Pod Save America - "How To Win A Culture War."

Episode Date: February 17, 2022

Democrats try to get back on offense for the midterms, Shannon Watts from Moms Demand Action joins to talk about the historic settlement that Sandy Hook families reached with a gun manufacturer, and��Jon Lovett stops by to help Dan and Jon debunk three of the latest right-wing conspiracy theories - and things go off the rails.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, Democrats look for a way to win the culture wars. Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action is here to talk about the historic settlement that Sandy Hook families reached with a gun manufacturer. And we unravel the latest right-wing red string in a new segment we're calling No Truths and a Lie. You know, I'm telling you. But first, don't miss this week's America Dissected, where Abdul is joined by our friend Heather McGee to talk about her fantastic book,

The Sum of Us, and how race has affected the pandemic. And check out What A Day this week to hear the team break down news around restrictive voting laws in Texas and the ongoing tensions between Russia and Ukraine. New episodes of America Dissected drop every Tuesday, and you can listen to What A Day every Monday through Friday at 5 a.m. Eastern. All right, let's get to the news. Democrats need a new midterm strategy or we're fucked, is the message being delivered by the party committee in charge of holding the House.

In a week where Gallup found that voter satisfaction with the country's direction is at a 40-year low and Representative Kathleen Rice became the 30th House Democrat to announce her retirement, Politico obtained internal polling and focus group research from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that shows Republicans ahead by four points in swing districts, with battleground voters calling Democrats, quote, preachy, judgmental, and focused on culture wars. The latest casualties of these culture wars were three lefty members of the San Francisco School Board, who were recalled on Tuesday night by around 75% of voters in one of the bluest cities in America. Democratic Mayor London Breed,

who supported the recall, gave a press conference about the results on Wednesday. What is my focus is the children, first and foremost. And whoever is selected will focus on trying to turn the school district around, focus specifically on public schools and enrollment and some of the challenges that exist there. I want to talk about what happened in San Francisco in a bit, but let's start with the national picture. What's your take on that DCCC research? Are Democrats losing the culture war? And how are we defining culture war? Well, John, I wouldn't say we're winning, however we define it. I think that's pretty clear. I don't think we're winning any of the wars right now. There is no war we are

winning. I will say I will give Sean Patrick Maloney and the DWC some credit because there is a tendency for the chairs of these House and Senate committees to do a lot of happy talk to their members. And that is definitely not his vibe, right? He's very- No, no one's going to accuse him of happy talk. Yes, he is very appropriately adopting a, he's looking up, seeing the sky falling, adopting a chicken little approach. I think that's good. Insidery press question here, but do you think that the DTRIP is who leaked the documents to Politico? Do you think this was intentional to sound the alarm? Probably. I would say that the tone and

tenor of the DCCC presentations and the record number of House retirements may be connected, if you will. But that's still, I think it's still the right thing to do. You got to laugh. What else are we going to do? We have to laugh. That's right. I mean, we could cry. That is an option. It wouldn't be as fun to listen to. The term culture war in this case is something that I could talk about for 12 straight hours. I will not do that for our audience and our aging bladders. But I think what I,

and this probably really undermines your prompt here, but I think we should stop using the term culture war. It doesn't really mean anything. It creates, it furthers, I think, incorrect impressions of how politics work. In one sense, culture war means anything that is not an economic issue, right? And so, and it creates this world where there are these issues that have emotional appeal, you know, civil rights, reproductive rights, abortion, cancel culture, all of these things. And then there are issues with intellectual appeal, right?

Policy issues, right? Minimum wage, where it's like, and that's not how politics works, right? It's not, there are not, every issue should be handled in emotional appeal, should be handled as a way of talking about identity. And it also, I think, creates this impression among Democrats that, and this has been sort of how the political conversation has happened for a long time, is cultural issues are good for Republicans. Economic issues are good for Democrats. And that is, there is some history to that being true, but it's much, much more complicated.

That creates this oversimplistic thing where it's like, Republicans want to talk about this. We're going to change the subject and talk about the things we want, but we're going to do it in a way that is incorrect and doesn't actually further a larger narrative. And so in this case, what I say is we're not losing the culture war. We're losing the information war. Republicans are more successfully branding Democrats than Democrats are branding Republicans. And that matters a lot in the House, where for the vast majority of the electorate, it is a generic member of Congress. It is just a D, it's a D or an R who they're sending to Washington. They don't know a lot about that person.

And never will. There isn't enough money to spend to truly educate them like you would in a presidential race or even a Senate race. Second is what I think should be most concerning to Democrats is we have all these problems of whether it's defund police or being on the wrong side of COVID issues or school closures or cancel culture, critical race theory in all of these races. And there has been very little money spent in ads. This is all happening through the organic media ecosystem. Sometimes you get in a situation where it's like Republicans have all this extra money. They spent 5x what we spent to create this

oppression. Now, this is the oppression people are generally getting from just watching the news, talking to people, and being on Facebook or other social media outlets. And that, I think, is very alarming. And I think we've, we got to sort of figure out that piece of it, how that's happening, what we can do about it, then just sort of picking what issues we're going to talk about. I do agree that culture war isn't really helpful and that it's too broad and has been used for decades and the issues that sort of make up the culture war change with each election. So it's sort of hard to keep track of. I think in this election, or at least in this polling, in this research, it's defined as the debate over whether to defund the police, immigration issues, particularly defining Democrats as open borders, critical race theory,

right? So these are the issues that have sort of been coming up over the last year or so. Basically, what the polling says is Republicans are ahead by four in just a generic ballot and in the swing districts. And then when you present voters with Republican attacks on defunding the police, immigration, and at least those two are the ones we know about, the generic ballot goes to plus 14 for Republicans when there's no Democratic response. When Democrats respond, when you present voters then with a democratic response that says ex-democratic candidate does support funding the police and doesn't support open borders then it goes from a plus 14 back to plus six

i'm laughing because in the story it's like but when Democrats rebut the attacks it blunts them by going to two points worse than the original generic ballot yes I would just note that plus six is about what the generic ballot advantage the Democrats had in 2018 when we won 40 house seats yeah so that gives not good. Not good at all. Well, I want to push you on the, like, Democrats are losing the information war, not the culture war thing. What do you think the source of voter anger towards Democrats is? Like, if these voters, again, there was polling and then there were focus groups. You do both to get an accurate picture.

And in the focus groups, they were calling Democrats preachy, judgmental. They think that we're too focused on the culture wars. I mean, what a kick in the ass that is. How much of this do you think is Republicans being successful at framing these issues, Republicans having a larger megaphone with right wing media? And how much do you think is just voters being upset with the party in power for a number of problems that they're facing in their own lives? I mean, this is a pretty complicated thing, I think, to untangle. I think it is fair to say that the general shitty political environment, which includes inflation, the pandemic, supply chain, general, just malaise, right?

I mean, the Gallup right track, wrong track number is at a 40-year high. Democrats are in charge. So even if there was nothing about defund the police or any of these, quote unquote, culture issues, Democrats would be in a huge heaping load of trouble. But I think because Republicans were the party in power in 2020, and were very successful in communicating this democratic brand, socialism, defund the police, et cetera, in that election as well, when we should have had the political wind at our back. So it's like, they're definitely pushing on an open door because people are mad at the

party in power and maybe more willing to believe certain things about the party in power because they're mad at it. But I don't want to use that to – there's something bigger and more problematic here than just it's a midterm election. We're in charge. The party in charge usually loses a midterm election. Yes. I think that bigger issue at play here is still the pandemic. And I don't necessarily mean specific covid restrictions right like there's been a lot of debate about restrictions we've

talked about that i think it's just like over the last couple years people's lives have been upended right like they've lost friends and family to covid they've had to do their jobs raise their kids in some cases teach their kids from their homes. Gas costs too much. Groceries cost too much. Rent costs too much. People are worried about crime. Things are out of stock.

Places are short-staffed. It's hard to go to restaurants, hard to go have fun. Like, I don't think that most voters, at least from research I've seen, most voters don't necessarily blame Democrats for these problems, but they do expect Democrats to understand these problems, to focus on these problems, to fight as hard as they can to fix these problems. And so if that's what you're seeing in your life, if those are your worries and your concerns, and then you turn on the news or start scrolling through the news and you see arguments and debates about a host of other things that we often talk about, then you're going to feel like

there's a disconnect between what you're worried about and what the people you elected are actually doing. Does that make sense? It does. But I think two parts about this. One is they're seeing these things, like the fact that they turn on the news, they open social media and they see these other things that are not what Joe Biden's doing to stop inflation. Right. Or what is the information ecosystem problem, right? They're hearing about critical race theory or are Democrats too woke or the stuff in San Francisco that we'll talk about in a little bit.

The polling is very clear. It's not that they blame Joe Biden necessarily for inflation, although they do. A plurality of voters think that inflation is being caused by increased government spending under Joe Biden's presidency. But they don't necessarily blame him. The bigger thing is I think he's not focused on it enough. bigger thing is I think he's not focused on it enough. But problem is, it's very hard for him to communicate to the public that he's focused on it because when he talks about inflation, no one tweets about it. No one covers it. It doesn't get any traction. It's not like if you want to substitute cultural issue for issues that generate emotional response, issues that generate emotional response are what has currency in this media ecosystem. It's what's always driven cable. It's what drives social media. It's what trends on Facebook and Twitter, et cetera. And that is just a very, we have not

yet figured out a way to talk about the things that we want to talk about in that way, right? Conflict drives it. Where is the conflict in Joe Biden trying to unclog the ports, right? Like how does that, like, yes, people will write stories about it. There may even be a segment on the news, but that doesn't have any sort of virality or traction. And that is part of the, you know, what is, that's one of the blockers that is preventing us from addressing that situation organically, at least. Well, the other problem is people don't form their opinions about what the Democrats, quote unquote, are up to purely by figuring out what Joe Biden is saying every day, right? People see the Democratic Party as Joe Biden, as the members of Congress, progressive pundits on television, people on

Twitter, right? Like the universe of what constitutes the Democrats to most voters is a whole bunch of people that go beyond Joe Biden. And unless all those people are talking about the economy and fighting to fix the economy and get people's lives back to normal and get schools open and solve inflation and solve gas prices and all that kind of stuff, unless people are talking about that every single day and everyone is talking about all the time and everyone is talking about why the solutions are being blocked by Republicans in Congress, then you really don't have the frame that's going to help Democrats make their best case. I mean, just when you think about the,

like we sort of have to widen the aperture about how we understand how persuasion is done in politics. So defund the police is believed to be, according to this report, one of the biggest political problems for Democrats. A couple of important points here. One, the vast majority of Democrats, if not every Democrat running for Congress, and certainly in a vulnerable district, does not support defund the police. They have said on multiple occasions, you ask them how their day is, they say they don't support it, right?

They do not. It is a fake. It is not a position of the Democratic Party. It's not a position of our congressional leaders, right? It is a fake, as a Democratic, it is not a position of the Democratic Party. It's not a position of our congressional leaders, our congressional members, our president, party platform, anything else. And then Quinnipiac has a poll out earlier this week where they asked people the most urgent issue affecting Americans. And crime came in at, I think, 7%, which is four times less urgent than inflation. Yeah. Though higher than crime has been in years.

Yeah, it's definitely. Usually crime doesn't come up at all. It's definitely. Crime is up. Concerns about it are up. Also, a lot of when you. This poll did not. At least I didn't see in the cross-step, let you know.

But in general, concern about crime has gone up. And we shouldn't. We've talked about this many times. I guess you have to deal with that. But it is also – there's a motivated reasoning part where it's up largely with Republicans, even if they live in places where crime is not up or up by certainly less than it may be in other places. But it is the – it is not just that people are concerned about crime. Democrats want to defund the police. Therefore, I'm against Democrats. It is that being for defund the police is a signifier of about who Democrats

are, who they're fighting for, who they're not fighting for, who they represent. And that is sort of the emotional identity version of politics that Republicans have been waging pretty relentlessly on Democrats for decades, but particularly in the last five years where we have been talking about Trump for good reason, and it is a strategy that worked. We won in 2018 and 2020 doing that, but we haven't been talking about Republicans. And so now Republicans is a little more of a generic, Republicans separate apart from Trump is a little more generic than Democrats separate apart from Joe Biden. Republicans separate and apart from Trump is a little more generic than Democrats separate and apart from Joe Biden. Does the San Francisco school board race count as a battle in this larger culture war?

What was that all about? As someone who lives in the Bay Area. This is going to come as a shocker to you, but the issue is slightly more complicated than Twitter and cable news would have you believe. Clara Jeffrey of Mother Jones is, I think, a great explainer, who lives here in the Bay Area, has a great explainer of what's going on. And it's important to understand that frustrations about the schools in San Francisco have been bubbling for a long period of time. They blew up in the pandemic for a couple of reasons. And a whole host of things happened. One, schools were closed in San Francisco longer than they were in most parts of the country.

That was of great frustration to parents, even though San Francisco was one of sort of a model of how you deal with the pandemic. There was high vaccination rate, high masking rate, low cases when they were surging elsewhere, and a real tolerance for those measures and a sort of a sense of community about it. The problem was not just that schools were closed. It was pretty clear that the San Francisco schools were doing two things incorrectly. One, they seemed to have no actual plan to reopen them, and they certainly weren't willing to be transparent about what that plan was. And they really fumbled the ball in terms of helping

parents and students with remote learning. In terms of access to technology, it just seemed very poorly run, incompetent, if you will. Then you add on a couple of other sort of unique things that have happened here. One is something that most people have heard about was a effort among the school board to change the names of a bunch of schools for reasons to address sort of the historical significance of them, including changing a school named after Abraham Lincoln and Dianne Feinstein, which was seen- Abraham Lincoln. Yes. I'm sorry.

Obviously absurd. Huge backlash in the bluest city in America to that. It became a laughingstock. Then there was a much more like sort of unique, complicated issue involving what I think is a well-meaning effort to increase the diversity, particularly among black and brown students at the city's most academically rigorous and desirable public schools, the ones you apply to, where the population was overwhelmingly white and Asian American. How that was handled was viewed by many people as poor communication, poor execution, huge backlash to that, like a very well-organized alumni network for those schools, parents whose kids have been working up until high school to be able to apply

to get in those schools. Combine all of those things together, including, I mean, a lawsuit from one of these school members trying to sue the school system for $87 million because they got a non-punitive censure, a whole bunch of stuff all added together. And in this piece, I encourage everyone who's interested to read by Clara Jeffrey. She concludes that it's incompetence more as a backlash to wokeness or COVID restriction. I think that is correct. I think if you just had the Abraham Lincoln situation, there would have been a huge backlash

to it, but it wouldn't have led to this overwhelming recall. And so this is just, like all things, more complicated. Now, this is being weaponized, of course, to fit into a pre-existing narrative about a backlash to progressive overreach around the country. And it's obviously more complicated than that. But that doesn't mean it's not how it will be used on the national political scale. I second your recommendation for everyone to go read Clary Jeffrey's piece in Mother Jones. It is fantastic. It is a great bit of reporting. piece in Mother Jones. It is fantastic. It is a great bit of reporting. I was surprised, and you just said this too, that the conclusion after this piece was that this was merely incompetence on behalf of the school board, when all of the decisions they made seemed actually

not necessarily driven by incompetence, but a very intentional ideology here about these school members. I mean, like you mentioned, so they wanted to abolish merit-based admissions at the city's magnet high school, right? And like you said, obviously the intent here was good because there's not nearly enough black and Latino children at these schools, but the population of the school is overwhelmingly Asian students. And like you said, these Asian students have been trying, you know, working hard to try to get into this school because it's merit-based, it's based on GPA for many years. And then they held like a private meeting and just abolished the admissions process. And then as a result, like, you know,

turnout among Asian parents was like through the roof in this, in this election to recall these school board members. And also like on remote learning, one of the school board members, again, famously dismissed remote learning as, as quote, just a different kind of experience, no better and no worse than in-person schooling. They spent all this time trying to rename the schools, including schools named after Abraham Lincoln, like while they didn't have a plan to open the schools. So again, it's not just a question of incompetence, but it's a question of, I think, like,

what is the priority of a school board at a time when you are a parent who cannot send your kid to school everywhere else in the country most other places in the country have sent their kids to school or have figured out a way to open up their schools san francisco doesn't open up until the fall of 2021 and all that time while they're closed they're doing things like trying to rename schools that are named after Abraham Lincoln because that's somehow awful enough that that warrants the attention of the school board that hasn't figured out how to open the schools to kids of all races, particularly black and brown kids who are suffering because they haven't learned for a year.

I mean, it's like fucking nuts. They also, they spent $800,000 to cover up a 1930s mural at a high school that shows George Washington standing over black and native people who were being subjugated, even though the entire point of the mural had been to critique racism and colonialism. Like, I just, it makes me so angry because like the actions of this school board

you're right they're going to be weaponized by republicans all over the country but progressives not just democrats but progressives all over the country should stand up and say like this is not what we believe this is bullshit it's that's what they did yeah i mean that's the point i think london breed the mayor the democratic mayor got behind this effort something like you know 75 percent of voters in san francisco a multi-racial economically diverse coalition of people came together to vote these school board members out but like these school board members seem to be driven by a very specific ideology that led them to focus on things like renaming schools and covering up murals instead of keeping schools open for some of the

city's neediest children. I mean, it is a little, I think, to be specific about what I believe Clara's conclusion is, is primarily incompetence. I think her point is, is that had it been a better run organization that also had this ideology, you probably wouldn't be in this historic recall situation. But it's like, how do you separate, in this case, focusing on the wrong things as an example of ideological blindness versus incompetence, right? Like one of the examples is that the school board meetings would last like six hours. And the first five and a half hours would be on this sort of marginalia about school naming, these other smaller issues that aren't even ideological, but just so far removed from the absolute existential concern of the parents,

which is how do we get these fucking schools open? And like, is that incompetence? Is that ideological blindness? That's hard. That's hard to say. I think the main point here is it's more complicated than anything else. And it's actually a sign that the overwhelming majority of Democrats do not ascribe to this out of the mainstream views on Abraham Lincoln or murals, that that is this tiny little fragment of that. This is the bluest city in the country and they just toss these people out with 70 70 plus percent of the vote and so that sort of says that that's the mainstream the democratic party that even the most liberal most left part of the democratic party is not on board

with this shit right and then what's happening is this tiny fraction is being weaponized against democrats the painting with this broad brush to say, this is what most Democrats don't look like or act like when it's exact. I think the results of the recall prove the opposite of that. Yeah. The reason I'm bringing this up is, look, you're not going to find

San Francisco school boards, school boards like San Francisco in most cities across the country. They're a unique case for sure. But what we were just talking about before with the DTRIP polling and research, like the danger, I think the core danger for Democrats heading into the midterms is that country is still going through the collective trauma of the pandemic. That is economic, that is social, their health. There's a host of the pandemic. That is economic. That is social. Their health.

There's a host of problems that have come from that. And every single person in the Democratic Party, everyone who talks about Democratic politics, everyone who's an advocate for Democratic politics, needs to all look like we are focusing on fixing those problems every single day because little shit like this we know will get blown up by fox news and the right and and also will reach people will upset people who are not just republicans but like and not just centrists but in san francisco's case democratic voters well i

mean this is i mean this brings us back to the information disadvantaged Democrats have, which is whether it's a group of activists who support defund the police and then the Republicans lifting that up and then using their much larger megaphone to tell everyone that's what Democrats believe, to lift up a minority of a school board in a city in California and treat that as a set of positions held by the vast majority of Democrats, we could do the same thing. I mean, we can talk about book bans. You have all across the country, you have something that is just as far out of the mainstream, even probably more further out of the mainstream, banning books, right? Something that Americans associate with Nazi Germany happening all across the country. That's something that our friends at Data for Progress at a poll which showed seven in 10 voters oppose, including majorities of independents, Democrats, and Republicans. 64% of Republicans against voters against banning Republican politicians, banning books in schools.

So if you want to call that a cultural issue, an identity issue, whatever, it's like that is something we could use to hammer Republicans with. This is, I think, the larger lesson of all of this is there's a learned helplessness from Democrats when it comes to the quote-unquote culture war, which is Republicans have this power to do it. And a culture war issue is the ability is picking something to use it to show that your opponents, the Republican Party, your specific opponent, is outside of the mainstream of American thought. You're part of this radicalized minority, right? Canceling Abraham Lincoln, you're a radical, right? But banning books, you're a radical. And in fact, we have the majority positions on the culture issues almost across the board. And there's a big looming one that is, was going to perhaps, you know, manifest itself this summer when the Supreme Court rules on Roe v. Wade, a position that is over what, that has huge bipartisan majorities in this country,

putting Republicans on their side of the anti-LGBTQ laws in Florida that don't the quote unquote, don't say gay law. Another example, something that Democrats could use if we wanted to and had the megaphone to do it to show that the Republicans are so far out of the mainstream of American thought like that, that is an available set of options to us if we choose to use it. Yeah. Just so people know this, by the way, in Florida, they want to, again, this is legislation that is moving through the legislature. DeSantis supports it. They want to ban teachers from even acknowledging that a student's gay parents exist. That is how extreme. So I think this is, to come back to the DCCC memo strategy advice, They are basically telling candidates that, you know, they have to forcefully

confront what they call the GOP's alarmingly potent culture war attacks on defunding the police or immigration by reiterating their support for police or denying support for open borders. What do you think of that advice? Because I think there's a few options if you're a Democratic candidate when these attacks come. Number one is to completely ignore the attacks and just talk about what you want to talk about. The DCCC is saying don't do that. The DCCC is saying forcefully rebut them by saying, you know, I don't support defunding the police

or I don't support open borders. The third option is like trying to change the debate to your more favorable set of issues. And the other is, I think, what you were just talking about, which is reframing the cultural issue so that Republicans are the ones who own the extreme position. So like, instead of talking about open borders, like you can talk about how Republican politicians want to deport dreamers at a time when our economy is suffering from a labor shortage that is affecting everyone. Or, you know, like you were

just saying, instead of talking about critical race theory, talk about how Republicans in D.C. want to go into your kid's classroom and ban books that students have been reading for decades, decades. And then, of course, we talked about the, you know, mentioning the Florida law, mentioning the fact that the Supreme Court could be set to completely ban abortion, even in cases of rape or, you know, like there are so many positions Republicans have taken on many of these cultural, social and racial issues that are so extreme and so outside of the mainstream that it would do, you know, Democrats should start talking about them more and start making that

a big issue. What do you think about like with all of those options, if you're a Democratic candidate, like which ones you pursue? It's a little column A, a little from column B. Like it's not like we sort of sometimes create these binary choices. The one thing you can't do is ignore them. I remember in 2018 seeing some internal Democratic polling about the attacks on socialism that Republicans were using, particularly after Alexander Ocasio-Cortez was elected, and they were sort of trying to weaponize the squad against Democrats, and Trump was calling everyone a socialist. And this polling showed that voters believed the socialist attacks until Democrats said, I'm a capitalist, or I'm not a socialist, and then they went back. And this is sort of the weakness and strength of the fact that people do not trust politicians

right now, which is because they don't trust politicians, they're willing to believe almost anything about them. But because they don't trust politicians, they're also easily disabused of notions, attacks being spread by other politicians. And so there is a, I think it is pretty clear you have to say, you know, we saw this in the New Mexico special, which I think the DCCC cites Republicans being radical out of the mainstream in the thrall of this radical minority. And that can include issues around abortion. It can include around LGBTQ rights. It can include the sanctioning of political violence, spreading vaccines is a huge one

where you have a large majority of adults in this country who are vaccinated. And then a Republican Party that has been that I think you can very successfully and credibly brand as anti-vax. It can include economic issues where they're on the wrong side. And so it's a story about them and who they're fighting for. And it's not you. And it doesn't have to be kitchen table or cultural. It can be it's you have to weave them together. Yeah, I think there's another turn there that sort of moves it onto more fertile territory for us as well, which is like, what's the truth about this? The truth about this is that Republicans are doing this because they think it's they think it's political issues that will help them win an election. They don't care about you. They don't care about your fucking like making sure that your kids can go to school

again. They want to cut public education. Like, we put up a policy that would help families with child care. They voted it down. They obstructed it. They wouldn't even let it come for a vote. They don't want to fund universal pre-K, like Joe Biden and the Democrats have proposed. They want to block universal pre-K. The idea that they're the ones who care about children and parents, when we have seen over the last year that they have blocked all of these votes, that they have voted against anything that would actually help children, it's preposterous. And so I do think calling out the bullshit, right, is that this is a game that Republicans are playing so that they can recapture the majority and then they can keep their jobs. They actually don't care that much about you

because if they did, they wouldn't have voted against all of this shit. But we got to make the argument. Yeah. And people got to hear it, right? Those are two separate but quite related parts of politics. Okay. When we come back, I'll talk to Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts about the Sandy Hook family settlement with gun manufacturer Remington. This week, the families of nine Sandy Hook shooting victims settled a $73 million lawsuit with Remington, the gun manufacturer that created the AR-15 style rifle that was used to murder 20 children and six adults in the Newtown, Connecticut school. This is believed to be the biggest payout in history by a gun manufacturer in a mass shooting

case. And here to talk to us about how this could lead to more progress on stopping gun violence, the founder of Moms Demand Action, Shannon Watts. Welcome back, Shannon. Thanks for having me. How big of a deal is this settlement? It is a huge deal. And I think we should first at the top talk about the bravery of these nine Sandy Hook families. I mean, they're all incredibly brave, but because of this lawsuit, so much may change on this issue and these families fought even when they were told they couldn't win they went against settlement suggestions knowing that they really wanted

the information that would would change the trajectory of this issue and you know they had to talk about this tragedy over and over again for a decade just to get some accountability and some justice. And as E.J. Dionne said in an op-ed today, the nation owes them an incalculable debt. Yes, we really do. Can you help people understand why this lawsuit succeeded where others like it usually failed? Well, yeah, if you step back and you look at how industries are regulated, right, from cars to tobacco, most consumer products, even opioid manufacturers, they have been held accountable. And that accountability, that legal accountability drives innovation. It helps create new safety features, for example, responsible sales and marketing practices. And the goal of those lawsuits are saving lives. And that's how we make sure there is accountability and people are kept safe. But the gun lobby learned by watching these other special interests have to fight these lawsuits. And they knew that was an Achilles heel. They knew that would drain

their financial resources. So in 2005, they convinced Congress to grant them special protection. It's called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. It's also referred to as PLACA. And it shields the firearms industry, unlike any other industry, from nearly all civil liability for any dangers their products pose. So Congress gave them this shield, but this settlement shows the shield is not impenetrable. And the reason for that is because lawyers were able to find a weakness in PLACA. It was able to go after this gun manufacturer, Remington, based on how they marketed guns to people. Now, I don't know if you've ever seen the ads, but they say things like, consider your man card reissued. And the case that these lawyers were able to make in these families

is that a gun manufacturer knowingly marketed these guns to troubled young men, resulting in tragedy. And is the reason that the lawyers were able to exploit this loophole in the immunity that gun manufacturers enjoy because the state of Connecticut had a specific law about marketing? Was this a state law that helped them? Well, certainly the Connecticut Supreme Court upheld that that PLACA doesn't immunize the gun industry against lawsuits that they claim violated state law. But also the US Supreme Court declined to take up the appeal. And that was really a landmark moment that allowed this case to go forward and also may pave the way for similar cases across the country. Right now, there are survivors of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting who are working on a similar suit.

The Mexican government is suing gun manufacturers for marketing guns to drug cartels. Some are even saying that maybe we will find out that the gun lobby has been purposefully marketing guns to white supremacists or insurrectionists. So this is a really important decision. And certainly the Supreme Court's decision was a precedent for that. But it could allow survivor claims going forward against any reckless actors in the gun industry to proceed. Is there potentially a legislative strategy, a state-based legislative strategy going forward so that this strategy can be replicable going forward? Yes, that is something Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action volunteers have been working on.

Something really important happened last summer. The New York legislature enacted legislation. It was signed into law by the governor that makes it clear that gun companies that engage in any kind of dangerous conduct and create essentially a public nuisance in New York can be sued. So it really goes out of its way to undo PLCAA in the state of New York. The bill requires all gun companies who do business in the state to put some safeguards in place that prevent their guns from ending up in the hands of anyone who shouldn't have them. So that basically subjects anyone who fails to do that to civil liability. And then we are working

with lawmakers in states like New Jersey and California. They're also considering similar legislation. Both Governors Murphy and Newsom have signaled that they are supportive. And so we can really extrapolate, I think, what happened in Connecticut all across the country. And certainly, wherever you live, you should be encouraging your lawmakers to enact similar common sense measures. similar common sense measures. I've heard people say a case like this might cause the insurers and banks who keep gun manufacturers afloat to rethink their business relationships with them. What do you think about that? Yes. And we're also seeing that that may happen. Insurance plays a huge role in gun manufacturers' ability to operate with impunity. And they agreed that there was some kind of culpability that's why this settlement happened they they clearly didn't want to go forward um and and in in addition to you know insurers um we also think the the ftc has a role to play right they should be investigating fair

and unfair and deceptive marketing practices um and so we have called on them to do exactly that And so we have called on them to do exactly that. Smith & Wesson has used similar advertising tactics like Remington. And so, again, we will certainly be looking at this lawsuit, as will many organizations and lawyers and insurers, to make sure that we can open wider any fissures that have been created and exploit those to make sure manufacturers are held accountable. It seems like this will be yet another Congress, infuriatingly, that does nothing about gun violence, thanks to Senate Republicans and two Senate Democrats. Is there anything else President Biden could be doing through executive action that he hasn't done yet? executive action that he hasn't done yet? Well, yes. I mean, obviously, you know, PLACA offers significant undue protections all across the gun manufacturing industry. And what we have

seen is that there are gun lobby backed politicians in Congress, mainly in the Senate, who have essentially let the gun industry regulate itself. And that has in turn just had such devastating impacts on communities all across this country. So, yes, Congress needs to repeal PLACA. It needs to do everything it can to hold the gun industry accountable. Why it's not treated like any other manufacturer in this country is bizarre. And so that needs to be rectified. In terms of this administration, look, there are not many issues that are getting through the Senate. Certainly gun safety is one of those issues, but there are many.

The Biden-Harris administration has done more on this issue than really any other administration in the history of America because of executive action. You know, we can talk about ghost guns and the money they've unlocked for community violence intervention programs. I mean, they're doing a lot on this. What we have to do is demand that the U.S. Senate does its job. And, you know, our motto is always do the right thing and we'll have your back. Do the wrong thing and we'll have your job. And that needs to be the case in the Senate. We need everyone to use their voices and their votes on this issue.

And I am very confident we are going to eventually undo this protection for the gun lobby. Are there any executive actions, though, that you're looking at and folks who work in organizations like yours and saying, you know, the Biden administration hasn't done that yet, but they could probably take that action. It would make a difference. I know that some folks are a little frustrated that the action that they took earlier on ghost guns hasn't yet been completed. I know that folks are upset that there's still not an ATF director. Are there any other exact actions that you're looking for? Well, none of that is for a lack of trying, right? So sometimes this takes more than a year.

And the Biden-Harris administration has signaled to us this is absolutely a priority. There is more work to be done and there is more work that they're going to do. We're certainly going to hold them accountable. We have the largest grassroots movement in the country of volunteers who show up and do that every single day. And, you know, again, the executive actions they've taken so far are lifesaving and they do make a difference and there's more work to be done and we're confident that's going to happen. Yeah, but it does seem like the big, the main impediment is Congress. And so need more Democratic senators. Yeah, exactly. Well, so what's the local and state strategy right now? Where are you seeing progress and where could people stop bad laws from passing if we pay attention? Well, I'm glad you brought that up because of this, all of these, this bottleneck in the U.S. Senate,

we have gone hyper local, right? So the work that we're doing every single day is in school boards and in city councils and in state houses. And it absolutely makes a difference. If you look at a lot of social movements, the work starts on the ground and it eventually points the right president and the right Supreme Court in the right direction. And so every single day our volunteers wake up and they're either working to stop bad policy or they're supporting good policy. I'm really proud to say that over the last six years, we have a 90% track record of stopping the NRA's bad bills year after year, right? Those are things like arming teachers, forcing guns onto college campuses, expanding standard ground, something called permitless carry, which is now passed in 21 states in this country.

And so that work, playing defense, takes a huge amount of time, but it's paying off. But we're also playing offense. We now have background checks in 21 states on all gun sales. We've disarmed domestic abusers in 29 states. We've passed laws that close something called the Charleston loophole and passed red flag laws now in about two dozen states. So these laws are being passed. They are lifesaving. They work. The data shows they work. We need them at a federal level. We're all only as safe as the closest state with the weakest gun laws. But also city councils are doing innovative things. In San Jose, California, they just passed a fine that needs to be paid by gun owners in order to pay for all of the first responders and the different tactics that go into saving lives. I mean, it's billions of dollars in this country. In school boards, we're passing policies

that require secure storage notification be sent home to families. Who are most school shooters? They're students who have easy access to guns in their homes. So all of this work makes difference. I always say it's relentless incrementalism that leads to revolutions.

And I think because we haven't had that cathartic moment in Congress yet, people think nothing's being done, but really nothing could be further from the truth. We're coming up on the fourth anniversary of the Parkland shooting, which obviously galvanized a lot of young people to get involved. What would you say to a young person today who wants to get involved, who wants to help, who wants to do whatever they can to stop gun violence, but looks at the last several years and just feels this sense of frustration and disappointment? You know, I understand the frustration, but I also have been alive long enough now to understand this

is the way the system is set up. It is not set up for overnight wholesale change. I wish it were, but we have to operate within the current system. And that is to be relentlessly working on this issue day after day to show up at every single gun bill hearing to create lawmakers on relationships with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to grow in numbers and to never back down. That is what it takes in a democracy. And I am so thrilled that that students demand action really became a force within our movement and our organization after the Parkland tragedy. The Students Demand Action volunteers that we have registered over 100,000 new voters in the last electoral cycle. And I think it's so exciting to

watch the way that they advocate and that they're activists. I mean, it's completely different than I do it as a 51-year year old mom of five, right? The way they use technology and the technology they use and the things they care about are different and that's so important. It's so crucial to have that new energy injected into activism and they're going to play such an important role in this upcoming midterm election. And certainly if anyone wants to join Students Demand Action, they should text the word students to 64433. And whether you're in high school or your college age, we will plug you in right away and get you involved in your community. Shannon Watts, thank you so much for joining us and thank

you for all the great work you're doing. Thank you. All right, before we go, you know how you're scrolling through the news or watching TV and you catch the tail end of what you're pretty sure is some batshit crazy right-wing conspiracy theory, but you just don't have the time or energy to look up why it's wrong? We've got you covered in a new segment we're calling No Truths and a Lie. The premise is simple. One of us will set up a story that's been getting traction in right-wing media, and the other will call bullshit. I'll begin. Dan, you may have caught a recent Tucker Carlson segment titled Let Them Have Crack Pip have crack pipes if not here's a clip joe biden's latest idea is to pay black people to smoke more crack going forward the administration will send at least 30 million dollars in tax money to non-profits and local governments so they can

purchase quote safe smoking kits and supplies according to hhs these kits will contain joe biden approved pipes that will allow beneficiaries of the equity agenda to smoke crack cocaine as well as crystal meth with this new program joe biden will finally close the crack gap ted cruz later tweeted biden crime policy crack pipes for all what could go wrong and marcia blackburn threatened to shut down the federal government if she didn't receive assurance from the biden administration that they wouldn't use the $30 million grant program to fund the distribution of crackpipes to drug users as part of its plan to advance, quote, racial equity.

Dan, what the hell is this one all about? Well, I got to say, I knew I was in for something when I woke up the other morning and I opened up Twitter and I saw that crackpipe was trending. And it was trending with, you know, they tweeted the other topics underneath it. Joe Biden was trending with crack pipe. Not something you think. That's not, that's not probably was not on the communications calendar in the white house press office for this week. Let me, this is incredibly complex, but let me try to explain it, but let me begin with the most important premise. It's not true. Joe Biden is

not paying people to smoke crack. There are not Joe Biden approved crack pipes. Let me explain what they are talking about. So this all began- They don't have like little White House logos on them or little like Biden campaign logos? They have aviators, right? They have aviators, of course. Sorry. Yes. Please. Anyhow, so what this refers to is within the American Rescue Plan, there was a $30 million grant program administered by the Department of Health and Human Services to deal with the public and private health impacts of drug use. And as part of this grant program, organizations can apply for grant money. And to do so, they have to put forward a

harm reduction plan, right, where they, how they're going to address the public health implications of drug use. And this can include all sorts of things, drug testing kits, disease kits, the money to help for vaccinations for hepatitis, a disease that is spread through shared needles. It can include money for the medication that can save people's lives when they're overdosing, a whole host of things. Because in addition to drug use, obviously, it has a huge impact on our overall public health system, our communities, not just the drug users themselves. One of the items that is allowed under this grant program is something called

a safe smoking kit. That can include everything from disinfectants to the sort of equipment that makes it safer for people who are going to use drugs anyway, not just for themselves, but for the people around them. The term safe smoking kit, not specific to this program, there's no mention of this in this program, but more broadly includes glass pipes to be used that would give people the opportunity to do so safely. But in this case, both the Department of Health and Human Services and the White House have said that no money from this program would be go to use for pipes.

So everything that Tucker Carlson said to you is not true. Your taxpayer dollars are not going to pipes. No one's being sent crack pipes. No one's being paid to smoke crack. They're taking a program designed to reduce the public health harm of drug use and turning it into something much more nefarious and pretty racist. And so once again, this is not true. No one is being paid for crackpipes. No one's being sent crackpipes. Tucker Carlson, believe it or not, is lying to you. Well, I can rest easier tonight.

Dan, you're up. Okay. John, it is now your turn to go down the red pill rabbit hole. I know you're a big Fox fan. I know you've never missed an episode of The Five. So I have no doubt that you caught a recent story headlined, Clinton campaign paid to infiltrate Trump Tower, White House servers to link Trump to Russia. Now, this is a bit of an understatement, but Fox is pretty excited about this supposed smoking gun in the fake controversy called Spygate. Let's take a listen. It appears to be the biggest

election and presidential spying scandal in the history of this great country. This is far worse than Watergate. Durham's documents show that Hillary Clinton hired people who hacked into Trump's home and office computers. This isn't a conspiracy theory. His claims were true. Democrats were spying on Donald Trump, not just as a candidate, but as president of the United States in the White House, as well as in his own home. Sounds bad, Dan. So, John, help us understand this. Is this a crime worse than Watergate? i i it's yes yes it is okay done segment over no okay so to understand this we have to we have to go back down the fucking uh spygate rabbit hole uh i'll try to do it very quickly okay john durham remember john durham he is a special counsel who was appointed by former

attorney general bill Barr to investigate the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Already that sounds ridiculous, but so be it. John Durham's been doing this for three years now, and he has brought just two indictments, one against a random mid-level FBI attorney who pled guilty to altering an email used to maintain a FISA wiretap on Carter Page. Remember Carter Page? That was fun. And a second indictment against Michael Sussman, a partner at the DNC Clinton campaign law firm Perkins Coie, who has pled not guilty to making a false statement to the FBI.

It was an unrelated court filing to this indictment that set off the latest shit show. court filing to this indictment that set off the latest shit show. In the court filing, Durham basically includes a small note that says this. There was some tech firm in Virginia and a bunch of Georgia Tech researchers who had lawful access to government internet data as part of a contract dating back to the Obama administration to be on the lookout for possible foreign cyber attacks. They didn't have access to the contents of the government's internet traffic or any communication, just IP addresses. Turns out they found what they thought was some suspicious activity between Trump organization servers and a Russian bank and the existence of Russian made smartphones near the White House.

Ooh, sounds scary. So they wrote up what they found. They gave it to their boss. He gave it to this Perkins Coie lawyer, Michael Sussman, and Sussman gave it to the FBI and CIA, who looked into it and ultimately decided that none of the information was all that suspicious. Here's the best part. The data they shared with the FBI and CIA about the

existence of Russian-made smartphones near the White House, that was from the Obama era, shortly after Russians hacked the White House in 2015. So, just to be clear, no payment from the Clinton campaign to any tech company, no hacking, no infiltrating, no reading emails, no reading text messages, just a tech firm that was monitoring government traffic as far back as the Obama era for suspicious foreign activity that found what they thought was suspicious foreign activity, passed that report on to law enforcement through an intermediary who happened to work for the Democrats. That's it. No other indictments,

nothing else going on. No one else was implicated. Just people looking at DNS server traffic, thinking that maybe something was up. But oh, by the way, part of that was something was up near the White House when Obama was in it, not Trump, even though Trump was supposed to be the one who was spied on. I have to say I'm disappointed in all these people at Fox. Normally such straight shooters, fact-oriented journalists would get this so wrong. Was that an accident? Yeah, I'm sure it was an accident. I'm sure it's just they have a lack of knowledge in how DNS server traffic works, and no one briefed them properly on that.

And when someone corrects the record, I'm sure they'll all go in the air and they'll say, oh, we were wrong about this. Yeah, any minute. They're probably apologizing as we speak. I will say, having had to go down this rabbit hole, Durham, John Durham, clearly in his filing is like, you can tell he was maybe trying to whip up some of this right wing media frenzy because he, no, basically his contention is that these people were looking for nefarious information about donald trump now again maybe they were maybe they weren't but all that happened is they wrote up a fucking report sent it to the law enforcement law enforcement's like okay we looked into it nothing is here which is a far cry from hillary clinton paying a tech company

to hack into trump's computer which is literally what they've been saying on Fox News. Un-fucking-believable. All right, last one. This is about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and it also involves Tucker Carlson, once again, who has not only compared Trudeau to a Stalinist dictator because of his response to the anti-vax trucker protests, he's now suggesting that Trudeau is actually the illegitimate son of Fidel Castro. Here's a clip. People have talked for quite some time now that Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada to our north, is actually the son of a famous dictator.

And frankly, it appears to be true. Did Margaret Trudeau bear the love child of Fidel Castro and does he now run Canada? And of course, the answer is for sure. One person who feels particularly strongly about this conspiracy theory is our own John Lovett who's joining us in studio to talk more about it. Lovett. Let's do some debunking.

What do you think? It's outlandish, all right? These Canadian truckers are spreading this nonsense. The free folk north of the wall. They're aided by Tucker Carlson, but let's be clear, all right? The professionals have looked into this. I took the microphone off the stand for this, by the way.

Wow. The professionals have looked into this. Don't worry. No, Fidel Castro is not Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau's father, says the AP. The Times says, the New York Times, misinformation has been a key weapon wielded

by Canada's protest movement, and critics of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have returned to one simmering falsehood that Mr. Trudeau is the love child of the former Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Snopes calls it false. It's absurd. Everybody basically draws the same conclusion. Margaret Trudeau traveled to Cuba, but it was years after. It was 1976. Little Justin was there. So no, Castro is not the father. There's no evidence and there's no time in which where Margaret Trudeau and Fidel Castro can be found together during the window in which Justin Trudeau had to be conceived, which is, once you dive deep, between March 16th and April 22nd, 1971. Why? Because the Trudeaus got married and had a brief honeymoon and ended up back in Canada by March 8th.

And then they were in Canada. The Castro was in Cuba doing communist things down there. And so everyone resolves that this is debunked. It's not possible. There's one problem. Uh-oh. Look. Oh, no. This may not be true. may not be true it may not be likely it's also silly

because dan okay let's say justin trudeau is the love child of fidel castro these right-wingers are acting like communism is like genetically inherited it wouldn't actually matter there's no such thing as an illegitimate child as far as I'm concerned in the year 2022. However, the one thing it has not been is debunked. It is not debunked. And I will tell you why. Yes, I am now fully nuts. And I just want to shout out Medium.

Shout out Reddit for your help. Oh, my God. Couple key points. This is what happens. Couple key points. Maggie Trudeau. Couple key points. Maggie is what happens. Couple key points. Maggie Trudeau, couple key points. Maggie and Pete Trudeau love to fuck. Maybe one another, definitely others.

What? Ted Kennedy, for example. But we are not here. Dan and John, we are not here to slut shame. Margaret and Pierre Trudeau, they lived, they laughed, they loved. Second point. Unrelated people can look alike. But Justin Trudeau,

his bone structure looks like it is desperate to overthrow Batista. I mean, they look so alike. It is uncanny. But all, Google it. But all of this is circumstantial. This is circumstantial. And I am willing to call this story debunked

when the lamestream media debunks the following issue. None of these people, not your friends at Snopes, Dan, not your friends at the AP, John, have dealt with what I will call from here forth the second honeymoon theory. Because none of these people, they all say, oh, they couldn't have been together. They were in Canada. He was in Cuba. Here's the problem. On the 13th of April, 1971, the Ottawa Journal ran this story by UPI. privacy respected. Bridgetown Barbados. Prime Minister Trudeau and his wife left here Monday

by chartered plane on a quick side trip to an unidentified nearby island. They arrived Thursday on a brief second honeymoon and have reportedly been staying at a private residence on the island's west coast. It goes on. Here's the problem. If you want to debunk this story, you have to debunk the fact that the Trudeaus just happened to go on a second honeymoon for a week around Cuba while visiting one undisclosed location during the one month in which Justin Trudeau, who later grew up to look like Fidelito. Can I ask you one question? Yes, please do. If I understand everything you said said are you calling on justin

trudeau to take a dna test that is obviously wow not the first time listen i have learned my lesson and i will remind the both of you that no one on this podcast told someone or anyone or even suggested a d we just are asking questions we're just asking questions but how do you feel about the moon landing that happened that probably that problem i don't think stanley kubrick did that i don't think he would have done that uh the point is they took a week-long second honeymoon in the caribbean and until the ap or or those uh those nerds at Snopes tackle that, this shit is not debunked.

It's not debunked. It's not debunked. Find out where Castro was during that second honeymoon. Yeah, where was Castro? Follow the money. Cui bono. The answer is right in the middle of the bed. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Big spoon is the answer. Wow. Did this go too far? I don't know. You guys still love us. That's all the time we have for today. Uchara Grande. Thank you to Shannon Watts. And thank you to John Lovett for helping us debunk and then re-bunk a conspiracy theory.

I'm not saying it's true. I'm not even saying it's likely. It's re-bunked. That shit's re-bunk likely. It's rebunked. That shit's rebunked. Rebunked. If this was the last Pots of America we ever get to do, it's been a blast, people. Have a good one, everyone. Bye, everyone.

Pots of America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein. Our producer is Hayley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerrard, Hallie Kiefer, Madison Holman, and Justine Howe for production support.

And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.