Pod Save America - "Have you tried role playing?" (Thanksgiving mailbag!)

Episode Date: November 23, 2020

Jon, Jon, and Tommy answer your questions about the 2020 election, incoming Biden administration, Thanksgiving dishes, and more.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Today's pod is our annual Thanksgiving mailbag episode where we answer your questions and give thanks for what has pretty much been a perfect year. Medical point two. Just three old mailbags answering your questions. Let's do this. This will be fun. Hey. Wow.

Nice. Before we get into it, a few quick housekeeping notes. If you live in Georgia or if you know anyone who lives in Georgia, December 7th is the deadline to register to vote in the January 5th runoffs that will determine control of the Senate. A group we worked with in the general called Register to Vote will be able to reach one new voter with the materials they need to register. Again, that's a $2 donation. One new voter. Go to votesaveamerica.com slash register GA. Register GA to help. Got to get everyone registered in Georgia and out to the polls.

Also, we just dropped a ton of new holiday merch in the Crooked store. There's new Pod Save America gear and other fun stuff from all your favorite Crooked pods. Check it out at crooked.com slash store. You can do all your holiday shopping. Isn't that great? That's right. Move over, Supreme. Let's take some questions. Anna Marshall asks, what are your thoughts on the reports that Republicans are pressuring Georgia's Secretary of State to throw out legal absentee votes? John Lovett, what do you think? It is not legal to throw out ballots for no reason. Didn't even have to Google that one. That one's easy. You know, look, sometimes legal questions are hard, reason um didn't even have to didn't even have to google that one's easy you know look sometimes

legal questions are hard especially if you're rudy giuliani cosplaying as a trial attorney for the first time in uh you know many many many drinks questions like where am i i don't know yeah pennsylvania but uh no you can't throw out legally cast ballots just because you don't like the outcome of an election. There's even now a question as to whether or not Lindsey Graham acted illegally when he tried to pressure the secretary of state of Georgia to throw out legally cast ballots. There's a dispute as to what was said. In my experience, I think when there's a dispute about something Lindsey Graham said, it's probably best to go with the person who's not Lindsey Graham just because he's... He lies about a lot of things. He lies about a lot of stuff. out excerpts from the court transcripts, not just from Rudy Giuliani, but in general from Republican lawyers, many of whom are trying to get out of representing Donald Trump or

Donald Trump allies in these fights. Because the thing about being a lawyer when you're not on television and you're in court is that you're a member of the bar. And with that comes certain obligations, like not to lie to a fucking judge's face. And so the judge turns to these lawyers who are, Donald Trump is saying it's fraud, Rudy Giuliani is saying it's fraud. And then the judge turns to these lawyers and says, are you, sir, a member of the bar going to say that there were no observers? No, I can't say that. Are you a member of the bar going to

say that you have evidence of fraud? No, we say that so it's um i'm really enjoying the difference between even even rudy even rudy said uh in court around the pennsylvania case there was no fraud that's not what they were alleging even rudy i mean if they take away rudy's bar license what does he have just the bar just his cocktail just his cocktail yeah yeah rudy's used to judge gene uh you know, hammering down a bag of Franzia and then ruling on his statements. He's not used to an actual courtroom. And it's quite funny. But, you know, Anna asks what can be done. Don't worry about this one. Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state in Georgia, was a Republican who's been attacked, who's been getting death threats because he refuses to

illegally throw out ballots. And he has decided to conduct a fair election and says there's no fraud. He has resisted efforts from Lindsey Graham, from Doug Collins to throw out the ballots. And so nothing has to be done because Lindsey Graham's scheme and Doug Collins' scheme and Donald Trump's scheme is not going to work in Georgia. Yeah. It's not going to work. I would watch his interview, Brad Raffensperger's interview with Mehdi Hassan on his Peacock show, because he also talks through the fact that it's not like Georgia is a state that hasn't been focused on voter fraud, right? Like they got rid of ballot harvesting. They have photo ID laws. They have sort of an extensive process.

They're auditing the election anyway. So there's a lot of steps are already being taken to prevent voter fraud. It barely ever happens in this country. It seems like Raffensperger is actually being pretty principled here. So it's worth watching the whole interview. And again, you don't have to believe in Raffensperger's principles or, you know, worry that he's going to change his mind. What happened is Graham called him and said, do you have the power to toss all mail ballots in counties found to have higher rates

of non-matching signatures? So the signature match, which is a bad law anyway, if you have a mismatched signature, instead of just throwing out that ballot, you throw out all the ballots in the county. And Raffensperger said to Graham, no, of course I don't have that power. Like so much of this and everyone, everyone's nervous, like, oh, but Republicans are going to do this or that.

Like there are laws in place that if they break like the law enforcement and judges and courts will step in. This is the problem that they're facing. Raffensperger was so concerned about the call that he was advised not to call Lindsey Graham back. That's how bad it was. Also, just to stop on the Lindsey Graham thing for one more second. Lindsey Graham is a senator from South Carolina, which means he has about as much official capacity in this matter as you, as me, as anyone listening to this. He's just a famous concerned citizen calling people who will answer. That's what he is. He is a he's just as a it's like normally celebrities do this to get like a PlayStation five early.

But but Lindsey Graham's doing it to try to destroy democracy. Yeah, he's also the fucking chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. So he should be investigated for this fucking bullshit. All right. Nicole Dilley asks, can Biden really legally cancel student loan debt through an executive order? It sounds too good to be true that someone could wave a magic wand and erase debt for millions of people. Tommy, what do you think?

Well, lots of smart people seem to think he can. So, I mean, the context is 22 million borrowers had their federal student loans paused and the interest waived through 2020, I believe, because of the pandemic. So that's already happened. interest waived through 2020, I believe, because of the pandemic. So that's already happened. And then the Higher Education Act that goes back to 65 authorizes the education secretary to compromise, waive or release federal student loan debt, which has led smart folks like Elizabeth Warren to argue that that means the president can use an executive order to wipe away their debt. Warren thinks Biden can cancel up to $50,000 in debt per borrower. So that's a big chunk of change. Back in March, Biden tweeted that we should cancel at least

$10,000 in student debt per person, but he wanted that authorized by Congress. So how you do it is seemingly important to him. Biden has a pretty generous broader student loan plan. But when you have a debt erased, there's a question about whether it will be taxed or not. Jason Furman, former economist at the Obama White House, suggested that it could be. Others have pushed back and said, no, it probably won't. Joe Biden will be in charge of the IRS, so he might have a say in the matter. But it seems like a pretty great idea to me. So, Lovett, I want to get to you. There's one other legal question. There's, as you said, Tommy, advocates believe Higher Education Act gives the education secretary the authority to cancel the debt. There's some people who think that there's a separation of

powers issue here because Congress is supposed to be in control of handing out money. And then they say, OK, well, this could be challenged if Biden does it in court. So what will the courts do? And if the banks and lenders went to court and they won, what would then happen to the borrowers whose debt was already erased? Do they have to then pay that back? So there are some legal questions around this, though, again, like you said, a lot of smart people think that the act does give the secretary the authority. Lovett, what do you think about sort of this this proposal? So in terms of just the tax liability, like one of the reasons people are concerned about that is if you're going to do this in the middle of a pandemic, one of the arguments to do it is that it helps people who are in a dire financial strait and it helps get more money back into the economy. If all of a sudden you've issued a tax liability to whatever, 40 million people, suddenly, yeah, they don't owe money down the line. But right now,

they owe a bunch of money to the government. It could have kind of the reverse effect of what you want, though Warren claims and others claim that the president can waive that. Specifically through, by the way, we should just say they believe president can waive that. You know, specifically through, by the way, we should say they believe they can waive it through the IRS can actually issue a rule saying that you don't have tax liability on the debt cancellation. Yeah. Now, I do think that like Warren and the lawyers who believe that this is legal, like they have a pretty firm ground to stand on. I do think we're back in a conversation about absence, like functioning Congress and a functioning kind of system. We are once again, looking to executive action to step in to do the work that probably we would all prefer

be done through legislation. I do think it raises a bunch of other problems. If you're not doing this as part of broader reforms, I obviously think we should do debt relief and it's an emergency for a lot of people. I don't think that should stand in the way of doing it. But if you're not doing this as part of broader reforms, I obviously think we should do debt relief and it's an emergency for a lot of people. I don't think that should stand in the way of doing it. But if you're not going to put in other reforms, you're still in the same broken system. There are still people that are going to be getting accruing debt right away. There's a practical issue to figure out here, which is, say, on Monday, you wipe away the debt of you up to $50, dollars in debt for everyone who's taken out debt. Tuesday, a bunch of people take out new student loans. What happens to their debt? Do you keep wiping out?

You know, in the atlas, what you're saying in the absence of legislation fixing the system, you have sort of this system where you're like, are you just sort of wiping away debt every couple weeks? How does how does it set up? Which I think is a challenge to figure out. Yeah. But again, the only reason Joe Biden would be doing it this way, and I think one of the reasons that he sort of hedged on the question when he was asked at a press conference last week was that you'd only be doing it if you didn't have a Democratic Congress. If Joe Biden has a Democratic Congress, if we win the two Senate seats in Georgia, then absolutely he will try to pursue debt relief via legislation and not via executive action, because it is it's just easier to do that way. And it's more legally sound. two-party system in which the Republicans were honest and good faith actors. Because what you could also imagine happening is Joe Biden basically says, you know, I would like to see this broad

range of reforms to student debt and to how we pay for college generally, making it free to go to public colleges, all the pieces of his plan that are really good. Because then you can do debt forgiveness as part of a longer term plan to make sure that this kind of problem doesn't creep up again. And so you could imagine Joe Biden basically using this as a cudgel. If Joe Biden has the authority to cancel $50,000 of student debt, he also has the authority to pause it while negotiations are ongoing to get something done in Congress. So I think we'll see. But I think what is exciting and good about this is it changes the debate from will there be student debt forgiveness to will there be student debt forgiveness through Congress or will Joe Biden have to do it alone?

My only recommendation is like there's a lot of people who support getting rid of this debt who are dunking on people on Twitter who say it might cause resentment among people who've already paid off their loans or people who didn't go to college and don't have loans. And look, I get that. Right. Like, I think we should do the policy. My just suggestion to them would be, let's all spend less time dunking on those people and just start to make a broader argument for how it could help the economy, how this could actually trickle down on like tax cuts for billionaires that Republicans always jam through under the guise of this somehow helping working people. I mean, if you got 22 million kids out from under a pile of debt and they were able to spend that money on literally anything else, it should benefit all of us and it should be a good thing. And I will also say, you know, Jason Furman, who we know who you said, Tommy, was skeptical of this idea, said one thing you can do administratively

that that would be very effective is tougher regulation of for-profit colleges fuck those one of the one of the i mean one of the major and just in general one of the major challenges here with student loans and the cost of college is if the government continues to provide grants and loans to students without doing anything about the rising cost cost of college, all we're doing is sort of, you know, we're trying to like... It's a wealth transfer to the schools. It's not, it's exactly, it's not really solving the problem. And it's the same thing as not doing anything about the cost of healthcare and health insurance,

but continuing to subsidize people getting health insurance, right? Which is what we do. We have to, the source of the problem is the rise in cost of college of healthcare. And that requires regulation of colleges of the health insurance industry. Well, the for-profit piece is, is, is even is sort of a specific thing that's very egregious. Like not all for-profit colleges are bad. There were some that were really bad that went after veterans in particular, and basically enrolled them in these programs that gave them bogus online degrees that were completely useless and got a bunch of people in a pile of debt. So they're just awful. And they've been protected and defended by the education secretary

currently. And it's just horrible. So Erica Carpenter asks, I've heard EU leaders like Macron say that they will be more hesitant to work with the U.S. now that they know all agreements can be undone by the election of one idiot. How will this impact the Biden administration? I know he used to do a lot through executive orders because of McConnell. But can't all EOs just be undone executive orders in the next election if, God forbid, a Trumpy candidate wins? Yeah, I guess I would roll my eyes at this Macron's comment a little bit. I mean, love us or hate us. The U.S. is a key ally for most European countries. We trade, you know,

a trillion dollars worth of goods and services a year. We work at the U.N. We work at NATO. We work on the Iran nuclear deal. So I guess my point is we don't really have a choice. We all have to work together. I think the French and most other countries are sophisticated enough to know that US political power can swing back and forth from Republican to Democrat and lead to big changes in policy. That's kind of priced into the system in the same way we know that the French, like Macron invented a political party and ran and won. And that was something new we had to work with. So that doesn't mean that America's reputation and standing in the world wasn't enormously damaged. Like I think Iran, for example, they will be far more hesitant to want to work with us because they were promised a bunch

of sanctions relief under the JCPOA. And they lived up to their end of the bargain for a long time, didn't enrich nuclear material, and then got no sanctions relief and actually got hammered even further by the Trump administration. But I'm less worried about relations with the French or Europeans. So, Levitt, I do think, you know, government by EO, sort of by executive action or executive order does sort of highlight the importance of winning these two Senate races in Georgia. Yes, it really does. And, you know, I do feel attention. And I think one of the lessons to me about the Trump administration that I'm going to really try not to forget is the accrual of power to the executive, the reliance on executive orders, the like stretching the

bounds of what an executive order can do to make it look more and more like legislation, in part because over the decades, Congress has shifted more authority, given more leeway, given more abilities to the presidency, that these things are dangerous when in the hands of Donald Trump. So we should be afraid of them, even when they're in the hands of a president we have more alignment with. But, you know, right now we're going to have a choice between doing what we can in an emergency around COVID, around the economy, around other long-term challenges versus our fears around executive power. And if we have a democratic Congress, we can have the ability to reestablish some of the congressional prerogatives and do progressive legislation at the same time. But

right now, we're going to have to make, unless we win those seats, we're going to have to make some really hard choices. maple leaf forever asks many bridges to repair but what foreign country does president biden visit first i feel like i know who maple leaf forever what what their choice yeah they uh yeah uh so i bet maple leaf forever uh i bet biden goes to canada or mexico first obama's first trip was to Ottawa in February of 2009. George W. Bush went to Mexico in February, which pissed off the Canadians. Then he went to Canada in April. I think Bill Clinton went to Canada first.

I hope shortly after Biden creates some sort of summit or event, either hosts it or travels to it around climate change to try to get everybody who is in the Paris Climate Accords to renegotiate. There may already be actually a COP, one of the summits on the books that I'm just not aware of. But it would be great to do that, to talk about climate internationally. You could do something alongside of it that reaffirms the US commitment to NATO. There's lots of ways to do this. All of your travel will be scrutinized. All of your calls will be scrutinized in ways that border on the absurd. But it will be really fun to watch Joe Biden go to places and be met with like crowds and jubilation and know that

Trump will be watching that on cable news and that it will piss him off to no end. You know, it's funny as Biden. One thing Biden has said over the years, just all the time is don't compare me to the almighty. Compare me to the alternative. No one will benefit more in the history of human civilization. I'm telling you, you already see it. You've already seen it since the election. Like Joe Biden gives a pretty standard set of remarks on COVID or the economy. And everyone's like, oh, my God, he didn't yell at us. He's got plans. It was calm. It was a tweet for a day.

It's not it's not like super impressive, but it just it feels so much better. You know, it's funny as we say that now. But you know that the other thing that's going to happen is they're going to cover Biden, especially when he's on foreign soil, as if Donald Trump and his bananas behavior abroad didn't happen. And he's going to be held right back. Oh, like the definition of gaffe is about to drop again. Love it. Like it's going to happen. And then they're all going to walk around being like, well, we were all tough on Donald Trump. So we're tough on Joe Biden, too. That's just the way it is. Love it. It's already happening. Margaret Sullivan at the Washington Post, who I think is

brilliant and I love her stuff, wrote the tired, like Obama was hard on the media thing because there were leak investigations and because he didn't do an interview with the Washington Post. And then she singled out the fact that in Vietnam, he did an interview with Anthony Bourdain, posts. And then she singled out the fact that in Vietnam, he did an interview with Anthony Bourdain, who is like a brilliant writer, someone who cares about Vietnam, someone who's taught me more about foreign places and foreign policy than most political reporters who wanted to have a conversation about how to get rid of fucking landmines that were sprinkled across Asia after Vietnam, like super substantive, important stuff. And like, you know, it was just like self-interested, ridiculous critique. And I'm like, I just I need to I need to maybe stop reading so much stuff.

Yeah, no, I think like the Biden strategy during the campaign, which is like ignore Twitter and a lot of the like D.C. you know, crap is probably a good thing to continue. I, it's, you can't fighting with them. Never works. Just fucking ignore them. That's, that's, that's my, it's my proposal. By the way, physician heal thyself is what I would say to you, John.

Do you think, is hypocrisy something we avoid? I love it, but it's sort of my brand. I'm rolling in it right now. Speaking of ignoring things uh allison griffin asks let's talk about parlor do you think it is something to worry about since it appears to be an echo chamber for the worst ideas of white supremacists or is the site there to just blow off steam love it what do you think echo chamber for the worst ideas of white supremacists. What is this, the Republican caucus meeting? Oh my God. I honestly like- Usually you save that kind of humor for the ads. What I would say is I've never been to parlor, don't plan on going. You know, we talk a lot

about how Twitter isn't real life, but there's a lot of journalists and conversations on Twitter that influence the way politics is discussed. And that discussion influences coverage in a broader sense. And so I do think there's real value to a lot of the conversation on Twitter, even if it is very, very frustrating, because it helps set a larger conversation outside of that. It is obviously very worrying to have yet another kind of festering swamp of right-wing nationalism and conspiracy theories. That said, there's no shortage of them already, right? Those exist across the internet. So, you know, the fact that a bunch of right-wing politicians are kind of taking their little potshots on Twitter so reporters see it before they go to parlor and post the same shit, I don't know what the consequences are. It's obviously not good. I'm of two minds of this too. Like the extreme

version and my concern is that like any safe space for hate speech is bad. The Christchurch killer posted his psychotic manifesto on 8chan. He also linked, posted a link to a Facebook live video of the murder itself. So that is horrible to have a safe space for like literal Nazis to gather and plan and incite each other. I think the majority of Parler people are just like whiny, stupid, trolling conservatives, right? It's like a bunch of Charlie Kirks running around. And the reason I don't think those people are going to be happy on Parler is because they love to performatively complain about how they're being suppressed and they love to own the libs. And if there's no libs there to own, I'm not sure what they're going to do, right?

If Charlie Kirk is just pretending that liberals hate Thanksgiving to an audience of Dan Bongino's, I'm not sure that's going to get him the thing that he wants. It's also just worth noting, though, that Parler is backed by the Mercer family. They are these horrible billionaires who bankrolled everything Steve Bannon did. So, you know, TLDR, we need a wealth tax yesterday. Wow. I guess that's great. I like that. All right. We have a few questions about Georgia. Adam Gray asks, given what we saw with McGrath and Harrison, Amy McGrath and Jamie Harrison, nine figure fundraising, but both lost by big margins. Is there any reason to think donating money to Georgia races will help versus non-financial stuff? I will take a shot at this one. demographic makeup of a state is by no means the only factor, but probably the most determinative factor in electoral outcomes and what's going to happen. Presidential margin of victory in a given

state is over 10 points. It is most likely not a competitive state. Doesn't matter who your candidate is, what the message is. It's just not going to be competitive. If it's under five points, it's always a competitive state. Between five and 10, unlikely, but who knows. In these competitive races, a great, well-funded candidate with a strong message and good organizing really matters. And that is Georgia. You know, Joe Biden won Georgia. John Ossoff only was down by a point.

When you add up the votes in the special election with Warnock and Loeffler, again, Democrats and Republicans, extremely close. So when you have states that are extremely close, money very much matters in the outcome. Funding a campaign matters in the outcome. The ads that run, the organizers they hire, that all matters. I think looking back on it, like that Amy McGrath race was never really competitive. It just wasn't. Mitch McConnell won by like 20-something points. Donald Trump won by 30-something points, beat Joe Biden. Now, again, people can be forgiven for thinking that it might be competitive because Andy Beshear, a Democrat, won the governor's race in that state. But of course, the Beshear name in Kentucky is famous, and that might have been a special

situation. You get the situations where like Doug Jones wins a special election in Alabama, right? That was a unique situation and that, you know, poor Doug Jones lost this time around. So there are outliers for sure. But when you have a state that is as red as Kentucky, it doesn't matter how great the candidate is or how much money they have or how the messages have. It's just going to be a hard race. And so I do think that like when you're thinking about where to give money for races, you know, think about the races that where the state is competitive and close. Now there's a whole nother conversation about like,

how do we make red States competitive? Well, that you, you have a lot of grassroots organizing and a presence in the state, but sometimes that can take five, 10, 15 years. Again, look at Georgia. So anyway, I would, I, I would definitely recommend giving in that situation. But I don't know if you guys have a different view. No, well said. I mean, Biden just won. Yeah, give. Yeah, Biden just won. It's a big deal. Jessica Pinnell asks also about Georgia, what accounts for the disparity in votes between the two races in Georgia? Do we expect that same gap again? And if so, what happens if Warnock doesn't get 50 percent? Tommy? So I assume we mean the disparity of votes between Ossoff and Warnock. And that is because Ossoff was running against David Perdue and then some libertarian candidate,

whereas Warnock was running against like 20 some odd candidates, including several Democrats. And the vote got split up a bunch of different ways, including some really confused people who voted for a Lieberman, which was just never acceptable. So not getting to 50% in those elections triggers a runoff between the two candidates. And then I believe it's winner take all no matter what, right? Yes. Once the runoff happens in the runoff, whichever candidate gets the most votes wins. That's just the Georgia law. So, you know, I think the big question is, like, Biden got 2.47 million votes in Georgia. John Ossoff got

2.37 million votes. It's hard to compare with the other race because it was so many different candidates. But so there's two possibilities for the split, right? There were voters who cast a ballot for Biden and then also Perdue, split ticket voters, or there were voters who just voted in the presidential and didn't vote in the Senate. And we know there was a mix of both because there were 46,000 more votes cast in the presidential race than in the Senate. But then there was about 100,000 vote difference between Biden and Ossoff. So you have a mix of voters. So I think the question is in Georgia, how do we get people who either just voted for Biden to vote for Ossoff and Warnock or people who voted for Biden and then Perdue and Loeffler to maybe change their votes and vote for Ossoff

and Warnock? But that's that seems to be the challenge or new voters or register new voters or register new voters are also just, you know, it seems unlikely to me that you will have a turnout in the runoff that equals the presidential, right? Like that would be seem to be like pretty crazy. And so actually, yeah, like we need to go after the split ticket voters or the people that just voted in the presidential. But also it seems to me one of the reasons Loeffler and Perdue are trying to nationalize the race and Trumpify the race with these like kind of spurious attacks on the secretary,

the Republican secretary of state of Georgia is they need a Trump like turnout. And so they're hoping that with by bringing Trump's energy, evil vibes into this thing, they can keep a greater percentage than we can keep. And so that's part of the fight to like, you know, how many of their voters do we lose versus how many do we lose? And the reason that it's close that it should be close is that traditionally runoffs, you have high propensity voters, right? People who vote all the time. High propensity voters tend to be college educated voters. In the past, college educated voters were Republican voters.

Now, college educated voters are very Democratic. And you have low propensity voters, voters that don't show up as much, are both non-college educated white people. Those are all the Trumpers that came out in 2020 for Trump. And you have a lot of sometimes black voters and Latino voters can be more low propensity on the Democratic side, even though a ton of them came out in 2020 for Joe Biden. So we do have, it's going to be more competitive than past runoff elections because now Democrats have a lot of high propensity voters. OK, so Charlotte Greenbaum asks, how will crooked media's focus or mission change under the Biden Harris administration? What does crooked look like?

We've actually talked about this a lot. that while Trump winning led us to start Crooked Media, it was always about the fact that Trump represented a bunch of deeper systemic problems in our economy, our politics, our media, our culture. And Trump gone, those problems remain, those challenges remain. I think one lesson of the last four years is we need to not just pay attention during elections. We need to

pay attention every day in between. And our goal continues to be to help turn people's anxieties, hopes, fears into political action, to give them a place where there's a political conversation that's not just about being an observer, but being a participant. And with Joe Biden in the White House, we have a very short window to do as much good as humanly possible in the between now and the midterms. It's never been more important that people stay in the fight. You know, Trump gone, everyone paying attention. We finally have the chance to do some real good. And that really depends on sustained activism. Sustained activism is how we can make sure that Joe Biden keeps his promises and make sure that Joe Biden is successful. We

can be his ally and we can provide pressure. We can also provide a backstop. You know, for so many years, Republicans in Congress have said, oh, I can't go back to my people with this, this proposal. I'll get killed. The base, the, the freedom caucus, what have you, we need to be behind democratic politicians, creating the pressure and the support where necessary to make sure they have the tools in what will be incredibly divisive, incredibly difficult negotiations to get as much good done as possible. Is that as ideal as what it would be if we had a full Democratic Senate? No, we should keep fighting for it. But even absent that, we all have to just stay in the fight.

Yeah, I have three quick points. The three of us talked about starting a media company even before Trump was elected. And we did that because we thought that right wing media outlets are poisoning people's brains and non right wing media outlets don't give people the information, the opportunities, the encouragement to actually fix what's broken about politics. That is what's different about Crooked. That's why we have Vote Save America. That's why we've been in this in this fight for so long. That's why we have Vote Save America. That's why we've been in this fight for so long. We also, I think, as we have now a Democrat in power in the presidency, a Democratic House, and we have the opportunity to do some things, we've always wanted Cricket to be a place where people can participate in a healthy, respectful, productive debate about the future of liberalism, broadly defined from the left to the center and everything in between. So we want to have that debate. It can be feisty at times, but we want to have a respectful debate about that. I also worry, and we've seen this in the last couple of weeks, I worry that democracy will not survive if the coalition that beat Donald Trump in 2020 fractures or disengages from politics in any way. Trump or no Trump, Republican politicians are just, they are all in on

crushing democracy. And we have to beat them. And if that isn't our focus, then we won't be as lucky as next time. I've been talking, I've been saying like, don't be worried about the coup succeeding this time. And I really don't believe it will, but next time it could be. This is a very closely divided country. Joe Biden won by small margins in the swing states. And if we don't keep our shit together and keep energized for 22, 2022, 2024, we could be in some real trouble, real trouble. Yeah, I mean, just very briefly, like, let's help Biden do the things that he ran on and that we want him to do. We can focus more on issues and down ballot races when Donald Trump isn't doing something horrible every day. We need to do a much better job fighting

disinformation. We talked a little bit about Parler and the Mercer family pumping money into these right wing wannabe Twitters, but the Federalist, Breitbart, Real Clear Politics, those aren't real businesses. Those are pieces of shit rags that are propped up by right wing billionaires because they're used as political weapons. So we need to fight back on that. We want to focus on activism, focus on building community around progressive activism. We want to lift up inspiring candidates like, you know, AOC, Jamal Bowman, like that next generation. And then let's just make a bunch of cool shows and broaden the audience and bring more people in and get people to care about this stuff. Because like, I think talking

to a lot of people who are part of Vote Save America has been so rewarding because they talk about how meaningful the experience was for them, right? Because you think about like getting on a campaign like, oh, politics is ugly. on doors sucks you know cold calls suck actually it was incredibly rewarding and can be inspiring and makes you feel great about yourself and we just need to like help people experience that we got big plans in 2021 everyone stay tuned more shows more hosts more more of it all Let's take some fun questions. Tommy, Sam Mastow wants to know, what's going on with the Patriots?

Watching the Jets game on Monday night was agonizing, but we look great against Baltimore. We'll see how the Texans game goes. Listen, Sam, we lost the greatest quarterback of all time, Tom Brady. We lost Rob Gronkowski, one of the best beer bongers slash tight ends of all time. Cam Newton is amazing, but like he's got to learn a new system and he got COVID and he can't practice. So cut him some cut him a break.

We had a bunch of players opt out because of COVID, including like Dante Hightower and Patrick Chung. Right. So that's a big hit to the defense. They have good reasons, by the way, right? We had players with babies. We had players, a cancer survivor. Julian Edelman just had knee surgery.

But like, look, you know, Jacoby Myers is out there catching and throwing touchdowns. So fuck off, Sam. Okay. Bill Belichick just tweeted a statement on Gorno Karabakh. So this is touching all my zones today. Do you think Bill Belichick is tweeted a statement on Gorno Karabakh. So this is touching all my zones today. Do you think Bill Belichick is a world out? What's happening? Someone told me that Bill Belichick has an Armenian assistant who must have filled him in on all this.

Wow. I did not expect to see that. What do you think about the past this year, Lovett? out the past this year love it i i think it's um like obviously people are noting um the big hole that tom brady has left in your um squad but on the other hand he is bringing a lot of um good energy to his new role as the lead counselor for the wisconsin recount for trump so um that's pretty cool the rest was incomprehensible to me that's pretty cool. The rest was incomprehensible to me. That's cool. Yeah. Talk about new Tampa Bay voters that turned the election to Trump in Florida.

Okay. Whitney Fitzpatrick wants to know what Tommy and I order at Dunkin' Donuts. I order a, if it's summer, a large ice French vanilla coffee. Yep. That's right. Get that with an ice and sugar

also put the sugar in yeah even though the french vanilla is having a yeah the croque madame no then i have a um i do the uh ham egg and cheese on an english muffin as a as a sandwich what about you tom the ham egg and cheese on an english muffin is the perfect breakfast i obviously prefer a biscuit but that just can't be an everyday thing. You're going to end up in a bad place. I don't think I had Starbucks until after college. My job after freshman year was painting the exteriors of houses. And so every morning I'd drag my ass out of bed and go to Dunkin' and get a large iced coffee with cream,

and go to Dunkin' and get a large iced coffee with cream, you know, a solid half inch of undissolved sugar, which I think is technically called the Ben Affleck order. And that's just as good as it gets. Now, I reached out to a celebrity who is one of the world's biggest Dunkin' fans. He mentioned the other day that he got a Dunkin' bathrobe, Josh Gondelman. And he said, iced coffee year round, unless

you work outside and it's cold. Best donut is blueberry cake glazed blueberry. Favorite savory item is the Beyond Sausage sandwich. Wow. Did some reporting. Beyond Sausage. Greta Thunberg over there.

I don't know. Did you guys go to Starbucks in high school? Never, no. I was Dunkin' Donuts my entire life through college, even through after college, until I think I moved to DC and suddenly there were a few Starbucks around and there wasn't enough Dunkin' Donuts. That's what happened.

It was Starbucks for me. It was just a place to go to the bathroom for a very long time. That's really what it was. Kelsey DeChambeau wants some book recommendations. I didn't pick this question. This is from Tommy because I don't read books, as you all know. Oh, yeah, I did. I did choose this one. I'm currently reading Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar, which is amazing. I think all of Rick Perlstein's books are great. I always harass you guys about these. Nixonland. Haven't read Reagan Land yet, but I bought it.

Over the summer, I was reading these Ben McIntyre books that are like really cool, real spy stories. I read a really good but super depressing book called King Leopold's Ghost, which is about colonialism in the Congo. The Devil's Chessboard to Start a War by Robert Draper about Iraq. That's about all I remember. Wow. That's some. Jeezez yeah hey what do you what do you what else do you do to relax i got i got a kindle man i know how to use it but it's just very those are some intense books yeah also i feel like we're talking to you most of the day when when are you reading i read to wind down, but it's not ideal to wind down with a book about how 10 million people in the Congo were killed by the evil Belgians who were colonizing it. No.

I just started A Promised Land. There it is. By Barack Obama. I bought it. How is it? Great. I haven't started yet. So far, so good. It's a little navel-gazy. I haven't started yet. So far, so good.

It's a little navel-gazy. I can't wait to see what happens. I can't wait to see what happens. I saw that. How's it going to end? One of those Sunday shows I was watching, like Guy Benson or whatever, was like mocking Obama for having written three books. He's like about himself.

It was like back to the old like arrogance trope. And I was like, hey, man, you're like a Fox News guy and wrote a book. So maybe the first black president can write a couple like a Fox News guy and wrote a book. So maybe the first black president can write a couple. I don't know. Just a thought. He's a person that doesn't matter. Love it. You have any books? Yes. I'll recommend some books. One, From Bacteria to Bakkenback by Daniel Dennett about evolution, AI, and consciousness and bringing them all together. It was a fascinating book. I really enjoyed it. And the one thing I'd say is Daniel Dennett, he's trying to develop a theory

of consciousness and it's fascinating, but you kind of get to the end and you realize that like, wow, it's a really hard problem. And then the second book is a book called Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson, recommended by Sarah Wick, who runs our company. And we were both looking for a follow up to a book called Seven Eves by Neil Stevenson, which is a fascinating sci fi book. And it was great. Aurora is a great book. Those are my two recommendations. Excellent.

Love it. Another question for you. Maurice Watson asks, I'm an escape room designer. If you could create an escape room game based on the past four years, what would its theme be? What would you call it? So that's really interesting. It's a great question.

Thank you. I was thinking about this. And what I was thinking about is you really want something that where as you're in the escape room, the puzzles get harder as you go, because with each passing moment, the democratic and institutional tools at your disposal to escape begin to dwindle. So you can imagine an escape room where every few minutes, the two sides of the room get closer, like when they're in the trash compact or in Star Wars. And at each moment you have the squeeze of anti-democratic movements and the institutional rot are coming at you from both sides

as you try to solve a puzzle on the wall ahead of you to convince enough people to let you out. That was my pitch. That's a fun one. That's pretty cool. I got a couple. That's my pitch. You got some?

So escape a Tinder date with Stephen Miller. You have to find your way out of some like you know moderate to low price restaurant without you know getting like a tiki torch in your face or something um escape with a gentleman see that's when jared kushner's dad buys your way into the escape room and then you just like kind of walk right out it's like not a very hard one um escape a communal restroom when steve bannon heads toward the stall is that too graphic for everybody oh my god wow we're at the end here yeah we've been doing we've been doing four years of pots four years of pots then i had some other ones that i probably shouldn't say but you know

i think we could start with that i think look i think it's no no bad ideas in a brainstorm no bet better you know other theme options that I've seen in the real world are Jumanji, you know? So. Sylvia Crump asks in seven years. Sylvia Crump? Yes, Sylvia Crump. Hi, I'm in a Roald Dahl book.

Can you get me out of here? Sorry, Sylvia. Sorry, Sylvia. Sorry, Sylvia. Sylvia Crump asks, in seven years, I never thought I could have too much time with my doodle, but it's happened. Any advice on how to keep our relationship fun

while working 60 hours a week remotely and living in an apartment? Have you tried role-playing? Do we think Sylvia has a partner named Doodle or are we talking about a dog? We're talking about a dog, Tommy. We're talking about a dog.

We're talking about a little tiny dog. They're very different answers. I mean... I will say say i've never been happier to have i have have leo with us here and uh in quarantine since march it's been a it's been a saving grace yeah we play a lot of tug of war maybe a couple walks a day i don't know that i don't know i'm not sure if the walks are for me or if they're for Luca, because when I try to put the leash on her, she literally hides behind the couch. But, you know, I think the dogs are happy. I wouldn't worry about it. The dog just wants to be with you. I do a lot of a lot of ball throwing. I know, you know, if you're just in an apartment, that's tough, but you can still just throw that ball across the room. I could throw the ball.

I throw the ball like two feet to Leo and he literally could get the ball thrown to him over and over again for six hours and not do anything else. But that's that's Leo. He's a little he's a little interesting that way. Ball guy. Ball's life. Nana Morano asks, what is the worst Thanksgiving side dish and why is it string beans? I think string beans are pretty bad. I also don't love yams.

Candied yams, not a fan. Candied yams make no sense. It's a very, look, I get, like, they're already sweet. You don't need to put, it doesn't make any sense. Like, they come sweet. They're yams.

They're sweet potatoes. They're very sweet. So why would you put a layer of marshmallows on top of it? That's too much like a dessert. That's too much like a dessert. I don't ever, I've never liked it. And one thing I'll just say growing up, um, is, uh, over the years, the, the ratio of yams to marshmallows in my home became, frankly, near criminal. By the end, Robert Lovett was just scooping marshmallows onto his plate. Maybe just a kind of like a, it's almost like a dry martini. Hey, what I'd like with my candied yams is, can you just put a yam next to it while it's cooking so it gets some yam flavor from the oven and then put marshmallows on my plate? That was the that was the vibe at the end of my childhood for Thanksgiving. Man, you guys are wrong about yams.

Yams are good. String beans suck. Bean casseroles suck. I was looking around you people posting cauliflower options are monsters. Get that shit out of here. I'm not really. But here's the thing. I will say this. I was looking around you people posting cauliflower options are monsters get that shit out of here I'm not really but here's the thing I will say this I am shocked by how much taking a bunch of cauliflower and mashing it up tastes like mashed potatoes and I really like I'm into it obviously not in a keto emotional or practical phase right now of my life that's not

the energy of this part of the pandemic we are eating what we see when we want it at any moment but in better you know in more disciplined times yeah i'm pro cauliflower that's all yeah you fry up some cauliflower and make it buffalo cauliflower that's delicious okay john okay john we're not at the goddamn cheesecake factory this is thanksgiving i've had buffalo cauliflower thank you I'm just telling you what I like. I'm not saying it's, I did not. War on Thanksgiving.

Fucking Thanksgiving side. Awesome. Blossom Thanksgiving. Okay. What do you, what do you have? Blossom would be a great addition to the table. It would be a great addition to the table.

I just want to make one more point on Buffalo cauliflower. Before we move on. Put some bacon on those cheese fries. Hey, restaurants. We're on to you. You can't charge Buffalo wing prices for Buffalo cauliflower. All right.

It's a fucking scam. It's just six pieces of cauliflower just because it's the same. You know, it's it's we're charging chicken prices here. It's outrageous. Can I just say, not really a potato au gratin fan, even though knowing the ingredients, it should be good. I just don't know why it isn't. Don't. Mash.

Yeah, don't disrespect me with a salad or a salad plate. Mac and cheese seems a little too decadent for Thanksgiving to me. I don't know. Some people do Brussels sprouts. I don't really feel those. Skin on mashed potatoes or skin off? I'm skin on. I'm pro skin on.

I like them both. I just say throw those skins right in there. Whatever. I guess maybe not. I don't know. I love mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes, gravies. Brussels sprouts again.

Like you're going to put some bacon in with the Brussels sprouts, then I'll eat it. But that's ruining the whole point of the healthy Brussels sprouts, you know. Anyway. Lizzo8 asks, favorite cheese? This is our last question. Perfect. Favorite cheese. Goud our last question. Perfect. Favorite cheese. Um,

Gouda and Feta. I like a sharp, hard cheese, like an aged Gouda and aged cheddar. Okay. Obviously it's, it's situational dependent. Um,

you know, there are cheeses that are great in various circumstances. The one thing I will say is, um, I'm never interested in a goat cheese. I don't really care for it. I don't really want it. I don't want anything. I love goat cheese. I like feta, but like just like better than goat. But I also love goat. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Feta better. If you live in L.A., there's a great place called Say Cheese, and it's fun because the

guy who works there is great because he'll ask you what you like. You'll try to answer. He'll be just incredibly disappointed in you and then give you a better idea. And then if you live in Boston, check out Wasik's Cheese Shop in Wellesley. That used to be one of my my dad and my favorite place on the planet. Nice family run joint. Good people. Love a good cheese store. Love a good cheese. Well, I wish you all a Thanksgiving filled with plenty of cheese and delicious side dishes. I realize a lot of people are not celebrating with the usual family and friends this year because the former president or the outgoing president led a pandemic run wild through the country. So that sucks. But I hope everyone still has a very good Thanksgiving at home. Yeah. Thanks, everybody, for listening. Thanks for listening, everyone. After four long years. Thanks for listening and thanks for stepping up

in this election in an incredible way and volunteering and donating and making calls and everything that you all did. That is what I will be grateful for at the end of this year. And though I didn't highlight them in the document because I knew I'd get a bunch of shit for it thank you for the questions about the haircut i did it myself i did it myself i don't know how you do that how do you cut you cut the back

i'll thank you tommy for suggesting that i share the time release video i'll do it oh we're gonna put it i did not jordan didn't send us any questions about your haircut oh they were in there they were in there oh you were they were in there gone love it love it's love it's digging through the menchies folks he's looking for those haircut questions why are you so handsome with me i'm sick of those questions sick of them so a lot of you've been asking me why i'm so handsome is this all right everyone happy thanksgiving Is this over? Bye, everyone. Happy Thanksgiving. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.

Our associate producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support. And to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmal Konian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos every week.