Pod Save America - "Kook-ing With Gas."

Episode Date: January 19, 2023

America hits the debt limit and Republicans prepare to take hostages. The best committee assignments go to the House’s biggest MAGA freaks and they’re all ready to investigate Joe Biden’s garage. Then, The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell joins to talk about what’s on voters' minds. And later, Jon and Dan find out if Joe Biden’s about to take your gas stove in a new segment called I’m About to Myth Bust. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, America hits the debt limit and Republicans prepare to take hostages. The best committee assignments go to the House's biggest MAGA freaks, and they're all ready to investigate Joe Biden's garage. Then the bulwark Sarah Longwell joins to talk about what's on voters' minds. And later, we'll find out if Democrats are coming to take your gas stove in a new segment called i'm about to myth bust man thank you olivia martinez our producer for coming up with that title but first the crooked store has decided at long last to update our friend of the pod merch they got that yes we dan stuff out of the way. Now there's more room for updated Friend of the Pod merch.

Not true. It's on a deep discount right now. I saw it last night. It's on a deep discount. You can get a hoodie for like half price right now. That's exciting. I might go order one myself. The new and improved pieces include classic t-shirts, crewnecks, and hats in fresh new colors.

There's even some camo so you can blend in with the forest and or your uncles who like hunting. I believe Lovett was wearing a camo friend of the pod hat just the other day. He looked fantastic. Anyway, it's all available now at crooked.com slash store. All right, let's get to the news. As of today, the United States has hit the debt limit, which means that the federal government cannot borrow any more money to pay the bills we've already racked up until Congress authorizes it to do so. As it's done in the past,

the Treasury Department said it can take, quote, extraordinary measures to keep paying our bills until sometime in June, when the U.S. would be forced to start skipping debt payments, precipitating a global economic crisis unlike any we've seen in our lifetimes. President Biden and Democrats in Congress would like to avoid such a crisis by simply authorizing the Treasury to pay our bills, while Republicans refuse to do so unless they get massive spending cuts that would have to include Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Happy Thursday, Dan.

They said this day would never come. So for people who haven't lived through or paid attention to one of these debt limit standoffs, can you explain why Congress periodically lights a giant fuse under the economy and waits to put it out until the last possible second? Well, John, it begins. Just one of many metaphors we're going to use. The great thing about a debt ceiling crisis is there's just a whole bunch of metaphors for you to use. There's hostage taking.

There's lighting a fuse. There's holding a gun to the economy. Just endless metaphors to use. All of them very cliche. The ceiling itself is a metaphor if you will that's that's right that's right it all begins john with the founders who made a series of ill-informed decisions based on recency bias that were then compounded by 250 years of dysfunction and incompetence from Republicans that have brought us to this moment now where the entire global economy depends on Marjorie Taylor

Greene, Paul Gosar, and Lauren Boebert. USA. USA. I mean, how deep do you want to go here? Do you want to, should we explain what the debt ceiling is, how we got, like what it means? Is that the right way? Yeah, let's go, let's go 60-second Vox explainer route. I have never done anything in 60 seconds. So we're going to see. Short version, the United States runs at a deficit. We spend more money than we bring in. That has been true all but four years since 1970.

And therefore, in order to pay our bills, we have to borrow money. In the beginning of this country, Congress had to approve every time the U.S. Treasury borrowed money to pay its bills. They found that cumbersome because even back then, they didn't like working. So in World War I, they passed a bill to grant the Treasury Secretary authority to borrow money up until a certain number. When they hit that number, they had to come back for more authority. And so we have now hit that number. We have borrowed as much money. It means that now we cannot borrow any more money without Congress passing a bill. And that has led over the course of time to Congress having to pass the debt limit. They've passed it many, many times in the past. They passed it as recently as a year and a half ago.

And it is usually a very pro forma thing that happens, but now it has become imbued with all sorts of drama because our politics are driven by radical MAGA extremists. And the key thing to remember here, if you remember nothing else, And the key thing to remember here, if you remember nothing else, is that Congress has already authorized this spending. So it is not by lifting the debt ceiling, you are not granting the United States government the authority to spend more money because that money has already been spent. All you're doing is saying, OK, the United States can pay the debts it has already incurred, which is why the whole thing is stupid. Yes, all the money has been spent.

Not lifting the debt limit will not reduce spending. It will not reduce the deficit. It will not reduce the debt. In fact, it will make those things worse, which we can talk about in a minute. It is a completely fake, stupid thing. If you want to reduce spending, you negotiate through the budget process because Congress passes a budget once in a while that authorizes spending. And so if you don't like how much we're spending, that's where you negotiate in the budget process that happens once a year that could possibly lead to a government shutdown, which is also stupid. But at least that is the area that you negotiate if you want to reduce spending. The debt limit is just saying, oh, there's this artificial thing out there that Congress has put in place that if we breach it could cause economic catastrophe. And now we're going to use that

as leverage to get what we want, is what the Republicans are saying. And why would breaching the debt limit and defaulting on our debts cause economic chaos? Because I don't think it is obvious. U.S. bonds, what we sell to finance our debt, is the bedrock of the global financial system. It is seen as the most secure, safest investment that anyone can make. Countries buy it, markets buy it. And if one day the United States was unable to pay the interest on those bonds, then it would set off a cataclysmic chain reaction across the world. Bond markets would sink, stock markets would sink, businesses wouldn't know what to invest in. It

would likely cause a global recession, a US recession, cause the unemployment rate to go up. And then here at home, we don't know if we could pay people their Social Security checks, if Medicare could pay health care bills, if veterans would get their benefits checks in the mail, if we would be able to deploy FEMA in the case of a hurricane. Anything and everything is on the table. It would undo not just the economic growth we've had since the pandemic, but everything since 2008. And honestly, most economists think it would make certainly a 2008 financial crisis look like

a blip and would be something akin, if not worse, to what happened in the Great Depression. So bad, very bad. Yeah, it doesn't Great Depression. So bad, very bad. Yeah, it doesn't sound great. It doesn't sound great. And the key thing here to understand is that global financial stability depends on faith that the U.S. will pay its bills since we are the global reserve currency and U.S. treasury debt is the safest investment in the world.

And when that faith is eroded, the whole thing collapses. So, for example, the last time we went through the most serious time in our lifetime that we went through one of these crises, debt ceiling crisis, you and I were in the White House, this was 2011. And because Congress got very, very close to not lifting the debt ceiling in time, didn't breach the debt ceiling, but it got really close. The stock market plunged and did not recover for half a year. Interest rates and mortgage rates rose. Consumer confidence plunged.

We lost our credit rating. And so there was a whole bunch of economic damage, higher costs for folks, bigger deficits that the government had to run as a cost of all of this. So there was all of this economic pain, and that wasn't even breaching the debt limit. So it is in a sense about our ability to pay our bills, but it's also about the world's belief that we will pay our bills and that we have a functioning government that can pay the debt that we incur. And if that belief, if people don't really believe that, then chaos could ensue. So that's why even getting close to it is a fucking problem.

But John, didn't you just say that we hit it today? Yes. So we hit it today. We hit it today. And then Janet Yellen came out, the Treasury Secretary, and she said, well, the Treasury can take extraordinary measures to keep us from defaulting on the debt. So what are extraordinary measures, Dan? I was hoping you were going to explain that because that's what it said in the script. Well, I can. Go for it. They're called extraordinary measures, but they've become quite ordinary because now every time there's a debt ceiling crisis, a treasury secretary comes out and takes extraordinary measures.

Basically, it's just shifting money around in a bunch of different accounts in the government to make sure that they pay. And they take investments out. There are certain investments the government makes that they sort of take out so they can do. It's like accounting tricks, basically, that they can do for the next several months to sort of avoid hitting the real debt limit? In the 1980s, when we had a very, very brief debt limit fight, Reagan's Treasury Secretary took money out of the Social Security Trust Fund, which was actually illegal. And so since then, Congress passed a law which gave the Treasury Secretary a list of legal things they could do. And it really involves playing around with investments and pension funds that you then make whole on the back end so it's like it doesn't none of no one in the immediate term is going to feel any impact from that it's in that sense it's

sort of an accounting trick but you are going to have to at the end pay for what you did it cost it cost the u.s money to do this over the long term which is another reason why it's so stupid that we are in this place yeah for all these people who are doing this, so they could lower the deficit, this will only increase our deficits, just the brinkmanship itself. And you were talking about how the Treasury can move the money around. So usually the Treasury Department has six to $700 billion on its balance sheet that it can use to pay our bills. Even back in 2021, when we got close to the debt limit, there were days when they had almost a zero. So that's how shaky it can get here. Goldman Sachs says that even if we get close to this and there's brinkmanship and we get close to the debt limit,

it could kill the equivalent of one-tenth of America's economic activity. Estimates from Third Way, which is a centrist think tank, says that it could cost three million jobs at one hundred and thirty thousand dollars to the cost of a typical 30 year mortgage and increase the debt by eight hundred and fifty billion dollars. So good job. Good job controlling the debt. So Republicans haven't agreed on exactly what kind of budget cuts they want. But everyone from the MAGA freaks to the Republicans sitting in Biden districts have said they refuse to lift the debt ceiling on its own with just a clean debt ceiling raise. So they're not going to they don't want to do that. The White House and Democrats in Congress say they'll only negotiate potential cuts after the debt ceiling is raised because they don't want to negotiate around the debt ceiling. Why is that their position? And do you think it's tenable? It's important to

understand that prior to 2011, the debt limit was always for show. There was sort of an unwritten agreement that the party out of power would not vote for the debt limit, but they would make sure it passed if enough votes were needed. And so we avoided all the economic damage you've talked about. Certainly not just breaching the debt limit, but coming close enough that it does damage the economy. That changed in 2011 when the Tea Party Republicans came in. They realized that their economic agenda of these steep, steep spending cuts in things like education and health care,

repealing the ACA, cutting social care and Medicare, were so unpopular, they could not enact them through the normal course of business. They couldn't win political power on that agenda. They couldn't have the House of the Senate and the White House to do it. So they just tried to shortcut it, which was to take the debt limit and say, if you don't give us our unpopular agenda, then we're going to blow up the economy. And they forced President Obama to the table where he didn't do 99% of what they wanted. But there was some spending cuts, some of them certainly were not great. And after that, the President said, I am never doing that again.

I cannot let these people take the US economy hostage who try to put in place this Republican extremist agenda that the country does not want and have rejected in election after election after election. So in 2013, the next time a debt ceiling battle came, he said, we're not going to negotiate over it. You're going to pass a clean debt ceiling. That's on you. That's your job. You're in charge of the House. If you have a meeting, I'm not going. If you send an offer, I'm sending it back. And he stared them down and he won. And that has been the Democratic position since then, because if you give in a little, these folks are going to try to use it for everything. First, it's spending cuts,

then it's Medicare cuts, then it's national abortion ban, then it's banning books. All the things Republicans want to do they can't do normally, they'll use the debt ceiling to do. And so that's why it's so important to stand strong in this place. You don't pay ransom to hostage takers, or they'll be incentivized to take more hostages um the the challenge is do you know what that is another metaphor the metaphor what happens if they're willing to shoot the hostage even knowing that they may get hurt in the process which again marjorie taylor green paul gosar this is the house that we've got and then the other thing that the democrats will have to deal with and the white House will have to deal with is what happens if Joe Manchin is willing to pay the ransom?

What happens if some if the problem solvers caucus is willing to pay the ransom? And by that meaning at least negotiate around some cuts. And that's going to be the real challenge for the White House and a lot of Democrats in the coming months. Yeah, that's exactly right. House Republicans reportedly plan to vote on a bill that would tell the Treasury Department what to do if the debt limit is breached. Very helpful. According to The Washington Post, the plan is almost certain to call on Treasury to keep making interest payments on the debt and may stipulate that the Treasury Department should continue making payments on Social Security, Medicare and veterans benefits, as well as funding the military. Could this work?

Who wouldn't get paid in this scenario? Seems unlikely to work. And I know that because it's a Republican economic plan. There's no precedent for this. We do not know. But to be very clear, what they are saying is, whatever money the federal government has, because it's important to understand that even in this period of extraordinary measures, money still comes into the federal government. People are still paying taxes, right? There are other programs that provide revenue to the government. The Republicans are saying, take that money. Every dollar you get, and your first priority when you get that dollar is to pay off foreign governments that hold U.S. debt, most prominently the Chinese. So we're going to pay

the Chinese first. Then whatever money we have left, we might sprinkle it around the American people. And it seems unlikely that there's enough money to do that and pay Social Security and pay Medicare and pay the military. And so it runs into some real substantive accounting challenges, let alone the fact that it may probably is not legal in any way, shape or form. Also, back to my point about it, this depends on faith in the ability of the US to pay its debts. If the world realizes that the US is, yes, paying interest on their debt still, but by the way, isn't cutting social security checks or paying the military, like that's going to cause everything to unravel as well. People aren't going to buy

our bonds, interest payments. No one's going to buy the bonds because everyone's going to know that that's next. All right. So what are some possible solutions here that don't involve hiding all of our money under mattresses? Option one, Republicans do their fucking job. Yeah, that's it fucking job. Yeah. That's it. Pass the bill. And that can happen in two ways. One, Kevin McCarthy just puts a bill on the floor and he doesn't have to vote for it.

He doesn't have to lobby for it. 95% of Republicans don't have to vote for it. You just have to put the bill on the floor, take all the Democrats plus a small handful of Republicans and you're there. Kevin McCarthy is unwilling to do that. And he may be unwilling to do it because he essentially promised the Freedom Caucus he would not do that in exchange for the speakership, is there could be a discharge position. And discharge petition is when 218 members of Congress sign a petition saying, bring

this bill to the floor. And if you get that number of signatures, then a bill can go to the floor directly. It doesn't have to go through the Freedom Caucus stacked rules committee or the Freedom Caucus adjacent House leadership. It can just go right to the floor. You get a vote. You get 100% of Democrats, 5% of Republicans. You're done.

That takes time and it requires a specific bill. We don't have a lot of time. We don't have a specific bill yet. So that's a problem. Yeah. And the other reason it's a problem is you need to file the discharge petition basically now because it's supposed to sit in committee for a certain number of days, legislative days before it comes up for the vote. And if you did it now, that would get us to mid-May.

And Janet Yellen said we have basically until mid-June. So right now you'd need to find 218 people in the House of Representatives to sign on to the discharge position. You'd get all the Democrats, but you'd still need four or five Republicans. And even so-called moderate Republicans like Don Bacon of Nebraska are saying they're not willing to sign on to a clean debt limit hike right now. By the way, you'd also need 60 votes in the Senate for that, which we don't have right now. We don't have 10 Republicans right now for the clean hike so the clock is really taking on the discharge petition option at least as of right now other options include and these are i would say much more challenging options one option would be minting the trillion dollar coin

and so let me explain that for a second the because you're gonna hear a lot about this is what this is i got it i got a text from my brother about this uh over the weekend he said i've been looking at this debt limit thing and i've been going really deep on this he's like what about the coin sounds like the coin is an okay idea we're gonna hear a lot about the coin i felt like i was back in 2011 yeah so the at one point in time congress Congress granted the U.S. Treasury Secretary the sole authority to mint platinum coins of any denomination. Now, I haven't dug into legislative history here, but I'm pretty positive this was a bill pushed by lobbyists for the platinum industry to get more like platinum silver dollars in circulation. But because of that very broadly written bill, theoretically, Janet Yellen could mint one coin, assign it $1 trillion in value, deposit it in the bank, and pay all of our bills. Now, that would solve the immediate threat of default. It would have some real downstream economic issues that we'd have to deal with.

And obviously, this would have to go through the courts. The other sort of extreme option here is the president can simply direct the Treasury Secretary to just pay the bills regardless of the debt limit. And there are arguments. A lot of lawyers believe that the debt limit is unconstitutional. It violates the 14th Amendment, which speaks to the sanctity of U.S. debt payments and debt obligations. Others believe that it is in great conflict with Social Security Act and other laws that deal with entitlement programs, where we owe these people, we have to pay these people. That then, of course, would go to this very fair- tremendous ways because they wouldn't know how to react because one day we're paying our debt limits and then you're one Trump-appointed judge in Texas

away from default. And I think that would also cause a lot, I would say, a fair amount of uncertainty. Yeah. Again, it goes back to the question, would you buy a U.S. Treasury bond if Joe Biden's in court trying to figure out if he could just, you know, use the 14th Amendment to lift the debt limit? Yeah, you think the— I wouldn't. I don't think I'd buy one. You think the full faith and credit of the United States being up to Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar is alarming? Think about it when it becomes the pillow talk between Ginny and Clarence Thomas. Like, it's just, we haven't done much better there either.

Any other options? I have one more. Let me hear yours. Well, Davos' biggest celebrity, Joe Manchin, has been given interviews from Davos, which is, you know, where a West Virginia conservative goes

to hang out and be of the people. I think I believe he was talking to Maria Bartiromo. Again, the typical interview you do when you're at Davos with the people. And he's starting to say, yeah, I do think we should consider at least – he goes, we should obviously lift the debt ceiling. We shouldn't play around with the full faith and credit of the United States. But we should at least use this moment to recognize that our debt is out of control and form some kind of committee. So you can see some kind of committee solution

come out of this. And I've heard a few people talk about the Trust Act, which is like bipartisan legislation in the Senate, which basically says that you form a rescue committee for each trust fund in the United States, the Social Security trust fund, the Medicare trust fund. And then you basically have the committees come up with solutions for to make those funds solvent. And then all it basically does is it's like fast tracks the legislation to the floor so that it can get a vote, but nothing else. It doesn't require anything. It doesn't instill any kind of automatic cuts. It's basically just a committee. Now, if that gets like Joe Manchin and Mitt Romney, who's a sponsor of this bill and people

like that on board, that's great. But I wonder if in the House that doesn't run into the same problems for Kevin McCarthy that a clean hike would run into, because I don't think that's going to satisfy Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar and the Freedom Caucus. But I could see that being one endgame here. There is a history here, which is in 2010, when the Democrats had 59 senators and were in the process of freaking out about the upcoming 2010 elections. The Senate Democrats tried to hold President Obama hostage over the debt limit and demanded the creation of the Simpson-Bowles commission.

In 2010, we did the commission play and we passed the, the lifting the debt limit was going to be contingent upon a vote on the Simpson-Bowles debt commission, which had no teeth. That commission met, it filled hours of time on morning Joe, but obviously came to a conclusion and forced no spending plan. Then in 2011, the Republicans specifically rejected a commission with could come up with no plan because Republicans and Democrats obviously can't agree on these things because they want to cut Social Security.

We don't. Then these forced mandatory cuts went into place. So I think that would be the blockage here is that they've been down the pure commission path and it hasn't gotten what they want. So that would make it harder for McCarthy. Let me ask you something. Back in 2010, when the Simpson-Bowles Commission was created. What if someone were to tell you that over a decade later, you'd be talking about Simpson-Bowles with me on a podcast? I would have put the odds of that at exponentially higher than the Simpson-Bowles Commission accomplishing its goals. I didn't even know what a podcast was at that time,

and I would have bet on the podcast. A real throwback, the Simpson-Bowles Commission. Anyway, I think everything will be fine uh maybe maybe put the money under your mattress i don't know i don't i think it's uh look it was it was scary being in the white house dealing with this in 2011 and that was with the tea party which today today looks much saner than the Republicans who currently control the House. So that's all I'll say about that. It is something to definitely be concerned about. Of all the stories we talk about on this podcast, I do think breaching the debt limit, while it sounds boring and in the weeds, is something that we should be alarmed about.

Yeah. In 2013, it almost killed me. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. You literally gave you a stroke. I mean, not literally, but close enough. Yeah, close enough. Yeah, close enough. Lest anyone think that cooler Republican heads may prevail on this. Look no further than the committee assignments Kevin McCarthy handed out to some of the most batshit MAGA House members. Jim Jordan will chair the Judiciary Committee. Anti-vax election denier Mark Green will chair Homeland Security. And the House Oversight Committee, which handles most investigations, will include Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, and coup plotter Scott Perry. The White House had something to say about this.

Here's Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at her briefing yesterday. On some of these key committees, it appears that House Republicans have handed over the keys to the most extreme MAGA members of the Republican caucus. This is what we're seeing from the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue. These are members who have promoted violent rhetoric and dangerous conspiracy theories. And so Republican leaders should explain. They should have to explain, not us. They should have to explain why allowing these individuals to serve on these committees and come clean with the American people about the secret agreements, the secret deals that were made with these extreme MAGA extremists that are currently in the House. So unusual for the White House to comment on House committee assignments.

Why do you think they did? Because it's unusual to appoint a bunch of media grifting knuckleheads to be in charge of important legislative committees. Yeah, yeah. Do you think it might be politically beneficial for the White House? I mean, in a situation where a Republican, where any House that has no ability, or in this case, even interest in enacting laws, the way they get attention, the way the country comes to know them is through committee hearings, so particularly investigative committee hearings. So if you put a bunch of people who are avatars

for the exact Republicans who got their asses kicked in 2022, you're giving a gift to the White House. So every time, like the documents, right? We're going to talk about the documents in a second. The Republicans are going to hold all these oversight hearings on it. The press will cover the shit out of these oversight hearings because they want to be, one, they desperately need cable ratings like never before, and they want to be balanced because they gave so much coverage of the January 6th hearings. And when Americans turn on the TV, they're going to see Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert and Paul Gosar saying insane stuff. It just gives the White House an amazing opportunity to dismiss what the Republicans are doing as being a clown show.

You put clowns on the dais, it's going to look like a circus. You don't think they'll comport themselves well? You know, look, I don't want to be dismissive of the chance they'll comport themselves well and take their jobs very seriously, but it seems unlikely to me. Like, you know, maybe if she doesn't mention Jewish space lasers, maybe that's a win. Maybe if they don't invite Nick Fuentes to sit in the front row. Yeah, exactly. No white nationalists at the hearing. That's a win.

Yeah, no, I think the White House is pretty excited about this. Politico reported that they were texting each other digital high fives over this, which maybe, what's a digital high five? Is that like an open hand emoji, do you think? I don't know. I mean, just high five each other. They're sitting right next to each other. They're in an office, right? Digital high fives.

Okay, so one of the issues these yahoos in the House have promised to investigate is how classified documents from the Obama administration ended up in President Biden's home and office. Around 20 documents

have now reportedly been recovered so far. Some mark top secret. At least one marked the highest classification level, TSSCI, which stands for top secret sensitive compartmented information. And since we've got nothing to do but wait for the new special counsel to complete his investigation, the media is filling time by speculating about the political fallout

with some help from all the usual suspects, leading to headlines like this one from NBC News. Democratic allies grow frustrated with White House response to Biden's classified documents. Love when Democratic allies unburden themselves to reporters. It's just my favorite thing. My favorite thing that happens. Dan, what could the White House have done differently? And what should they be doing now? Develop time travel.

Gone back to early 2017 and not put the documents in the office, in the garage. And I said, like, obviously we're kidding here, but I'm trying to make the point that 99% of the legal challenges and political problems I have

are from that mistake. What has been said and done since then has compounded some of it, but ultimately, that's the problem. Once you have put a classified document in the wrong place at the exact same time that the former president of the United States is involved in his own classified, and your most likely rival for the presidency is in his own classified document investigation, being investigated by a special counsel appointed by your attorney general, you were almost certainly going to end up right here, which is in the middle

of a controversy that the press and the Republicans can use false equivalents to amp up and have your own special counsel investigation. Almost nothing in between then and now would have averted that outcome, if that makes sense. Yeah. And I think the main criticism that I've seen is they started off by telling us there were documents in the office. Why didn't they tell us then that there were also documents in the residence, that there were other, you know, why didn't, why did this information continue to dribble out over the course of a week or so? And the Washington Post had some great, a great story on this very deeply reported. And it does seem like so the lawyer finds the first set of documents, does what they're supposed

to do and immediately notifies the Biden officials. The Biden officials immediately notify the Department of Justice again, which you're supposed to do. And the Department of Justice says to the Biden lawyers, all right, you guys chill out. We are now running this investigation because it's the Department of Justice and that's what's proper to do. And once the Department of Justice started running the investigation, the Biden people said, thought to themselves, we can't really speak publicly about this because we don't want to interfere or be seen as influencing in any way the independent DOJ's investigation. And so we are not going to say anything about this until DOJ completes the investigation and says something on their own. Now, what DOJ then decided was,

we're going to now appoint a special counsel on all of this and that we're going to, you know, go at our own pace. So you can imagine, I know because you were the White House communications director, a situation where a lot of the comms people in the White House were sitting there saying, like, why can't we give more information out to the press? Why can't we be transparent about this? And the lawyers are saying, we don't want to get crossways with the ongoing investigation that's being conducted by the Justice Department, which is supposed to be independent, which we're not supposed to be influencing in any way. Essentially, as a legal and political strategy, the White House made a bet that if they cooperated as fully as they could,

were the opposite of what Trump was. Did everything right? Showed the Department of Justice they wanted to get to the bottom of this. Because I believe they legitimately did. Yeah. That this would not come to light before the Justice Department had decided there was nothing to investigate and no crime had been committed. So you would have it one day, they would say, Biden had these documents. We've looked at it. It's fine. And they would avoid a special counsel because a special counsel comes with a lot of downstream impacts of other things they can investigate in, sort of restarts the clock at zero again for much of the work was already done, then there's a new person in charge. That was their bet. That bet did not pay off.

I understand why they made that bet. And to the extent there was a mistake from a public relations perspective, and this is a case, as you said, of legal approach trumping politics and messaging, is when CBS News got the story about that one document at the Biden-Penn Center, they responded to that. And the decision, according to this Washington Post story, which was, I think, very well done and very helpful in understanding all this, was we're only going to react to what is public. We're not going to potentially anger the department of justice by putting on information they have not put out. So they put out a statement that was, did not fully disclose all the information. Then they had to,

they made the same thing again when we found out about the garage document and then had to then react when that next document came out. And that is always in the crisis communications. One-on-one is tell the story on your terms and tell it all at once. And so now you're in the sort of drip, drip, drip, which has eroded some credibility with the press, which is looking for a reason to go after Biden. I understand why they made that decision. We can't go back in time and fix it. But that is sort of where they are. You can tell they've already changed approach some because Bob Bauer, who is the president's personal attorney, who you and I know very well, we work with for years, is the best in the business, held a conference call with reporters on Saturday, I believe it was, to help explain the whole chain of custody, the events, the approach. And then this Washington Post story was clearly informed by people who were trying to get the full story out.

by people who are trying to get the full story out. The last line of the Washington Post story notes that the Biden office where they originally found the first document remains uncleared. And I was like, what? So they haven't finished checking that one? I'm sure that from President Biden to his political team, to his communications team, they are quite annoyed with the the pace and style of the Justice Department investigation into this, because I'm sure they would like nothing more than for them to check all of the places that the classified documents could be as fast as possible and finish this investigation as fast as possible. Like, no one likes this dragging out. You know, they're not they're not cheering this on. No, no, no. I would imagine they are not. So it's like I thought that Matt

Miller, who we both know, who has worked at the White House and the Justice Department, had had a good quote in the Washington Post story. He said, oftentimes when you're doing something that from the outside doesn't appear to make sense, it's not because you don't know what you're doing. It's because you face some choices. People don't understand. Or, and I would add that sometimes people aren't allowed to understand because you're not allowed to talk about them, which puts you in a shitty political position. But, you know, you have to be like, all right, well, we're following guidelines. We're following the law and that's what we're doing.

Every person who talks about, writes about, tweets about the White House should write that quote down and put it on the mirror. Because that explains so much of all these situations. These people are very smart. We know them. Why did they do this? That's the answer. They're making this decision because there's a whole bunch of other competing equities that we do not know about, cannot know about, could be, in this case, a legal situation. It can often be national security situations, legislative situations. Well done, Matt. That's a perfect explanation of what working in the White House is like and why people

like us who talk about it have to be very open-minded about why it's more complicated than we think. Fun times. Fun times. What a great A-block. What a great A-block. All right. When we come back, I will talk to Sarah Longwell from The Bulwark about what's on voters minds.

Joining us today is publisher of The Bulwark, founder of the Republican Accountability Project, host of the excellent Focus Group podcast, Never Trump extraordinaire, Sarah Longwell. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here in person. You were kind enough to help analyze one of our wilderness focus groups this season. You conducted countless focus groups yourself in the run up to the midterms. Did anything surprise you about the results? I mean, yeah, the results were still better than I expected in terms of every swing state election denier going down with the exception of,, look, a lot of the people who voted for Biden and voted against Trump who are, but had voted for Trump the first time, they are sort of center right in their orientation. They wanted to vote for a Republican, but they didn't want to vote for the Republican

that they had in the offing in their state. So, you know, you'd hear from them, yeah, you know, I'd really like to vote for Republican, but I'm not voting for Blake Masters or I'm not voting for Dr. Oz. And so, you know, I was certainly and I remember arguing on a CNN panel about Don Balduck. And I was like, they're not going to go for Balduck. Like, I sort of knew that that was out. But I guess I was and we were one of the biggest outside spenders against Carrie Lake. But I was really worried about that race. I really thought Carrie Lake was going to pull that one out. So I guess I was still pleasantly surprised. But I think that I did see in swing voters, there was not an appetite for these extreme candidates. Do you think the explanation for all the midterms is as simple as like Republicans nominated too many MAGA freaks? Or was there anything else at play? Like, how much do you think abortion mattered? How much do you think democracy mattered, which I know is sort of a hard thing to

define, but... Yeah, so the way that I try to, because there was after, in the aftermath of the elections, there was a lot of reporters who were trying to like pull them apart. Like, was it democracy? Was it abortion? And it was actually, it was all of it, right? So the Venn diagram of somebody who was really extreme on abortion and who was like a big election denier and super MAGA was basically a circle, right? So like they were the same people. And what you would hear from the voters over and over again was just that they were nuts. And they would often say, look, they're in the same breath. They would say, well, you know, Blake Masters is crazy. His position on abortion is crazy. He's an election denier and he really likes the Unabomber.

You know, like it was just like it all came together to form this picture of just an extreme candidate that they weren't comfortable voting for. And the Democrats had sort of done, whether it was incumbency in the case of Kelly or with some of the nominees who were just either vanilla enough, just like, you know, not not not so extreme on their own that the swing voters just they saw the MAGA ones as the as the extreme. points nationally what do you think the typical swing voter in a swing district who cast their ballot for a republican house candidate expects from a gop house what do you think they thought they were voting for well in a swing district because i'll tell you what's interesting is that right there are these different sections of the voters. Right. There are a there are a bunch of Republicans. Let's call them maybe Trumpers. And a lot of them wanted to tackle inflation. Right. They they had economic issues on their minds. They think Biden's a disaster.

And, you know, the supply chain and covid like that's what they cared about. But there is this other the always Trumpers or even some mix of people where they do want the Hunter Biden investigation. Of course. And so so the thing is, that's why they signed up. That's right. You know, I was just doing a focus group. It was just I was walking around here in L.A. and I was listening to one of the groups. And and it was just two time Trump voters. And the moderator was asking about the House fight over the speakership. And they were saying half the group was like, yes, they should be fighting over this. Like, I want them to take a stand. And it's important to understand that for like the crazy side that I don't even want to say that there's a crazy side and a non-crazy side. But for the

craziest side, there is a base of voters who wants that chaos and who wants the investigations. But the swing voters in a swing district, they cared about the economic issues and they cared about a check on Biden to some degree, but not in the like Hunter Biden laptop sense. the speaker's race antics or McCarthy handing over the keys to the House to like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar. Do you think that has broken through to voters? No. In any real way? Or is that all just noise? No, it's all noise. Yeah. I mean, so again, I was listening to this group and like they kind of knew that there was sort of chaos and people they either interpreted it as like stupid inside the beltway stuff that they didn't care about. Yeah. Or they were glad somebody put up a fight against the rhinos. But, you know, I think that when it comes to voters on the inside the beltway stuff, one of the stories I always tell. One of the stories I always tell is remember the day that the New York Times had Kevin McCarthy dead to rights when he said that he lied. Like he said he wanted Trump to resign.

Oh, yeah. Right? And then he came – when they said that, he came out and lied. He put out a statement and said, I never said that. And then they released the tape on him, right? And D.C. just like goes up in flames. We're all talking about it. We can't believe it. People are asking me, is McCarthy toast? I had a focus group that night. What do you guys think

about what happened with McCarthy? And it's just like blank stares. You know, like nobody's listening. No one cares. So, no, the internecine fights. Now, when it comes to like the debt ceiling fight, though, you know, when it has an impact and they can't govern and when things are getting shut down, parks, whatever, then it will matter. But I don't think this stuff is hitting voters. Well, so you said you've conducted some focus groups since the midterms. What's on voters' minds since the midterms? Two time Trump voters start to not break with Trump, but start to look for alternatives to Trump. And the way two time Trump voters, two time Trump. So the 2016, 2020 folks, they and it all comes down to electability. So like these guys are tired of losing.

And it's interesting because there's like a tacit admission that Donald Trump lost. He lost in 20, you know, and for a lot of them, I mean, I've done focus groups upon focus groups where always more than half the groups think that the election was stolen, but they're still tired of losing. Like after 22, like the main thing that has changed is they want a winner. And so even during the January 6th committee, I was starting to see more and more people. And there were two things happening at once. One, they were being reminded of how much baggage Donald Trump has, just like how much weight he is to carry for them. And the other was Ron DeSantis was starting to have his boomlet. And so they were starting to say, you know, I just really think we should look for somebody else, somebody with less baggage. Ron DeSantis

is pretty cool. I've been seeing a lot of him. He seems great. And since the 22, that has like really accelerated. They want somebody who can win. Ron DeSantis is the name that comes up with a bullet every single time without being asked. And people just think that he has, they call him Trump not on steroids was my favorite one that somebody said. But it's generally like Trump with a brain, Trump without the baggage, you know, somebody like Trump, but who, you know, swing voters might like. And so this question of electability and wanting to win just has started to loom so large for them since 22. How much do you think Ron DeSantis is like a blank canvas for these voters where they're just sort of pinning all their hopes and dreams on a candidate who can win versus like how much do they actually know about DeSantis just because

they consume a lot of like right wing media? Yeah, it's it's a it's a little more than blank canvas, but their relationship to him is very shallow. Right. So what they have seen of him is he is on like I see him on YouTube youtube like yelling at teenagers in masks or like yelling at disney or like yelling at local reporters and they think this guy's a fighter yeah and this guy is like trump um but you know without all the tweeting and the other thing that's so interesting about de santis is the way florida has become the like mecca of just in the imaginations of republicans florida is where all the great things happened. It's where everything stayed open during COVID. It's where wokeism goes to die. It's where the

culture wars are being won by their side. And so and it's funny, you hear people talk about it. And I went and looked it up because I was so struck by how many people were talking about him winning it by 20 points. Like it was this because people do still think of Florida as a swing state. But like Jeb Bush, I think, won it by 11 points and then by 13 points. Like he won those governor, but you know, the first Ron DeSantis race was close. And so people have thought about it as a swing state. And so when they see DeSantis just like crushing and dominating, that's what they want to happen nationally right now.

But they don't know that much really about Ron DeSantis. Do you think DeSantis runs for sure? I have not thought he runs for sure. So part of it, though, is that we're in this really weird. So Donald Trump announces so early and these guys who are governors, whether if you're Yunkin, if you're DeSantis, you have a legislative session, like a really important one. Yeah. You couldn't even begin to do it until May. And so I guess I'm sort of watching to see if the way that it shapes up is that like

then there's people who don't have anything going on right now, like Nikki Haley or Mike Mike Pence. So like, do they get in? Like Mike Pompeo. Yeah, right. Do they get in early? And is there kind of like a primary that happens that kind of kicks off with a group of people and everyone sees how Trump does and it shakes out and

the investigations happen and then they sort of wait for the heavy hitters to come in and Ron DeSantis gets in? I don't think it's a sure thing that he does. You know, he is young. I just I'm always struck by the fact that he's a he's a he's like 44 years old. It's so weird to me. He does not have to run head to head against Donald Trump. And you can hear voters grapple with this in the groups like, I don't know how he'll do what he's with Trump. And it's also it's like unclear. Does Trump even debate or treat things like a normal primary?

Yeah, it's just such a risk um but i do think the donor community and the the the if you're around asantis if and i was watching these focus groups and you couldn't stop me from running like it's just so many voters start saying you know who i love that's what i'm wondering who i love is this guy uh like even if you i mean first of all any politician has to have a huge ego to be a politician and but even if you're like on the lower end of that scale, you hear that many voters talking about you and people in the party start telling you. I mean, like, look, I was with Obama in the Senate when he was like, I'm not going to run in 2008. And then like Harry Reid talks to him and a bunch of other senators talk to him and he goes in the book tour and he sees the crowd. And it like it becomes something that's hard to push away.

It does. My only question, if you talk to sort of reporters from down in Florida or people who know Ron DeSantis, one thing they'll tell you, though, is that he's very surly and he's not like a great politician. And so I guess my, if I'm him, the question is, how self-aware am I? question is, how self-aware am I? Do I do I think I am a good enough politician to step onto the stage and meet now the very high expectations that people have put on me? And if he thinks yes, he'll do it. If he's worried, he might wait four more years until Donald Trump's not there. Do any other Republican candidates come up in focus groups besides DeSantis and Trump from Republicans? Yeah, they do. You know, it's funny how often it is either women or there are very, very few candidates of color. Right. So it's like Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Christine Noem. And I think

it's because all the white old men kind of run together in people's heads. And so there are there are other people that get brought up. I'll tell you who they do not want at all is Mike Pence. Yeah. I mean, you should hear. It's so funny that Mike, I get so many reporters calling me being like, well, Mike Pence really thinks they're Elaine. And I was like, well, I don't I've met almost no voters who they make an audible groaning noise when you bring him up. You know, a segment of them wanted to hang him. Right.

This is what I say to people. I'm like, if you're Mike Pence mean, you know, a segment of them wanted to hang him. Right. This is what I always say to people. I'm like, if you're Mike Pence, can you go to a Trump rally without security? No, you can't. Therefore, like, I don't know how you're going to get the votes to win a nomination in Republican primary. That's right. You know, one of the focus groups. So here's one of the things that was interesting is I was getting so many people saying they

wanted somebody other than Trump to run that we basically convened two groups of people where Trump had, with people who had Trump as very high favorables. Because what we all know about the primary is that it comes down to whatever Trump's plurality is, right? You get a fractured field. This is what we saw happen in 16. Like, are there 20% of the party? Is it 30% of the party that are always Trumpers?

And so I convened two groups of people who have really high favorability. They're like Trump or die. But when you ask about is similarly shallow in some ways. Like I sort of call them Trump or die because that's what we were looking for. But even with them, they just they Trump's the only one they've ever seen fight. But if somebody else proves to them that they can fight in that same sort of ridiculous way, they could be interested. Well, then this this is something I've been thinking about. How would you advise a Ron DeSantis or another Republican candidate like that to run against Donald Trump? Because my first instinct was like, you got to throw a punch. Yeah. Right. And especially if Trump throws a punch at you, you got to throw a punch back. But then I thought about like how high his favorability has to be, even among voters who are looking for someone else besides Trump.

Yeah. So I wonder if it's a situation where you really have to tread carefully, because if you start throwing punches at Trump, then you're hitting a guy that your potential voters might like. Yeah. So, I mean, I think that a lot of it is you got to you got to say you love Trump. You got to say we owe so much to Trump. You got to pay homage to Trump. Greatest president we've ever had. Yeah.

But the thing about and this is voters are starting to get a whiff of this. You know, Biden, when people talk about Biden, his age is like the number one thing that people cite about why he shouldn't run again or why Republicans talk about him being seen now. Trump's only four years younger than he is. about him being seen now. Trump's only four years younger than he is. And I think that there is a way to sort of gold watch Donald Trump to be like, old man, you were the best. And, you know, we just, we love you so much,

but we, ah, it's time. It's time to hang it up or like, you know, and I think- Like we used to do the five decades of service for John McCain. Yeah. Barack Obama used to say that as just a way to sort of like-

That's right. Like politely, butitely, but pretty forcefully talk about his age. Give him so many awards for all the great ways he's made America great. But say, and we really need someone who can win. We need a next generation because that, and I mean, the electability piece, I just couldn't be, sometimes with groups, you know, you just, things are very muddled. Like this just is like as clear a signal as I've heard where people are like, I want someone who can win. I want someone that swing voters don't hate. And they just think Trump people are too out on him. Do you I noticed the

in the news today that Trump is planning now on getting back on Twitter. They're already like workshopping his potential first tweet. I don't know what the whole truth social thing is lately. But do you think that that him being back on Twitter, back on Facebook, if they let him back on Facebook, do you think that helps or hurts him in a Republican primary? I think it hurts. Well, I think it hurts him in the general general. Yeah. Look, one of the things that strikes me about DeSantis and this is why it's hard to tell exactly what how good of a politician he is. But one thing, because he doesn't weigh in on lots of stuff like one of DeSantis is actually I think things that I'm starting to notice about him is his strategic silence choices are awfully good. Donald Trump doesn't do any of that. And he's under all these investigations.

Look, I think it depends on how the media reacts to him. We're so deep in Trump now that all the things that we used to believe were true, right, where people would kind of set the news cycle by Donald Trump's tweets. Is that still true? I wonder how many people come to a Trump rally as he starts to hold his rallies. Like, are they as big as they used to be? Can he still fill a stadium? I don't know the answer to that. I'm not saying he definitely can't.

But look, the bloom is off the road. You can't be new twice. And so I don't know how tri to that. I'm not saying he definitely can't. But look, the bloom is off the road. You can't be new twice. And so I don't know how triumphant this return will be. And also, how mad are we getting? Remember, he used to like these tweets and like my head would explode all the time. Are we still exploding over Donald Trump or are we laughing at Donald Trump now? Yeah. And I also think something happened even in 2020 at his rallies versus 2016 that a lot of people commented on which was like 2016 he had a message right it was like an anti-establishment populist message plenty of racism and xenophobia in there but it was also like this me against the establishment thing by 2020 he's out there and he's so fucking online that he's mentioning controversies on the stump that no one but like five percent of the people

who really closely follow politics and right-wing politics understand what he's saying naming the fbi characters and the i mean no one knows that shit and i was like this guy he just doesn't have the i noticed it in 20 and so i think now years later, he's way off in the deep end. Yeah. I mean, you always had to sort of live in the Fox News cinematic universe in order to like completely understand what's going on. But it's not that actually. I think that one of the things that also comes through with voters, like even if they agree with him, yes, something happened with the election and nothing was fair. And Democrats cheat. They are tired of talking about that. Like they want to talk about Joe Biden. They want to talk about, you know, all their all the Democrats failed policies. And if Donald Trump continues to hold rallies where he talks about the 2020 election being stolen, Kellyanne Conway had this

sort of silly piece in The New York Times recently. But there was one line that I thought was was was good. And it was like the voters don't want to channel your grievances, Donald Trump. They want you to channel their grievances. And that is correct. Yeah. No, yeah. It can't just be about him anymore. I mean, it's always been about him. Sure. But he has at least been able to fool people into thinking like, yeah, your enemies are my enemies and I'm going to fight them on behalf of you. Yeah, but you just said something, too, that I think about the establishment, which is, you know, watching the the the triangle of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Kevin McCarthy and Donald Trump as they worked that speakership fight. That is the MAGA establishment right now. Everybody kept saying, like, the 20 people were the were the hardcore MAGA caucus.

And I was like, no, the 200 are the MAGA establishment. Like so many of the people, the Kevin McCarthy people are the people who voted not to certify the election, who say that the election was stolen. They fell in line with Donald Trump. The idea that that was the chaos caucus versus some kind of governing wing or moderates was an insane frame. I don't call them moderates anymore. I'm calling them like the House members who are sitting in Biden districts. It's like the closest I can get. I mean, there are some moderate people. There are some governing people, but there's not a wing. No, there's no wing anymore. All right. Joe Biden. So can't do anything about his age.

He can do very little about the macroeconomic conditions. What do you think he can do and the White House can do over the next two years to maximize his chances of winning in 24, since it seems like all indications that he's running and doesn't seem like he's going to have a primary challenger? I suppose that could change, but it doesn't seem like it. If you were advising him on how to keep the Republican-leaning voters he won in 2020 in the fold, what would you tell him? You know, it used to be that Joe Biden, the idea of Joe Biden was running because he was the only one that could beat Donald Trump. I don't think that's true anymore. And I think that just about any Republican who's not named Donald Trump will beat Joe Biden. I am, you know, Tim, our friend Tim Miller has the story

about how he knew Jeb was going to lose when there some polling came back. And the number one thing people didn't like about Jeb Bush was his last name was Bush. And Tim knew then because you can't change that your last name is Bush. And you just said yeah biden can't change how old he is uh and he's that number is only going up uh i mean i um look i am i'm a joe biden stan i think joe biden saved america i think that he did he pulled democrats together he got everybody to do this amazing thing where they dropped out and endorsed him like he he he is great great. And and then the fact that I'm saying that if you told me that, you know, eight or nine years ago, I think but like he was the only person that could beat Trump. And he's another person who deserves all the awards. And he should also say early and soon

that, you know, he's done his part and it's time for somebody else to take over uh who is not kamala harris in my opinion uh and the democrats have my my big concern is that i mean because you ask like what my advice would be it's like you can't make this like he could say he's running and six months from now still decide not to run um i like he could do that i don't think just because he says he is now automatically means that he definitely is. But he can wait too long. He can wait too long. And then there's nobody else that can. I we talked about when we were talking about the wilderness, when we were doing the wilderness focus groups. I remember you saying that, like in a lot of focus groups, Democrats didn't have a bent, didn't weren't talking about other candidates on the bench. And I noticed that, too. I will say after the midterms, there's a number of candidates who won in purple state Democratic candidates that I think like maybe not in 24, but in 28.

I look around. I see a lot of great young Democrats. But I do wonder, and I have some of the same fears about Biden and I have some of the same beliefs about him too. I think he saved America. I love the man. I think he's like very, very kind. I think he's been a good president. But like the age thing is a concern.

But then I look around and everyone, you know, I talk to people about this like, well, then who else, who else, who else can do it? And I'm like, in 24, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, that SNL skit was pretty dead on. I agree, though, about the bench. And I don't know. Look, I think if Ron DeSantis as a second term governor can get through his legislative session and then announce. So can Gretchen Whitmer, as far as I'm concerned.

Like maybe Josh Shapiro can't. And look, I don't know the Democrats as well as you guys do. So you've probably spent time with Jared Polis and a bunch of these other people. But I would say that the bench has been growing. And because of the poor performance in 22, there are just more people to look at. And, you know, there's Mitch Landrieu still hanging. Some of my some of my moderate centrists are still kicking around that I think could. But it would take Biden. Biden would have to do it himself.

Like he would have to make the affirmative choice. I don't think like Gavin Newsom can decide to primary him randomly. No, I don't think that's. And I mean, I do think having done some focus groups, not nearly as many as you, but it was like, you ask people, do you want Joe Biden to run again? All these were Biden voters. None of them wanted Joe Biden to run again. I couldn't find one. Then you ask them about Trump. They all can't stand Trump. Even the few Trump voters were like, I don't want him to run again. And then I made them pick. So Votov was Trump-Biden again. And you do get more people who are like, Biden. So I think in that matchup, you can get why Biden thinks that he's the one who can beat him. But if it's anyone other than Trump, I see how it's a challenge. Oh, I mean, I just think if you've got some energetic 68 year old, you know, just anybody under the age of 70, it's going to provide a really stark contrast.

Yeah, it's going to be difficult. Yeah. And I'll be right there fighting for Joe Biden. But it's going to be more of an uphill challenge than if it's Donald Trump, I think. Yeah. Sarah Longwell, thank you so much for joining Pod Save America and come back soon. Yeah. Thanks for having me. All right. Before we go, you may have heard that Democrats and Joe Biden are coming for your gas stoves.

And we have decided to explore whether this is true in a new segment that we're calling, I'm about to myth bust. Named by our feelers producer, Olivia Martinez, who is here to take us through this game. Hello. Thank you for having me and thank you for being OK with calling it that. John and Dan, what have you heard about gas stoves this week? Just give us the quick summary. That I better hang on to mine as tightly as possible because Joe Biden's coming to get it, probably with his 87,000 IRS agents.

You can't see it from the way this camera's positioned, but I'm currently chained to mine. That sounds about right. Let's take a listen to a mashup Chris Hayes tweeted this week. White House is now attempting to ban all gas ovens. Safety. Safety. And your family dinner is about to get a lot less tasty.

America's not going to stand for this. There's not a stove like this one could be banned soon. Nobody's going to tell me I can't cook with gas. Texas Congressman Ronnie Jackson, Jackson writing in part, quote, I'll never give up my gas stove. If the maniacs in the White House come from my stove, they could pry it from my cold, dead hands. Strong feelings, strong feelings. Cold, dead hands. Were you all that outraged? I was more confused than anything.

Yeah. So let's talk about what actually happened. So this all started earlier in January when a government official at the Consumer Product and Safety Commission gave an interview in Bloomberg where he talked about how they're considering a ban on gas stoves because there's a hidden hazard. And he went on to talk about how they're considering any option because they want to make sure we just have things that are safe in our homes. He was prompted by recent studies that found that gas stoves actually emit some pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide and methane. And those do pose some serious health risks for Americans. For example, they really increase asthma rates among children and dementia in older Americans. So let's pause there. Did you have any idea that gas stoves were that dangerous? Zero idea. Yeah, me neither. I mean, I would have guessed that they contribute something to global warming because gas.

Yeah. But I had no idea about the health effects. Yeah, me neither. Dan, did you know? I had not thought about it. And then when someone explained to me that you're going to burn methane in your house when you cook. Yeah, that kind of makes sense when you think about it. Yeah, it's kind of terrifying.

So the CPSC followed up to clarify that they're only looking to make gas stoves safer. And two days later, they added a statement saying, to be clear, we're not looking to ban gas stoves. And the CPSC has no proceeding to do so. I also think that, I think I heard this, that even if they did, it would be a ban on new gas stoves. So anyone who has a gas stove, they were never even floating the possibility that if you currently have a gas stove, you can no longer have that stove. Yeah, they literally can never go in your house and take your gas stove. No one is suggesting that. They're just letting us know that these are dangerous and maybe we can consider other

options. Yes, if we're going to your home, we're going to take your gun. We're going to take your gas stove. Obviously. Yeah, the gas stove is bottom of the list. Much heavier to take out of there. Yeah, and I can't tell why the CPSC gave this interview to Bloomberg. I can't tell why the CPSC like gave this interview to Bloomberg. I can't tell why they made this news. That does feel like the biggest unforced error here. Like that was a mistake, I think. But I am curious. I don't think that was on the White House message calendar.

Yeah. It didn't make a lot of sense to me. Send out the Consumer Product Safety Commission to just float a ban on the gas stove. just float a ban on the gas stove. Yeah. No one needed to do that that day. But I'm wondering when's the last time you heard about what the Consumer Product and Safety Commission was up to? How do you think this was caught by so many conservatives? Well, I, as a parent of two children, I'm deeply aware of everything the CPSC recalls because you get notifications for those things. Interesting. So I mean, there are people who watch it a lot and pay attention to it. Those are generally people who want to keep dangerous products away from their children.

There's also obviously a group of people who troll the government for ways to find fake outrage to drive clicks in cable ratings, which I think probably how this one came out. Yep. find fake outrage to drive clicks and cable ratings, which I think probably how this one came out. Yeah. Yeah. And it's usually the flavor of this is usually the government's coming to take something fundamentally American away from you. Yes. Oh, and we're going to get into that. But first, I want to talk about the outrage. Republicans, of course, went into a frenzy over this.

And I know both of you were pretty plugged in to what they were saying. So I want to quiz you on some of the ways they spoke out this week. Are you ready? Yeah. Quiz. All right. Quiz, if you will. Pop quiz. Which of these was not done by Republican trolls this week? A. Did Republicans tape themselves to a gas stove in protest? B. Did Republicans run all the burners and sit in their houses inhaling the gas to prove a point? Or C, did Republicans start selling don't tread on me aprons with gas stoves to fundraise? I know that the last one happened. I'm going to say that they didn't turn on the stoves and inhale all the fumes. They did turn on the stoves and inhale

all the fumes. I think it was the first. Trick question. All of those happened this week. Wait, they really inhaled the fumes? They really inhaled the fumes. Who did that? It was Nick Adams, right? Some troll. Yeah.

Dan, you are plugged in. Wow. I am fucking riding a seven-week, two takes and a fake losing streak, so I've been trading like Rocky over here. Well, I will say this. The don't tread on me thing, I think DeSantis rolled that out.

And just a fun fact, 92% of all stoves in Florida are electric and not gas. So it is not even a red state real American phenomenon. It is a blue coastal ultra lib thing. Yeah. That's why we have gas.

Yes, exactly. Who tweeted, imagine a world where all tortillas are heated in the microwave. We must take a stand against this insanity. I will be joining my colleagues this week to introduce legislation that stops this stove war from happening.

Do you know who tweeted that? Feels very Ted Cruz. Yeah, I would say that as well. Close. It was Representative Mike Garcia, who I truly have never heard of. He's the one who kept beating Christy Smith. Yeah, he's the one walking around with the... Never mind. Let's make a Christy Smith joke, but I won't. Next one. Who went on InfoW wars to say literally everyone prefers a gas stove

and that regulating gas stoves are quote part of the globalist agenda for the green new deal and the most dangerous thing for our entire planet and all of humanity wow who went on info wars to say that who's like an info wars guest steve bannon close it's an obvious one it is representative matt gates marjorie taylor green oh god damn it all right our new oversight committee exactly member and one more for you finally which republican tweeted the federal government has no business telling american families how to cook their dinner. I can tell you the last thing that would ever leave my house is the gas stove that we cook on. Oh, that's Joe Manchin.

Yeah, it was a trick question. It was a Republican. Davos Joe. Yeah, it was Joe Manchin. Side note, do you think you can have a gas stove on a houseboat? I do not think you can. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know a lot about houseboats. Where's the gas line run? Unless you just have like a little tank, maybe a gas tank. I think it's a gas stove on the super yachts below deck. So I don't know how that applies in this situation here, but. It also feels a little dangerous to have a gas tank on a boat.

Exactly. John, how do you think the boat moves? I don't know. It's not just wind, my friend. Dan's plugging gas right now. It's not a sailboat. It's not a sailboat. It wasn't just Republicans who freaked out.

Kind of everyone got involved in this. Alison Roman, the controversial chef, tweeted, I have an induction stove by choice. Ask me anything. Just as a small side, please humor me. I'm deeply curious. Do either of you know why Alison Roman is controversial? Yeah.

We do know. Something happened. Yeah. All right, cool. We were here for that. When I'm going to revisit it, is controversial? Yeah. We do know. Something happened. Yeah. All right, cool. We were here for that. When I'm going to revisit it, but let it be known that we know. All right, cool. I feel like Lovett was involved somehow.

Yeah, that makes sense. Democratic representative Ruben Gallego tweeted, hot take, keep the gas stove and get rid of the air fryer. Only urban elitists use air fryers. Do either of you have air fryers? No. Really? I have an Instapot that converts to an air fryer. Only urban elitists use air fryers. Do either of you have air fryers? No. Really? I have an Instapot that converts to an air fryer. That's more elitist.

You know what? Cooking good food quickly is not elitist. It's practical. And Gallego's wife responded to that tweet saying, we have an air fryer which you'd know if you did the cooking. Wow. Yeah. And finally, my favorite tweet was by comedian rob delaney who tweeted you can have my gas when you pry it from my cold dead ass so let's bring it back and answer the question that

we started with is joe biden trying to take your gas stove doesn't sound like it doesn't sound like it he doesn't sound like he's not he's not and it it made me remember some like other controversies we've seen like this recently i remember last year conservatives being really upset about liberals ruining hamburgers and joe biden being called the hamburglar why do you think they latch on to outrages like this um you know because it uh it speaks to a fundamental fear the american people have the government is going to be too big and too scary and take away things that are valuable to them conservatism and republicanism is grievance politics, and it is about fear of change, trying to make change seem scary. And so that is liberal elites want to take your hamburgers away. They want to take your guns away. They want to change your way of life.

And outrage has two purposes. One, when you represent a declining share of the American population, you need to keep your shrinking base at a fever pitch at all times. American population, you need to keep your shrinking base at a fever pitch at all times. And in this media environment driven by cable and Facebook, outrage is the coin of the realm. It is what drives traffic. It's what causes liberals to react. And so there is a marriage between Republican politicians who want an angry base and right-wing media figures who want to use outrage to get filthy rich. Absolutely. I have a twist at the ending of all this, but I'm curious if there's anything either of you want to say about this myth that we haven't covered yet. I think we've nailed it. Sweet. Dan, nothing else you saw in your extensive research?

No. All right. Well, the twist is that the Inflation Reduction Act actually includes rebates for households switching from gas to electric stoves. So not only is Joe Biden not taking your gas stove, he's trying to pay you money for buying electric stove. People that turn in their gas stoves and upgrade to an electric one will earn a rebate of $840 cash back. Unfortunately, when you try to give back your stove, they will inject you with a microchip. And that's how COVID started. They will force you to read Beloved. Wow. Deep cut. Deep cut from 21. And I just want to end by saying, Republicans and all politicians,

please don't take away our right to choose how to cook our dinners. Thank you, Olivia. Thank you for helping us bust that myth. Thanks for having me. And thank you to Sarah Longwell for joining us. Everyone have a great weekend and we will talk to you next week. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.

Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein. Our producers are Hayley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash Pod Save America.