Pod Save America - “Joe, put your records on.” (Debate recap special!)

Episode Date: September 16, 2019

Jon, Tommy, and Dan break down the highlights, lowlights, and weird jokes from the third Democratic primary debate hosted by ABC in Houston, Texas.

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. I'm Tommy Vitor. Alright guys, we had another big debate last night. Last night in Houston, the 10 highest polling Democratic candidates appeared on the same stage at the same time in a debate that included Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, Cory Booker, Beto O'Rourke, Amy Klobuchar, and Julian Castro. It was the first time that Biden and Warren were on stage together, which some people thought was going to lead to fireworks. But with a few exceptions that we're going to talk about, I would argue that it's probably the least combative debate so far.

What do you guys think? Yeah, and I think there's a reason for that, two reasons for it. The first is I think everyone felt terrible after the last debate when everyone fought each other. And the hangover just lasted a couple months. Yes, well, everyone fought each other and Barack Obama, which seemed like a bad idea. But also, everyone on stage last night has already qualified for the next debate. So there is no need to light yourself on fire to get from 1% to 2% or get another 30,000 online donors. So they could play it a little safer.

Despite there not being a need to do so, some candidates may have. There was some fire. I mean, right. Like it was surprising to me in the earlier debates how nasty it got this early. Because generally you kind of want to be seen as nice through the Iowa caucuses because of the way the political process works there. way the political process works there. And it's, I think, notable that one of the big moments everyone's talking about this morning is Julian Castro's exchange with Joe Biden, because it was seen as particularly negative. Yeah, it will. And we'll talk about that in a bit. But it stood out because I do think you could count up the number of times in the opening statements and then

throughout the debate that candidates said, look, there's so much more that unites us than divides us. And how many times they all praised Barack Obama. It was almost a bit of an overcorrection, if we're really being honest. It was very obvious what they were doing, but I was happy about it. I was happy about it. So it did start with a 30-minute mini debate on health care, again, where Biden criticized Warren and Sanders for the cost of Medicare for all, and was joined this time by Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg. Let's hear a clip. I think we should have a debate on health care. I think I know that the senator says she's for Bernie. Well, I'm for Barack. I think the Obamacare worked. I think the way we add to it,

replace everything that's been cut, add a public option, guarantee that everyone will be able to have affordable insurance, number one. Number two, I think we should be in a position of taking a look at what costs are. My plan for healthcare costs a lot of money. It costs $740 billion. It doesn't cost $30 trillion. So did this healthcare discussion break any new ground? Did it move the ball forward? Does it seem to you guys like we're going in? It's like a cul-de-sac every time we get into this discussion of Medicare for all. It was a little different this time because it became a conversation between Biden, Bernie,

Elizabeth Warren. And in previous debates, there has been some moderate off in the wings who has led this debate, whether it was John Delaney or Michael Bennett or someone else. And so at least this was a conversation between Biden, Warren and Bernie Sanders. And Biden was leading the charge for his plan and being the one delivering the criticism of Medicare for All, as opposed to what's happened in the past, which is sort of this less relevant figure, sort of getting their ass kicked by Warren or Bernie. What did you think, Tommy? Yeah, look, as a non-healthcare wonk at this table, it did feel a little redundant to me and sometimes hard

to follow. And I do wonder how much people at home are able to follow it. It was interesting to hear one of the lead candidates, top candidates, make the case against Medicare for All for the first time. I think maybe some points were scored. Bernie also made an important point I thought about healthcare coverage generally, which is this idea that under some of the other plans that are Medicare for All that you can actually keep your private insurance if you like it. That's not really true because employers have the chance to change your insurance at any time, right? So it's a broader critique of the private healthcare system that is interesting. I saw and heard some Bernie folks express frustration that Elizabeth Warren didn't more forcefully stand up for Medicare for all writ large. I don't know if

that's a small anecdote or the beginning of a schism, but it was notable to me. I didn't notice that. I thought she was pretty aggressive in her defense of Medicare for All. I think her and Bernie both made good points, like you said, Bernie,

about how you could lose your doctor under some of these other plans and Warren talking about how no one really loves their insurance insurance company which is different than saying no one loves their plan yeah right she very pointedly did not say that because polling shows that some people do like their plan but i think it is pretty safe to say that no one loves their insurance company i mean yeah and she said you know what they love is you love your doctor you love your physical therapist you love your nurse the hospital you go to. And under Medicare for All, you would be able to keep all of that and choose all of that, which is very true.

I think where Biden sort of opened up some questions is around the issue of cost, which we have. We've been so stuck on this. Get rid of private insurance, eliminate it, kick people off, whatever that means. But the cost we haven't really talked about a lot. And I think Biden tried to point out at least, Bernie's been honest about raising taxes on the middle class to fund his plan. Elizabeth Warren has not been willing to say that. And then she talked once again about,

and she is unwilling to talk about that. But what she says is, overall costs for families will go down, which is true, which is true. But that's still, people are going to get- Most that's still people are going to get most families and people are going to get a higher tax bill. And again, if your employer pays a lot of your premiums and then they stop doing that because you have there's a government run plan. Do you notice that savings? I think is an open question. Warren has made it a big part of her strategy to

reject the premise of questions asked from a Republican or conservative point of view, sort of call that out. And I think 95% of the time, that is an incredibly effective strategy. More Democrats need to do that. And most of these questions are coming from a conservative point of view. They are written in prospective Republican talking points in a general election. But I think on this issue, this is going to be asked in every debate going forward. And if she is the nominee, it's going to be the question. And it is hard for her, especially since her brand has become very authentic,

honest policy walk, to look like she is not answering this question over time. Because as you point out, taxes will go up. And most people, and she is right about the right way to frame the question, but this is how the question is being asked. And eventually, I think it's going to get challenging because there are going to be some people, as there are in every policy, there are winners and losers. Medicare for All has way more winners and losers, but there are going to be some people whose taxes go up more than they will save in healthcare costs because they are not sick or they don't go to the doctor very often or they don't,

they're not interacting with the healthcare system at such a rate. And that is a fact. And if Elizabeth Warren is president or Bernie Sanders is president or anyone who's going to push for Medicare for all of us president, getting there without having an honest discussion about the losers and what a small percentage of people they are, it makes putting that law into place much harder. Yeah, we learned that the hard way. Yeah. The only other thing I'd say on this is I don't know that the Medicare for All candidates have yet made an argument as to why a plan like a Medicare for America plan like Beto

O'Rourke's, a Kamala Harris's plan where you still have a choice of private insurance at the end if you want it, are bad. You know, they've made a pretty good case of why doing nothing is bad, but, you know, leaving the ACAs it is as bad. But I don't know if I've, you know, I think they've said, well, you don't get as much efficiency out of the system. It's more costly overall if we still have insurance companies in the mix. And that is true. But I don't know if efficiency is the best argument to people who may still want that choice. And I think they probably next time around have to do a better job saying,

no, no, no, Kamala's plan or Beto's plan or some of these plans that get close to Medicare for all but don't quite get there are risky and bad. Yeah, it's really an argument against the concept of private insurance and a system where money can be pulled out of the healthcare system in the form of profits by corporations. That's a really fundamental critique that I think requires people to step back and think bigger about the healthcare system writ large and not necessarily about their lives, their premiums for it to really seem meaningful. Yeah, I think that's right. Can we make one more point on Medicare for All, which is a point, John, you have made privately, not publicly, but it's the...

Oh my God, I'm spilling the tea. And we're about to find out how closely people listen to this podcast, but is Biden's argument that Elizabeth Warren is with Bernie and he is with Barack is fundamentally flawed. Oh, thank you. I would like you to say why. I did make this argument publicly. I said this to Ryan Lizza, who asked about this last night for his piece. So, yeah, when he said, I'm with Barack and Elizabeth Warren's with Bernie, I was waiting for Elizabeth Warren to respond.

Actually, there is one person last year who said that medicare for all is a good idea that person is barack obama so the idea that by saying that you want to add to the affordable care act by going all the way to medicare for all is somehow scrapping the affordable care act and like tarnishing barack obama's legacy is something that barack obama himself does not believe yeah and it's said as much for many, many years. Well, in 2018 was the first time he came out for Medicare for All. Before that, he said, way before that, he said, if I could start from scratch, I would have gone for the single-payer system.

But we didn't start from scratch. We started with the pre-ACA system, so we built on it. Yeah, but he went out further than he ever has in the midterm campaigns and said Medicare for all is a good idea. It makes me very uncomfortable that whether you were for Medicare for all, Medicare for America, or the ACA with the public option is somehow a test of your support for Obama's legacy. And I think that is a cheapens the conversation. And I think it's frankly unfair to Barack Obama because we should not use a false or incorrect presumption of his position to divide the party. Plenty of actual policy differences between those plans to argue over. Plenty. So the most contentious moment of the night, Tommy, as you mentioned earlier, came when Julian Castro criticized Joe Biden's health care plan for not automatically

enrolling everyone who's uninsured in a Medicare like program. Let's take a listen. Barack Obama's vision was not to leave 10 million people uncovered. He wanted every single person in this country covered. My plan would do that. Your plan would not. They do not have to buy in. They do not have to buy in. You just said that. You just said that two minutes ago. You just said two minutes ago that they would have to buy in. You said they would have to buy in. Are you forgetting what you said two minutes ago? Are you forgetting already what you said just two minutes ago? I mean, I can't believe that you said two minutes ago that

they had to buy in and now you're saying they don't have to buy you're forgetting that oh that was fun so the clip started with castro but i just we should just put out there what biden said before that clip started uh early on as he's describing his plan, he said, quote, anyone who can't afford it gets automatically enrolled in the Medicare type option we have. That is true. That is about his plan. His plan basically says if you qualify for Medicaid, but you don't get Medicaid because you're in one of the states that didn't expand, you will automatically be enrolled in a premium free Medicare program. Free.

And then by later set, if you lose your job, you can automatically buy into this plan. Right? So if you are a higher income but you lose your job, you can then buy into his public option. It is not automatic enrollment and it is not necessarily free. For some people who lose their jobs, it may be free if you qualify under a certain income level. So that's what was said. So on one hand, you can understand that Castro heard him say the word buy. But what I think was sort of, I guess, unfair about this is Biden goes back and is clearly saying, no, no, no, I was talking about people who qualify for Medicaid,

they get automatically enrolled. You were talking about your poor grandmother, and I was saying she would be automatically enrolled. And as Biden's saying that, Castro just keeps yelling over him and saying, you forgot, you forgot, you forgot. So, you know, I don't think it's as big of a deal on either side, as everyone said, but it's still, it struck me as a bit unfair. a deal on either side, as everyone said, but it's still it struck me as a bit unfair. Candidates go into debates with a couple of moments or zingers or whatever that they want to land. Yeah. And it seems I'd like to see report on this, but it seemed from watching this that Castro went in this debate looking for an opportunity to question Biden's capacity to sort of push on the open door of the conversation about Biden's

age and his gaffes that has been happening on Twitter, in the media, in the early states. And he went and did that. I think this was an unfair, we can have a conversation about whether that conversation is in bounds in a Democratic primary, non-Democratic debate stage. This was a poor place to land in. I don't think it worked for Castro in the context of this debate and may hurt him in the long run. Tommy, what did you think? Yeah. So, you know, Mayor Pete sort of sweeps in later in this conversation. It's like, this is why everyone hates watching these debates that everyone hates politics. And Castro responded, this is what debates are for. And he's right. Debates are for figuring out the nuances of policy, holding people accountable for past statements, and arguing. But if you come off like you're being condescending to a man who was the vice

president of the United States for eight years, I think it's not going to read well to people. I think that's a reaction you're seeing. He kind of had like a, hey, Wolfer Brindley, you forget your meds kind of vibe. And I's, I think it's human nature to see someone do that and to think, hey, you're kind of being a jerk. Now, that said, long term, what Castro's comment did, and Cory Booker addressed this on CNN later and made sort of a similar comment about Biden's mental acuity. This could give reporters a news hook to cover this discussion more and to talk about Biden's age more. And ultimately, it could hurt Biden. Now, I think a discussion about age is perfectly legitimate.

I do think we should talk about people's fitness for the job. If you're too old for it, if you're too young for it, it's relevant. I saw a bunch of people on Twitter this morning saying like, oh, what is this about being mean to poor Joe Biden? And he's going to have to take this in the general election if he's running against Trump. And Trump's this about being mean to poor joe biden and he's going to have to take this in the general election if he's running against trump and trump's going to be mean to him and like you know people should be able to question the front runner yes of course of course all that is true no one thinks that donald trump is going to write run some kind of a nice honest campaign against joe biden you're so cynical you're really who thinks that right and of course

people should be able to criticize joe biden kamala harrison the first debate um went pretty hard at joe biden and was almost universally praised for it and went up in the polls afterwards and i think it was a completely inbounds critique of joe biden i think in the second debate cory booker a lot of people including us said he had the best debate. And he went after Biden, I think, in a very fair way. I mean, Bernie went after Biden in several debates on his vote for the Iraq war. And it's a perfectly legitimate policy conversation that should be raised and should be discussed, especially when Biden is presenting himself as a person with the best experience and judgment on foreign policy. But there's also the, the you know style points aspect of

politics and if you kind of seem like a jerk people are going to think you're a jerk and i think to that end in the first debate i think it was the first debate when eric swalwell started like yelling about passing the torch he got roundly criticized for that and and people said it was going too far and i think they were right there too it did seem pretty silly it's it's not about like the legitimacy of should you attack the front runner how dare you attack you know joe biden he's a vice president blah blah it's not about that it's like does your critique of the other candidate a ring true and and b seem like it's coming from a fair place or does it seem like it was choreographed scripted calculated you know and

look what we know is castro's people told reporters ahead of the debate uh our candidate is going to go after someone at this debate but we're not going to tell you why do we do like a clue style murder mystery we we criticize biden's campaign for this too because they they said oh we're going to go after and what they didn't do it uh we're going to go after Elizabeth Warren's record on businesses that she worked with or something like that. And they telegraphed that attack. Again, whether it's Biden doing it, Castro doing it, or anyone doing it, telegraphing who you're going to attack before the debate leaves you open to be criticized for that attack seeming phony. Just the way it is. for that attack seeming phony.

Just the way it is. Okay, so the next big moment in the debate came in response to a question on gun safety. Let's listen to the answer given by Beto O'Rourke. You know the critics call this confiscation. Are you proposing taking away their guns and how would this work? I am. If it's a weapon that was designed to kill people

on a battlefield. If the high impact, high velocity round when it hits your body shreds everything inside of your body because it was designed to do that so that you would bleed to death on a battlefield and not be able to get up and kill one of our soldiers. When we see that being used against children, and in Odessa, I met the mother of a 15 year old girl who was shot by an AR-15. And that mother watched her bleed to death over the course of an hour, because so many other people were shot by that AR-15 in Odessa and Midland. There weren't enough ambulances to get to them in time. Hell yes, we're gonna take your AR-15, your AK-47.

We're not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore. It seemed to me like that might have been the best moment of the debate last night. I don't know what you guys thought. I thought so. I mean, this, it was passionate. It was powerful. It came from a place of real emotion. And the audience was responding because it was bold. And they were responding to too much Democratic caution on guns. Now, the people on that stage, many of them, have been more aggressive and more progressive on dealing with guns than most people in the Democratic Party. But it was just a few days ago that the Democrats in the House decided they were not going to vote on an assault weapons ban because they thought it was bad politics and it couldn't pass. And here's the thing that is,

I think, so important about what Beto said, and I think Julian Castro and Cory Booker and others who have gone further on things like gun licensing registration also deserve credit for, but is it doesn't matter what your fucking position is. The NRA is going to say you're coming for their guns. They said it about Barack Obama twice. We didn't take guns, right? They said it about Hillary Clinton. They said about every Democrat who's ever fucking run. And there is, we've been arguing this for a very long time, picking a position of caution to try to appease the NRA or the pro-gun crowd is a certain loser because they will assign a position to you that is not yours. So pick the boldest position. They can get the response from the people in that audience last night. Inspire people, right?

Don't do this out of boldness, not out of fear. Yeah. I mean, look, campaigning should change you as a person and as a candidate right and clearly what happened in el paso struck beto's community and himself and his family deeply and it's incredibly personal and the thing that made that answer really powerful was the way it built and you could tell he was getting actually emotional thinking about the mother of this young kid who bled out because she was shot by an ar-15. And so, yeah, I think all of us, like me included, are sick of politicians who sound afraid of the NRA. I appreciate it as moral clarity. It was also interesting that Beto got a bunch of praise from rivals on that stage for his handling of what

happened in El Paso and the way he was there for the community. So you can probably interpret that as them thinking he's no longer a threat and trying to be nice to him. But I think it probably read to people watching at home as a credit to his leadership. So it was a very good moment for Beto O'Rourke. I think it reminded people why they liked him in the Senate campaign. I also think that sometimes when you take a pretty bold, aggressive position, not always, but sometimes it turns out that most people agree with you. So it wasn't just the people who times, it turns out that most people agree with you. So it wasn't just the people who clapped in that audience last night or activists or people on Twitter, but the Washington Post last week polled a mandatory buyback of assault weapons and it polled at 52% support in the broader public.

And I think, look, we found similar results in our Wisconsin poll, even with gun licensing, which Cory Booker has been out front on is also popular like you you find out all these things are more popular than we've been led to believe by pundits and more cautious democrats when you actually pull them it's not true for all issues but it happens we saw this in a way you know but the whole dumb fight about whether we should talk to uh dictators without precondition like that was something obama said the entire establishment told him he was a naive idiot then the entire country said actually we're with that guy yeah and i one last thing about what beto did which i think is interesting is it's one of and there were a few other times but it's one of the rare

moments in these debates where a moment outlasts the debate that's not about conflict with another candidate. Like, I think Beto showed last night that you can have a really memorable moment by expressing anger on behalf of people and not just anger at another candidate. And look, I think we're going to talk about this, but I think Kamala did that a few times last night, too, by focusing on Trump a lot and speaking directly to Trump in her opening statement and showed that, OK, you can we can not fight our other candidates on stage, but still seem really powerful, emotional, effective by sort of talking about what unites

Democrats and going after Donald Trump. So I thought that was good. Well, that's been one of the the bad lessons learned from the first debate was Kamala Harris's attack on Biden, which I thought was very fair and incredibly well executed and effective, but it led to a temporary surge in her poll numbers. And the lesson then was the best way to get into the top tier, because it appeared that she moved into that top tier, was to take a shot at someone else. Yeah. And then that second debate, everyone tried to do what Kamala Harris did. And sort of the lesson from that debate was that's not the right strategy. Julian Castro, who actually made this debate stage by going after Beto O'Rourke in the

first debate, now believes that that is his path to getting higher than 2% in the polls because he was the 10th qualifier on that. He was the last one on the stage. Yeah. And I'll say to the other person, the other candidate who really gets this, even though he's gone after Biden in the past as well is Cory Booker, who might be like one of the most consistent good debaters of all the candidates. But all the times that people have said that Cory Booker's had a good performance, it's been because he's spoken positively. And, positively and and you know it's not because he just goes after other people he's he makes a pretty positive case he's able to be a happy warrior at all times and tell

stories about real people in this community and do it with a smile and i just i think it comes off really well can i challenge the idea please that booker is good at debates okay yeah i think right now booker is basically playing the role that biden did in 2008 so if you guys remember those debates not really no they're all there were 37 of them and we hated all of them but you asked me who was on stage with brockwell and hillary clinton i'll tell you like joe biden chris dodd and i can't remember who else mike revell um but so it was like in those debates, it was a little bit like last night in that there were these, there was Obama, Clinton, Edwards were the three by far leaders in the race and they were always fighting each other.

And mostly Obama, Hillary, and Edwards was sort of coming in against both of them. But Biden was always the happy warrior and he always had good lines and he attacked Bush and he would attack the Republicans. It's where he said Rudy Giuliani was a noun noun a verb in 9-11 oh yeah and people always left that debate loving joe biden but they didn't leave that debate thinking joe biden should be their choice for president yeah and i think the challenge for booker right now is that vp though he didn't get that vp that's what he's going for but is i think booker is smart he is passionate he is very good on stage he's a happy warrior but it is not clear to me what strategic objective to advance his candidacy he is accomplishing as he does that

i i think we could make the same argument about i, I think there's four people in this category to me, Booker, Beto, Klobuchar, and Buttigieg, who I think of all, and I think it's all four of them last night turned in very good debate performances. What is it that's going to help you break into that top tier? Because I also think you can argue, we can talk about this later or now, that the sort of understudy crowd may have overperformed the top three frontrunners last night, just in last night's debate. Those four candidates I mentioned, and I think Kamala Harris turned in a pretty solid debate as well. It's kind of hard to figure out where to put her. Yeah, right.

She's sort of between those two tiers. But like by two points by two points right yeah but so i think you can make make a case that all of them had a pretty good debate but i wonder sort of where that leaves them and how they actually break in yeah it's a good point i mean look booker didn't speak for the first 40 minutes so it's it's like it's hard to say oh he had a great debate but then at the end he got this goofy question about the amazon and veganism and he didn't take the bait on it and then actually became the only candidate on stage to talk about Afghanistan and how we need to take care of veterans when they come back. So I was like, oh, that was smart and it was thoughtful and it was noticed in the veterans community. Now, to your point, Dan, will this help him become the nominee?

I have no idea. There's no indication that it has to date. I think if Adisu was on with us right now as campaign manager, he would say their plan is to organize, organize and get hot later. And they're just kind of laying that groundwork. But, you know, we'll see. Like, I can look at that field, and I can say I know exactly what Amy Klobuchar was trying to do. Yes.

And she was, like, we can have a conversation about how effective she was at doing it, but she was making a moderate electability case. She was picking a lane, and she was running in it. I think I know what Pete wanted to do. Not sure it was accomplished, but he wanted to continue. He wanted to be the young, was very specifically trying to recapture the magic of his Senate race, which is about being an inspirational movement candidate that can get people fired up and is willing to say things that other politicians won't.

And sort of call out the bullshit of politics. Yeah, like what drove him, made him a national celebrity was that answer on Colin Kaepernick in the Senate race. This was a similar thing. The Booker one is a mystery to me. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah.

I almost think he's trying to be like the, like an electable progressive alternative to the top three a little bit. I don't know. I think that they- He's got his message. Right. I think that they think that a long-term,

a hopeful, optimistic message will break through and be what people want in the face of the trump horribleness maybe that's right maybe it's wrong and their argument is that booker has um been delivering that message for his whole life and not just part of this campaign so he's got sort of a long record attached i think that's what they're going for hey dan breaking news sean livingston's retiring i know i saw that okay that's that's like a great opportunity for the Crooked Media version of 30 for 30 sports documentary podcast. I think you guys should really take up. Light it up, man.

Dan, you live in San Francisco. Walk down the hall, talk to Sarah Geisman. Let's talk about my other personal favorite answer of the night, which also came during the gun safety section from Elizabeth Warren. We have a Congress that is beholden to the gun industry. And unless we're willing to address that head on and roll back the filibuster, we're not going to get anything done on guns. I was in the United States Senate when

54 senators said, let's do background checks, let's get rid of assault weapons. And with 54 senators, it failed because of the filibuster. Until we attack the systemic problems, we can't get gun reform in this country. We've got to go straight against the industry and we've got to change Congress so it doesn't just work for the wealthy and well-connected, so it works for the people. Now, Bernie was also asked about the filibuster as a follow-up and had a different response. Would you support ending the filibuster? No, but what I would support absolutely is passing major legislation. The gun legislation that people here are talking about.

Medicare for all. Climate change legislation that saves the planet. I will not wait for 60 votes to make that happen. What's going on with Bernie here and the filibuster? Can anyone figure this out? You pressed him on it for like 10 minutes. I pressed him on it whenernie here and the filibuster can anyone figure this out i i pressed him on it i pressed him on it when he was here he gave me the same answer about uh budget reconciliation whatever you want to call it and having his vice president basically just overrule the parliamentarian in the

senate to get whatever you want passed it pretty much seems like an elimination of the filibuster in everything but name. It's so confusing for a guy who hates the system and wants to tear it down. Shows the power of being in the Senate for that long. Why wouldn't you just be in favor of getting rid of it? I just don't get it. Also, poor Bernie. He sounded so sick. It would suck so badly to go into a three-hour debate with barely having your voice. He didn't have his voice, but he had energy.

Like, he didn't, you know, it was just the- No, it was just hard to listen to. Bernie's answer is nonsensical. Like, let's try to, if you try to separate the substance from what he said on stage. Most of Medicare for All can be passed using budget reconciliation, which is a 50 vote measure that allows you to only requires 50 votes. It is very limited in what can be included in a budget reconciliation measure. Things that have to do with the budget, basically. And it's very arcane. And that is how we pass the Affordable Care Act. There are parts of the law

that we wish we could have done that we couldn't do because of budget reconciliation rules. So I don't know specifically what falls in and what falls out of Bernie's plan via budget reconciliation, but you could go down that path. The Green New Deal is a very different deal. We were trying to pass the ACA and couldn't pass some elements through budget reconciliation is that we should have had Vice President Biden at the time just overrule because he's the president of the Senate, the vice president's president of the Senate when your party's in control, that he should have just said overruled by the Senate president, and then it just would have moved forward, which we can test that out if you can do that. But to me, the only difference between that and completely eliminating the filibuster is Bernie's basically trying to say when a Democrat has the presidency and the Senate, they should be able to pass whatever they want with 51 votes. But if a Democrat's president and the Republicans control the Senate or there's a Republican, then we keep the filibuster because then maybe they won't do the same thing. Yeah, it's crazy. It's got a bit of a banana republic vibe.

I also think that there is a very important argument that can be made in support of abolishing the filibuster. We are a democracy. The majority should get to pick our policies. And having a policy that likes, let's say, not just a minority of senators, but a tiny majority of the American people, because the geographic distribution in the Senate where Wyoming has as much power as California, that that fund is a measure that undermines American democracy. And you can make an argument against that. It's an argument that I think will sell with the American people. The Democrats who push for abolishing the filibuster can and should brand themselves as the people who push for democracy. We want to make our democracy where everyone's voice counts. And Republicans are against that. don't know understand how you explain that to people but there's another point which is some of the arguments when people yell at us for talking about the filibuster is it's not up to the president it's up to the senate which is true very true now it's not going to happen if the

president's not for it because the president's going to have to lobby a lot of senators who are very skeptical about this many of them were on stage last night but if you think senators are skeptical about the idea of overrule of getting rid of the filibuster which would be in a change in senate rules but in above board one how do you think they're going to feel about just completely perverting the budget reconciliation process by fiat from the vice president's office? Like, it doesn't seem like that's going to sell with Joe Manchin and Chris Coons. Look, last thing I'll say is, you know, a bunch of people, when I was excited about it last day, tweeting at me as they usually do, like, what happens when Mitch McConnell and a Republican

president get rid of the filibuster? Yeah, I understand the risks. There are absolutely risks to eliminating the filibuster. But I will tell you with near 100% certainty that there is no time in the next 10 years where Democrats will have 60 votes in the Senate. Look at the states, look at the map, look at who's up. It will not happen. You can get to 52, 53, 54, 55. Look at who's up. It will not happen. You can get to 52, 53, 54, 55 in the best case scenarios. There is no path to 60 votes, at least in the next decade, perhaps until there's another political realignment and all the parties change place and demographic, whatever. It's just not going to happen. So if you're comfortable with the fact that Democrats will never be able to pass another piece of progressive legislation or even moderately progressive legislation again because you're worried what mitch mcconnell will do if he gets rid of the filibuster then like that's acceptable but just know we will never be able to pass anything ever it's the only way this is why it was so important i think that elizabeth warren

brought this up in the gun control conversation because the only way that we are going to have real serious gun control things like assault weapons bans or buyback. Or the Green New Deal or Medicare for All or pay for teachers or any of this stuff. The only path to 60 votes is entry game becomes president, orders everyone to leave the coasts. They move inland. And now we've got a lot of Californians living in Idaho. Sweet.

Well, now you've piqued my interest. There was also a big discussion on trade, which shockingly was the only time that anything about the economy was mentioned at all. Let's listen to Amy Klobuchar taking Dan's advice here. What we've got right now, though, George, it's not a focused tariff on steel. What he has done here, he has assessed these tariffs on our allies. He has put us in the middle of this trade war, and he is treating our farmers and our workers like poker chips in one of his bankrupt casinos. And if we are not careful, he is going to bankrupt this country. One forecast recently says that it has already cost us 300,000 jobs. All right? There is soybeans that are mounting up in bins all over

the Midwest, in my state of Minnesota and in Iowa. So what I think we need to do is to go back to the negotiating table. That's what I would do. I wouldn't have put all these tariffs in place, and I wouldn't have had a trade policy where on August 1st, he announces he's going to have tariffs on $300 billion of goods. On August 13th, he cuts it in half. A week later, he says he's going to reduce taxes. The day after that, he says he's going to do it. The leaders of the world are watching this, and it undermines our strength as a nation. And yes, we want fair trade, but we must work with the rest of the world. And he has made a mockery of focused trade policy, which I think means

enforcement, like we've done in northern Minnesotanesota passing bills getting president obama to do more on that so that our workers can benefit so we are importing exporting goods and making sure uh... that is competitive policy where our goals is that we are making things inventing things and exporting to the world he He is defeating that goal. I had my notes.

Klobuchar won the Pfeiffer primary for dropping that 300K figure. I sort of wish he had stopped after the soybeans bottling up, because it really went quite long after that. That whole, quit while you're ahead. But it was pretty good at the start. Yeah, that trade question led to a variety of interesting but different answers. Almost nobody said, yes, I would get rid of the tariffs immediately. Actually, I think Julian Castro came the closest.

And I thought he, I know we've been critical of his exchange with Vice President Biden. I thought he had a pretty good answer on China. He talked about human rights, talked about negotiating away the tariffs. And then he also talked about the Uyghurs in China, which it just showed a grasp of like the issue. Warren used this question, I thought the most effectively to sort of get to her broader economic worldview, which is that trade policy has been written for and benefiting corporations for decades, and that we need to have strong allies, and that we need to have used trade to get better global standards for workers,

not the things we're currently negotiating, which is like things we need, like respect for intellectual property, but things that are going to benefit corporations only. Look, I think one of the reasons that Warren, Sanders, and Biden are in the lead, even though they have, at least Warren, Sanders versus Biden, have very different ideologies and philosophies on this, is that all of them have a pretty solid economic message, or at least they talk about the economy a lot.

And I don't know, and like I said, I thought Klobuchar's, at least the first half of her answer there was quite good. It went on a little long, but it was quite good. I don't know that anyone really made strong economic arguments last night or strong economic case. And I was also just shocked that trade was the only question about the economy when the economy may be headed towards recession. Incomes haven't gone up. Wages are stagnant. Like, what's going on here?

That seems like an oversight on behalf of the ABC moderating staff. Yeah. What I like, you know, we made the mention of Amy Klobuchar saying 300,000. I had yelled as loud as I could on Twitter that Democrats needed, if no Democrat candidate mentioned that fact, that Donald Trump's own incompetence led to the loss of 300,000 jobs, I was going to throw my phone through the TV. It's very fortunate it didn't happen because- Klobuchar saved you a phone. She did save me a phone. I'm due for an upgrade. They're expensive. The new iPhone's not coming out for a while. It would have been very problematic. I also missed her saying it because I was so busy yelling about no one saying it in the group thread that I

only knew it because every person who has ever worked for Amy Klobuchar tweeted it at me. And to those people, I say, congratulations. Good job. I support you to quote Janet's Molotov. No, the system worked.

That, that is a deep cut. Who knows that reference? Just, just roads. But there is a larger point here, which is in Kamala Harris did this very well in the conversation on health care. But let's not forget Donald Trump is fucking president.

He is terrible. There are millions of people watching a debate. We should use it as an opportunity to deliver a negative message about Trump. Like some of the ones we tested in Wisconsin that worked really well. Like on trade, for instance. Trade is this massive weakness for Trump, both his incompetency execution of the trade war with China, but also that he's full of shit on it, that he ran as this free trader who is right now,

as we speak, working with Wall Street and the big drug companies to try to pass a new NAFTA that helps corporations and hurts workers. And no one said that. new NAFTA that helps corporations and hurts workers. And no one said that. No one said that he wants to unilaterally cut taxes for wealthy investors last night. No one said that he's thinking of cutting social security and Medicaid in his budget and Medicare as well. No one talked about that either. No one talked about his first big tax cut that completely failed. Pete made it sort of about his general failure to negotiate with the Chinese, right? And then he pivoted to a conversation

about Trump just not showing up to a climate change meeting at the G7 in our global absence. So yeah, people took this question to a bunch of interesting places. Pete also swerved out of his lane to mention Mike Pence's very long and profitable for Trump commute in Ireland.

That was great. So happy that Pete did that. Thank you, Pete. There were a couple other issues that weren't brought up at all, like Trump's corruption was not brought up. I mean, Elizabeth Warren talks about corruption all the time, so that's wonderful. But specifically calling out instances of Trump being corrupt, which there are plenty, especially in the last couple of weeks, aside from Pete saying that, and I'm so glad he did, didn't hear that a lot either. Yes, which we also know from our polling is fucking devastating to Trump, with the exact voters he needs to win the election.

And no one mentioned impeachment, which is surprising given that it's a Democratic primary and you think that almost everyone... Well, it's hard to know whether we're in an inquiry. Well, yeah. I don't want to touch that third rail. Also, not a single question about reproductive rights women's issues just sort of it's huge oversight as if the republican party all across the south and the midwest is not trying to ban abortion and to force the supreme court to

try to overturn roe v wade right fucking now one would think that would be a huge issue to talk about and you just mentioned the supreme court still hasn't been a question about the Supreme Court. What kind of justices you would nominate. I mean, like huge, huge fucking issue. Do you support court reform? It is sort of like we keep going to these all these debates. We keep going having these like cul-de-sacs of around these like same issues, the same debate. I'm very sick of the Medicare for all versus almost Medicare for all debate.

I don't think it's helping anyone make a choice at this point. We've had it three times. And, you know, Tommy, I'm sure you notice, like, people say, oh, well, there's a couple foreign policy questions, but, like, foreign policy is, like, half the world's issues. Well, yeah, I mean, like... Or half the United States' issues. They do sort of treat it like we treat it in the State of the Union.

It's true. You get minutes 50 to 65 here's your one question on afghanistan which uh joe biden used to definitely pivot to his iraq war vote like we should we should talk about that answer yeah look i i mean i can i'll complain about this on pot save the world please uh subscribe and download but you know like look afghanistan was good uh the question about Venezuela and Latin America was interesting and kind of hadn't been asked before. But, yeah, I mean, there was major news out of Israel this week. Bibi Netanyahu saying he was going to annex settlements in the West Bank.

That whole Iran deal thing, sort of still a problem. The North Korea diplomacy is going disastrously wrong. So, yeah, I would love to have seen some time for that. of time for that. So since there were only 10 candidates on stage, I figured we'd just go sort of one by one here at the end to talk about how they all did. Let's go back to Joe Biden, who we started with. And obviously there's a lot of commentary today on his exchange with Castro. But I actually thought his more problematic answer was it started, it was in response to a question about the legacy of slavery and what he would do to sort of help overcome America's legacy of slavery. Mr. Vice President, I want to come to you and talk to you about inequality in schools and race. In a conversation about how to deal with

segregation in schools back in 1975, you told a reporter, I don't feel responsible for the sins of my father and grandfather. I feel responsible for what the situation is today, for the sins of my own generation, and I'll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago. You said that some 40 years ago, but as you stand here tonight, what responsibility do you think that Americans need to take to repair the legacy of slavery in our country? Well, they have to deal with the, look, there is institutional segregation in this country. And from the time I got involved, I started dealing with that.

Redlining, banks, making sure that we are in a position where, look, talk about education. I propose that what we take is those very poor schools, the Title I schools. Triple the amount of money we spend, from $15 to $45 billion a year. Give every single teacher a raise to the equal raise of getting out the $60,000 level. Number two, make sure that we bring in to help the teachers deal with the problems that come from home. The problems that come from home, we have one school psychologist for every 1,500 kids in America today. It's crazy. The teachers are, and I'm married to a teacher. My deceased wife is a teacher. They have every problem coming to them.

We make sure that every single child does, in fact, have three-, four-, and five-year-olds go to school. School, not daycare. School. We bring social workers into homes and parents to help them deal with how to raise their children. It's not that they don't want to help. They don't know quite what to do. Play the radio. Make sure the television, excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night

There's the phone make sure the kids hear words a kid coming from a very poor school I have a very poor background. We'll hear four million words fewer spoken by the time they get there There's so much we know I'm gonna go like the rest of them do twice over. Okay? Tough yeah guys, I just I don't know like I'm going to go like the rest of them do twice over. Okay. Tough. Yeah, guys, I just, I don't know.

Like I've read the transcript of that answer multiple times now, just to try to like dissect in the word salad, what he was trying to say. And it's really hard. It's really hard. So what we didn't play for you is that answer goes on to a conversation about Venezuela and Biden's support for stabilizing the Northern Triangle countries, I believe during the Obama administration. So how we got there, I couldn't tell you either. There must be, going back to the first part of the answer,

there must be some social science that says that young or economically disadvantaged kids don't hear enough words and it limits their reading comprehension or vocabulary or something. It's something called the word gap. I know this because Hillary Clinton used to talk about it all the time. It's like one thing I remember from Hillary Clinton.

But you can't just kind of like spout that out without the context and expect anyone to know what you're talking about. This is why Hallie is raising Kyla on Keep It. There's going to be some spicy trivia. A lot of words in there, though. I did a bunch of Googling this morning to try to find this because the takes were all about Biden stumbling through this answer.

But I was like, what is he referring to? And I found a Vox explainer about his education plan. Thank you, Ezra. Yes. about his education plan. Thank you, Ezra. Yes. So his plan also calls for more mental health care

in schools and expanding resources for families, including home visiting by nurses for parents of newborns and the creation of, community schools

in low-income areas that offer social services, doctors, and other help. And this is, the community schools idea is supported by a lot of different groups

and activists and stuff like that. So it's not like it's, it's a horrible thing, but he, it's on Joee biden to explain that correctly and not to just sort of like go i mean he just he just sort of fell apart during that answer and i don't like i don't know i think it does raise questions of like

i mean whether you want to talk about age or whether you just want to talk about like it i don't necessarily think it has to do with age because you know bernie sanders was up there and didn't stumble through answers like that and you know elizabeth warren is uh around 70 years old and like bounces around up there like she's 40 so i don't and also so booker criticized uh biden along similar lines as castro in a post-debate CNN interview. But then he later characterized it. He said, no, this isn't like an age thing. This is something I've noticed and wondered about for a long time. Like, can this guy carry the ball over the finish line was the point.

And I think they're trying to make, you know, it's an electability argument as much as a fitness for the job argument. If you were sitting in Biden's war room last night, you've probably felt amazing about the first half of the debate. He was very strong on health care. He was energetic. He seemed in control. It like that's the question that you've been answering. Right. It is. Does he have the energy and the acuity to debate Donald Trump? Like that's been the subtext of all the conversations. It's what Castro brought to the debate stage in that question and Cory Booker did in the interview afterwards. And in the first half of the debate, I think he clearly passed that test.

The second half of the debate, not so much. He's sort of a 90-minute debate guy in a three-hour debate world. And look, we know the people on Biden's team. There's no way in that debate war room when he gave that answer that we just heard, that everyone thought that was a good answer or that everyone thought that was OK. I know that people are putting their head in their hands in their hands for that answer. I just I mean, I don't know for sure, but I can just I would bet it. I would bet it because it wasn't good i also think that this conversation is related to the fact that biden's campaign has leaned so heavily on the electability argument

when you make that be and it's not even just that he is the most electable in this cut like biden doesn't have an electability argument like an amy klobuchar or a better or warcast where he can he has a proven record of winning or steve Bullock, presuming he's still in the race, who doesn't have the, he doesn't have a record of winning in red states or battleground states. He's from Delaware. It's very blue.

But he's arguing that he is the safe alternative to beating Trump. He is our, quote unquote, best bet. And when you lean so heavily on that as opposed to what you would do in the job or why you're the most experienced or able person to do the job, these questions rise to the surface much faster because they then become a question of, does he have the capacity to beat Trump? I also think when you watched him during that answer, and then he goes on and starts, he says, I'm going to, I'm going to keep talking because all everyone else gets to keep

talking. And then he goes back to Venezuela for for some weird reason you didn't think that made sense what you know what it said to me because he seemed a little angry and i think that the there's a little danger with the biden campaign right now of feeling a little aggrieved that they're getting so much shit from people and you saw that in the ryan lizapiece in politico how they said you know the media hates us and it's all a bunch of two ryan lizapieces i know right so you know the online left and the people on twitter don't represent the democratic electorate and they're all attacking us for everything you know and look i get some of the critique that the biden team makes of the press and twitter i happen to

agree with i understand why they're upset but also like it's it's getting them to a point where they're becoming angry and they're reacting in anger. And I think that's part of what Biden's answer was about. Like he was pretty upset. Like he thought he was about to get challenged on race again. And because he was, he started getting his dander up and was like a little annoyed by it. And it didn't it just doesn't work for them. Being aggrieved about this does not work.

The subtext of the Venezuela, the Northern Triangle money part of his answer was these clowns think they can deal with Venezuela. I've met with Maduro. I've gotten this funding. And he took us on this journey that was impossible to follow unless you really knew his record. But it's a better journey for him to be on

than the one his campaign is currently on. To Venezuela? To experience. Well, but okay. So let's talk about this Iraq answer he got later. He got asked about his Iraq war vote. He first took it to Afghanistan where he talked about how he opposed the surge in Afghanistan. He sort of wades into a bleak critique of coin strategy versus counterterrorism strategy,

which is something I only understand because I sat in 16,000 hours of Situation Room meetings in 2009 when we debated this. Then he referred to Afghanistan really being three countries, which I think is referring to the tribal areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Everyone else thought he was talking about partitioning Iraq. Who knows? Then we went back to Iraq, where he tried to argue that his Iraq war vote was intended to give Bush leverage for more inspections. And it feels about 16 years too late for me to re-litigate what that vote was about. I feel like that didn't work so well for John Kerry. And then the answer concluded with analysis about the Shia and the Kurds not coming together to fight against ISIS.

And like, it was just a fucking mess. And then Bernie comes in and says, I never trusted Bush. I opposed the war. What were you thinking? If your judgment and experience on foreign policy is the reason people should vote for you, you were wrong about this fundamental point,

which is something Barack Obama did to devastating effect against Hillary Clinton. So it's just, it's the convolutedness is a problem in and of itself, because I think you're like, where's this guy going? But then even when you unpack the substance of these arguments, I don't think they're politically beneficial. And I will just say, like, Joe Biden has had moments, and someone just mentioned this during the 08 debates, where he was the happy warrior and he certainly was that against um paul ryan in the 2012 vice president's debate and sarah palin in 08 right he was a great debater right he was a happy warrior he did great but he's also had moments and this is why i don't know if the age thing is the right critique because i think for years and

years and years going back 10 20 years biden has had a lot of these moments where he just it's like Senateese. We all saw it all the time. And you just mentioned John Kerry. I was on the Kerry campaign. I watched John Kerry do this same thing. Like they're so in the weeds on their policies and their positions. They talk sometimes like they're on the Senate floor and they're going all these different directions and it's hard to follow.

And it doesn't necessarily have to do with age. It has to do with like having been in the Senate for a long time. What do you conclude from that, though? I conclude that it's something that worries me about Joe Biden's candidacy that I've talked about before. And I think it's not, like, necessarily fatal because, as I just said,

and we just talked about in the first half of the debate, Joe Biden can be an energetic, happy warrior. And he can do that. But he can also fall into what we just saw at the end first half of the debate joe biden can be an energetic happy warrior and he can do that but he can also fall into what we just saw at the end of last night's debate and i think against trump that's worrisome yes i agree you know i agree it's not it's not like something he definitely can't overcome but it's it's a little worrisome but like this to me and everyone has things that are worrisome about them that i imagine when they're on stage next to trump i really it's not just a biden thing but I think what you said, Dan, is right, because if your whole

thing is on electability and that seems maybe a little shaky because of her performance, then you need something else to fall back on. Biden should be arguing that he has the experience, the proven record, and the relationships to undo the damage that Trump has done more effectively, more officially than anyone else on that stage. You know that because you've seen him do it over decades. You saw him do it in the Senate. You saw him do it working with Barack Obama. I've made mistakes. I've evolved over time on certain things. I'm not perfect, but I've been there and I've been in the fight. Yeah, just like you. I love my gramophone. I love my LPs.'m gonna bring back wax yeah let's do it i dj on

the weekends the record player okay let's talk about uh kamala harris what are we what are thoughts on kamala harris's performance i thought it was pretty solid yeah good i like i said i really like that she took on trump and and did a lot of like we have a lot of differences but um what unites us is stronger and we should should be talking about Donald Trump and what he's doing. I thought that was a good strategy for her. Yeah, she got a tough question about criminal justice reform and her record on it. The question was essentially, why didn't you use the power you had as the California attorney general to fight for some of the things that you were opposed to at the time, but now support? And I thought she handled that pretty well.

some of the things that you were opposed to at the time, but now support. And I thought she handled that pretty well. There were a couple of times where a little bit of a can line came out like the, hey, Joe, instead of saying, no, we can't, let's just say, yes, we can. I kind of groaned. The Wizard of Oz thing. Oh, yeah. Let's get into that. The Wizard of Oz thing.

Yeah, that ended odd. The bottom line is this. Donald Trump in office on trade policy. You know, he reminds me of that guy in The Wizard of Oz. You know, when you pull back the curtain, it's a really small dude. You mean The Wizard? Okay. I'm not even going to take the bait, Senator Harris, but I am going to take this to Senator Harris.

Oh, George, I wasn't about you. That was funny the george thing at the end was genuinely funny yeah there was a couple bad jokes there like amy klobuchar talking about uh at the fifth the beginning houston we have a problem is yeah unforgivable that's not great i mean harris's folks were sort of previewing that she was gonna try to bring people together that was kind of the lane that she would fill. It was not nostalgia for the past like Biden, that it wasn't fights on the left

like Bernie and Warren were making, that she was more of a, I guess, a centrist. They would probably hate that word. But I don't know if she succeeded at that, but it was interesting that they told reporters that that's their path forward. For Kamala Harris, the still fundamental question is, for her, she does the best argument against Trump, by far.

It is clear, it is crisp, it is passionate. You can imagine her delivering on the debate stage. The other half of that equation is still lacking. Why her, right? I think last night was a very, very good performance. I think we almost hold her to a higher standard because we treat her as one of the top. Yeah, I agree with that. We think of her as one of the frontrunners because I do believe that she has the clearest path to the nomination if she can take off of anyone in this field.

And I think she has the ability to do it. Most of those candidates on the stage don't have a great answer to the why me, including some of the frontrunners. Yeah. But if she can nail that piece, if she can do... Like, Warren has a great why her, and kind of pretends Trump is the president,

which I think is a problem. Kamala Harris has a great anti-Trump and a little lacking on the why her. They'd be the perfect candidate together. I agree with that um any other thoughts about Pete Pete had very good moments his clothes was incredibly powerful and I think almost yeah that was really really good when you talked about coming out I thought it was outstanding and it and I think under appreciated for the historic nature of his candidacy. I think the fact that you have a presidential candidate who made the debate stage, who is in, like, I hate tears, but he is a

legitimate contender for the Democratic nomination, is on stage telling, proudly telling his coming out story in a honest way. Like, that is truly an amazing thing that no one would have expected a few years ago or maybe even last year. And like that should be like I think like that should be discussed. And I think he did that incredibly powerfully. I think he's always pretty good. But I think like it's harder than ever to break out with pretty good in a field this big with three, you know, people seen as front runners that are soaking up a lot of the oxygen. And, you know, I think he's going to need, I don't know, they're spending a lot of money in Iowa. They're investing in infrastructure. They're going to go up on TV. Like maybe that

will get him over that sort of hump that gets you another look from other voters, but it remains to be seen. It's also very possible that he's doing much better than we think because we haven't seen a quality Iowa poll in months. Yeah, that's weird. We could see an Iowa poll probably in the next month that could show him in third or in double digits. And these national polls that are what we use to judge people's success and failure are, A, irrelevant, and, B, a lagging indicator of what is happening in the actual states that matter. So there is that possibility. Klobuchar, we talked about know i think she i think she was the first time in a debate that she really made the case for herself like she's had good moments in

other debates but she you sort of saw what her strategy was she made the case i thought it was that she did pretty well i thought the the story she told in the close about when she had her daughter and was kicked out of the hospital after 24 hours and that fight to get at least 48 hours for pregnant women, 48-hour hospital stays for pregnant women, was what inspired her to get into public service. I'd never heard her tell that story before. Maybe that's my fault, but I thought it was incredibly powerful. And it spoke to her values and why she was in public service to begin with.

It was really well done. That sound you hear is me crying because Tommy didn't listen to my interview with Amy Klobuchar on this podcast. course i did of course i did how dare you say that cory booker uh we sort of talked about him too you know what happens where does he go from here i think you're you know what you said tommy too you know adisu and all the folks on his campaign they've just been organizing like crazy in iowa and they sort of keep seeing probably more than we're all seeing from here um which is promising for him andrew yang we haven't talked about andrew yang we always

get in trouble with the yang gang for not talking about andrew yang so let's do it what do we like he's a he's a funny guy he comes off as likable uh i think that the freedom dividend is his core policy proposal it's a universal basic income plan. We've seen polling that suggests universal basic income polls horribly. And I'm not totally sure how announcing that you're giving away 120 grand to random people across the country is going to play. But hey, man, credit to Andrew Yang for being focused on the one thing that he really wants to put forward and being creative. If you're looking for something different than Andrew Yang is that lane. Everyone else on that stage is.

Someone trying to be different. But I mean, they're just they're like, like, obviously, Bernie Sanders is a very different politician than a Joe Biden. But he's someone who has been a politician in our consciousness for the last four years, basically. Pete Buttigieg, incredibly different background than the other politician, but he talks like a politician in our consciousness for the last four years, basically. Pete Buttigieg, incredibly different background than any other politician, but he talks like a politician. Yeah. A very smart and articulate one who also speaks Norwegian, but he speaks like a politician, right? Yeah.

So there are nine politicians on that stage, and there's Andrew Yang. And there's obviously a lane for that, because he was not on the end with Julian Castro and Amy Klobuchar and Beto O'Rourke he was sitting a lot closer to Joe Biden than those guys were and that like we can't and they have a beef with the media which is legitimate which is sometimes all those other candidates you just mentioned are treated as like the next tier and Andrew Yang is left out of that but he is in many polls ahead of them yep he also has an online community of people that are supporting his candidate, their candidate in really smart ways.

And like, whenever there's a debate night, Andrew Yang is trending on Twitter and there are memes going around. Like, he's communicating

with people where they are thanks to his campaign, but also thanks to this organization that just is helping him from the outside. When I was doing my book tour in 2018,

before anyone else was in the race, everywhere I went, someone asked me about Andrew Yang. Right. That's, yeah. And whenever I go to, outside when i was doing my book tour in 2018 before anyone else was in the race everywhere i went someone asked me about andrew yang that's yeah and whenever i go to i was just at a college campus doing something uh last week and the kids in the class were there a lot of yang a lot of gang in that class and so he has like he has built a community he's nurtured it and like he shouldn't be like i think it's a it's a it's a bridge to get to the nomination but it's a powerful immigration story that he told in that close about his father you

know what's a peanut farmer and you know on the floor and coming over here with nothing his nba takes he is an nba fan which i appreciate his nba takes are garbage and his uh uh takes on the he thinks carmelo he thinks carm is not washed, which is the wrong answer. That's weird. I do enjoy his very dry, deadpan sense of humor. Yeah, he's funny. He's really funny in a sort of modern way. Not like in a politician way, in a real human way.

Yeah, when he was in the office, I interviewed him, and the poor guy was so sick. He had a horrible cold, but he still had a sense of humor and was funny and was nice to everybody. He's just a good person. Castro, we talked about a bunch. Look, there were moments last night Castro told some – his clothes was very good, and he told his personal story. I thought at one point he sort of turned to Beto and praised him on the El Paso shooting and then gave a really strong answer on guns.

really strong answer on guns like there are there's versions of julian castro that i i like very much and i respect how bold and aggressive he's been on a lot of policies in this race but i do think like going into multiple debates now thinking that if i just attack someone a lot that will get me that will boost me in the polls and i'm going to telegraph these attacks i just don't think it's going to work for him yeah i mean his challenge is that people are going to probably remember one thing about him from that debate, and it's that Biden exchange. But he did have a good moment that you just referenced where he was talking about how Latinos were targeted by this shooter in El Paso. And he talked about his policing and criminal justice reform plans, which are thoughtful and substantive and have gone further than others.

So, yeah. The thing that's so interesting about Castro's candidacy is it's important to remember what brought him on the national stage. It was his keynote speech at the 2012 convention, which was a hopeful, optimistic story about America. It's actually the closest version of anyone has done of Obama's 2004 convention speech. Everyone has tried it. Cory Booker tried it in 2016. Everyone's done it. And Castro's the only one who's nailed it.

And he took that and ended up in the Obama administration. He deserves tremendous credit for having really aggressive, progressive policies on a lot of issues. He pushed the immigration issue. His police reform plan is incredibly important. His criminal justice plan, all those things are good. served in being the hopeful, optimistic candidate or politician that he has been for much of his career, rather than someone who's walking onto the debate stage, looking to deck someone. And there is a lot to be, there's nothing wrong with anger in the Trump era. But I think there is a different, you have to understand the difference between anger and righteous anger. And I think what we saw from Beto on the guns was righteous anger. And what we saw from Beto after I passed it was righteous anger. And being angry about what Trump is doing to America. Kamala Harris has done that quite well in many debates as well is good. Being angry at other Democrats, I think is different,

has a different impact in a field where all those people are well liked by the people, voters you need to win the nomination. Um of a little angry, Bernie Sanders. He had moments last night where, like I thought Bernie was really effective in the second debate. Last night, and you know, he was sick. You could tell he wasn't feeling well, but sort of the yelling was a little,

sort of, it was a little too much last night for me. I think that was probably voice related. Yeah, it might have been. It might have been. Like, he's still i think he is very compelling like when he he's he is authentic we've seen this authenticity for a few years now but when he's like i'm the one who wrote the damn bill like it's it works and i don't think he did himself any damage last night not at all it was like i think it was pretty status quo from bernie i mean look he's consistent when i when i interviewed him here he was charming and funny and compelling like bernie also has a gear that is you know i think very compelling and i don't

know that he has always shown that in debates but he has that gear um warren i think it was like a for me warren was like a pretty solid great performance she's but the the challenge for her now is because she's always so good to really stand out um she must have to like kick it into another gear i don't know that she sort of stood out last night but i thought she was good i think she accomplished everything she wanted to accomplish and i like i hate to do like who won the debate right that's stupid but i think she walked out of that debate stronger than she walked in yeah because this wasn't because no one no one laid a glove on her no one really tried it is the strangest thing in

the world that elizabeth warren is the person standing between every other candidate on that stage and their chance at joe biden and no one attacks him. And even Biden attacking his did not go after her. Like there was a debate like it like I don't consider that debate about whether you pay for your Medicare, your Medicare for all plan or whether by like that, that's not an attack. That's an actual substantive debate about different plans. But they're like everyone. It's like Bernie and Kamala's staff fight all the time. Biden's fights with everyone. Julian Castro fights with everyone. No one fights Elizabeth Warren. And both Ben Smith and Ruby Kramer, BuzzFeed have this piece this morning that's about how Elizabeth Warren is the center of gravity in the primary.

And I think that's really true. And she's driving the conversation. She's driving people's strategies and people are legitimately afraid of engaging with her. legitimately afraid of engaging with her. And I don't fully understand. I think it's fear that they're going to lose the exchange, not some sort of strategic gambit that makes any sense. Yeah. I also don't think she's really struggled with a single question from the moderators either. Like last night, the most, the trickiest one was on Afghanistan when she got pressed on whether she'd bring the troops home without a peace deal if that unraveled the country. And she pivoted to a strong answer about a need for allies. And she made an argument about how she was sitting in Afghanistan with John McCain and asking generals about what winning looks like and no one can define it for her. And she's like,

she can make a case for nearly everything in a way that is just thoughtful and it plays to her strength. I don't know. Maybe that's why they're not attacking her. I think the biggest question for her going forward is, to date, she has succeeded. She's the only candidate who has actually moved up in the polls by any real measure. Pete went from zero to five. But everything else is basically the same.

And she moved in second place. And she did that by running a campaign where she had no fear of losing. She ran without, you know, no risk aversion, right? The question is, as you get closer to the frontrunner status, do you get more cautious as you get closer to the White House? And I think that test is going to come for her because at some point she may not be second in the polls. She may be first in some of these early state polls. And then how does she respond when there's more scrutiny, more attacks, more pressure? And how does she broaden her coalition to eat into Biden's lead and Bernie's lead in some ways with non-college educated white voters and black voters, which, you know,

you cannot win the Democratic nomination by being the toast of every college educated white liberal. What happened to someone previewing that they were going to attack her about her work for corporations with the Biden? It was Biden that never did it. Stop previewing these things, people. Biden's got a large constellation of advisors. So it's hard to know when it's an anonymous thing like that, whether that was a plan link or just verbal diarrhea from someone who can't make the morning conference call. Also, though, look, no criticism of I, but most senators from Delaware are probably not going to be the one to carry the water on your doing work for corporate interests, given that your lovely state is where all of them are domiciled. Seriously.

Last candidate, Beto o'rourke uh look he had this wonderful moment um you know his campaign is saying they had sort of the best fundraising of the quarter last night and there are some focus groups where people said that they liked him and they you know they that they're switching their vote to him from being undecided a lot of pundits said he won like where does he go from here because he like a lot of the other candidates is stuck around between two and five percent in some of these polls where do you go from here if you're better i believe there's an opportunity for one can't emerge as a generational alternative to the three front runners who were all 70 years of age and up. And that, like for a long time, we've thought that person was going to be Kamala Harris or Pete Buttigieg. I think Beto put himself in that

conversation to be that alternative last night. And if he can keep doing what he did last night and combine that with the most compelling electability story, I think, of anyone in the field, if you can be the person who you don't want to choose between your head and your heart, you can have both. You can have an inspirational candidate who can also win. If he can nail that piece with sort of the passion and boldness of last night, then he's got a shot to be in that conversation, have a chance to do that. Even after El Paso, Beto completely upended his campaign and he started doing things that no president would ever do, like go to a gun show or go to states like I believe Arkansas which were just you know not in the uh in the early state process and he was pretty clear like look I'm not gonna eat a corn dog on a stick

and go on to the state fair when this shit's happening people getting murdered well now he kind of has to get back in the game in Iowa the steak fry is a week from tomorrow the Harkin now it's called the Polk County steak fry I think he speaks first they. The Harkin, now it's called the Polk County Steak Fry. I think he speaks first. They ditched Harkin's name? Well, Harkin kind of stopped doing it. And then a bunch of Polk County young Dems and activists resuscitated the thing. And now it's like big and great again.

But, you know, there's going to be 10,000 Democrats in a field chowing steaks, listening to candidates. Beto is first. Can he build on this momentum and get another look from people who basically wrote him off after his campaign stumbled hard out of the gate, after he wasn't in the national conversation, after his fundraising kind of trailed off? There is a window to get another look from those people. Iowans are terrified of Trump winning. They want someone who is going to take it to them. I think there's time, but, you know, you've got to capitalize on this momentum. I think he needs to broaden his message on guns to every other issues and to make a larger case. Like there was a kernel of this in his opening statement when he said, you know, I realized two things. One, he talked about El Paso and Trump and racism.

about el paso and trump and racism and he said two um i think he said something like our politics is too broken and too small and too petty and too corrupt to sort of deal with a challenge like this and i think you make that argument about every issue and you keep pounding that then you start having an argument because i do think that beto has the same challenge that kamala has that pete has which is on paper on their resumes who are, where they're from, what they've done. Like, you know, it makes a good argument for their candidacies. But I don't think any of the three of them have fully articulated that vision and where they fit into that vision, where they fit into this moment and why them and why not everyone else. And I sort of look at the three. I put Cory Booker in that category too, even though he's got a pretty consistent message about radical love.

All of them haven't quite nailed what that positive message is and how it distinguishes them from the top three candidates. And I sort of think that's their challenge. And they have, like you said, Tommy, they have some time to do it, but they're sort of not much.

Clock's ticking. Not much. At some point, we've gone very long here, but we should have a conversation about the fact that the three frontrunners in the Democratic primary are all the people

who started with the highest name ID. Like, what that says about politics, what it says about the age of celebrity, what it says about media and the inability to break through. What it says about 20-something candidates running for president.

Yeah. It might be a simpler explanation than we think. It's just, it's a lot of fucking people. And one last last thing if you weren't on that stage last night except you know tom steyer who's coming back for debate number two i would really seriously think about staying in the race like i don't i whether you should say like i i just every every candidate can do what they want sir but like if you if you start missing you missed one debate if you missed the second

debate in october you got to start asking yourself like what am i what am i still doing what are my chances here i mean it's sort of an existential question like are you in the race i'm being serious no i know that's what i'm saying like it's just you know it's not like you don't have to fill out paperwork to leave right you're just like you're there sometimes the market decides whether you're in or you're out well you just get to stop raising money which would be wonderful yeah that's true okay that's uh that's our those are our takes on debate number three and we will talk to you guys next week bye everyone bye bye Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media.

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