Pod Save America - “It's wide open!”

Episode Date: January 13, 2020

The Trump Administration is caught lying about Iran, the public sours on the President’s handling of the crisis, and the Des Moines Register poll shows a very close race in Iowa between Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, and Joe Biden. Then Varshini Prakash of the Sunrise Movement talks to Jon L. about climate change and the group's endorsement of Bernie Sanders.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Later in the pod, Lovett's interview with Varshini Prakash, the climate activist who leads the Sunrise Movement. First, we're going to talk about the Trump administration's latest lies about Iran and how the public perceives his handling of the crisis. It's also a big week in the 2020 primary, from a new Des Moines Register poll that shows a wide-open race to the next debate on Tuesday night. Lovett, how was Love It or Leave It this weekend? Great Love It or Leave It. Good. shows a wide open race to the next debate on Tuesday night. Love it. How was Love It or Leave It this weekend?

Great Love It or Leave It. Good. Check it out. Just check it out. It was a really fun episode. Hari Kondabalu, Alice Wetterlin, Ben Rhodes came by to help us understand Iran. We're all those. Heard of them.

It was a great episode. Excellent. That's it. Season two of The Wilderness has arrived. You can listen to the first two episodes right now. In the first episode, we look at what the 2018 midterms can teach us about 2020. We dive into the debate about turnout versus persuasion and talk about the best path to 270 electoral votes in terms of which states to focus on and which voters to focus on. In the second episode, we focus on the Northeast. We meet an incredibly inspiring woman who helped flip a Trump County in Western Pennsylvania. And I sit down with the first of four focus groups outside of Philadelphia.

Check it out. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more at thewildernesspodcast.com. Go subscribe. Why haven't you subscribed yet? I have, John. Thank you. I have as well.

Well, a lot of you Pod Save America listeners, go smash that subscribe button. Finally, we'll be covering Tuesday's debate on our group thread at youtube.com slash crookedmedia. We'll also be shifting our pod schedule up this week to cover the debate. So we'll be recording an episode on Wednesday morning, the day after the debate, with Dan and John and Tommy right here in the studio that we'll be releasing later that day. And that will be in place of our normal Thursday pod. So big debate, big debate. Let's get to the news. You guys won't believe this, but it appears that the Trump administration is lying about the reason that they led us to the brink of war with Iran.

Their original rationale for assassinating Qasem Soleimani was that he was planning an imminent attack. That was the word, imminent. And Trump has since elaborated on this, telling Laura Ingraham that four U.S. embassies were targeted. But this has now been contradicted by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said the attacks were imminent, but that, quote, we don't know precisely when and we don't know precisely where. Interesting. Interesting definition of imminent is usually time it's a time-based condition i thought but you know who knows uh that was also contradicted on sunday when defense secretary mark esper said that he hadn't seen any intelligence to indicate that the four embassies were targets

but that quote what the president said was uh he believed it probably could have been true and then that squares with me. I mean, that sounds legal. And that's all I was going to write. Then I wake up this morning to an NBC news story that says Trump had apparently authorized the assassination of Soleimani seven months ago, which explains why it was on the menu of options that was provided to him. to him. Tommy, do you see any way the strike could be legally justified if, in fact, there was no imminent attack planned, which it looks like there wasn't? I think it's important to remember that there's a debate that's important about whether it's legal, but that doesn't mean it's smart policy. Right. So there's sort of two filters with which to view this. The legality question

is complicated. There's international law, there's domestic law. But a lot of this law is shaky because domestic law is precedent set by various administrations, OLC opinions that are built on previous actions. And none of that is necessarily legal per se or right because there's no one to adjudicate these steps except for us, the voters. So the administration has offered like five different claims now for the imminence, right? Lovett mentioned last week that Mike Pence was tweeting about 9-11 in Iran. That was novel for a few hours until it was shut down. They do seem to have latched onto this imminence claim. They say that they were acting in self-defense because of an imminent threat from Soleimani, but they've undercut that argument now several ways. The

first is that the first statement out of DOD the night of the strike didn't mention imminence. So it seems like they've cobbled together their legal justification after the fact. Second, the nature of this imminent threat keeps changing. Was it a threat to the Baghdad embassy? Trump suggested it was a threat on four different embassies, but none of those embassies were notified about a threat. You'd think if you're working in an embassy with this scary big threat, you would be told about it and maybe told to act accordingly.

A little heads up. Yeah. Third, they refuse to provide evidence of this imminent threat to Congress, including to the Gang of Eight who get briefed on everything, even the most sensitive stuff. And they're also supposed to consult with Congress beforehand, but we're sort of past that point. So it does seem like they've latched onto this imminence as their legal rationale, does seem like they've latched onto this imminence as their legal rationale, but it is not holding water. And, you know, ultimately they can prove it. They can declassify whatever they want. Trump can walk Sean Hannity and Theovil and show them all the intel that he's got. But the thing to remember is that, you know, we, the voters are the one that will kind of adjudicate these claims.

Yeah, love it. That's what I was going to say. Like, where does this leave us now? Right? Like, it sort of reminds me of some of the shifting explanations around the Ukraine scandal. Remember, it was, well, if there was a quid pro quo, that would be bad, but there's no quid pro quo. And then there was a quid pro quo. And then like, oh, the quid pro quo doesn't matter. in the administration. I mean, this is what's happening. They don't really care about this imminent attack explanation anymore. Trump is basically just out there saying, well, he's a bad guy and I get to kill bad guys if I want. That's the deal. And Democrats love bad guys and I don't and I kill them. That's it. It seems like that he is politically comfortable going with that argument and saying, I don't really give a shit if you prove that we're all lying about this imminent attack stuff. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, the imminence defense is not really they've not really even really tried to make an argument that not only was there a clear imminent threat that killing Soleimani would have prevented it. They've

not made any argument like that. And by the way, national security officials in the Trump administration going on television saying they can't back up what the president's saying is is a big deal as well, in part because there's only two things. There's only two ways this can be true. Either one president's lying, is obviously what's going on, or two, there was an imminent threat against Americans around the world and various people charged with protecting Americans don't know about it. The president knew about it and nobody else knew about it. Including his secretary of defense. Including the secretary of defense didn't have the information. The other piece of this too, you know, again, there's so many ways in which what Trump is doing is

reprehensible at once. They've also not told they've not provided any of this intelligence to the gang of eight. These are the eight people, half Democrats, half Republicans. They are the leaders in the Senate, the leaders in the House and the leaders of the Intelligence Committee. And, you know, they've insinuated over the course of the past whatever week and a half that they could entrust these people with this intelligence. And it's just worth remembering, we're talking about Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff, and Mark Warner. He's obviously not impugning the Republicans. He is basically making a claim that these four human beings cannot be trusted with sensitive national security information.

That is horseshit. These are the most trustworthy people in our government. He tweeted that Schumer would tell the Iranians. I mean, look, Obama took an expanded take on the definition of imminence when it came to al-Qaeda leaders. You didn't have to be amassing troops on a border planning to invade us for us to think that was an imminent threat. If you were a senior operational Al-Qaeda leader who is plotting attacks on Americans all day, every day, Obama's Justice Department, OLC, everybody in between, believe that we could take a lethal force against those individuals. But, you know, equating,

we were at war with Al- Qaeda, and equating that rationale for how you would deal with an Al Qaeda operational leaders with Qasem Soleimani, who's a senior general in Iran, is a big deal. And the risk of escalation is enormous. I mean, we should just pause to say that since the strike, we've sent tens of thousands more troops to the Middle East, ISIS missions and those training missions are paused. The Iraqi government has voted us out. Iran has stepped away from the Iran nuclear deal. And we learned that Trump ordered a second strike against another IRGC target who was a top commander in Yemen. Clearly, that guy wasn't posing an imminent threat. But there's all the risks of escalating a war with Iran by taking out that individual. Well, I was going to say, I think the lies matter

because of the consequences of what happens next. Trump said Iran was cheating on the Iran deal. He lied. Totally. It was not true. Pulled out of the Iran deal. And now look where we are. All the chaos that has followed is because he lied and got away with it and then just pulled out of the Iran deal. Now he has lied about an imminent attack on U.S. interests and U.S. forces, or at least has failed to provide the evidence, or even tried to provide the evidence. And now all the consequences that Tommy just mentioned, plus whatever happens from here on out, right? It's one thing if escalation happens, still a bad thing, but it's one thing if escalation happens because there was an imminent attack on our troops or u.s interests and we tried to stop it and then the iranians escalated from there

but if there was no imminent attack and we see further consequences from this then that means it was just a decision that trump made not based on an imminent attack based on whatever he decided was the reason to do this because he wanted to take out a bag because he wanted to um appease republican senators because he might vote who might vote to convict him in impeachment which we which we also uh heard about over last week too that part part of the reason he did this because he was getting pressure from republican senators who he needed to acquit him in the impeachment trial because he saw an attack on our embassy on television right he's already basically said that we know that based

on reports of what was happening at the time, that this wasn't because somebody came to him and said, you know, Mr. President, we have this incredibly time sensitive information about Soleimani directing an attack against Americans. We know that that is not the inciting incident. They basically said so. And they said so before they realized they were going to go back to the imminence argument. Yeah. And so, I mean, I want to go back to what Tommy said a little, a couple of minutes ago, which is the election really is sort of the only way to check this because last week in Congress, what we saw play out was, you know, they tried that the house passed the war powers resolution and, you know, they got a few Republicans on board, but probably

doesn't go anywhere in the Senate. There was a separate bill that I know you guys have talked about, Tommy, on Pod Save the World, where Democrats are pushing legislation that would cut off any funding for armed conflict with Iran unless it is explicitly authorized by Congress. Doesn't seem like that has a big chance of passing either. You've seen when like even Matt Gates or Mike Lee or some of these Republicans even momentarily criticize the idea that maybe the president is all powerful and can declare war and assassinate people whenever he wants. They get in so much trouble from other Republicans and then have to go like groveling back to Donald Trump. It's really pathetic. So really, I think, you know, it's we have a complete unconstrained president

that the election is the only way to the election is only way to do something about it. Well, Congress has a hand here. I mean, if they could pass the Roe v. Bernie Sanders bill that would prevent Trump from spending money on offensive operations against Iran, I think that is a pretty strong step that could take. I think the legislation that was just passed in the House is non-binding. Pelosi didn't want Trump to veto it.

I'm not sure why. I actually sort of think that that's good politics if he's vetoing efforts to stop him from going to war in Iran and doing it twice, I believe. He vetoed the Yemen one as well. But I mean, the biggest constraint that we've seen so far on Trump, I think, is this ABC News poll that showed how unpopular a war with Iran is. So, yeah, let's talk about that poll. The ABC News poll released on Sunday found that 56% of people disapprove of the way that President Trump is handling the current situation with Iran, and that 52% of people believe that the decision to assassinate Soleimani has made the United States less safe. The poll also found that 73% of people were either very or somewhat concerned about the possibility of the United States and Iran entering into a full-scale war. And a few other polls have basically found similar results since this crisis began. So much for the big win for

Trump, huh? I mean, it's reassuring. It's reassuring, you know, if anything can be reassuring that the American people do not trust Donald Trump to lead the military. They do not trust him to protect national security, and they don't trust him when he offers rationales. It is good to know that for all of the, I think, the trepidation that the rules of politics don't apply to Donald Trump, the American people have been paying attention, and Donald Trump does not get the benefit of the doubt. He does not get a presumption of good faith or responsibility. He is generally viewed as reckless and dangerous. And that applies when he is taking these kinds of unilateral actions. I mean, Tommy, I don't know what you think about this, but I also see that,

you know, there's like pundit brain is a bit stuck in 2001, and it used to be that you know showing force uh equals political strength in politics right and democrats were always pushed to you got to look tough on terrorists and terrorism just like republicans because that's what's politically popular but i do think you know uh two decades later as we're now still in the middle of two wars and have lost how however many soldiers um over the middle of two wars and have lost however many soldiers over these years and still have people fighting in these wars, I think there's also a war weariness that enters into the politics just as much as, oh, wow, that politician is tough because they use military force against a bad guy. I think that's true. I mean, I do think that the legacy of the Iraq war

is that a lot of happy talk in advance of a military conflict no longer seems believable to a lot of people. I mean, the fact that Dick Cheney really said we'd be greeted as liberators is so unbelievably absurd when you think about it all these years later that I think people this time around were rightly very concerned. 73%, in fact, were very concerned or somewhat concerned about the possibility of the US andS. and Iran entering into a full scale war. And that's a good thing. I mean, yeah, because we're not in control of what happens next when you decide to kill a top general of another country. They have a hand in this. Yes. OK. Lots of 2020 news to talk about. On Friday afternoon, the famously accurate Des Moines Register poll had Bernie Sanders at 20%, Elizabeth Warren at 17%, Pete Buttigieg

at 16%, Joe Biden at 15%, and close on his heels, not sure, at 11%. No one else cracked double digits, and with just a few weeks left to go, only 40% of likely caucus goers say that they've made up their minds. My very astute political analysis is that this race is wide open. It's anyone's race. Anything could happen. What's your take? What's your take, Lovett?

I mean, you said it in a dumb way, but it's true. You know, between whatever the vagaries of polling and just the way the caucuses will unfold across Iowa, I don't really think you can get that much more specific, especially with this Monmouth poll that came out that showed Biden in the lead instead of Bernie in the lead. Oh, yeah, let's go through those numbers quickly.

A Monmouth poll came out today. Smaller sample size. Doesn't know Iowa quite as well as the Des Moines Register poll, but it's a poll. So Biden 24, Sanders 18, Pete 17, Warren 15. That was, yeah, that was the Monmouth poll. And anyway, all that, Sanders 18, Pete 17, Warren 15. That was, yeah, that was the Monmouth poll. And anyway, all that, I think, like, redounds to seeing Bernie, Biden, Pete, and Warren all kind of in contention. And I think a lot of this is hard to predict because it plays out

in, like, you know, genuine debate, conversation, people moving around a gym in Iowa, and it'll have to do with the enthusiasm of the people that show up to caucus for various candidates, right? If you come at this with the presumption that Bernie and Warren supporters are going to be more enthusiastic in a caucus than Biden supporters, if that's the presumption you're going with, well, it might mean that as things shake out in various caucuses, some of those people will move from Biden to Warren and to Bernie, depending on what happens in that room. Tommy, what did you what were some of your takeaways? So, I mean, I think just the first thing for people to know is that the Des Moines Register poll really is the best in the business. And the sample size is huge.

They talked to 700 voters. So this is probably the most accurate poll. And they'll probably do one more before caucus day. So just something to keep an eye out for. I thought a couple of things. One, it's nice to know that traditional politics still works, right? I mean, Warren got a lead. People criticized her. She dipped in the polls. She kind of rebounded here. Pete got a lead. People criticized him. He dipped in the polls. He still has time to rebound. If I were Bernie, I would be very happy about this poll. All along, it's just felt like it's sometimes literally hard to see his support.

Like at the Democratic Party dinner that I attended in Iowa, like his folks weren't there. So it's hard to know what's going on. But this is a very good number for them. I would be very happy if I were Warren that I rebounded. That's a shot in the arm she probably wants and needs going into this. Pete has the biggest universe of people that seems to be considering him. So that's good news for him. And I honestly, like, I would want to be in a better place if I were Biden. It's worth noting in the Monmouth poll, they have him

leading. But it's still interesting that he hasn't run that hard in Iowa. You know, I think people would argue he doesn't have the most sophisticated organization, but he's still hanging tough there at 15. Yeah. So a few things that jumped out at me. I mean, I am fascinated with the 32% of voters here who are currently split between undecided, Klobuchar, Yang, Booker, Steyer, Tulsi. Where do they go? Right? Because the candidates. Booker, Steyer, Tulsi, where do they go? Right. Because the candidates that so 32 percent of people are either undersided or not supporting one of the top four candidates who are all above 15

percent. And of course, as you all learn from Pod Save America in Iowa, there is a 15 percent viability threshold. And so once the caucus happens on caucus night, if you don't if your candidate doesn't hit 15 percent, you go to another candidate. You have the opportunity. And that's precinct by precinct. Right, there's 1,700 or so mini elections happening on caucus night. And in each of those, you have to have 15% support to be able to get delegates out of that precinct. What you can't see in the top line of the poll is where their support is distributed. Do people have a ton of support in college towns and not as much across rural parts of Iowa? Are they more evenly distributed? Something I think Bernie Sanders' team would point to.

So you can see that in the poll, which is great. You can break it out by rural, suburb, and city. They have the subsamples. Rural's pretty evenly split. The Warren is actually slightly ahead. Pete's winning in the suburbs. And then the city looks basically like the poll with Bernie, with just a bit of a lead.

suburbs and then the city looks basically like the poll with bernie with just a bit of a lead um so that 32 percent though that basically is going to have to uh disperse between these or might have to disperse between these four four candidates um that that's the whole race right there especially when these four candidates are so close to each other and so they they did some polling of this 32 percent and uh 55 percent of them are considering Buttigieg, 53 Biden, 43 are considering Warren and 41 percent are considering Sanders. So and Sanders is the second choice of 11 percent of these caucus goers. So I agree with Tommy that this is very good news for Bernie Sanders, this entire poll. Also, because 60% of Bernie supporters' minds are made up. That's higher than any other candidate. 50% are very enthusiastic

compared to 32% for Warren or 26% for Biden and Buttigieg. So he's got that going for him. But I think the only warning sign for Bernie is, and this has been the question all along, does he have a ceiling, right? When you look at that other 32% and how they're going to distribute themselves, fewer of them are considering Bernie than some of the other candidates. He's the second choice of fewer of these undecideds and other people. So that is I think that's something to watch. The one thing that people should know, it's been covered a little bit, but not that much, is that this year the Iowa Democratic Party is releasing more information. They're going to release the pre-realignment raw vote total.

is releasing more information. They're going to release the pre-realignment raw vote total. So before that whole viability discussion that we just talked about where people are, you have to see if you've got 15% or not, they're going to release that count and then they're going to release the count

after people realign on the second count. So who knows how that will all just be viewed by the punditocracy. The other thing I would just say is like, I follow a lot of the Warren Iowa team on Twitter. I don't follow as many of other campaigns, so they could have been out doing this, too. But it's notable that there was like a giant blizzard over the weekend and these kids are all out just canvassing their asses off from from dusk till dawn in 11 degree weather. synced where like 20 people show up and you find those extra two that were on nobody else's radar screen and bring them in a race that's split among this many candidates, that can be the difference.

So I do think like organization this year could be even more important than ever. For sure. I do want to go through just each of the top candidates and just talk about where they are in this poll. So Buttigieg, you know, he basically dipped the most out of anyone between polls. He lost 9% since the last poll. His favorability rating also took a hit. His unfavorability is climbing up by a little bit. I think, as Tommy was saying, this is also a consequence of being in the lead. People start taking shots at you.

Though he still does have 60% saying they are considering him in some capacity. That is the biggest number of any of these candidates, which tells me that he is someone who a lot of people like and are considering, but he just has not closed the deal with a lot of people. So there are a lot of questions people have about Pupu Deja that he is not answering yet. And I think maybe some of that has to do with electability. Some of that has to do with he's competing for a lot of the same voters as Joe Biden. And a lot of people see Biden as a safer alternative. He's not so much in the liberal lane anymore as he used to be earlier. So I think that's like a big challenge

for him. It is so interesting to the electability piece. Each of these candidates, Bernie, Biden, Pete and Warren, they each have an electability case that they're making for themselves. And they each have a pretty tough case against their electability being made against them by their opponents. And I do really think you feel in these shifting numbers how those electability arguments are resonating, because for each of them, their electability case is in some ways perspective, right? You know, Bernie says, you know, yes, I'm further to the left and that might dissuade some moderates, but this is the only way to build the enthusiasm and get out the new voters and and the young voters we need to win. You know, Biden talks about the moderate case. Pete has an electability argument. Warren has a an economic argument. And I think one of the reasons this does still feel so wide open as we head into the final into the final days for the Iowa caucus is because I think none of those arguments are persuasive.

I think none of those arguments are persuasive. None of them. No one has a persuasive electability argument and no one has a persuasive argument against the electability of any of these candidates. And so we're just, everyone I think feels that kind of uncertainty. And I think it has just been playing out in the polls just week after week after week. Well, because, you know, so Bernie Sanders had the biggest gain of any candidate between last poll and this poll, five points. But the biggest gain between last poll and this poll was undecided, which gained six points. So it's a very unsettled race. Talking about Joe Biden, if I was Joe Biden, I would be worried that my support is a little soft. He is the least enthusiastic supporters. Only 22 percent have a very favorable view of Joe Biden, which is the lowest, very favorable among the candidates. very favorable view of Joe Biden, which is the lowest, very favorable among the candidates.

And only 44 percent of his supporters have made up their mind, which is much lower than Bernie and a little bit lower than Pete and Warren, too. So I think that's something. I thought they asked an interesting question, which is, of all these factors, what's the most important factor to you in choosing the candidate? Most important to make up your mind. Number one, a candidate's ability to unite the country. Sixty nine percent said that was extremely important. I was just about to bring this up. I mean, we a lot of us online mock Joe Biden for talking about Republicans coming to their senses, trying to work with Mitch McConnell. And I think rightly, given the history of how Mitch McConnell has operated over the past, well, since that piece of shit was born.

But it's what voters want to hear. Sometimes things might sound pie in the sky and naive on the campaign trail, but it's incredibly appealing to voters. And maybe they've seen that. Well, look, here's another interesting side on that. They also added, bring on Republicans and independents in November as an option. And 50% said that was extremely important. But that's a big difference between 50 and 69 for unite the country. People don't necessarily think that the Democratic candidate is going to, you know, unite Republicans with us and fix things in Washington and change Mitch McConnell.

But as they want their Democratic candidate to try, just because the other side is going to be shit, they don't want you to be shit too. They want you to at least try to reach out. And look, 69% saying that's extremely important. That means it's a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters who believe that. It's a lot of Elizabeth Warren supporters who believe that, too. It's not just Biden and Buttigieg people. Well, it's also, I think, too, it's like it's the most divorced thing from the online conversation. Yeah.

But I also think part of it, too, is that the way that unity has played out inside of the primary, it has become ideological, which it doesn't have to be. You know, Biden has spoken about unity and often in the same breath has talked about what Tommy's referencing, the ability to appeal to Republicans, them coming to their senses, being a consensus in the country, whatever, what have you on policy. their senses, being a consensus in the country, what have you, on policy. But I mean, there's a way to talk about unity that's not about giving in on key policy questions. It's about rhetoric. It's about being an alternative to Donald Trump. It's about not giving into the kind of scorched earth rhetoric that Donald Trump uses all the time. And that is something I think everybody feels, everybody, including some of the, some of the most left wing pieces of our party. You know, the one thing I would say about Bernie Sanders is incredibly tough on Donald Trump, of course. But in the way that he actually campaigns, he has his villains.

But there's a kind of there's inspiration and positivity to the way he approaches the problems that we're going to solve and the way we're going to come together as a country without ever giving in on key values questions or key policy questions. No, I think the should we fight or should we all get along debate has been viewed as ideological by a lot of reporters and a lot of pundits. And it doesn't necessarily have to be. There's two different things. There's an ideological debate within the party about policy, and then there is, you know, bringing the country together versus fighting, which, and this is hard to hear, and voters are complicated.

You talk to a lot of voters, and they want both. They want someone to shake up Washington and upend the system because it's not working for them and fight all the corporate special interests in Washington, and they want someone to bring the country together. I also, you know, and they don't see it as conflicting. They don't. I was thinking about this just in the past few days. You know, we're again, we're now used to it because of Trump. But like Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House going on television saying, you know, basically that, you know, Democrats are sympathetic to Soleimani. They're sympathizers to Soleimani that, you know, all these Republicans saying that

we mourn Soleimani. You know, we're on the Soleimani side. We're apologizing for him, what have you. And it just sort of like, God, what shitty fucking co-workers, you know, like you work with Nancy Pelosi on a daily basis. And so it is this crazy thing of like, oh, people want something that gets beyond this kind of politics when we're fighting against a side that has just become just so toxic. And I do understand why people view the way Biden talks about it as naive. Me too. And yet, and yet, there is still this pull that we all have of something better. And yes, it's not on us completely. And no,

we can't solve it. We can't make Republicans act like better, more civilized human beings. And yet we still want our candidates to at least believe it's possible and at least we'll do their part to lessen this sort of toxic environment, even if we're not responsible and even if we don't give in on key policy. No, where Joe Biden should get to is, no, I don't want to work with these Republicans. Kevin McCarthy's an asshole. Just send me better Republicans. We're going to beat this crop. Yeah, find some better one to beat this crop. One other interesting thing on electability. So among voters who who have made up their mind already, electability is actually less of a concern in this poll. But among the persuadable

caucus goers who haven't made up their mind yet, 59% think it's extremely important, too, that we can beat Donald Trump. So as we're starting to decide towards the end, maybe it's not surprising, but like electability is how a lot of these people are going to decide. It's no surprise that Elizabeth Warren is closing hard on electability message. She's talking less about big structural change. She's talking about how she can unite the party, unite coalitions and the, you know, barely anti-Warren talking points that we'll talk about in a second also criticize her ability to get elected. I think that anecdotal evidence that I've seen and I've read in newspapers is that almost the driving issue for most Iowa caucus goers is that they're scared shitless they're going to make the wrong

choice and that Donald Trump will get reelected and they're choosing accordingly. And frankly, I get it. I'm there. Yeah. No, I hear that, too. And you're right. She's making the electability case. Bernie Sanders has been making the electability case for a while. I imagine that on Tuesday night, we'll see a lot of that. One more polling thing that's non Des Moines Register related before we move on to the latest skirmishes in the primary. register related before we move on to the latest skirmishes in the primary um tom steyer will be on the debate stage tomorrow night after two very good polls from fox news that have him in second place in south carolina at 15 second place to joe biden and tied for third place in nevada with 12 what the hell is going on with tom steyer guys that plaid tie came to play i think tv ads

work you know what i mean especially when you take when you have an open playing field like certainly it is true that when you have a general election and one side spending a billion and one side spending a billion two maybe it ends up being a wash i don't know i'll leave it to smarter people to figure it out but when one candidate is running like a thousand points of positive bio tv ads for months at a time of course people are gonna learn that individual's name. Maybe if they get called, they haven't thought about the race much. Say, oh yeah, that Steyer guy I saw on my TV. I like that tie he wears every time. And therefore, you can kind of buy your way into some

of these debates and things. It's not great. But look, that said, I do think that this is why I was arguing last week that I think Bernie's a front runner because like i think that all of this stuff shifts very quickly once there is a result and people start really really paying attention yeah i think i'm uh i'm i'm inclined to uh sign on to that take after after this week after the last week on bernie's no just because i was thinking like look if joe biden doesn't win in iowa if he ends up in third or fourth, Bernie's in a very good position in New Hampshire and Bernie's in a good position in Nevada. And you do get bounces once you start winning some of these caucus and primary states. And even if Joe Biden then wins in South Carolina, you know, depending on who's still in the race or who has dropped out,

you know, depending on who's still in the race or who has dropped out, I think losing the first three races, even if you have a solid wall of support among black voters, which Joe Biden does, it becomes much harder once you've lost three in a row. Yeah. Well, I'd say Bernie's doing better than I expected him to do among African-American voters polled in a Washington Post poll. So I do think name ID probably has a lot to do with a lot of these national polls. That's true. So as we've seen, when you're a front runner, it's either kill or be killed. And the Sanders campaign's already throwing a few punches. In the past few days, Bernie's continued to criticize Biden's vote to authorize the war in Iraq, a back and forth that roped in former Secretary of State John Kerry, a Biden supporter who's come to his defense on this issue. That's the best surrogate on that. But meanwhile, the co-chair of Bernie's campaign, Nina Turner, wrote an op ed for a South Carolina newspaper this weekend in which she accused Biden of repeatedly betraying African-Americans in the state.

Carolina newspaper this weekend in which she accused Biden of repeatedly betraying African Americans in the state. Turner criticized Biden on everything from working with segregationist senators to his past position on welfare reform to criminal justice. What do you guys think the strategy here is behind hitting Biden specifically on Iraq and then on racial and criminal justice? Is it smart? Well, you know, the interesting thing about that op-ed, first of all, it was just withering. I mean, just incredibly tough contrast is the way it's framed is voters in South Carolina have a choice. It's either Bernie or it's Biden. as a choice in that conversation. That basically, there's the left candidate, and then there's the moderate candidate,

and here's how you should adjudicate that decision, trying to kind of push her out of that debate. If I were on the Warren campaign, I'd be very frustrated by that. I don't know that it's a stupid thing for the Bernie campaign to do. Yeah. What'd you think, Tim? I mean, I think the Iraq conversation, it's obvious, it's a contrast that Bernie Sanders

has highlighted every step along the way of this campaign, but I imagine it's a bet that voters are more focused on foreign policy now than they would normally be because of the Iran strikes. And so, you know, I think Biden's struggle to defend that vote would give me pause if I were his team. And it would give me some hope that it's an effective critique if I were Bernie's team. I mean, I do think there's an easy answer there, which is we were lied to by the Bush administration about the intelligence case for WMD. We were lied that they would exhaust all efforts at diplomacy before going to war. That said, it was a mistake to trust them. It was a mistake to vote for the authorization. And I feel like that would put it to bed rather than trying to do this process of educating voters about what you believed the authorization vote to be, how it was supposed to go to the UN. I mean, Hillary tried a lot of this against Obama, and it was devastatingly effective for Obama against her, trotting out John Kerry, someone whom I respect enormously, but who lost the 2004

election because of his Iraq war vote and his inability to explain or defend it in some ways. It doesn't seem like the best strategy. Yeah. I think the two overlapping groups of voters that Biden and Bernie are both competing for are working class whites, non-college educated whites in the Democratic Party, which are still, you know, make up a fourth or third of the Democratic coalition, and black voters. And very few of the other candidates are doing well among either of those groups, right? So it's all Biden and Bernie fighting for those. And I think Bernie's strategy here is to say to those groups of voters,

look at our records in the past, and who do you trust more going forward? Joe Biden was for NAFTA. Joe Biden voted for the Iraq war. Joe Biden voted for the bankruptcy bill. Joe Biden voted for the crime bill. You know, like Bernie Sanders voted for the crime bill too. But some of the other issues.

Not mentioning that op-ed. Not mentioning that op-ed. Yeah, right. But so he's got to peel off some of those voters by asking people to look into the past. I think if I was Biden, you want to keep pressing forward. You want to press forward here. You want by asking people to look into the past i think if i was biden you want to keep pressing forward you want to press forward here you want to tell people to look ahead and

not worry about the past and say here's where i am now i've come out strongly against the the salamani assassination i've learned my you know what he hasn't said which he should is i've learned my lessons from iraq right and when we were debating a surge in afghanistan i was the one who said no i don't want endless war and i don want, you know, like Biden can tell a story about learning less and what that how that shapes him, his views going forward. And he's been progressive on economic issues throughout the Obama administration, as progressive as most of the party is. And he can talk about that. Bernie wants to bring it to the past. So I think that's going to be an interesting dynamic as we I'm going to be interested to see that on Tuesday night. Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's a really tough spot for Biden because, you know, his case is an experience case.

He makes it all the time, my wisdom, my experience. And then Bernie can just go through and say, what did your experience get us? Look at all these different ways, like your career, you know, we look back on it and the things that make up the sum total of your experience are an indictment of the system as we currently have it, whether it's on trade or on foreign policy. And if all of your experience was in taking positions that are now anathema to the Democratic base, what's it worth to us? Yeah. And I think what Biden, a smart Biden rejoinder would be, yeah, well, you want to raise taxes on middle class people and you've admitted that. And I'm going to go and the obama years when i was there and

everything was going well and you like that that's what i'm offering i'm offering that kind of progressivism and that was sort of his his you know status quo anti message from the beginning was hey i'm more obama right exactly um so the more surprising contrast from the sanders campaign came in the form of a volunteer script that politico got hold of the script tells sanders volunteers to tell potential voters that even if they like Elizabeth Warren, quote, she's bringing no new basis to the Democratic Party,

and that, quote, the people who support her are highly educated, more affluent people who are going to show up and vote Democrat no matter what. Warren said on Sunday that she was, quote, disappointed to hear that Bernie is sending his volunteers out to trash me. Sanders and senior aides from his team didn't challenge the authenticity of the script but they said they

hadn't seen or approved the talking points um what's what's the strategy here well how big of a deal is this guys i mean look this isn't the harshest attack i've ever seen in the campaign it's probably not the harshest attack we will read this week but it speaks to the fact that bernie's trying to close with an electability argument and he sees uh warren supporters as potential sanders supporters no surprise it also seems to me like warren wanted this fight she want it seems like they have seized the moment to respond to bernie and say it was a response and that she's on defense as a way of beginning to do away with the detente that's existed between them for this period until now. Now, if I were Warren, basically when you do something like this, when you attack

or you respond to an attack, you kick up coverage of the attack, right? And if I were Warren, I would be a little more worried about voters being educated about a belief that I can't win and I'm not electable because I don't bring other voters to the table than people being educated on the fact that Bernie has, quote unquote, gone negative on me. I think that's a less salient attack in every election, always forever. I could not agree with that more. I mean, what Warren is trying to do, because I saw some of her campaigns say this, is they're now trying to make this argument that she is the unity candidate in the party, right? That there's going to be a big segment of the Democratic electorate who says they're going to be very upset if Joe Biden's

the nominee and a big segment of the Democratic electorate who say they're going to be upset if Bernie Sanders is the nominee. And very few people say they're going to be upset if Elizabeth Warren is the nominee. She is the most well-liked of all the candidates in the Des Moines Register poll in Iowa. She has the highest favorability rating of anyone. She's also got a 93% approval rating among very liberal voters in Iowa, which means that a lot of Bernie people, most Bernie people probably, who are backing Bernie in Iowa,

like Warren a lot. A reminder, Twitter is not real life, by the way. Yeah, another one. But so you're right. I think if she comes from this saying, no, no, no, Bernie's electability argument is wrong. My electability argument is that I can actually unite the party and Bernie can't and neither can Joe Biden. That, I think, is useful to Tommy's point. I think if we get into this whole argument about who's mean to who, it's not going to be as useful.

It's going to make some it's going to make for some fucking miserable tweeting, but it's not going to really move the needle that much. Yeah. Look, we've talked about this before. I do think, you know, one of the dynamics that's been running throughout this primary is there are I think there are a lot of people whose hearts are with Elizabeth Warren, but whose minds have told them that she's not electable. That you see that in some of the swing state polls that have showed consistently that Biden performs the best against Trump, then maybe Bernie and some others and Warren still winning. But but in a closer race against Donald Trump. I think that's given a lot of people pause. What? She's so lazy. She doesn't even move.

Is something bothering you? Investigate it. Anyway, I do think this unity argument is a offensive electability argument as opposed to a defensive argument, which is what they've sort of been stuck in for a very long time. What do you make of this awful CNN story from this morning that when Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren met about the presidential race back in 2018, Sanders reportedly told her he did not believe a woman could win. The story was based

on the accounts of four people, two people Warren spoke directly with afterwards and two people, quote, familiar with the meeting, Sanders vehemently denies it, and Warren's spokesperson declined to comment altogether. I'll say this. This is a report of a report of a report of a meeting in which there's literally only one thing we know for certain about the meeting, is that the two people at the meeting promised not to attack each other out of a sense of mutual admiration and common purpose. one thing we know for certain about the meeting is that the two people at the meeting promise not

to attack each other out of a sense of mutual admiration and common purpose that's the one thing we know for certain yeah yeah i don't know and it lasted until you like this weekend i think stories like this are could be a big deal if and only if uh the warren campaign or her supporters decide to make it a big deal and accuse the campaign of sexism uh that would be a pretty serious charge and an escalation and it's notable that bernie is on the record saying this did not happen yeah someone's going to ask warren about this i mean maybe as we're recording she's already answered it but um yeah i look i my advice on any story like this that's sourced to people familiar with meetings and people that heard third hand and stuff like that is just be very careful

about it don't overreact to it until you get more quotes from people directly involved um i do find it hard to believe that if there was a meeting between bernie and warren and he said uh i don't think a woman can win that it would have they would have left on good terms and then be this friendly throughout the entire primary year and a half I mean like perhaps it's something in between perhaps he talked about sexism that Hillary faced and how

are you going to deal with the sexism like who knows what happened there but it could also be something in between right like it's hard to believe that it's completely made up but it's also hard to believe that it's true. So it's sort of in a. And I also get to that, like for the people involved in these campaigns, it is the homestretch. It has been a grueling year.

It's also been, I think, a tough few weeks for the Elizabeth Warren campaign. I think that there are frustrations to see Bernie having this sort of good run between endorsements. Bernie having this sort of good run between endorsements. I mean, he had a heart attack and came fucking roaring back into the lead in these polls, endorsed by AOC, endorsed by the Sunrise Movement. I think I understand that kind of frustration. That said, it's worth remembering that these are probably the two most progressive members of the United States Senate. They are on the same side in virtually all of the big fights we have as a country. They see each other that way. And I do think there is something more psychological than political in, I think, the desire to not just see your candidate as being better, but in seeing the other candidate as unacceptable. Yeah, we've all

been there. And it just feels better. It feels you want to raise the stakes because if you care, like there's something emotional and the more you care about something, the higher you want the stakes to be inside of that choice. And I get that, but I really do hope that the supporters

of both of these candidates do take a page from the way that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have viewed each other over the course of this very long campaign, which is mostly as competitors on that who, on the whole, are on the same in the same fight. Yeah, well, the supporters are always more radicalized than the staff and the staff's always more radicalized than the candidates themselves. And we know this, but look, there's some people on Twitter saying, well, this this isn't nearly as rough as the Obama versus Clinton primary in 2008.

And all three of us were there. And I can say you are correct. Yeah. Although it was still pretty early. I mean, look, candidates tend to stay relatively nice and positive before Iowa because of this viability threshold that we were talking about earlier. Because the second choice, if your candidate isn't viable, will have to realign. And people tend to just not like the asshole candidate that's been attacking everybody and they're less likely to go to them. So I view this as more strategic than a moral choice, but by everybody to be nice. It's worth noting that Biden made a similar

comment where he talked about how Clinton was the victim of unfair sexist attacks. And he added, that's not going to happen with me. I think that was correctly viewed by many observers as suggesting that a woman couldn't win rather than an accurate observation that Hillary Clinton dealt with shit that Donald Trump didn't because of her gender. Right. Last thing before we go, there was news this morning that a United States Senator from New Jersey, Cory Booker, dropped out of the presidential race. You guys have some thoughts on the Booker campaign and Booker's exit? You know, like I have a soft spot for Cory Booker

because I like him personally, but in part because I really like his team. Like we've all worked with and know some of those people. I got to know a bunch of them out in Iowa. They are like a little engine that could campaign who worked their asses off and did it in a positive, hopeful way. And I think they really acquitted themselves.

Well, like obviously everyone wants to win, but the vast majority of candidates who run for president don't win. Right. It's a really tough job. So I think we'll be seeing all of them in a general election campaign. It also just speaks to what a weird, hard year this was. You know, I mean, things were pretty static from the get-go. And I think Booker was hoping that he could break through in Iowa with this relentlessly optimistic message that he had. But because of the way the debates were structured

and some of the other national trends, he wasn't getting a look nationally that I think proved more important in Iowa this year than it has in past years. He wasn't going to be in the debate this week. And so they are out of money, out of opportunities to get earned media and just decide they couldn't make it over the finish line.

It was funny when I, this sounds, again, this maybe sounds dumb, but when I saw that he dropped out, I actually thought, you know, in the long run, I thought it might actually be good news for Cory Booker. It might. Because I do think, in part because of the dynamics we were talking about of the way in which unity has been thought of as an ideological question

throughout this campaign. You know, he has talked a lot about common, you know, common pain, common purpose, unity, hope, love, like he has a very positive message. And I think in part because maybe that's not where people's heads at right now and kind of wanting to take the combat to Donald Trump. But also I think in part because I do think some of the tension in this primary is like if you can talk about unity, but you also need to talk about how Democrats are going to win and how we're going to win on all these really key fights. And I guess one thing he never really did throughout this campaign is really kind of put meat on the bone in terms of what he means when he talks about about common pain, common

purpose that makes him ultimately end up at policies or proposals or a way of being a leader that is different from Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden or what have you. And I guess my hope for Cory Booker would be, I'd like, you know, in the Senate, without the pressure and limitations of being a future presidential candidate stopping you from being interesting? What does it look like to actually try to bring people together? And that's not just about Democrats winning. It's about what are the things Democrats need to be doing differently as with respect to the Republicans in Congress? What does it really mean to bring people together?

Like I'm interested in seeing someone take risks in figuring out how to do that. First thing I thought about when I saw that he dropped out, well, I also have a soft spot for Cory Booker. I really liked him. I enjoyed interviewing him when he came here. Adisu, his campaign manager, is one of the best in the business. He has a fantastic staff. When he dropped out, I thought, you know, a big story of this primary is I think people underestimated the advantage that Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders both have because of how well recognized they are by the electorate. Their name ID is up in the 90s. And when you have two candidates, two major candidates in a primary who are both very well known, not just by the

college educated voters who pay attention to the primary all the time, but by the rest of the electorate, black voters, Hispanic voters, non-college whites. It's really hard to get attention in a crowded field. And it's especially hard to get attention when you are trying to sort of be the unity candidate, right? And you're trying to draw from different coalitions and assemble different coalitions. And I think Kamala Harris figured that out, Beto O'Rourke figured that out, Cory Booker figured that out. And you just see a whole bunch of candidates that seemed very promising find that it was very difficult to attract attention in a crowded primary with two people at the top who almost everyone knows. And I think that's a big problem that Cory Booker faced

and some of the other candidates too. Yeah, agreed. All right, when we come back, we will have Lovett's interview with Varshini Prakash of the Sunrise Movement. Joining us on the pod, she's the executive director and co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, an organization of young people working to stop climate change. Varshini Prakash, welcome.

Hey, John. Thanks for having me. So we're in the midst of this primary. The Green New Deal has been embraced by Democrats in Congress, by presidential candidates. Are you surprised at all at just how big an impact Sunrise has had in just two years of existence? I mean, I'm immensely proud of it. And I think it's what we set out to do from the beginning. You know, two years ago, we were just a cohort of young people who were frustrated at our politicians' inability to take action on the most pressing issues of our time.

And we were angry that an entire generation of politicians had forsaken young people and forsaken our futures. And so, you know, over the last two years, we have been able to push every major presidential candidate to release climate plans. We have pushed climate change through the Green New Deal to be at the forefront of our politics. We have engaged tens of thousands of young people and engaged them politically for the first time in their lives and giving them the tools to really manifest the reality that they want in this country. And so, you know, if you asked me like a few years ago whether I thought this was a possibility, I would have said yes. But I think it feels completely different from from from the vantage point that I'm at right now, having accomplished it all. So let's turn to the endorsement. Sunrise announced their endorsement of Bernie Sanders. You know, when we have a number of candidates who have embraced the Green New Deal, why why endorse Bernie over, say, Warren or some of the other candidates?

Well, we ultimately put it to a vote to our membership. And over the course of six weeks, we went through a process of educating our members on the climate plans of candidates. We went through a discussion period and then ultimately supported over 3,000 members to vote in an online process. And those young people voted resoundingly, overwhelmingly, over 80% of them voted to support Bernie Sanders for president of the United States. And I think ultimately the reasons why is because he has been one of the most consistent voices in support of climate action for his entire career. I think we've also seen him be a true movement and people's candidate. It's right there in his campaign slogan, right? Not me, us.

This is about building, not just relying on political saviors or individuals, but actually building a movement of millions of people that can work in concert with sympathetic politicians to pass bold and transformative legislation. And I think ultimately when we think about a crisis like the climate crisis, which requires such transformative social and economic change, we need a politician that understands the stakes, that understands the severity, and understands the severity and understands the need, the kind of action that we need in this moment, not just, you know, attacked here or instead of there. So I was looking at the the Sunrise scorecard. And, you know, you have you do have

Bernie Sanders in front, you know, just behind him is Elizabeth Warren and then far behind both Joe Biden. But one of the key sections in the scorecard is plan to win, which is basically who you view as being prepared to implement the Green New Deal through Congress, through the powers of the presidency, to actually kind of get it done. And on that score, Warren and Sanders were tied, which to me seemed like a statement that said, you know, Sunrise looks at Warren and it looks at Bernie and whatever their differences on the campaign trail, we see them as equally capable of implementing the Green New Deal. Do you agree with that? Totally.

I mean, I think Elizabeth Warren has proven herself to be a formidable candidate. She has put forward tons of really creative, thoughtful policy on the campaign trail. She has been extremely clear-sighted about who is responsible for putting us in the crisis that we are in. And I think she would be a tremendous president if elected as well. I think the reason why Bernie Sanders ended up resonating with young voters who are part of Sunrise is precisely because Bernie Sanders is it wasn't just an endorsement of Bernie Sanders, the candidate. It was endorsement of Bernie Sanders and the movement that he is building, the ultimately the political revolution that he is trying to bring about.

So I want to know, there was this piece by Emma Maris in The Times. It was called How to Stop Freaking Out and Tackle Climate Change. And I want to and I want to love it. It was it was really interesting because I think it was trying to address the feeling of kind of existential dread, the hopelessness that people may feel in talking about this issue. And I was just wondering what Sunrise does to combat the feeling that this problem is so big, that it's so urgent. We're facing administration that is not just not doing enough, but actively rolling back what environmental protections we do have. So how do you combat that sense of kind of hopelessness? Yeah, I think this is a tremendously important question.

We are seeing depression rates and suicide rates amongst young people skyrocket. It's rampant in the communities that I work and engage with on the day-to-day. And I think fundamentally what we want to do is speak to the fear, to speak to the anger that young people are feeling in this moment. And to be able to pair that with a sense of hope and a sense of optimism that when we actually come together, we can achieve things that we thought were impossible in the past. And so for us at Sunrise, a way that we try to do that is by giving people clear and direct ways that they can actually participate in the movement. And so, for example, any person anywhere across the country can start a Sunrise chapter or a local hub. And there are over 315 of these chapters across the country in almost every single state. And when you're a part of a local hub, you receive training, you receive coaching, you receive a community in which to act, and you can take a lot of,

you can work together in that community to achieve what are the goals of the movement are at that time. So whether that's pressuring Congress people to support a Green New Deal, whether it is organizing a local climate strike in your community, whatever it might be, we're trying to give people the tools so that they don't have to wait to take action. They don't have to wait, ask permission to take action. They have the solutions at their fingertips. And so over the next year, actually, we are attempting to not just engage electorally and work to defeat Trump and register tens of thousands of youth voters, but we're also working to engage big time in building out our base of young people to be millions and millions of people strong. And we're hoping by this time next year, we will have the capacity to get 10 million people out in the streets.

We want to train 50,000 new activists by the end of 2020 alone. And we want to double or triple the number of chapters that we have and the number of people who feel emboldened to take action in this moment. And is the goal to help those people deploy in the 2020 election itself? Absolutely. I think it's both during the election and beyond. So we're going to be actively involved in the 2020 election, but we don't see November 3rd of 2020 as a deadline or a finish line. We see that as just the beginning.

To us, we need to be building the kind of grassroots power that can actually build external pressure when we have a sympathetic president in office. So over the next nine months before the election, we will be working to register tens of thousands of youth voters and turn them out for Green New Deal champions at the congressional level and at the presidential level. And at the same time, we will be simultaneously training those leaders, not just in electoral organizing, but how to do the moral protest that has really catapulted Sunrise and the Green New Deal into the national discourse. We're going to be training young people

in how to do like graphic organizing skills on the ground so they can grow their bases and their communities of power where they live. And so we don't want, we understand that this is going to be, you know, the climate crisis is a huge project to tackle. It's going to take a decade or more of really inventive, active policy making to even make a dent in it. And we know that this election is critical to our survival, and it isn't the end point. We've got to continue to put pressure on politicians beyond November 2020. So, you know, let's talk about 2020. You know, last week, the Trump administration announced plans to basically gut the National Environmental Policy Act. That would mean no longer even requiring climate change be taken into account when looking at projects like power

plants and new pipelines. And that's that's the latest in a series of actions, big and small, that the administration has taken on behalf of fossil fuel companies, other interests. You know, there are big differences amongst Democrats, even in this primary. But those distinctions pale in comparison to the sort of stark choice in November, regardless of who the nominee will be. You know, we're about to enter the most heated part of the primary. Are you worried at all about the left coming together to defeat Trump once the primary is done, given that most people who vote in this primary, just because of how many candidates there are, are likely not to be voting for who the nominee is going to be? Look, ultimately, we have to oust Trump from office.

There is no negotiating that's crazy. And he is pushing us closer than ever to war. He obviously is ill fit for the position that he holds, and we have to kick him out. And we have chosen, I can speak for Sunrise, I can't speak for the entire left, but I think, you know, as part of Sunrise movement, we have elected Bernie Sanders as our president of choice. fight extremely hard for whoever the Democratic nominee is, because it is of essence that we elect somebody who prioritizes the climate crisis into the Oval Office come November. You know, look, obviously, you know, we know that I think young people are more behind Bernie Sanders than they are Joe Biden, right? Like, we all know that. We all know that that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and some of the other candidates have attracted even more enthusiastic support than someone like Joe Biden. But sometimes I wonder if Joe Biden becomes the nominee of the Democratic Party. All of a sudden, it will be incumbent on podcasts like the ones we

make over here, organizations like Sunrise. It'll be about trying to get a bunch of people to come out and vote for Joe Biden, even though it wasn't their first choice, even though they might not think he's far left enough, because honestly, on a lot of issues, he isn't. Do you do you think about that at all? About like, man, if this party picks Joe Biden, I'm going to have to work my ass off to get people to get behind him. And it'd be much easier if it were somebody like Bernie. But you know what, if it is Biden, like, I'm going to fucking do it. I'm going to just get out there and get people to the polls no matter what, even if I'm pissed. Yeah, I mean, that's what that's exactly what we intend to do. And I know we're going to do it because we've done it before. There was an election in Michigan where we endorsed Abdul Al-Sayed and Gresham Whitmer ended up winning the primary.

And so we turned all of our electoral forces in Michigan towards campaigning and electing her. So, you know, I think we are trying to keep our eyes on the prize. And it's part of the reason why one of our principles is no permanent friends, no permanent enemies. Right now, Joe Biden is probably one of my last choices in terms of major candidates for the Democratic primary. But, you know, Biden versus Trump, it's a no-brainer that we have to elect Joe Biden to office. So, you know, I'm right there with you. And I think we as leaders of social movements and progressives have to be making the case also to people for why that's so important. One last question. What can people do to kind of support Sunrise to get involved?

Oh my God, join the movement. We're at sunrisemovement.org and you can find us on all social platforms at SunriseMVMT. Encourage you to get involved at the very least if it's just getting on our email list to keep up to date. That's fantastic. But also we are getting into gear for the rest of this year and would heavily encourage people to sign up to host a launch party for our 2020 strategy or sign up to knock doors with us.

We have a lot going right now. Varshini Prakash, thanks for joining. Thank you. All right. Thanks to Varshini Prakash for joining us today. And we will all talk to you. We'll see you Tuesday night during the debate in our group thread. And we will have our pod Wednesday morning.

Bye, guys. Bye. Bye. Bye. Pod Save America is a product of Cricket Media. The senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer.

Thanks to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Somanator, and Katie Long for production support, and to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmel Coneyian, Yael Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as a video every week.