibly salient and important. You're doing it because you're trying to build a case against the person today. This is the kind of person they are now. This is the kind of leader they'd be now.

This is what's wrong with them now. And I don't think Gillibrand could conceivably stand by the argument that Joe Biden in 2019 believes women shouldn't work out of the home. He didn't say it in 1981. The op-ed in 1981 is bonkers, right? It is. It is very old. It's like it's saying people putting, you know, the existence of nursing homes and daycare centers is a statement about our lack of taking responsibility for our families. It is very old fashioned, but you have to criticize it in that way. Sure. A weird op ed. Yeah, it was definitely weird. But you're right. But like if you're going to put together this big hit and essentially accidentally preview it, you have to be as precise as possible. So this morning, her point was, give me a break. Who in 1981 was going to stay home to watch children? and essentially accidentally preview it. You have to be as precise as humanly possible.

So this morning, her point was, give me a break, who in 1981 was going to stay home to watch children? It's obvious. And typically in most families, it was women. Fair. Okay, sure. But in the debate, she said he wrote in the op-ed was that he believed that women working outside the home would, quote, create the deterioration of family. And it's like, you just can't be that imprecise.

You cannot put those words in his mouth that that fundamentally changed the meaning of the op-ed and think you can get away with that. Kamala Harris, when she went after him on busing in that first debate, she, like the prosecutor she is, locked that shit down. She had, it was precise. And again, it's the problem of like, when you get to present day, what do you do about busing and segregation? There were problems there. But in terms of what she said about him in the past, it was she made sure that she had it mostly right.

And I think that Gillibrand did not do that. I like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. It was not a sincere case she was making. It was not something she sincerely believed she could stand by as evidenced by what she said the next day and what she said about Biden in public in the past. It was an attempt to find a moment in a debate, in a campaign that is not really working. And it is not not working because she has failed to land punches on Joe Biden in the past. It is not working because she has not articulated a reason for her to be a candidate. She has offered bromides and talking points and various arguments over the

course of these debates and over the course of her candidacy. And I was just mad about it. I just was like, this is your final play to get to the third debate, to find an op-ed from 1981 and launch an unfair attack against Joe Biden on that stage when you couldn't stand by literally the next morning? We all overlearned the lesson of the first debate and everyone was looking for their Kamala Harris dismembering Joe Biden moment. And it led to a whole two and a half, two hours and 45 minutes, whatever it was, that just felt ugly and just sucked. Like you said, there's plenty of things to criticize biden about you know kamala harris picked up after jill brand's uh attack on him on his past support for the hyde amendment and it was fair right you you just change your position on the hyde amendment because you were running for president it was a fair attack on joe biden's record on reproductive rights in the past she

she did it was totally fair yeah and you know what else you know even in the clip you played of jill brand in that debate it actually spoke to the larger problem of what she was doing during the debate. Like she says, we need to have a broader conversation here. At every moment when she's asked a question in that debate, even when it was in the midst of a heated argument on the stage, she avoided it completely. There was a moment where Biden and Kamala were going at it. they go to Gillibrand on health care. She avoids basically the question. And then when they go back to Kamala, she just disregarded Gillibrand entirely and went right back to the debate with Biden

because that was the debate taking place on that stage when Gillibrand refused to enter. Did anyone help themselves in this debate? And why did we also feel so bad after this debate i mean cory booker as we mentioned yeah i mean it was a great debate performance he if we assume debates matter and since we're all sitting here today we we must assume they do then cory booker did himself a lot of good in this debate yeah and i think i think for the two nights i think elizabeth warren did herself for sure quite a bit of good because now she's had two very strong debate performances. And now we're

waiting for the main event where she actually is on stage with both Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, all of, and Pete Buttigieg, all of sort of the top five candidates. Yeah. I find his argument a little personally frustrating and maybe a touch unfair, but I do think Castro probably made a pretty good case for himself again in the debates and didn't take any punches. He was solid last night. He was solid last night.

I mean, I think, I don't think he had any big moments like he did in the first one, but I think he made his case for himself. de Blasio, again, had a good message delivered quite annoyingly. When he told Vice President Biden the quote, we believe in redemption, it was just so smarmy and obnoxious and it really bugged me. De Blasio makes the best points in the worst way.

Always. I also think Bill de Blasio, in John Delaney in the same vein, is the kind of person whose response to not getting invited to a party is showing up anyway. And they did. So why do we feel so bad about it in general i think i mean for me there was just you know this was the debate where because everyone learned from uh the kamala harris hit on joe biden in the first debate they all took shots at biden and in the first debate they were also fairly contentious as well it was just it was way too much democrat on democrat and violence it felt like a debate that if some other republican was president or it was an open race you know and uh it would have been like oh what a silly debate they're just going after each other Donald Trump is president and then this happening on stage

people talking about, you know, records in the 70s and this and that over and over and over again, it just started feeling like, guys, what are we doing here? We're 186 days out from Iowa, too. Like we have a long time for this thing to heat up. Normally at this stage, we're talking about things we believe in, we're celebrating our colleagues on stage with us. It just got a little too ugly. This is the unintended consequence of the DNC's debate threshold, which is on that stage last night, which is what made it different from the first night, is only Biden and Harris and Booker had qualified for the next debate. And everyone else doesn't have a great path to get there with the possible exception of Castro. And so this was do or die for everyone. They had to empty the

chamber with every attack, every strategy, everything so this was do or die for everyone. They had to empty the chamber with every attack, every strategy, everything they had to do to have a chance. I also think this one was hard for the reason you point out, John, which is you wouldn't know Donald Trump was president. Like we did not talk about it. That's why I think Booker did well as he brought it back to that.

We had this debate. The debate seemed small and diminishing. And also we know a lot of the people on that stage, right? Like, we worked with Biden. We worked with Castro. We've known Kamala Harris for a long time. And they're just, like, savaging each other at this world in which Donald Trump is doing insane shit to make this country worse every single day in July. And I will say that even about some of the purely positive messaging.

Elizabeth Warren, who we praise all the time, there are still times when Elizabeth Warren is talking where I'm like, you could be saying this in 2016, 2012, 2008 about the massive inequality in our economy and the fact that it's rigged, which I completely am all in for. But, and we've also said to people, you don't need to be talking about Trump all the time. But everything is about balance. don't need to be talking about Trump all the time, but everything is about balance. And while you shouldn't be talking about Donald Trump all the time, I don't think it's a good idea to overcorrect and pretend that somehow we don't have a president in power who is not just a racist, sexist, xenophobe, buffoon, but is endangering our democracy and the planet every single day he's in office. And, you know, we'd say that Donald Trump is a symptom of a larger problem. What is the larger problem?

Let's start talking about the larger issues that we're dealing with right now. Yeah, I mean, that is, I think, ultimately it. I think that's the reason the first the night of the first debate, I think, felt better to watch than the second because there were moments in that first debate where Elizabeth Warren, as the kind of strongest and candidates out there, kind of took the mantle that comes along with that and set the stakes and reminded people how big this fight is and how important this fight is. And, you know, with the language about idealism and optimism, kind of rooted people in the conversation. On night two, that was the job of either Biden or Harris, and neither one

of them did it. And so Booker did it at times, and fucking Bill de Blasio did it at times. Bennett did it too. Bennett did it too. Bennett did it too, and I think Bennett did also have, I think, ultimately, I think, a better night for himself than he did previously. Maybe one of the better moderate arguments of all those candidates. We left out Inslee, who I thought had a very good...

Oh, yeah! Jay Inslee did a great We left out Inslee, who I thought had a very good... Oh, yeah. Jay Inslee did a great job. Jay Inslee is just a charming figure up there. But in that, this is, I think, why... Look, Biden did better than he did previously. But if we hadn't seen Biden have such a terrible night, I do not think we'd be describing what we saw as a frontrunner maintaining his position. I agree.

He did better than before, but still not well. He simply does not have control of that stage. And it is very, very unsatisfying as a result, because he is the ostensible frontrunner of the Democratic Party, and he cannot command the stage. He did it for one moment at the very start of the debate, when he made a really lovely point about everyone being up there. Oh, yeah. That was one of his best moments. It was one of his best moments. It was his only great moment. And for the rest of the debate,

I watched somebody on their heels try to keep up and basically make it all the way through. But when you're supposed to be the frontrunner of the Democratic Party, there's a reason we have a knot in our stomach at the end of the debate. I mean, you guys probably remember, I think it was the ABC debate in Iowa in 2007

when every single person went after Obama on foreign policy. It was the foreign policy debate, and it was about his Pakistan policy and negotiating with Iran and all of these things that are now the policy of the Democratic Party. And the Republicans. But it's just very hard when everyone's coming after you. So I want to put Biden's performance in that context, that if you were taking incoming from nine people on stage, it's very hard. Having said that, it is halting at times. I mean, there are a lot of warning signs in it. I mean, we can't ignore the fact that he just in the most classic old person thing possible mangled his website at the end. Go to 3303 Joe. Yeah, I think that's like yesterday. Trump successfully browbeat the Fed chairman into cutting rates to help him politically and then lashed out at Navy prosecutors because some right wing cause celeb means you have to support a Navy SEAL who probably murdered someone in captivity.

And it's like you juxtapose that with what we saw last night. And it didn't feel like we were up to the task of kicking his ass because we need to. That's I think I landed in feeling like Biden had a worse night than the D.C. punditry did, in part because I don't think his challenge in the first debate was really around the substance of the busing question, as important as all that is. It was that he kind of looked old and unprepared to take on Donald Trump. And there were a bunch of moments last night where I thought he was halting, like Dan said, the messing up the website thing, but also just sort of didn't seem to have a handle on the rebuttals he needed to have a handle on. And that doesn't mean he's like old. It just means he wasn't ready to play and he should have been. Yeah, I think what Biden improved on between the first and second debate is, you know, he has some of the best debate prep people in the country.

You know, Ron Klain, Anita Dunn. And I think he on some of the rebuttals, he ran the playbook that they gave him and he got the lines out and it was effective. And it was effective. But I think when you are on stage with all these candidates and most importantly, when you're on stage with Donald Trump, you have to be nimble and quick and off the cuff. And a lot of times the playbook that happened in debate prep is going to go out the window because there's going to be a new issue and you have to be ready to fight. And I am worried that he is not there. Yeah. And by the way, you know, the good news is before we get to Donald Trump, Joe Biden is going to have to be on a stage with Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Pete Buttigieg, among others. And I think that will be a higher level challenge for him because Warren's not going to let punches go by. You know, she's going to take her shots. I agree.

I think we think of all these debates in the context of who would be the best person to stand on the debate stage against Trump. And I do worry that that is not the exact right way to think about it, right? Well, since Hillary won all of the debates against Trump. Hillary won all three debates against Trump and still lost. And it's not to say the debates are not important, but I think there are other things that we should be looking for in there that both give us confidence or concerns about various candidates. This is where I think Elizabeth Warren has done very well thus far. But it's like, you see Kamala Harris in that first debate, and even in moments last night where you're like she would disembowel Trump.

And he would be scared shitless of her. There is no doubt that he would be very afraid to be on stage with her, which is why he doesn't really attack her as much as other people. But there are other parts of her debate performance that give me concerns about her larger candidacy, which is she makes the best, most powerful argument against Trump. But her argument for herself thus far is that she makes the best, most powerful argument against Trump. But her argument for herself thus far is that she makes the best, most powerful argument against Trump. And you want candidates who can both make the case against Trump and the case for themselves, not just on the debate stage, but on the stump every single day from the day they're the nominee into election day. Your 3 a.m. agenda is not the case. It's an agenda. It's good. It's important. It is not the case for your candidacy. And I say this as someone who likes Kamala Harris so much.

And I think she has, like, limitless potential. Yes. I do. And I think you could even put together a theory in your head as to why she is the person, if she can meet that threshold, who is best able to put together the electoral coalition to get to 270 of anyone running. And she's so good and so smart, and it's like right there. Now, the caveat is it is

early. Candidates grow. All of them do. Obama was not great at this point. No, he sucked in some of these debates early on. He was a terrible debater. Yeah, I think you're right. That's what I found myself... That was part of my... As I was driving to the McDonald's drive-thru, that was part of what I was saying to myself was like like like kamala harris can take this nomination if

she wants it she can't she can take it and there is that missing piece and it's so important and i'm very frustrated that we're another debate in and that weakness is still there you're totally right that ultimately this won't be won or lost in the debates but when we're evaluating the debates we have to we're evaluating based on who's going to go toe to toe with Donald Trump. And that's the piece that's still missing for her that that like gut level is why the health care part. It's not just that she wasn't, I think, as you know, live in describing her own policy positions. It's that when she describes her plan, it feels very much like she's running through the points of her new plan that she came up with to answer some of the criticisms she offered previously, not this like gut level, here's what I'm fighting for. Last thing I'll say is I do think that in the September debate, there's going to be room for someone on stage to say enough of all this fighting.

Donald Trump is president. Let's focus on that. enough of all this fighting, Donald Trump is president, let's focus on that. I think someone who does that consistently like Warren, Booker, and Buttigieg all did at times in these two debates, I think that person will do really well. We were talking about this before. It may be the case

that these things sort of wax and wane here, like the next debate could be a much friendlier affair because this one was so nasty. My plea that I would make to all the candidates who make the stage in September is, you're going to have 10 plus million people watching that debate. Everyone take a little bit of your time and make the argument against Trump. Because it's not just Democratic.

And for yourself. Yeah, but make your argument for yourself, but instead of arguing with the, don't spend as much time making the argument against Trump as you are against Biden or Harris or Warren or Sanders. Like, it's so rare that we actually get to hold the microphone in Trump's America that let's take advantage of it to articulate a case against Trump. Yeah, it's so lost in this. It's like there's no that was that was why the Biden moment at the top of this was so good. It's like, hey, guys, ultimately, this is a team of people coming together to try to pick somebody to represent us together in the most important fight of our lifetimes. And just

that has to be there, because otherwise you leave feeling like somebody punched you in the face. I was going to try to keep trying to end on a high note. Listen, if you want to hear more about this, go to Pod Save America, 330330.net, and we'll tell you. Did you see that Buttigieg's campaign bought joe biden 30 30 yeah what

a crafty youth yeah that guy listening to hamilton just buying those websites that was nerdy don't do it that was almost disqualifying don't do that anymore better than that come on there's better hip-hop out there um all right everyone we will you know, we'll have this again in September. And when we just have, so far there's just seven candidates on stage in September and a couple more might qualify. I think we're, I think we could be down to one debate stage. If we get to 12, it's two nights according to the rules. Fuck!

Yeah. Here's the thing. We also, you know, if we get to September, we did not discuss Andrew Yang, whose climate policy has moved to higher ground. Oh, my God. Yeah, that is right. Well, that's well, that says a lot. That's what we'll remember Andrew Yang for in this debate, that he talked about moving to higher ground for climate. And he's going to he's going to give everyone a thousand dollars and then you move to higher ground.

Wake me up when September ends. Right, guys. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. What was the song you kept referencing last night? Oh, Chumbawamba. Unwritten. All right. Let's all right, right. What was the song you kept referencing last night? Oh, uh... Chumbawamba. Unwritten. Natasha Begley. All right, let's end this. All right, everyone. Bye. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media.

The show is produced by Michael Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Caroline Reston, Tanya Somanator, and Katie Long for production support, and to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these bad boys every week.