Pod Save America - "Nukes of Hazzard." (Live from Nashville!)

Episode Date: August 13, 2022

Guest co-host Josie Duffy Rice joins Jon, Jon, Tommy, and Dan live in Nashville! Republicans go on defense after the unsealed Mar-a-Lago search warrant reveals that the FBI is investigating Donald Trump for possible espionage, and Democrats have new reasons to be hopeful about the midterms following a string of big wins. Justice Democrat Odessa Kelly stops by to talk about her run for Congress in TN-7, and Vice President Al Gore joins to talk about the newly-passed climate bill and to play the ultimate game of 90's trivia. 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.

Thank you. What's up, Nashville? What's up, Nashville? Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Josie Duffy Rice. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Josie Duffy Rice. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Besor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. We are so happy to have Josie with us on this swing, who you know and love as a host of Crooked's What A Day podcast.

who you know and love as a host of Crooked's What A Day podcast. We're also lucky to be joined by your next member of Congress from Nashville, Odessa Kelly. And a Tennessee native who also happens to be the former Vice President of the United States, Al Gore is here. Al Gore is here. Al Gore is here. Al Gore is here.

Shocking to me. All right, let's get to the news. It seems like Donald Trump might have gotten himself into a bit of a jam. On Monday, two dozen FBI agents arrived at Mar-a-Lago with a search warrant and left with 11 sets of classified documents, some at the highest level. According to the New York Times, federal agents who executed the warrant did so to investigate potential crimes associated with violations of the Espionage Act, which outlaws the unauthorized retention of national security information

that could harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary. They also went after him for a federal law that makes it a crime to destroy or conceal a document to obstruct a government investigation and another statute associated with unlawful removal of government materials. Doesn't sound good.

Does not sound good. The Washington Post has also reported that the agents were looking for classified materials specifically related to nuclear weapons. So sleep well tonight. Josie, thank God you're with us because our legal expertise comes from straight tweets. Is Donald Trump in trouble? You know, I'm actually not a very good lawyer, but I do know a lot about law enforcement, and the FBI does not show up to your house unless they know something's in your house. They don't ask, they don't, they don't, like, ask questions they don't already know the answer to don't lie to the fbi

is the good lie to them i mean trump has gone through a variety of excuses over the last 48 hours the latest is that the the government could have gotten their classified secrets back if they had just asked um have you ever heard of the magic word fbi Have you ever heard of the magic word? FBI. Jesse, can you explain what we know so far about why the Department of Justice and the FBI felt the need to show up with a warrant and why Attorney General Merrick Garland then called for that warrant to be made public? Yeah, it was kind of amazing because Merrick Garland was like, we actually did ask.

We tried some things and they didn't work, which is why we showed up. I mean, the idea of accidentally having classified documents and then just forgetting to turn them over and someone being like, can we have those back? Forgetting. Yeah, forgetting. Just doesn't add up, you, can we have those back? Forgetting. Yeah, forgetting. Just doesn't add up, you know?

No, it does not add up. I think what happened is William Barr dressed up as a sweet old lady and gave Merrick Garland an apple, which he took a bite of, fell asleep. And it wasn't until Liz Cheney kissed Merrick Garland on the lips that he woke up. And everything has played out since.

He did say at the press conference that they tried, quote, less intrusive methods. Right. So we don't know exactly what those were. I suppose that's just asking politely for the classified info back. Tommy, when you were spokesman for the White House National Security Council, you had access to plenty of classified information. So I guess my question is, how many nuclear secrets do you still have? And where are they?

No, I took home an actual nuke. You get the whole nuke. It's a co-wreck. Can you help people understand why the government takes the possession of classified information so seriously? Sure. So the reason the government classifies it, so the reason you deem something to be top secret

is because the government believes that will cause, I wrote it down, exceptionally grave damage to the national security. That's essentially the reason something becomes top secret. As a general matter, I think that the government classifies too many things or overclassifies information. I saw a lot of State Department cables in my day that were news reports from abroad that got sent back that were marked secret for some reason. But, you know, based on the reports and the warrant we've seen so far, the stuff they were looking for, the FBI was looking for at Trump's house is very, very sensitive stuff.

The warrant referenced miscellaneous top secret information. It referenced miscellaneous TSSCI documents, and that means top secret sensitive compartmented information. documents, and that means top-secret, sensitive, compartmented information. Other news reports said that there was signals intelligence, which means stuff that the NSA intercepted between, I don't know, the Pakistani military talking to themselves or intercepted emails. One of the news reports mentioned special access programs, which are programs or activities that are so sensitive that you can't just get access to them because you have a clearance. You have to get read into whatever it is. So it could be like a CIA covert action program. It could be a special military

technology or a new weapon system. The times, the very few times I got read into those things at the White House, I literally had to go over to some Intel person's office, sign a document saying that I would not talk about it, and then when I left, sign out of the compartment saying that I would continue to not talk about it because I would go to jail. Again, double jail, I guess. I don't know why. Can you tell us now? No, I can't.

And then... Try it. A hint? Can we get a hint? I'll tell you guys after. And then... Could know, another... You referenced this at the top. Apparently there were documents relating to our nuclear weapons systems,

and I probably don't have to explain to anyone why that would be bad to have at your house. And so... At your beach house. In your beach house. And that was particularly interesting, though, because the current sort of trump sycophant uh defense is that he's the president he can declassify whatever he wants and to some extent that's true but it's actually not true with information relating to the nuclear

weapons program that's classified under a different statute and he can't just unilaterally do that so uh-oh if that's there you're in trouble so long story short we don't know if the fbi will find any of this stuff. And we should probably wait to see. We may never not know, frankly, because they're not going to say, hey, the following classified information was found in his basement. Because that would defeat the purpose of protecting said information. But you can understand why they would be nervous about it sitting around. But in like Mar-a-Lago in 2019, a Chinese national was arrested

breaking into Mar-a-Lago trying to sneak into the pool with nine thumb drives, four cell phone SIM cards and a laptop, right? It's a counterintelligence nightmare. Or just a very specific kind of vacation. But we know they left with at least one set of documents that were TSSEI

because they signed off on the warrant. So we know they have some. We know that there was the highest classified level documents in Mar-a-Lago and that they had a warrant for that, they found them, and they hauled them out. That's what they want you to believe, John. But we also know that Merrick Garland is an exceedingly cautious human being, to say

the least. And the fact Some people called him a ponderous judge. Not on this podcast. No one on this stage. We would never have. This stage has always been pro-Merrick Garland, pro-Joe Manchin. I don't want to hear anything else about it. These have been our heroes the entire time. A lot of people doubted

us, but we said, stick with them. Stick with Merrick Garland. Stick with Merrick Garland, Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema. Biden from day one. Biden from day fucking one. When a lot of people were going all kinds of different Elizabeth Warren.

No. But we said no. It's Biden or bus. You'll see. Anyway. Hey, question. Did I get too drunk before this? Question.

It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Look, there are some people saying, well, Hillary Clinton did the same thing and they didn't prosecute her. And at some point we can talk about a prisoner swap, right? It played how we thought. Cut it from the pod. No, no, leave it in. He was supposed to ask Al Gore about that proposal.

Yeah, just be thankful. Dan, you were saying? Dan, you had a point. I don't know where I was, but I think my point being that they would, if this was just run-of-the-mill stuff that was overclassified, as Tommy rightly said so much stuff is, they're not rating Mar-a-Lago for that. They obviously have a, there was an urgency to this, a sensitivity about the information.

I think we can intuit from the fact that they took a very aggressive step for an agency that from an attorney general is incredibly cautious. I would also venture to say that Trump's various excuses, he may have contradicted himself once or twice. First, he said that it was a hoax and that the FBI planted the evidence. And then he said that the evidence was declassified by him that was FBI planted the evidence and then he said that the evidence was declassified by him that was then planted.

So it seems like it's difficult for him to declassify the stuff that was there that was then planted by the FBI. That feels difficult to reconcile. There's nothing to find. Whatever they found was planted and that planted evidence is fine because I declassified it.

That works. Seems to hold up. I mean, I don't think that anyone is surprised that trump hasn't taken this well um but also just about every republican politician the country has chosen to blindly support him they have called for investigations they have called for impeaching merrick garland for defunding the FBI. Oh, interesting. It really is the like worst person you know made a good point meme. Yes. A hundred percent.

It's really happening. Yeah. You know those liberals at the FBI. Yeah. Famously so. Yeah, the famously woke FBI. You know, the... Running around shouting their pronouns at people, the classic FBI. The FBI.

I mean, like, it's amazing. You step back and look at what conservative media is trying to... Like, the number of institutions in America that the right-wing media has tried to turn their fucking addled baby boomer audience against. It's like, you shouldn't, no football for you, no baseball for you, the FBI's too woke now. These people, where are they supposed to go? They can't even go to Cracker Barrel anymore.

They have to sit home, watch Tucker Carlson, and buy gold. That's it. Dan, you wrote this week in the message box that maybe the Republican reaction wasn't the shrewdest move. And to your credit, you wrote this before the events unfolded of the last 24 hours when we found out that actually, yes, he did have the highly classified documents in Mar-a-Lago. Look, I wish we lived in a country where politicians blindly standing by a deeply dangerous man involved in multiple criminal investigations

was on its face bad politics, but we don't. That is not the country we live in. It is like the people who really face political accountability in the Republican Party are not the ones who stick with Trump. It's the ones who stand up to him, right? Whether it's Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger or so many more. I mean, the fact that we get cheers for a Cheney at a show in which Al Gore is appearing, people. That's tough. That's tough. That's tough. But I do think the way in which the Republicans have stuck with Trump is making a huge, huge mistake.

Because it's not that they're defending him to use the power they seek in this election to investigate the FBI, defund the FBI, impeach Garland, impeach Christopher Wray, defend Trump. And I think that gives Democrats an opportunity to say, you keep us in the majority, we're going to fight for you, we're going to cut costs, we're going to raise wages, we're going to make your health care more affordable, we're going to fight for you. And Republicans are going to fight for Donald Trump and their political allies. And that's always the most important issue in any campaign is who do the voters think is going to fight for them? And the Republicans have given us an opening and we just have to take it.

Yeah, they're fighting for Donald Trump's right to keep nuclear secrets and do whatever he pleases with them. Yeah. I mean, I just say a lot of these, you know, they all got out there pretty early being like these people don't have the goods, you know? There's no goods. And then we found out there were nuclear secrets. You know what I say?

Some of these Republican takes had a pretty short half-life. Thank you, Nashville! Come back for the 11 o'clock show. I thought one of the worst... The ranking member of the House Intel Committee, Republican Mike Turner, got up and said at a press conference today, there are a number of things that are classified

that fall under the umbrella of nuclear weapons, but that are not necessarily things that are truly classified. Many of them you can find on your own phone. Tommy, is that true? Like the... I don't know what that guy is talking about. Like, you're the ranking member of the Intel Committee.

What are you doing? You don't have to do this. Well, it's also the case, though, that there's, like... When WikiLeaks or Edward Snowden puts a million documents into the public record and all these secrets are disclosed, that doesn't mean you can then talk about it. It doesn't mean they're declassified

and that you can just go talk about it. In fact, people working at the government were not allowed to access the WikiLeaks or Snowden websites to learn what was out there because it was seen as potentially accessing classified information illegally. So no, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard is where I should have started.

Well, I got one that I go on to beat that. We could do a whole take appreciator about some of the takes that have been flying over the last 48 hours. Takes have been out of control. But but I'm going to love it. I'm going to read you the title of the latest New York Times column by one Mr. David Brooks. And I'd like you to respond. The headline is, did the FBI just reelect Donald Trump?

All right. I want to. did the FBI just re-elect Donald Trump? Alright, I wanna So I do think there's like a obviously that's like the stupidest fucking shit I've ever heard and like he had no information had no idea, it was before we learned everything that we learned in the last 24 hours

still out with, still gotta get out there with just a piping hot, just a fucking radioactive, ironically, take. Not letting that go, huh? But, like, I do think that there's this sort of pernicious idea that has, like, that's what that column was about. That's what James Comey did all those years ago.

That's, like, infused a lot of the response to Trump, which is that it's more important to seem legitimate than be legitimate. What David Brooks's column argues is, sure, Trump may have committed serious crimes, but prosecuting those crimes would excite a dangerous, radicalized Republican base and therefore make it more likely he's reelected. Therefore, we're powerless to punish those crimes. as if legitimacy flows from people who believe lies and would do violence as opposed to the actual work and substance of what our government does in response to people who break the law. And I think it is stupid. It's stupid in the short term because it doesn't work. No one has been rewarded more thoroughly than Donald Trump for people who cared more about seeming legitimate than being legitimate. But it also gives a kind of quiet, like a pocket veto

of the rule of law to right-wing groups and people who would do violence. Like right-wing violence, the threat of it is already warping our politics. Liz Cheney can't do events in Wyoming. There are threats against people like Raphael Warnock. There are, you know, somebody died attacking the FBI in response and, you know, proclaimed what they were doing on Truth Social in response to this FBI raid and the ways in which Donald Trump has riled people up. Like, no, we can't give a veto to violent groups. And in the long term, what's the answer? Do you think this is temporary? The answer is we have to actually do what we think is right and accept that there's going to be a subset of our

population who has lied to and may even threaten us, but we can't cower to those threats. We just can't. We have to, the only way out. It's the only way out. Josie, what do you think about that? Like, you know, as Lovett mentioned, it was a January 6th rioter, in fact, who tried to storm the FBI field office in Cincinnati yesterday. Do you think President Biden and Democratic politicians should be more vocal in calling out Republicans

and right-wing media for some of the dangerous rhetoric we've been hearing over the last couple of days? Because it is getting a little... Truth Social, the right-wing militias, they're all hearing over the last couple of days because it is getting a little truth social the right-wing militias they're all getting a little much yeah so she's getting a little riled up believe it or not yeah i mean you think about like even the feedback to the defund the fbi the democrats are being quieter about that than they were about defund the police two years ago. And it just is a reminder that when we say the rule of law, we actually only apply that to people we deem dangerous, but that we actually don't think are existential dangers. This is like an example of what happens

when people are trying to destroy the actual fabric, fundamental values of a country. What is our response going to be? And that really determines what the future looks like here. If we're not willing to speak up and hold those people accountable, I mean, far be it from me to call for punishment of anybody. That's not my vibe, but it, you know, Donald Trump has made me support the

FBI this week, so it's like, it's been weird, you know? Weird times. I don't like it. I'm not into it. Yeah, I mean, the stuff that's getting said on right-wing spaces in media is very scary, and, you know, to sort of prepare

myself for this section of the conversation, I reconnected with an old friend. Oh, no. Oh, no. Steve Bannon. What? I downloaded two episodes of his podcast. You listened to all of it?

What's that? Did you listen to them all the way through? All the way through twice. One of them actually twice. And I just wanted to play you guys a quick clip. You're a lawless scumbag. Your department's a bunch of lawless scumbags. The FBI is a bunch of lawless scumbags. Hey, suck on that. You don't like it. You're a lawless scumbag. Back to blue. I mean, you can't look, that was, you're talking about Merrick Garland, obviously.

How did he, how did he know my kink? You can't argue with that logic. I'm sorry I said that. What a lovely man. I have actually said those words about the FBI before, too, but not in this context. He does this shit for four hours a day. It's crazy.

No, I wanted to play that because it gets worse from there. So Bannon had on Seb Gorka, who used to work at the White House. He's a kind of weird Hungarian fascist. They both floated a theory that the Biden administration is trying to assassinate Trump. And then Gorka said the FBI

brought in so many people and surveillance equipment because they are setting up some sort of ongoing surveillance equipment because they are setting up some sort of, you know, ongoing surveillance equipment themselves. And then they both called the FBI the Gestapo. So it's hard to back a law enforcement when you're calling them Nazis in my book. And, you know, I think the problem here is like Trump has created a social media site that's become kind of a domestic terrorist safe space. And this guy who targeted the Cincinnati FBI office shot it up, escaped,

was in the middle of a shootout essentially with the cops and paused to post on True Social. So I want to see the Democratic Party stand up and talk about this and, you know, call out what is happening, which is like some really dangerous rhetoric and incitement. But I do think that at the end of the day, I mean, the only people that these people are going to hear are Republicans and law enforcement when they come to their house to arrest them. I think this whole thing brings to bear the lie at the heart of the Republican Party, Because like it's all couched in like anti-government rhetoric, deep state, Gestapo, FBI. But it's not the size of government they care about. It's who government is holding accountable, right? Because in their view, because this is the

same Republican Party who wants to increase spending for defense, increase spending for the police, increase spending for the INS. Because as long as the government is serving as a bulwark against a changing America, it can be as big as they want it to be. And once it goes and holds their leader down in his rich estate accountable, they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not who you're supposed to go after. That's not why we pay our tax dollars. And that is the core of this Republican Party. why we pay our tax dollars. And that is the core of this Republican Party. Yeah, well, like the whole, like,

everyone's like pointing out the, yeah. It's like, everyone's like pointing out the hypocrisy. It's like, yeah, of course, they don't care that they're hypocritical. There's no ideology driving this party anymore. It's a cult of personality. Trump gets to do whatever he wants to do. If he runs for reelection and he loses, he gets to overturn the election.

If you try to hold him accountable for that by prosecuting him, then that's wrong too. You can't do that. There's no outcome that's acceptable except Trump being installed as the president of the United States for as long as he wants. That's it. That's the only outcome that's acceptable. But see, I think that is the ideology, right? Is that people like Trump get to do what they want and others don't. And once the rules apply to them, that's where the ideology, right? Is that people like Trump get to do what they want and others don't. And once the rules apply to them, that's where the ideology kicks in. Yeah, it's...

Trump can do whatever he wants. His friends can do almost whatever they want, but he doesn't really care that much, as long as it doesn't affect him. He'd like to punish his enemies, that's fun. And if someone dies for him, he gets a boner. What? What? What? Okay.

We'll be back with more news. And we're back. Now it's time for OK Stop. It's OK Stop o'clock. You know how it works. I play a clip. I demand the clip stops. We go in hard until I start the clip again. And what clip are we okaying

and stopping today? Why, it's an okay stop supercut of conservatives complete and total meltdown over the FBI's fuckboat tour of Mar-a-Lago. There are too many for us to pick just one. Up first, we've got Dana Perino speaking reality into existence.

I don't understand how a document can be this critical. Like, unless it has, you want the picture, you're saying if it has a picture of Putin and Trump making out? Yes. I'm like, short of the nuclear codes being written on these documents in a locked behind closed doors, I just really don't understand how a document could warrant this kind of warrant. Okay, stop.

Dana's like, what's next? They exhume Ivana's coffin because he's buried the P tape with her. And then we finally see that P tape is real. And then Brian kill me just to go on Fox and friends to explain that despite what the woke mob tells you, piss play can be part of a healthy relationship. I mean, it is wild that Dana Perino

worked in the White House. I was going to say, how do you say that you're a White House press secretary? You don't, you don't, you can't understand that there may be some highly classified information? Like, what? Of course he knows. He's got two-step verification on the nuclear codes. This is going to be fine.

That's why there is two-step verification for exactly this kind of situation. It's so risky to make up a hypothetical situation for the Trump administration. Because it's going to happen. You can't out-dumb him. He's going to do it. It's also the first rule of being a White House press secretary is you don't answer hypothetical questions. Let alone invent them. What could it be?

He husbanded away some secret documents to give to the Saudis at a golf tournament he hosted? Come on. You sound crazy. What could it possibly be? Jared is the bag man? Come on. He liked to brag by showing Eastern European businessmen who had cameras in their hats interesting things he saw about Macron in the White House.

That's insane. Cameras in their hats. Let's roll the clip. This stuff wasn't even documents. It was like golf balls and oval office raincoats. You know, Trump's a memento guy. You've seen inside his office, there's a lot of clutter. Memorabilia.

Okay, stop. What the fuck is an Oval Office raincoat? That's not a thing. That's not a thing. There's no Oval Office raincoats. Oval Office raincoats. Excuse me, can I get some M&Ms and an Oval Office raincoat before I leave? These liberals want to criminalize scrapbooking now?

What are we talking about? Look, Trump is sentimental. He saves things. Keepsakes. You've seen his golf course. He keeps his dead ex-wife there. I like that you made that joke a second time. Twice.

That's twice. That's two. That's two. The guy's, he's a sweetheart. Let's roll it. The FBI is blatantly targeting our fellow Americans for their political beliefs. The Bureau's reputation has been shattered. If you listen to my radio show, watch this show,

you know my love of law enforcement. It has now pretty much been utterly destroyed. Okay, stop. This is the best thing I've ever seen, ever. This is the closest he's ever been to feeling black in his entire life. Just crazy. And what a fragile love it was. It's so funny. Trump was, I mean, look, Sean does have a point.

Trump was targeted for his beliefs. His beliefs that he could show visiting businessmen facts he learned about Macron. Sex facts. He wanted to show people who were visiting sex facts about Macron. And he was going to do it. The French president. Don't forget the nuclear secrets. And the nuclear secrets. Anyone else? Roll them. Let's keep rolling. Is it your understanding that there were not documents related to our nuclear capabilities or nuclear issues that

had national security implications in the president's possession when the agents showed up at Mar-a-Lago? That's correct. I don't believe they were. And if they thought they were, we have been court— Well, do you know for a fact? Do you know for a fact they were? Have you spoken to the president about it?

I have not specifically spoken to the president about what nuclear uh materials may or may not have been in there i do not believe there were any in there the legal team had done a very thorough search okay stop good gonna want to check with the boss on that one before you go on tv you don't look you don't you don't go on the lara ingram show to know things for a fact. That's not why we're here. You don't go to IHOP to order spaghetti. You know? I said I was a bad lawyer at the beginning of the show. This is a worse lawyer.

He was a worse lawyer than me. This is why you don't hire your lawyer off of a right-wing cable TV show. She was working at OAN, I think, like six weeks ago. It is amusing that you can just, Laura Ingraham's discomfort with what is happening is palpable. That was her first follow-up question in six years. She is so upset about this that she became a journalist for 15 seconds.

That's how you know it's serious. That's how you know it's serious. That's how you know it's serious. Laura Ingraham's like, hey, you fucking asshole. I know you come from OAN. This is Fox News, bitch. We do this right. You're going to come on Fox News

and fuck this up? We built an empire by lying. You're going to come on here and you're going to lie badly? I love taking her at her word the legal team did a very thorough search Trump's legal team oh oh they did a thorough search for the nuclear materials

at Mar-a-Lago fucking Rudy Giuliani have you seen that legal team yeah walking around with a Geiger counter Rudy Giuliani asked the bartender 1,000 times in a row for five days. Yeah, it's unbelievable.

We looked everywhere. We couldn't find anything. We're fine. Yeah, all we saw was piles and piles of expired shrimp that says, sell today. Push the shrimp. And that's okay stuff. Oh. That was a good one. That was one of the better ones.

Woo! All right. Time for some more news. So with all the usual caveats about us being out of the prediction business, I do have to report tonight that the evidence is mounting that with just under three months left until the midterms, the political environment is shifting in favor

of the Democrats. Here's the thing. It's not just the polls, though the 538 average now has Democrats with just a slight lead for the first time all year. But it's also the actual election results from the Kansas ballot initiative on abortion, as well as two recent special elections in Nebraska and just this week in Minnesota, where Democratic congressional candidates actually did

better than Joe Biden's 2020 results by four to five points in each race. Dan, I was shocked, shocked to see that you, of all people, wrote a piece this week, again in the message box, wrote a piece this week, again in the message box, that was titled, Why Dems Could Win This Fall. What is with the optimism from you, of all people? What are you doing, Dan? What is wrong with you? I have to be honest that when my wife Hallie read it, she asked me if I was having a midlife crisis.

Wow. Look, it does not come natural. I don having a midlife crisis. Wow. Look, it does not come natural. I don't feel great about it. But look, I'm a data guy. I got to follow the data. And here's where it goes. Look, in all seriousness, like the hardest question to answer over the last year has been, can Democrats win?

Because all the data said up until a month or so ago that we were going to get our ass kicked, right? Inflation was high. Bidens approval ratings were low. The country was massively dissatisfied with what was happening. Republicans were fired up. Independents were angry. And Democrats were disillusioned.

And that's all changed starting on the day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. When you combine that with the January 6 hearings and the political conversation has begun to focus on the dangerous authoritarian extremism Republicans, and then you follow that up with Democrats delivering on their campaign promises, passing a guns bill, the Inflation Act, a climate bill, healthcare, doing those things. Like, there is no question the environment has shifted look this is not a prediction it's not an admonition against bedwetting it's not telling you what's going to happen it's saying that right now as we sit here today democrats have a legitimate fighting chance to not just keep but expand our majorities and that the ability to make that case

and even i will say delve into optimism is important because we win this election by just all we have to do is reconstitute the coalition that took the house the senate and the white house over the last four years and you cannot get people to sign up for a suicide mission so if we have a case to make that we can win we should and we can make that case credibly we should make it proudly. Josie, I think there was like a real question after the Dobbs ruling as to whether it would cause pro-choice voters to feel hopeless or to feel energized. What do you think and what should Democrat candidates do to make sure it's the latter, that they're energized? Yeah, I was worried because after a whole women's health in Texas, it didn't look like that was shifting a lot of public opinion. But look, Kansas, I think so goes Kansas, so goes the nation, isn't that the way? Yeah, yeah, no, I like that. I think, you know, women, there are more women in

this country than there are men. I'm just letting you guys know. And we vote more than any other demographic, right? Like, women show up to the polls. When you take... You know, when you take rights away from people, they fight back. And that's what I hope we're going to see at the polls. I mean, the majority of this country supports a woman's right to choose and I hope we'll see that in the polls yeah that's such a that's such a good point because usually the dynamic in the midterm is

there's a party in power it does a bunch of stuff and then there's a backlash to what the party in power does this is an interesting situation, a different situation, in that even though the Democrats are in power, the Supreme Court has now taken a bunch of action that is taking rights away from people, not just the Supreme Court, but also very Republican state legislatures all over the country. And so now, instead of just there being a backlash to the party in power,

there's also a backlash to the party that's not in power because they are running the Supreme Court and state legislatures all over the country, which is one reason that this could be different. And if we don't see it in the midterms, we will see it in the future because women are going, they're dying. This is going to change people's lives. It is going to radicalize people when they see what a world looks like without bodily autonomy, right? And so, you know, it's a long game, maybe. Hopefully, we see it in November. But even then, if we don't, I don't think that's the end of the fight. John, your point about the policy backlash is really important because where you normally see that is with independents. And when Obama lost the House in 2010, the Affordable Care Act and the stimulus bill were both underwater. When Trump lost the House in 2018, the tax bill were both underwater. When Trump lost the House in 2018, the tax bill was underwater, driven by independents. What is really interesting here is

that all the things that Biden has done, from the American Rescue Plan to the guns bill to the Inflation Reduction Act, are incredibly popular. It's very rare to have big pieces of legislation with 60% approval on all of his due. But the most interesting thing, I think, about the Kansas race that I think should really scare Republicans the most is that on the day of the Kansas referendum, 100,000 independents turned out to vote in there. And they could not vote in the primary. Kansas has a closed primary, so they cannot vote

for the Democratic or Republican nominees for governor or anything else. They turned out only to vote on this referendum. Love it is a testament to how wild the last 48 hours of news has been. The House also passed the Inflation Reduction Act today. We just got to that now. Inflation Reduction Act today. We can just get to that now. Joe Biden's about to sign it into law. There's also been a flurry of legislative activity and executive action over the last month or so.

What parts of that should Democrats emphasize on the trail and how is this the biggest climate bill in history or is it about bringing down costs for people? Are we leading with semiconductors in Finland joining NATO? Tommy got to see that. I got Tommy. Here's the thing.

Talk to me. The whole point of seeking to retain power is that the work isn't finished. Right. But in that case, the work is finished. You guys got that? Which part is finished? The NATO part? Finish. Oh, fuck.

Finland. Oh, no. I want everyone here to take a moment and appreciate some history. That's the hardest I've ever bombed at a Pod Save America show. Beg to differ. I've ever bombed at a Pod Save America show. Beg to differ. I've never felt so disconnected from you in five years of doing this show. I looked out into the crowd pleading with anyone. Did I miss something?

Can someone help me? And I got nothing. I think Dan hit the nail on the head. What did you say? Keep going. Go. Get me out. Tommy, the White House has been touting falling gas prices. And most recently, July's inflation reading, which the president pointed out at a press conference, was 0%.

Do you think that's a good idea? Should Democrats incorporate improving economic indicators in their messaging? What do you think? If you had asked me this, well, you guys remember in 2009 when we were in the White House, when the Recovery Act had passed, but things were very, very slowly improving. We were in this tortured position of not wanting to overstate the speed of the recovery because people might not feel it in their own lives and the press will fact check you and we just ended up in this rhetorical straitjacket and then we're like you couldn't really sell it but you wanted to but you couldn't do it and then trump came along

and every jobs number was the best jobs number in history and every day in the stock market was a record and in like he was pt barnum right it was like priced in. He never got called out when he was wrong. And I don't think Joe Biden can fully adopt that strategy, but I do think we can learn from it and understand that you do have to, I think, sell success and sell your accomplishments a little bit harder and a little bit more often. I think it has to be,

we did all these things that are going well, but the work isn't done. I'm still fighting for you. But I do think you should own the things that are going well and talk about them more often. And yes, the New York Times will undoubtedly write a piece about how it's risky to talk about falling gas prices because they could go up again. And the reason I know that is because they already wrote that fucking article and I almost lost my mind. But who cares? Blow past that. I do think the key thing is you can't sell that message by doing Rose Garden statements and going to the White House briefing room.

You have to be on TikTok and places where people who aren't news consumers actually are finding news. You've got to sell that message every single day on Pod Save America. It's also just sort of like, part of the reason it's so important is it's like, what do you want the story to be? Do you want the story to be that gas prices are high or that gas prices are dropping?

And I just think we have to like take credit. Own it. I think you have to at least show, I mean, I think what you said, Tommy, like you have to show that you are fighting to improve and to improve people's situation and to prove the economy and it's long hard work but you're making progress and by the way look what these assholes are going to do they're going to take us right back they

just voted against all of these uh measures which assholes those guys yeah yeah exactly i'm pointing to someone over there that we're gonna they're gonna lower cost guy what'd he do he seems cool yeah he was fine i think um so you wanna you to be a cheerleader. I think you want to sell optimism, especially because we need people to get involved in the midterms, which brings me to my plug for Vote Save America. Have we all signed up for midterm madness? We should see see more hands here all you have to do is you go to vote save america.com you go to midterm madness you pick a region and we'll give you midwest team west i know we're not in the west but midwest we'll give you plenty of stuff to do we'll give you uh volunteer opportunities calls to make text banking all kinds of stuff we need people's help

again like dan said if we reassemble the coalition that beat Trump in 2020, we will win the midterms in 2022. So sign up for Vote Save America. And speaking of activism, so at each of our live shows over the last couple of months, we've also been spotlighting local organizations that are making a difference in their communities. And tonight we want to recognize the Equity Alliance, which has been working since 2016 to help black Tennesseans take action in local government and challenge systemic inequities. Please welcome their co-founder, Tequila Johnson. Hello, what's up Nashville? Hey y'all.

How's everybody doing? Good. Man, y'all got me fired up. This is exciting. Yeah, yeah. All right. Yeah, so as he said, I don't want to assume that everyone in here knows who I am. I love you too, baby.

Yeah. That's right. I love you too, baby. Yeah. That's right. I'm Tequila Johnson. Yes, it's pronounced like the liquor, but a little bit stronger. A little bit more intoxicating, you know. And I'm co-founder and co-executive director of the Equity Alliance.

The Equity Alliance is a statewide organization. We build unapologetic black political and economic power. Somebody say power. All right. Now I need y'all to help me with this pitch. We're in the Ryman, AKA the church, and we in the South. So we're going to do this real black Baptist church style. Okay. I'm not going to do this by myself. I'm not going to save democracy by myself. And I'm not going to give this by myself. I'm not going to save democracy by myself, and I'm not going to give this pitch by myself, all right? Can y'all say amen? All right, all right. So yes, you guys know of all the work that we've done. If you don't,

please, please get engaged. One of the things that we're most known for is in 2018, we registered 100,000 black and brown people to vote. in 2018, we registered 100,000 black and brown people to vote. And in a state like Tennessee, when you do something like that, right? Tennessee, founding state of the KKK, the state that claimed the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. When you register, when you dare to register black and brown people to vote. Of course, our racist Republican legislators are going to come back with some crazy-ass bill trying to criminalize us for doing it, right? Right, right.

And for me, I was like, you know what? I don't care about that. I'm going to do it anyway. And we continued to do it. And that bill was shut down, but our trade target went across the state making people feel like he was trying to minimize that due to election integrity. I mean, it was horrible. You would hear tequila in his mouth every other day with something crazy about voter registration. I thought he hated tequila. That was until most recently he was arrested on a DUI

leaving Bonnaroo. Y'all heard about that, right? And from what, I don't know if this is true, don't quote me, but I heard the car reeked of tequila. So I was happy about that. And you know, people come from out of state and they see us and they see the work that we're doing. Yes, we are about meeting people where they are. We go, we believe in organizing from the trap house to the white house. That means wherever black people are, we are there, baby. We are teaching them. We are empowering them. We're giving them the self-autonomy they need, not to just go out and vote, but to become a part of the process, run for office, sit on boards and commissions, become organizers, get the word out about saving our democracy. Because we know

democracy is only going to work when we all participate. I need this room the next time Pod Save America comes to look just as black as Essence Festival. I need this room. I need a mariachi band on stage. I need rainbow flags hanging. I need this to reflect what we want our democracy to look like, right? And we can do that, Tennessee.

I know people say it's not going to happen in Tennessee, but yes, it can. Because what we're doing is we are breaking up their vote share by finding that small slither margin of people that they didn't think would turn out and getting them to turn out. We've done it, right? We've won so many local elections. Shout out to the Nashville Justice League in here. We've won local elections. Shout out to the Nashville Justice League in here. We've won state elections. And we can win congressional elections.

We can win a gubernatorial race. We can do it, but we can't do it sitting on our ass. We can't do it with your pockets tight. Look to your neighbor and say, open up your pockets. Because I'm about to ask y'all for some money but it's for a good cause I promise and you're going to benefit from it more than I do we know that the the burden of saving democracy is on the back of black women and I say yeah bet on black women but invest in black women too because I'm not going to do it by myself

my ancestors built this country by themselves I'm not going to save it by myself. Y'all going to help me. Yes, you white man, you're going to help me too, baby. You're going to help me too. We are going to do this as a team, Tennessee. We're going to do it together. It's going to take all of us, every last single one of us in this room, every last single person listening to my voice, it's going to take all of us. So what I want you guys to do before we go any further is take out your phone. You can take my picture. I know I look cute.

But what I want you to do is text the word 1, numeral 1, number 1, T-E-A to 44321. Again, text the number one, T-E-A to 44321. And when you do that, you can give to our mission. And on a serious note, we were founded by five black women, y'all. Our organization, yes, it is black founded, it is black led. But here's my call to action to you all. Number one, bet on black women. I could drop the mic, but I'm not going to do that. Bet on black women. We are the moral vote of this country. When we vote, we vote with everybody, he, she, them, they, everybody in mind. When black women go to the polls, we vote for everybody. You can trust our vote. Two, invest in black women. Don't just be betting on us. Put some money behind it. Don't show up on the day of the election, think you're going to get the goods and you ain't invested. That's all I'm saying. Third, elect more black women.

I don't give a damn what the polls say. I don't give a, don't tell me what the polls say. I don't give a damn what the polls say. If we don't start putting money behind black women candidates, when we finally do all the groundwork to get Tennessee ready to flip, what are people going to say? We need a moderate old white man because that's the only person that can raise money. Put money behind black women candidates. And lastly, believe in Tennessee, y'all. I believe in Tennessee. I believe in Tennessee. Believe in Tequila Johnson. Believe in Tequila Johnson! Amazing! Joining us now is the founder of the non-profit Stand Up Nashville and the Democratic candidate in the 7th Congressional District, please welcome Odessa! Odessa! Odessa! Odessa! Odessa! Odessa! Odessa! It seems like you have some fans here.

I know. What's up, good people? When you started running for this seat, your district was a Democratic district covering all of this pretty blue city. Tell us what happened. First of all, welcome to the city. Welcome to Nashville, man. I lived in this city for a while. Okay. What happened was that bullshit, you know? I think it's quintessential of what is happening all across this country, you know. And Nashville has been a predominantly blue and progressive-leaning city for over 100 years. And as Tequila said, the racist Republicans at the state legislature, in their last act to grab power,

decided they were going to split up Nashville into three districts. But what they didn't know is that we about that life here in Nashville and we fighters in this city. And that's exactly what we're going to do. So they created three districts that will be blue. So thanks to, as you put it, the Republicans bullshit. This is a pretty Republican district. You are a progressive, a proud progressive running a progressive platform. How do you Thanks to, as you put it, the Republicans' bullshit, this is a pretty Republican district. You are a progressive, a proud progressive running a progressive platform. How do you convince a bunch of people who voted for Donald Trump, who identify as conservatives, to support you in this progressive agenda? Because I come with receipts.

I'm a Nashvilleian born and raised. I got into doing this work because I was a public servant working for Metro Parks and Recreation close to 14 years. I was on the front line every day, front line of poverty. I watched seniors in the morning come together with other seniors and try to trade pills, you know, because they cannot afford to keep buying prescription over and over and over again. I high-fived teachers in the afternoon and ran one of the best after-school programs the city has ever seen. I know exactly what people's urgencies are and what it looks like. I was working two jobs, living check to check, trying to raise kids, got a master's degree, got all this debt, and I'm underwater? That don't have a red or a blue cap on it. What they got on it is stress.

And regardless of people in rural Tennessee, if they're in the suburbs, if they're right here in my hood, everybody's feeling that same type of stress and wants to get out from under it. So I've had a lot of success of going into rural Tennessee and talking to individuals. We got Republicans inviting us down. You know, what they want is someone who can address their needs and they know that I have a track record of doing it. And when you talk about policies like Medicare for All, or you as someone who has struggled in this economy and fighting for it, is that an area of connection with some of these very conservative rural voters who are suffering similar economic stress? Absolutely. I mean, it's funny when people call you the far left or progressive. For what?

Absolutely. I mean, it's funny when people call you the far left or progressive. For what? Because we don't want people to be homeless. We don't want people to starve. We want people to be paid the dignity that they are owed for the work that they do in this country. That is why I'm a progressive. I think progressive means moving forward. Elon ain't going to ever let me on one of them ships, so I might as well take care of Earth. you know, Elon ain't gonna ever let me on one of them ships so I might as well take care of Earth you know, so if elected in November you would make history in a whole bunch of ways

I'm pretty sure you would immediately be the best basketball player in Congress but you would also be the first black woman to represent Tennessee and the first openly gay black woman to be elected to Congress ever. I know. What has the reaction been to your candidacy here in Tennessee? I think it's been good.

As you can hear, this is the reaction I've been getting here and all over the country. And it's not if, it's when. You know, they cut up this district thinking that they were going to make it harder. But who climbs uphill better than people from the hood, activists, organizers, people who have been doing this fight against all odds? We're going to win this race. You know, as Tequila pointed out earlier, a lot of Democrats have written off large swaths of the South,

the National Democratic Party. The term Southern Democrat has often been another way of saying conservative Democrat or blue dog Democrat. In your mind, as you think about it, what is a Southern Democrat in 2022? How do we take, how do Democrats take back the South? It's me. It's everyone is here. It's the people who can hear my voice. It's the ones who are going to see my pretty face. We're going to put this on, you know, on YouTube next week. I'm serious.

You know, is Andrew Jackson and them racist Republicans Southern? Yes. But that's not the definition of Tennessee, and that's not the definition of the South. Everyone here in Nashville and Tennessee, we've been fighting our asses off to be the new model of what the South is going to be. We're the definition of the South. And everyone here is itching to do our part to save our democracy. And that's exactly what we're going to do. As you mentioned, your background is in organizing, right?

You've worked in the community. You've tried to help people. How did you see running for Congress as the natural extension of that? What made you decide to run? I think it was just the next step and me wanting to be a good community organizer. I became a community organizer because I was desperate to save my own life. You know, here I am in a community center and I'm on the front lines of poverty. I'm living check to check. I got friends telling me, am I putting away from my 529? I'm like community center and I'm on the front lines of poverty. I'm living check to check. I got friends telling me, am I putting away from my 529?

I'm like, what? I'm just trying to make rent. You know? In one of the fastest growing cities in America. I'm from a community that has a case study of gentrification. You know, in the community center, my job was to do Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, arts and crafts, make programs to make intergenerational connections with our seniors and our youth. And I was good at doing it.

I could have retired doing that job, you know. But what happened is, is if I stayed on that job for 20 years, I might top out at 58K. I can't buy a home in a neighborhood I grew up in at 58K. And that is not just me. That was happening to millions of other people. I had teachers in the elementary school that was connected to our community center that were texting me,

asking me to put food boxes to the side. People were coming in our community center that had work uniforms on. These people were social workers. These people did the sanitation and they were other park workers. The people who are the infrastructure of this city, the infrastructure of this country that are living check to check. That's what pushed me to be an organizer.

By the time I became an organizer, I was really good at it. When we passed that community benefits agreement in 2018, that's to make sure that the city was going to do right by the people who lived here and not just adhere to some developers. We made sure that the city had a voice in everyone in it and how we shape our city. Well, I got a chance to go around the country. Same issues that are happening around the country were happening right here in Nashville. When the pandemic hit, I was like, why is it a person who's working in the communities and the, activists fighting harder than anybody else for the CARES Act to get money directly in the hands of the people who need it? And when it came around November, I was like, the issue that we have is that we do all the work. We deal with all these dominant narratives for the things that we actually

need to move this country forward, but we don't sit in the positions of leadership to get it across the finish line. We need people who have shared experiences of what the millions of us are going through in the positions of leadership. So it's very clear that you have a very fired up following here in the audience tonight. It's very clear that you have a very fired up following here in the audience tonight. But, as you can see, but for the folks who are listening at home, before we let you go, tell us how they can help your campaign. How can they volunteer to make sure that you are the next member of Congress from this district? Absolutely. For everyone that's out here in this crowd, thank you for coming. To everyone who can hear my voice and everyone that can see my pretty ass face.

Follow us on social media. Odessa Kelly TN. Again, that's Odessa Kelly TN on IG and Twitter. Odessa for Congress on Facebook. And go to Odessaforcongress.com. That is our website. This campaign is not about just getting me an office. It's about you having the ability

to shape this country in the way that you see it. Don't let that small few of hateful people be the ones that define this country. It's mine and I'm going to fight for it, damn it. All right. Everyone, please give it up for Adesikele. Adesikele, thank you so much. When we come back, Vice President Al Gore.

Joining us now, one of the world's most important climate activists, winner of the Nobel Prize, and the 45th Vice President of the United States, Tennessee's own Al Gore. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for being here. Well, thank you for inviting me and welcome, as Odessa said, welcome to Nashville. Welcome to the Grand Ole Opry. I'm glad you came here. It is good to be back here. So you moved back to Tennessee after you left the White House.

Involuntarily, yes. Where in this state have you hidden the classified documents you took with you? Is it in an office? Is it a home? Is it buried somewhere? Oh my God. Well, I came out here determined not to commit news about the search of Mar-a-Lago. So I didn't bring any classified documents with me. What did you, what, what's your reaction been? I wouldn't ask any, what's your general reaction been about the last 48 hours about the news of the Mar-a-Lago, we won't call it a raid, the visit by the FBI to Mar-a-Lago? Well, I have to say I have been inured to the regular astonishment associated with the misbehavior of the former chief executive officer of the executive branch.

But if you ask me about my reaction to the news of the last 48 hours, my reaction to the last 48 hours is we passed the most historic climate legislation in the history of the United States. Nice. Come on. That was good. That was good. That was good.

He didn't fall in our cable news trap trying to make news of the day. Vice President Al Gore says no to us. We were just talking backstage. It is unfortunate that the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which is the biggest climate bill in the history of the United States, was relegated to like... And let me just add, excuse me, in the history of any nation in the world. Okay? Now, don't get me wrong. It has a few warts on it. Acceptable compromises in a representative democracy in order to get a majority. It's okay. You look at it through the lens of carbon pollution reductions. It is absolutely amazing. Full credit to Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin and 12 to 15 Democratic senators who have labored hard to make this stay at the top of the priority list. You go back and look at the Build Back Better bill at the beginning of President Biden's term, and you follow all the different provisions of it, the one provision that had the smallest

haircut, the one part of that original bill that was reduced the least was the climate package. And the reason for that is there are now a whole lot of really dedicated, committed, passionate, educated, well-informed Democratic senators who made sure that it stayed that way. And they've kept it in there. So, like, and all credit to Joe Biden. And Joe Biden too, yes. So I'm a huge fan of this bill. But like, you know, I've seen, you talked about some of the warts on the bill. I've seen some of this criticism too.

And I'm wondering what you think, because basically the argument is, you know, last year, the International Energy Agency said, you know, if we're going to try to be net zero by 2050, we can't have any new oil or gas production. Obviously this bill allows for some in order to get Manchin on board. And basically, the argument is, but it's still allowing some oil and gas production. And if the oil and gas companies aren't really mad about this bill, then it must not be that great.

What do you think about that? What do you say to that? Well, first of all, I really like and respect Joe Manchin. There have been times where that feeling has been challenged. I don't know what you're talking about. We've always loved Joe Manchin. We've always loved Joe Manchin here at Posse America. And I don't appreciate the hissing for a hero. Look,

in order for him to get on board and make his transformative decision to move this forward, he had to have something, okay? He had to have something. And what these provisions that were given to him, again, if you look at it through the lens of how much extra carbon is going to be involved there, not that much. New leases in the Gulf of Mexico, possibly on some public lands. A small percentage of these leases are actually developed. And by the way, the supercharging of wind and solar and battery

storage and EVs, it is going to really discourage the willingness of investors to finance the development of more oil and gas. I promise you that. You know, one of the statistics that I think has been really underreported in this whole climate story is last year worldwide, if you look at all of the new electricity generation that was developed in every country, what percentage of it was solar and wind? We'll have the quiz later. We know the answer, but you should tell them. 90%. Wow. 90%. And the International Energy Agency says in the rest of this decade, it's going to be

95%. They're losing their markets, the fossil fuel industry, for electricity generation. They're losing their markets for transportation. A lot of countries are now seeing electric vehicles really rise quickly. The third market they have is petrochemicals, which is 75% plastics. The fossil fuel companies are telling Wall Street they're going to make up their lost profits by a massive expansion of plastics. How's that working out for the rest of us? Not well. And there are now bans being considered in countries and regional governments and cities around the world. I think that they are on the way out. I think we are crossing a threshold. Operating an electric vehicle, you can do it for the equivalent of $1

a gallon gasoline. And there's been a chicken and egg deal with the investors in charging stations reluctant to put money up because there are not enough electric vehicles and people reluctant to buy electric vehicles because they're worried about range, anxiety, and charging stations. Well, this finances a lot of chickens and eggs. They're all going to get there. We're going to make this. In response to the passage of these climate provisions, you said we're not going back, like this is an historic change

in how we're responding to this. You know, you've been in this fight for decades. You wrote Earth in the Balance, what, 30 years ago. How does it feel to watch this debate move from the edges of our politics kind of more towards the center. And as part of that, does Earth in the Balance hold up, or is it riddled with 90s slang? Riddled with what?

Slang. Does it say that, like, climate change, don't even go there? Wind energy is fat. That kind of thing. Or does it hold up well? What do you think? Oh, my goodness. You know, you've done this show so many times,

you've really gotten artful at it. That's one way to say it. People say I'm the Terry Gross of this. will say I'm the Terry Gross of this. I never really thought that it would take as long as it has. I organized and chaired the first congressional hearing on the climate crisis 41 years ago. And I thought naively that laying out the facts, as the scientists did at that hearing, would really seal the deal. It didn't work out that way. And to be serious for a moment, the fact that 80 to 81 percent of all the energy used in the global economy still comes from fossil fuels should have been a clue that this was going to be pretty hard to make this transition.

But we are now making it. Earth in the Balance had one of the radical proposals that I was attacked on back then was we need to completely phase out the internal combustion engine within 25 years and replace it with electric vehicles. We're finally getting to the point where we can do that. Well, let me ask you, you know, climate policy has been for a long time carrots and sticks, right? Incentives to produce clean energy and penalties for fossil fuel production.

This bill is obviously all carrots, mostly carrots. Do you think we can get to net zero, where we need to be, with just all incentives and without really trying to penalize oil and gas and fossil fuel production? Do you think the market is at such a place that we can get there through incentives only? Well, first of all, you caught yourself and acknowledged there are some sticks in this legislation, particularly on methane. There is a fee, there's a methane tax that really gives a powerful incentive to cut down on methane emissions. But it's true that the heavy lifting in this legislation is with so-called carrots, and

the tax credits are quite substantial. Moreover, in a new innovation for Washington, D.C., they are 10-year tax credits. The tax credits in the past have been one, two, three years, and investors say, you know, I don't know if that's going to last or not. Ten years is long enough for significant investments to really transform the industrial base. So, yes, I think we can get there, but we still have a lot to do. The facts are we have all of the technologies we need right now with proven deployment methods to cut emissions by 50% in the next eight years. That's the way station goal toward true net zero in 2050. Some of the technologies that we need for the second 50% are in development now, and we have a line of sight to where they will be able to be deployed in time.

But we need to invest in more R&D. We need to use the EPA rulemaking authority. The Supreme Court decision did not take away all of the EPA's authority. We need to limit those emissions. We need more standards. We need the climate core that Ed Markey has been pushing. There are a lot of other measures that we need to circle back to and add to the momentum from this legislation.

Do you think so, you know, the estimates vary, but let's say optimistically, and there's reason to believe that the bills, the models around the bill don't account for a lot of really positive things that can happen. Let's say that what comes out of this is we can get to a 40% reduction based on 2005 levels. We want to get to 50%. Do you believe that without congressional action, we can do it through just executive action by the Biden administration? Do you think you can get that last 10%? action by the Biden administration, do you think you can get that last 10%? Well, the UN goal, really the marker is 45% by 2030. The modeling shows that this will produce somewhere between 38% and 42% reductions. We won't know until we get some practice with it. But I really do believe that as we get this big wheel turning, the momentum is going to

be so powerful that it's going to lead to further cost reductions for renewable electricity, for electric vehicles, for battery storage, for building efficiency, for regenerative agriculture, sustainable forestry. Now, we're only 15% of the world emissions, so I have a training of 6,700 new climate activists in Brazil next week. And we're really turning on the heat because they've got an election between Bolsonaro, who is called the Trump of the tropics, and Lula, who is coming back, and he is a pro-climate. He will be a pro-climate president.

We just had a climate election in Australia. The Climate Reality Project, which is the NGO where I do these trainings, our third largest chapter is in Australia. We just flipped the government along with many, many others, and they have just passed in one house the biggest climate legislation in Australia's history. Their second house of parliament still has to act, but they're expected to pass it.

It's in parallel to what we're doing for a 43% reduction in the next eight years in their emissions. So if we can get Brazil, Australia, and the U.S. and keep moving, and if Europe gets the decision right on how to balance their energy security needs after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and balance that with continued sharp reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, I think we're really off to the races. President Xi Jinping of China just announced he is now going to meet with President Biden. They ended their military exercises after the fact that they were so upset about Nancy Pelosi's trip to Taiwan. And I think they're going to end their boycott of

the climate talks with the U.S. pretty soon also. So, you know, you mentioned Brazil. We're in this struggle to kind of fight for democratic values as we see this sort of authoritarian trend around the world. Obviously, you made a decision in 2000 to put the country first and said, I, for the sake of the legitimacy of democracy, I'm going to accept the result. We've seen another version, we've seen sort of another take on that from Trump. You won the election. Trump lost the election and he refused to relent. The serious question is, how do you have a democracy

when only one side respects the values of these institutions, the precepts of this country? And when you watch someone like Trump run roughshod over the rule of law, how do you respond to that? How do you prove that a game is worth playing when only one side wants to play by the rules? Well, you know the old saying, you win some and you lose some, and then there's that little-known third category. Uh-huh. That used to work better than it did this evening. Hey, listen, I had some great material about Finland joining NATO earlier that absolutely cratered. It's them, it's not you. It's a good line.

It's a good line. The way you made that play on the word Finnish. Thank you. I didn't know you could hear that. The Vice President got it. He's the only one. He's the only one here. He got it. Why didn't you get it? No one else got it. He got it. I got it right away.

Well, look, we have had a lot of changes in the reality being experienced by American voters. And the rise of hyper-inequality has really contributed to a lot of anger. The perceived threats to the previous dominance of a demographic group that was always dominant, that has also contributed to the anger and the grievance that the previous president exploited. And then there has been an underreported impact from the radical shift in media. And we went from print to broadcast and then to internet and to social media. And, you know, I think we've underreacted to the significance of these algorithms that prioritize anger and outrage and grievance and division. In 2018, when Facebook

changed its algorithm, algorithm 18 did more harm than COVID-19, in my opinion. And people have weaponized a new form of AI, not artificial intelligence, but artificial insanity, where they actually try to convince people of objectively provable, insane theories about how the world is operating. We've seen it in the wake of the FBI raid in Mar-a-Lago, that the FBI has planted stuff. I mean, you know, it's really crazy. And some of these wild, insane theories that they build constituencies around have really hurt our democracy quite a bit. And of course, the big lie that Trump didn't lose the election is the one that is motivating this current set of outrages. You've graciously agreed to stick around for a game. Thank you for doing that. It was against my better judgment. I have no idea what's involved.

That's how we like it. Before we do, I'm going to ask you the stupidest question I've ever asked in the history of this show. We're just saying something. That's a high bar to clear. Look at John's face. He stepped into it. What do you call it when sophisticated AI uses machine learning to figure out what kind of music you want to hear, and it turns out what you want to hear are beats by the nation's 45th vice president? What?

I think it's obvious. It turns out that what you want to hear are beats? It's the Al Gore rhythm algorithm. Oh. Oh my god. He was all day. We were hearing about this. He was very excited. I haven't heard that since arithmetic class.

I mean, that was... It's the algorithm algorithm. Ah! Mr. Vice President, thank you for enduring this. You graciously agreed to stick for a game, and so Josie and Dan and Tommy, come back out here. You stay right there. Tommy's going to sit over here. I'm going to move over here.

Sorry about that joke. Hi. Excuse me for not getting up. We tried to talk about it. The 1990s. There they are, sandwiched between the start of the World Wide Web and the end of history.

And standing astride the 1990s like a colossus is Vice President Al Gore. From a successful campaign to oust a wartime president to the couple hundred elderly Jewish Floridians who bid farewell to the 90s by accidentally voting for Pat Buchanan in 2000 and thereby personally ushering in the end of Roe v. Wade. Because I thought that might be what you said, but think about it. It goes, butterfly ballots, butter emails, but my rights. It's so fun to remember this.

The point is, the 1990s was a decade in which the dangers of climate change came into focus. And as that happened, we saw a coordinated effort by the fossil fuel industry and Republican allies to politicize and confuse the issue, even as Vice President Al Gore began to try to draw the nation's attention to it. And in the 30 years between your ringing the alarm and the historic passage of a climate bill this week, we've seen a relentless campaign of misinformation. But can you tell the difference between denialists who had beepers in car phones and denialists who had truth social accounts? It's time for a game we call Only 90s Kids Will Remember, a.k.a. Kyoto

Recall. Like Kyoto Protocol. Thank you. Mr. Vice President, there's Kyoto Protocol, you remember. Oh, yeah. They weren't binding, but they were still pissed. But Total Recall, you remember Total Recall with Arnold Schwarzenegger?

You know, that was like the Finnish joke. I got it more easily. Kyoto, Kyoto. Did you all get a Kyoto Recall? Yeah, yeah. You got it. Sorry. I'll be back.

You found your kryptonite, and I did not expect this. We're taking this on the road. Alright, here's how it works. We have two teams. One team will be Al Gore and Dan Pfeiffer. And they will face off against Josie, Tommy, and John.

There we go. I will read you quotes. You have to tell us, is this from the 1990s or the 2020s? And if you can name the speaker, you get a bonus point. Oh, wow. But that's going to be tricky. All right, are we ready? Yes, let's do it.

The first question goes to Dan and the vice president. Here's the quote. You also suggest taxes on gasoline, taxes on utilities, taxes on carbon, taxes on timber. There's a whole host of taxes, and I don't believe raising taxes is the way to solve our environmental problems. Was that the 1990s or the 2020s? What do you think, sir? I think that's got to be the 1990s. All right. Well, definitely not going to contradict the guy who won the popular vote. Let me ask you this. Do you know who said it?

Do I know who said it? I'll give you a hint. Newt Gingrich? I'll give you the hint is it was said to you personally. And let me... Okay. Would it have been Dan Coyle? You got it.

Yeah! That's good. That's good. It was in the vice presidential debate of 1992. Nice. Wow. That was cool. That was impressive. All right, back to the team of Josie, Tom, and John. Quote, we've already warmed one degree Celsius, and you know what's happened since then? Let me tell you

we've had more food grown. People die in the cold. This earth is warming and carbon is actually healthy for us. It keeps people alive. Was that the 90s or the 2020s? It feels like a 2020s.

Yeah, it feels stupid enough to be 2020. Yeah, it feels, I think it's 2020. 2020. You got it. Wanna guess who it was? I don't, I mean that. MTG? MTG?

You got it, you got it. MTG! Margaery Taylor Greene. Max and Olivia. Margaery Taylor Greene. Oh. For one second, I hoped you didn't know who that was. I was so happy for everyone.

I mean, seriously. She's serious. She's a fascist that does CrossFit. All right. Over to the vice president and Dan Pfeiffer. All 90s kids will remember. Quote, it does make you wonder sometimes, doesn't it, how theoretical statisticians in the middle of the largest snowstorm in New York City could stand there and say, I don't care what it's doing,

it's going to get very hot very soon. That's got to be the 90s. That was the 90s. And that's got to be the 90s. That was the 90s. And that's got to be Gingrich. That was Gingrich. Wow! Come on. Come on.

Come on. Absolutely crushing. That is impressive. Over to the B team. Our budget does not operate on the assumption that global warming is a proven phenomenon. In fact, it assumes at best to be unproven and at worst to be

liberal claptrap. Trendy, but soon to go out of style. Has to be 90s, right? It sounds 90s to me. Claptrap? No one's saying claptrap right now. And trendy? 90s. me. Claptrap? Claptrap? No one's saying Claptrap right now. Get that in there. And trendy? 90s. Correct.

Okay. It was California representative Dana Rohrabacher in 95. Next up for Dan, I want to call you Al in this context. In this context. You know, if you want to be proper, it's your adequacy, but you can... Just for the purpose of the game, can I do Al? It's okay.

I can't do it. Dan and Al. Ooh, that was tough. I did it. I did it. Quote, it's well past time to start prioritizing the border crisis. Prioritize the border. Stop creating woke climate programs and enforce the law.

Well, obviously, that's the 2020s. That's definitely the 2020s. Yes, it was. But you know who said it? Hmm. Do you have a guess? Hmm? Ted Cruz, maybe?

Yeah, let's go with that. It was close. Close. It's Josh Yeah, let's go with that. Close. Close. Josh Hawley. That was my guess. Josh Hawley. I forget the steal. Over to Tom, Josie, and John.

First, the world isn't warming. Second, even if it were, oil and gas wouldn't be the cause. Third, no one can predict the likely future temperature rise. That's got like a very Mark Morrison kind of 90s feel to it, mouth feel. Want to do 90s? 90s. That is correct. It was Exxon CEO Lee Raymond in 1997.

Oh, yeah, never would have got that. All right. Final question to Dan and Al. Can we just pause for one second before that as someone who moved to the city 20 years ago to work for the vice president not Al this is deeply uncomfortable

and I want to apologize to you for what is happening right now you'll get over it, man. Back to Al and Dan. All right. A-Money, this one's for you. I'm so sorry. Since we don't control the air, our good air decided to float over to China's bad air.

So when China gets our good air, their bad air, it has to move. So it moves over to our good air. Then now we've got to clean that back up. End of quote. Wow. I don't think we've had anybody that crazy since the 2020s.

That is Herschel Walker from like last month. Okay. Okay. Okay. A twofer. Good for you, man. Nice. All right.

That's a double check, by the way. Double check. That's two points. Bing. Do it again. Double check. That's two points. Bing. Do it again. All right.

Who's hosting now, buddy? Macarena. Well, that... Well, that sound can only mean one thing. It's time for what we're calling the Y2K lightning round. Here's how it works. I'm going to read you a quote. You tell us whether it was about climate change

or how all the computers were going to explode in the turnover from 1999 to 2000. Everybody ready? Sure. Quote. Anybody can call out the answer. I came here today because I wanted to stress the urgency of the challenge to people who are not in this room. When I give a speech like

this, I am typically preaching to the choir, but hopefully this sermon is heard beyond the four walls of this room because clearly we must set forth what the government is doing, but also what all of us have yet to do to meet this challenge together. There is a pressing need for action. together, there is a pressing need for action. Was that a quote about climate change? Or Y2K? Y2K. That was Y2K, and it was probably me. It was President Bill Clinton. Okay. But it was Y2K. I'm going to give everybody the point.

Everybody gets a point. Oh my gosh, so many times Clinton comes in there and, you know, I just... Next quote. I'm told by some experts that the things that he fears most might not be all that dangerous, according to some scientists. That the thing we fear most might not be all that dangerous. Climate change? Yeah, it was climate change. It was climate change. That was Ross Perot's running mate, James Stockdale,

to Vice President Al Gore. Admiral Stockdale. A great man, but he unfortunately opened in the debate by saying, why am I here? That did not land well. He really was a great man. You have to answer that question for yourself. In all forms of life,

I think. Yeah. Final quote. When people say to me, is the world going to come to an end? I say, I don't know. You know, I feel for you. Because the last time you came on this show, we were in a little room. We had a very civilized conversation about climate change.

Hotel in L.A. Yeah, it was just a nice time. And then this happened to me. Now we're in the grand old opera. Man, you guys have really come a long way. We've come a long way. But I'm going to need an answer. Was that about climate change or Y2K?

That must be about Y2K. That is correct. All right. Thank you. All right. Well, I've tabulated the points. John, Josie, Tommy, you're a little bit behind. Vice President Al Gore, Dan Pfeiffer, you are technically ahead.

Unfortunately, unfortunately, you still lost. And it doesn't make any sense. You know, I have been through this before. I don't like this script. All right, you know what? You technically won,

but you still lost. Is that what I heard you say? I think that's technically the rules. I don't make the rules. All right, you know what? Vice President Al Gore, you're the winner of the game. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for doing this. That's our

show for tonight. Thank you to Vice President Al Gore. Thank you to Odessa Kelly. Thank you to much for doing this. That's our show for tonight. Thank you to Vice President Al Gore. Thank you to Odessa Kelly. Thank you to Tequila Johnson. Thank you to Josie W. Rice. Go to votesaveamerica.com, sign up for the midterms. Thank you, Nashville. Hot Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.

Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producers are Olivia Martinez and Haley Muse. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineer the show. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerrard,

Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, 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.