Pod Save America - “Ratings to die for.”

Episode Date: March 30, 2020

The United States becomes the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump blames everyone but himself for the bungled response, and public health officials persuade him to abandon his Easter deadline. Then PBS's Yamiche Alcindor talks to Jon L. about covering the Trump White House during this crisis.Crooked has started a Coronavirus Relief Fund for organizations supporting food banks, health care workers, restaurant workers, seniors, kids who depend on school lunches, and others in need. Donate: crooked.com/coronavirus

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's pod, Lovett talks with PBS White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor. Before that, we'll talk about America's new position as the epicenter of this global pandemic, Trump's impulse to make it all about Trump, and how all of this might reframe what we talk about in the 2020 election. But first, Lovett, how was the show this week? Another big crowd?

The applause in my mind was deafening, John. No, we did our first episode from the couch. Stephen Merchant, Kara Swisher, Beck Bennett, all were incredibly funny, incredibly smart guests. We spoke to some listeners about their weird new hobbies. And all in all, I'm going to say love it or leave it, yet another huge success. Fantastic. Fantastic. A few other quick notes. It's hard to keep up with all the news out there. So if you want a quick summary at the end of the day that comes with a much-needed dose of humor and a little hope, have we got the newsletter for you.

Sign up for Whataday at crooked.com slash newsletter. Guys, I think the newsletter has never been better. What do you think? Absolutely. You will love What A Day. And if you haven't signed up yet, do it.

There is always something that makes me laugh out loud, which is increasingly difficult these days. Yes, exactly. Well put. Finally, while you're sheltering in place with nothing to do,

go ahead and fill out your census. Why is that so important to do other than the fact that it's required by law? Because the census determines how many members of Congress, electoral votes, and resources your community gets for the next 10 years. It's a very big deal. So take five minutes and fill it out. Remind your friends. My2020census.gov. That's My2020census.gov. That's my2020census.gov.

Okay, here's where we are today. The United States has passed a grim milestone. We now have more confirmed cases of coronavirus than any other country on earth, and we have almost lost more Americans to the pandemic than we did on 9-11. On Sunday, Dr. Fauci estimated that the U.S. could see millions of infections and anywhere between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths. Hours later, Donald Trump, who hadn't offered a word of condolences all weekend about the thousands of Americans who've died, instead tweeted a long quote about the popularity of his daily press briefings that began, quote, President Trump is a ratings hit. So we're going to get to Trump's sociopathic narcissism in a bit. But I want to start with the question of why we've already become the country with the most confirmed cases of coronavirus.

Tommy? Oof, grim milestone. So, you know, you use the word confirm cases in there, which is probably an important caveat. I bet we don't actually have anything close to a good handle on the real number of people who have had the virus in the US. We probably don't have accurate figures out of China. I'm worried about what happens when this rages through India. So like a few caveats. But, you know, like the reason for why we are where we are is a couple of things. I mean, with the response, the original sin was Trump downplaying the virus or at least not taking it seriously for months. Our failure to ramp up testing, which we'll get back to. And then there's the spread.

And, you know, the reason we now have the most cases is because the virus got to the U.S. way earlier than anyone realized. I mean, there were clearly pockets in Washington State, LA, New York, New Orleans now is seeing community spread. But no one knew for sure because we couldn't test. We didn't know how how widely that spread was. And that led to slow, inconsistent government responses. Right. I mean, like the best case was the Bay Area, which issued a shelter in place on March 17th. The entire state of California follows suit pretty closely after. But New York, for example, didn't move some more restrictive steps until the 24th. So there was already that lag there. And on top of that, the federal

government response was all over the place. Trump went through as many phases of denial. He delayed the process at every stage. He modeled bad behavior. He wouldn't use the powers of the presidency to prepare us or force social distancing. Like in February, Mike Pompeo was tweeting about the State Department facilitating the transfer of masks and protective suits and gloves to China. I think it was 18 tons. So that's a good and decent thing to do, but maybe not the step you'd see the White House taking if we had an actual handle on the problem. So now we've tested, I think, 850,000 people as of this recording. In fairness, that large number of tests is probably why we now have a larger number of confirmed cases, but it's still too

late to prevent the spread. And if we tested 850,000 people in February, maybe officials in Louisiana would have known to shut down Mardi Gras. But instead, people partied for weeks. And now people look at that as the reason why Louisiana has the biggest explosion of cases, maybe anywhere. So it's a very horrible series of missteps and missed opportunities. Love it. You got anything to add there? Well, you know, we can talk about the Times piece that looked at what happened in this last month when they weren't ramping up testing. I think what's striking in reading that piece is what Trump was doing publicly to fail to demonstrate leadership was also going on behind the scenes. Yeah.

They really didn't take it seriously enough. And, you know, the piece is methodical, right? It goes behind the scenes. They really didn't take it seriously enough. And, you know, the piece is methodical, right? It goes through the CDC. It talks about the FDA's failures. It talks about the failure of the White House to take this seriously enough, including the fact that Mick Mulvaney was ostensibly the person at the White House who was point on this as he was being pushed out. But when you look at all these different variables,

and we should talk about them, they're important. The hardest thing to talk about is what isn't in the piece, which is just genuine presidential leadership. That when there was this delay on testing, there's nobody at the White House saying, where are we on this? Where are we on this? This is important. When the FDA is dragging their heels about letting private companies get involved, one really stark example is South Korea convened 20 companies to help them get ahead on testing. please change these restrictive rules about getting our tests approved. We want to get you tests. And right now we can't do it. But because no one was taking this seriously, nobody was really in charge. Things could languish for days and days and days. I mean, we know this from all kinds of government responses. It's really important that there's someone who says, where are we on this? I want this done today. I want this done by the end of the week, because a group of people where no one's in charge can talk and talk and talk for weeks.

And it seems like that's exactly what happened. Yeah, I mean, the Times piece, which is, you know, called the last month, just, you know, very accurate, just lays out a pretty simple timeline. And, you know, there's a couple of dates that we know from other reporting as well. Like they have our CDC director on the phone with his Chinese counterpart on New Year's. And they said in one conversation, the Chinese counterpart, the head of the CDC in China, actually burst into tears telling our CDC director how bad this was. That's New Year's. January 20th is when the first case is detected in Washington state. February 5th, Alex Azar, the secretary of health and human services is pleading with the white house to buy $2 billion

worth of masks and other supplies. Trump cuts the request by 75%. February 7th is what Tommy mentioned earlier, a tweet from our own Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, talking about how we're sending 18 tons of medical supplies to China to help them deal with the crisis. This was after our own Health and Human Services Secretary said,

we need to buy more equipment. And then on February 10th, Trump proposed cutting the CDC's budget. Those are just a few of the dates and a few of the things that happened in this last month while government officials in the United States knew exactly what was going on, knew what was happening in China, knew what the threat was, and fell behind in testing. And this last month cost, I don't know, like how many lives is it going to cost? How many

more cases are we going to have because of this? It's almost immeasurable at this point. What I learned at the White House, especially on the NSC, is that leadership isn't making a big decision and that's the end of it. It is constant management. The apparatus of government, it can be slow and bureaucratic and cumbersome. And that New York Times report made me think that in a lot of these jobs, Trump had the wrong person in place, even in places like, you know, the CDC, FDA, other more technocratic institutions. But it's a bigger conversation. But, you know, like it doesn't sound like he was going to the coronavirus task force meetings. He wasn't saying, why aren't we testing? Get us up to speed right now and like pushing the government to act. And it was just it's a leadership failure that is catastrophic.

And we will be trying to deal with until, I don't know, two years from now when we have a vaccine and everyone's vaccinated. Yeah, I mean, so, you know, they really fucked up the preparation for this. A lot of the more popular ads and videos over the last few weeks have been about this, about Trump's failure to prepare. How much do you think it's important to focus on what he fucked up then versus what he's fucking up now as we continue to sort of hold him accountable for the administration's failures? Lovett, what do you think? I think it's a really hard question, and I think we'll talk about it more when we talk about how this is affecting the politics of this moment. I do think you start to see Nancy Pelosi

say things that are kind of, I don't know, from the from the playbook of we need to do investigations. What did the president know and when did he know it language? And I think that that's really important. You know, and I do think sometimes you see like Bill de Blasio, who is taking correctly heat for his, you know, the critical loss of days in terms of New York's response said, well, we shouldn't be looking backwards. And I understand why a politician would say that. I also understand why people of good faith might say, hold on a second, we shouldn't be spending our time talking about what happened before because we have an emergency right now. But it isn't a choice because Trump is still fucking up right now. He is still actively the same twisted motivations, lack of discipline,

narcissism, ego, ignorance that led to that last month are guiding the decision making right now. So that the heat we bring on the bad process and bad response from January, February and March is going to make sure that these people are accountable in what they're doing right now. So, you know, we just have to talk about it because we need the White House and we need the people managing this response to know that our eyes are on their continuing sort of misadventures. Tommy, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, look, you can't understand why things are so bad now unless you understand the record that got us here and the series of catastrophic failures. And I think, you know, to love its point, like prioritizing the stock market reaction in that might come from taking drastic steps led to everything getting worse.

That mentality is still sort of coursing through this administration. We'll get to them walking back this absurd Easter reopening time frame that Trump had prioritized. But the key is like the only time he walks back bad decisions is in the face of bad press and criticism. And clearly he got a ton of blowback on this Easter deadline. I think that's why pressure on him is so important. I mean, we have to tell the story of his record for the election in November. But then on top of that, we need to be course correcting him every day and making clear

to the American people that they should not trust his response. They shouldn't believe what he's saying at these, you know, massively watched White House briefings every day. It's pure propaganda. And we need to rebut those lies or people will believe them because his political brilliance is repetition. He will say this was unprecedented. No one saw it coming. The response has been great. And if you hear that enough times, you will believe him. And we have to say the truth. So let's talk about what Trump is fucking up now, which is making sure there's enough masks, gloves and protective gear for health care workers and enough ventilators to keep sick people alive. So David Sanger and Maggie Haberman at The New York Times have a great story about the two big reasons why the self-proclaimed manufacturing president failed at getting enough ventilators made. One, because he ignored all the warnings that it was a problem in the first place. And two, because he and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner,

are terrible, terrible fucking managers of the process. Tommy, what do you think about that story? I mean, look, it was devastating, but it was also totally predictable. I mean, this is why you need competent technocrats, right? I mean, what I loved about working at the White House on the National Security Council was like when the Fukushima nuclear disaster happens, the next day you have the foremost authorities in the government, in the situation room, talking through what happened, how bad it's going to get, what needs to be done. During the BP oil spill, Stephen Chu, a Nobel laureate secretary of energy, compare that to fucking Rick Perry or whoever's in there now, was part of the team trying to figure out how to fix it. Like when it came to surge production of ventilators, Trump sent in Jared Kushner.

And now he's apparently asking Peter Navarro, like his anti-trade zealot guy to oversee the Defense Production Act work. And that is a recipe for disaster because like you can't just invoke the Defense Production Act and that's a panacea. You don't flip the switch and say, aha, now we have ventilators. It's management of the process. And so like, yeah, it sounds simple and great to say GM made tanks in World War II. They can make ventilators now. But you need someone who understands insanely complex supply chains, right? And instead you have Trump tweeting that he wants GM to build ventilators at a Lordstown, Ohio facility that they had closed and sold and that didn't have the facilities necessary to make masks to begin with. So again, like we need technocrats, we need scientists, we need an

effort that is coordinated by the White House so that all the well-meaning people who are trying to solve the problem out in industry aren't coming at odds with each other and buying the same supplies, jacking up the prices, slowing everything down. And so the frame of the story is brutal and accurate. It also unravels the narrative that he was ever a real manufacturing or building guy, or he was a prick who inherited money from his dad, used government loans, and stiffed contractors. That's how you turn a profit, but that's not going to make a bunch of ventilators. He needs people like Craig Fugate running the show. He ran FEMA for Bush and then Obama. And the thing Obama liked about him was the dude could rattle off how many pallets of water had to be pre-positioned in the Miami area when a hurricane was coming. Stuff like that,

that only people who are immersed in this understand. Yeah, I love it. It sort of reminded me that like the last couple of years, we've sort of had this running debate, you know, about incompetence versus malevolence. And is Trump this like dangerous authoritarian who has a plan and, you know, strategy and he's, or is the administration filled with just a bunch of fucking incompetent buffoons? And this story, and basically most of the response thus far, makes me think the latter,

that he's just a really bad manager who doesn't want to pay attention to anything other than what helps him politically in the short term. In the short term. In the short term. Yeah, it has to be in the short term because he's not helping himself politically in the short term. In the short term, in the short term. Yeah, in the short. Yeah, it has to be in the short term because he's not helping himself politically in the long term.

No, he isn't right. You know, Donald Trump is, as always, you know, is his own worst enemy. And that has been politically advantageous to those looking to remove him or at least fight him. And, you know, had he mounted a significant response and taken it seriously, it would be a politically saving thing for him, right? One of the only things that it could have changed the underlying political dynamics that we're in. Yeah, I mean, they go hand in hand. You know, I was thinking about Katrina. I remember during Katrina, one of the messages that the Bush White House was putting out

repeatedly was we didn't have enough authority to address this. out repeatedly was we didn't have enough authority to address this. And so the connection between malevolence and incompetence is you make up for a bad response by claiming you weren't incompetent, you didn't lack imagination, you didn't lack foresight, you didn't like the right people, you didn't like discipline, you just didn't have the tools you needed. So give me more power. And we've seen consistently the Trump administration tried to do that. The other piece of this too is, you know, Tommy makes the point and he's right about competence, right? Just sort of knowing how to do things. But, you know, Susan Rice talking to you and Ben on Pod Save the World made this point about all the other things that the military could be doing right now to help that just simply aren't happening. They're not happening. Well, why not? Well, expertise is not just about knowing how to do things. It's about a wealth of experience and background that gives you the imagination and arsenal in your mind for different things that a government can do to help people in an emergency. You know that, hey, we

have these resources at this facility. We have these experts at this research center. And because this has been an administration with an incredible amount of turnover and has not attracted the best of Republican politics, let alone politics, these are, yes, there is Trump's narcissism and ego guiding this, but this is also a group of people who are in over their head and have been from day one of the administration. Well, and like you said, so that's that's the incompetent side of it. The malevolence comes when you respond to criticism about how you failed. So let's talk about how the president is handling that. Over the last few days, he has responded to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's public request for more federal support by calling her names and saying she's a failure.

He said that he didn't believe Governor Cuomo when he said that New York needed 30,000 more ventilators. And during his Rose Garden press conference on Sunday, floated a conspiracy that health care workers have been hoarding and maybe even stealing masks because they keep asking for what he feels are too many. He said, quote, something's going on and you ought to look into it as reporters. Where are the masks going? Are they going out the back door?

Why? Why is he doing this? I think like, I just was like, look, I just think a lot of these nurses got into this game because they saw an opportunity to make a quick buck like when you see a nurse just remember they are fucking just like shifty uh money grubbing people that's the thing about nurses and doctors and you know it is like

obviously it's incredibly offensive like you know every all of us know doctors and nurses that like we've been touching base with this whole time, and they are exhausted, they are worried, they are scared, they are away from their own families to protect them. They are trying to decide how much of a risk they're willing to take themselves when they intubate a patient when they go into a dangerous circumstance. They are wondering when they're going to run out of ventilators. They're going to run. They're wondering when they run out of beds. They have do not have enough masks. They are reusing their masks. They are desperately trying to figure out workarounds because they don't lack the equipment. And Donald Trump thinks thinks that Goodfellas is happening with the mask he's sending. It, it's obviously, you know,

it's despicable. Tommy, what do you think of that? I just, I mean, the playing assignment editor about the stolen masks was just like such madness, I could barely stomach it. But like, I keep thinking about the attacks on these blue state governors. I mean, imagine George W. Bush saying he wouldn't call back some Democratic governor who is worried about an al-Qaeda attack. It's inconceivable, right? And so the question is why? I mean, I don't want to go all psychoanalyst here, but clearly he's a total narcissist. He cares more about his political standing and treatment in the press than actually helping people. And we didn't need the coronavirus to tell us that we saw it during Hurricane Maria with his treatment of Puerto Rico and the elected

officials there and the people there. And, you know, I don't know if that means that states with Democratic governors are getting purposefully harmed or getting less than they need. I mean, these governors seem to suggest that Mike Pence is working with them in good faith. And I think there's probably a lot of people in the response effort working in good faith, right? Like no one's doubting Fauci's motives. And even within the White House, like we reached out about booking Fauci on Pod Save America. A nice person called us back, talked about the interview. That person probably thinks my political views are abominable and my tweets are caustic and awful, but they gave us consideration because they want technocratic people to know what's going on. So like a lot of people are doing the

right thing, but the problem is Trump himself. And so we don't know if he's reducing shipments to Michigan of mass, but we do know how much it matters when a president personally gets involved in a matter and says, get Jay Inslee or Gretchen Whitmer what they need in Washington and Michigan right now. And instead, he's saying he's not going to call them. And it is like maybe one of the most insane things I could imagine a politician doing from a policy or humane sort of response level, but also politically, he's telling the state of Michigan that they're second class citizens in a run up to an election. And it's maybe the dumbest thing you could ever imagine.

Well, he said on that Fox News town hall, you know, it's a two way street. They have to treat us well about the governors. He said it's a choice. White House aides have said this was in a New York Times piece. It's understood that governors who say nice things about the federal response are more likely to be spared public criticism from the White House or threats of withheld assistance. And remember, we knew this before this pandemic. This was why he was impeached.

Right. And remember, there's a moment in the hearings, in the impeachment hearings, when Pamela Carlin, who was one of the law professors that tried to talk about why this was impeachable, she said, imagine, imagine Donald Trump during a national emergency calling a governor of a state and saying, I'm not going to release disaster assistance funds unless you do me a favor. And here we go. A couple months later, here we are. And Rudy Giuliani spelled it out. I mean, he said on Fox News, sometimes you got to lose to the boss in golf. Like what? What are you talking about? Well, it's obviously you can explain it

with psychology, but you can also look at it with in politics, right? Donald Trump is afraid of the politics of coronavirus turning against him. Well, who are the people who have the power to do that? He doesn't think CNN has the power to do that. He doesn't think MSNBC has the power to do that. He thinks that the governors have the power to do that. And so when he brushes Andrew, well, Andrew Cuomo, who has been, I think, trying to be deft in being critical of the administration while not pressing any buttons that create a storm that might hurt his state and you know, New York, my state, issued like a criticism about ventilators very carefully worded.

And Trump hit the roof and came to the podium with Oppo to say like, actually, it was Andrew Cuomo who didn't have the right amount of ventilators and he's hiding ventilators and he's got ventilators in his basement. Like, why is he doing that? Like, why is he doing that? He's doing that to send a signal

to all of these other governors, do not attack me, I will make your life miserable before I even get to the impeachable offenses of not calling you, not giving you the supplies you need, not helping you. Yeah. And it's not just a signal to the other governors. It's a signal to all of the right wing propaganda outlets and to his voters that when things get tough, the people you should blame are not me. It's other politicians. Doesn't matter which party, mostly Democrats, but any politician that crosses me. It's the media, which he's been blaming nonstop. And you saw it in the tweet where he started flipping out at GM about the ventilators, which, as we saw from the New York Times article, was his administration's fault. But he started blaming the head of GM.

So he's going to blame business leaders. He's going to blame the media. He's going to blame politicians, all of the fucking tricks in the book as things start to get tough for him. And, you know, that was part of why he sort of like tweeted those fucking that disgusting, you know, quote from the New York Times about how President Trump is a ratings hit because he saw that people don't want to take the briefings live. And he decided to blame the media for it's like, well, I'm doing so well. And now they're mad that I'm doing well. And that's why they don't want to take it live. They just hate me. So hate the media. Right. It's always blaming someone else. The buck never stops with him. I think there's a little bit of good old fashioned excitement in his head. The old

Apprentice star was pretty pumped about those like you could feel he he really cares about these things and the fact that the fact that he doesn't realize just how disgusting that is to brag about the nation being so terrified that they're tuning in to a briefing about whether they might live or die and to think that somehow reflects on you and makes you look good. It's like there's something there's a wire broken up there that means I just fundamentally can't understand him as a human being and nor can most people. I mean, I have been like plenty enraged by Trump over the last four years, like that tweet in the middle of, you know, we passed 2 000 americans had just died from this pandemic and he tweets that hadn't offered any condolences that just fucking broke me i was like this guy is

he's it's it's true socio it's like he's a real sociopath he has no human emotion yeah i i will say like you know we've talked a lot about how okay there's like you know there's these two there's these two ways in right one is the actual substance of the response right there's the actual where has he got where are the tests where are the ventilators where's your attention and then there's this the pr side of it right the the tone he takes the way he treats people the way he talks to reporters and we've been talking a lot about over years now like we've got to stay over here on the substance because it just seems like a lot of people tune out the noise and that's sort of baked in to the Trump cake at this point. But there's a real, it's interesting, like to me, the Easter, we're going to be open by Easter.

And that moment where he was talking about the county by county maps, that to me, like when I saw the ratings tweet, it didn't floor me because I was so much more taken aback by what he said about Easter, because I do think that's where there's this connection between the PR side of it and the substance. You see it with Ron DeSantis in Florida trying to blame New York because he didn't close the beaches and he didn't do his job. Still hasn't. Still hasn't. Still hasn't. The county plan, the attacking New York, attacking Michigan, attacking Washington. Until this weekend, where he did seem to be shaken by what Fauci said, and I think actually by someone he knows getting sick, which is the only thing that could get into his narcissistic brain, you saw that they were moving towards this PR front

to try to blame the states for their own failings. But in order to do that, considering opening up the country early so that he could push it out to other places. And so to me, that is where the substance and the politics and the PR kind of come together and why his way of behaving is actually going to cost people's lives. Well, so Joe Biden called Trump's comments about the conspiracy about the health care

workers selling masks on the black market. He'd call them among the most reckless and ignorant moves that Trump has made during this crisis and challenged the president to use the Defense Production Act within the next 48 hours to direct the production and distribution of protective gear and ventilators

to completely fill the request of every governor. I thought that was smart, partly because of what you just said, Lovett, is he hits sort of the awful, disgusting thing Trump said. But then he also offers a substantive criticism and a challenge for him to actually use the DPA. I think that's obvious. That's the obvious route for Joe Biden. He's a presidential candidate. How do you handle it if you're like a governor or a mayor? Right. Like how does Newsom handle this? How does Cuomo handle this? How does Whitmer handle this?

mayor, right? Like, how does Newsom handle this? How does Cuomo handle this? How does Whitmer handle this? Like, you do need this lifesaving equipment. And so you need a working relationship with the federal government and the White House. But you also now have the president out there attacking you every time you say, hey, I actually need more help. I mean, you know, very carefully. You know, I'm like of two minds of this because I was actually thinking this morning, you know, wow, Cuomo, Inslee, Newsom, Whitmer, modeling as best they can the kind of leadership traits you'd rather see in your president than what we're seeing. But I remember when Inslee took that call from Pence and he criticized Pence right away, right after the call. And I understood why he did that. He was correct on the right away, right after the call. And I understood why he did that. He was correct on the merits, completely correct on the merits. But I remember thinking, that's a dangerous game to play with this White House, because they're terrible people,

and they're vindictive, and they care more about their own politics than they do the people of any state in this country. So I think the unfortunate reality is, like like you saw this with the fires in California that that that the leadership in California, whether it was Jerry Brown or Gavin Newsom, like being very careful in how they talk about what the Trump administration is doing because they have to protect their people and stay out of the fight with Trump while making sure they do signal at really important moments where the administration is failing, being really fact based, being really clear, being really direct about it while knowing that they have to play that game. Tommy, what do you think? I don't know. I mean, look, I don't have the responsibility of managing this relationship or getting what I need from a federal government. So, like, it's very easy for me to sit here and say, I mean, look, I don't have the responsibility of managing this relationship or getting what I need from a federal government. So like it's very easy for me to sit here and say, I mean, the thing I just the thing that's in the back of my head is like this Easter timeline reversal. I'm very glad that Trump apparently listened to Fauci and all the scientists and backed him off this crazy Easter deadline to reopen the government. But that still meant that lots of people endured days of panic that our government was going to do something that would endanger all of our lives. And like

the Trump propagandists spent weeks priming their adherence to believe that the Cesar deadline was real and that hurting the economy was worse than the virus itself and that grandma was willing to sacrifice herself to allow the S&P 500 index to go up a couple of points. And you can't turn on a dime and fix that. So I do think that the Cuomos of the world who are trying to not be ad hominem, but are like rebutting misstatements and bad ideas repeatedly and speaking truth to power in that sense, I do think that's the right approach. I also don't think like Trump's sending Florida whatever they need because he thinks it's a swing

state that he needs to win. I don't think he's ever going to do a solid to a bunch of blue state governors, whether they're nice to him or not. Right. That's just like not in his DNA. So I think they should say what they need and like let voters treat him accordingly and be accountable. I, you know, I wouldn't take shots at him necessarily that felt, you know, childish or, you know, personal. But I do think like you can't pull punches on what you need and what you're getting and how you get the response is going or bad policy proposals in the name of keeping him happy. That would be my. I completely agree. I also think, look, all these governors have higher approval ratings

than him right now. He's gotten a bump, but they've gotten bigger bumps. Andrew Cuomo is sitting at like 70 percent right now. Gretchen Whitmer is between 16, 70 percent. And I think, look, I think criticizing him or at least criticizing the response and asking for what you need is a life or death situation. It's not just about politics. And I think you're right. There's a balance that you have to strike there, which I actually think Gretchen Whitmer did quite well on one of the Sunday shows this weekend. I can't remember where she was. She basically said like, yeah, meet the press. She's like, we don't want a fight right now. She's like, people's lives are at stake. We need to be working together. We don't need to be divided and to be pit against each other right now. One thing people hate about Trump, most voters, not just

partisan Democrats, but they don't like what? They don't like the tweeting, the fights, the pettiness, the childish, the chaos, the divisiveness. So if these Democratic governors and other Democratic officials can talk about how Trump has turned this into a political issue, has turned this into a partisan football, has decided to use this crisis to divide people, to deflect the blame from himself. I think that's a message that doesn't seem like it's a cheap shot, but it also rings true. And I do think if these governors don't lead the criticism of the administration's response, then no one else will say it. Or and like people will still believe that he's doing a great job.

Like at some point we all have to just, you know, like we can all yell about it on podcasts and reporters can do it. But right now, a lot of Americans are looking to their local and state leaders and they're approving of their handling and they're looking to them for cues on what's happening. And I think they all need to be honest about where the federal government is falling short, even if it means that Trump goes crazy. I also like the leader, the scientific leader, the expert of America's response to the coronavirus signaled that he believes there may be between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths.

And Trump's response to that is to go to the podium and say, but it could have been 2 million, to try to set expectations down. Well, he actually said, if it ends up between 100,000 and 200,000 fatalities, quote, we all together have done a very good job. That's what he said at the podium on Sunday. That I do think I do think one of the challenges here. And I do think one of the reasons, you know, seeing Trump's approval rating being going up is very disheartening. It's very sad to see his approval rating should be going down because he failed his country dramatically. But, yes, you see the comparison to other governors who's have gone up even more.

And that's a sign. Okay, this is this is there's something going on here that maybe you can wrap your head around. But also, the vastness of what's about to happen, I don't think has really hit people. The scale of what we're talking about. We're talking about Yeah, 59 11s. That's what we're talking about. All because they missed their opportunity to do the testing when it could have contained it

to a few key places. That is a world historic failure. That is not Donald Trump's Katrina. That is Donald Trump's Iraq. And everything about the next year is about solving this incredible crisis, but also telling that story to protect us from the next crisis. We also, we saw some polling and focus groups a while back, long before the virus hit, that showed that a lot of the things that I think liberals, myself included, focus on on Twitter, the personal characteristics of Trump don't really resonate with voters. But the best argument against him is really that he's incompetent and that he has made a broken, corrupt system worse. And I think tragically, nothing has borne that out more than this response. It was predictable because of the disdain for expertise, the nepotism, the vetting of staffers for political views and

not qualifications. And so I do think focusing on that every single day is the way Democrats will do well. Biden needs to show leadership and resolve and make clear how he would be different and empower scientists. But I do think we're going to need governors and other elected officials to really carry the more brutal argument against Trump in this response. And, you know, look, tragically, it might just play out on our screens anyway, because like you said, love it. I mean, it's going to get worse. Well, that sort of leads us into the conversation about 2020 and the campaign. We've talked a lot about how the pandemic will change the way the 2020 campaign is run.

And there was a big New York Times story over the weekend about how the way candidates communicate and organize and fundraising will change. But let's talk about how this pandemic could change what the campaign is actually about. The Times has a lot of candidates talking about how the pandemic will either affect or dominate just about every other issue in politics. And it quotes Republican Congressman Tom Cole saying, quote, this is the question that is going to dominate the election. How did you perform in the great crisis? Do you guys think he's right about that? Is everything that happened over the last three, four years now sort of out the window and this is the main event?

I think so. I mean, I think after 9-11, that was a paradigm changing event in American politics. And the fear and the desire to prevent a future 9-11 became all consuming. And I think this is similar. And I think whoever does the best job of addressing that fear and showing how you'd handle it is going to get elected or if it's Trump, reelected. showing how you'd handle it is going to get elected or if it's Trump reelected. And, you know, I just don't know that it's hard for me to imagine Trump stumping and saying talking about record stock market gains that have been erased or trade fights with China that feel small and meaningless. Right. I mean, the only enduring damage that is done in terms of his record before this is these fucking judges that we have to live with for the rest of our lives. But I do. It's hard for me to imagine a November election that is

about anything but this issue. And so, yes, I mean, I do think like Biden has to show competence and leadership and resolves. But, you know, it's a harder job for Trump because of how much he's failed to date and defending that record will become impossible. Love it. What do you think? Yeah, I guess I'd say two things. One, yeah, I think Tommy's right. I do think I read that that piece and I just found myself feeling completely uncertain. Right. I'm uncertain about what it looks like to campaign in this environment. I don't like yes, I do believe it's going to obviously it's going to be dominating our politics indefinitely. But it a lot depends on what happens with this response. Where are we in the fall? How how many cases are there?

Have we come out of self-quarantine or staying at home? Have we not yet? How much has the country gotten past this? Those are all questions I think we just don't that are just sort of swirling around. The other piece of this, though, is I do think that there's sort of two kinds of races. One is the presidential and Joe Biden is known. He is a known figure. I think about all of the unknown house candidates, all of the unknown Senate candidates, all of the candidates who are not just going to try to define the issue, but try to define themselves in an environment which they may or may not be able to do campaign events. They may or may not be going to try to define the issue, but try to define themselves in an environment which

they may or may not be able to do campaign events. They may or may not be able to do fundraisers. They may or may not be able to go to TV studios. So right now, I do think we're just in the very early stages of it. And I just feel like it feels like there's so many unintended and unknown consequences of what we're seeing and how it will shape the campaign that I just think it's going to be incumbent upon very, very smart people to be thinking about this and try things and make mistakes and realize what's working and what's not working because no one's ever had to campaign for president during a pandemic in 100 years. in 100 years. Yeah. I mean, re-election campaigns are usually about the incumbent and a referendum on the incumbent. And the incumbent's vote share usually matches pretty closely what their approval

rating, what their job rating is at the time of the election. That's usually the case. And, you know, we've debated this on the pod before, you know, Dan has argued that this time around, it's not just a referendum, the Democrats need to make it a choice as well. And I think in a regular election with someone irregular like Trump on the ballot, that might be true. I wonder now, with this pandemic, with this dominating everything else, I wonder now with this pandemic, with this dominating everything else, and I do think even if even in the most optimistic scenarios, if Trump says, oh, we'll be raring to go by June 1st. Well, if we're raring to go by June 1st, that still means how many thousands and thousands and thousands of Americans have died, what the economy will look like at that point.

The pandemic will not have gone away at that point. Maybe it will have subsided, but there will still be outbreaks in different parts of the country. Like, I also find it really hard to imagine this not sort of dominating the election. And I think, like, as much as what Joe Biden, you know, we've talked in the last couple weeks about Joe Biden's got to figure out how to communicate and break through. And I think what Joe Biden does is important here, of course. But I think that more than ever, this is going to hinge on Donald Trump as it was in the beginning. It's going to be all about Trump. And I worry, too, that the dark scenario is, and we sort of alluded to this earlier, this thing drags on and there's a lot of suffering

and a lot of death and a lot of pain, financial and health wise. And what Donald Trump does is he starts blaming everyone else. And he starts being racist and xenophobic and partisan and divisive. And he blames governors and he blames Democrats and he blames the media. and he makes the fall campaign a very, very dark campaign where he tries to pit the country against each other, which is even worse than the original campaign he was gonna run, which is to try to make Joe Biden look like a corrupt old kook. That's not enough anymore. Get ready for the COVID caravans

that are coming to every border. I mean, to your point, I have no idea who will be helped or harmed by this pandemic in the election, the disgusting thing to say. I just think to your point, I have no idea who will be helped or harmed by this pandemic in the election. The disgusting thing to say. I just think that it will be all consuming. And I just think we all need to remember like why we're doing social distancing. It's not because it's going to make the virus go away and life goes back to normal. It's so that we don't overwhelm all of our hospital systems and people die in the parking lot. Right. And so if we start

living like we did before, before there is a vaccine, which is likely to take a year at least, cases are going to explode again. So I just think we are going to be living with some version of life as it is right now for a year, year and a half, two years, which certainly encompasses the election. And I just think the whole thing will become about this new way of life and how we get through it. I also, you know, this is new for democratic politics. It's new for Republican politics. It's new for Trump's politics. You know, Trump wants, you know, to John's point, wants to go to fear, wants to go to the dark places to excite his base and, you know, foment chaos and uncertainty and a lack of trust in the media and all the rest. But, you know, the fears Trump is interested in, I wonder if they're fears of a disease, of a pandemic coming for your family, coming for your parents.

Like, we're talking about mass death. We are talking about people dying alone, gasping for air. That's what we're talking about on a huge scale. And so I do think the emotion of that, the depth of that is something we are not fully understanding, not fully letting in because it is so powerful and it is so painful. And I do think right now from this new position of being at home and learning about this in real time for the first few months, I don't think yet we fully understand how this will reshape our politics. We just can't. We just can't. Yeah. No, but I think I think what Democrats can do is be like knowing that so much of this will hinge, whatever, you know, we can't predict

much, but knowing that so much of this will hinge on in the substance, not just the politics on Trump's performance, how Trump responds. I think continuing to hold him accountable, to point out the administration's failings, to say what should be done differently, to point to, you know, this is what we could have done to save lives. This is what we still can do to save lives. And not being afraid of his bullshit is probably going to be the best way,

not knowing where this lands and what the political outcome is. He is Hoover. He is Bush. He's all of it. He's all the worst things in American politics. He is an American history rolled into one. Right. And I do think that like as sad as this moment is like like what I think to myself is like, well, what's our mission? What's our job? It is to tell

this story and remember that every point above fucking zero of his approval rating on the coronavirus is a failure. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, there was some criticism of Biden over the weekend because Chuck Todd said, you know, is there blood on Donald Trump's hands? And, you know, he didn't take the bait on that question. And I think I am a OK with Joe Biden not letting Sunday show hosts put words in his mouth, because what I think people want from Biden is someone to show some leadership and some resolve and to tell us that we're going to get through this and not in a fucking saccharine phony, there will be no sacrifice way, but to finally level with the American people who just went through three months of a president telling

you that the virus is going to miraculously go away and we're at 15 cases and soon we'll be down to zero. And now we're at, oh, a hundred thousand death is a good, dead is a good job. Like, no, that's not going to be lost on anybody. Like they know what's happened. They're living through this together. And so if Biden can just project competence and like he's a good human and all the empathy that we know is inside him, I suspect I don't know that that will be a compelling alternative to what we're living with now with Trump.

I agree. And look, and you know, if you don't care for Joe Biden, it's not just Joe Biden that's doing that, that people are approving of. Like that's what Andrew Cuomo is doing. That's what Gretchen Whitmer is doing. That's what Gavin Newsom is doing. And a lot of these governors and mayors

who now have sort of sky high approval ratings because they are carrying themselves like that. You know, a competent leader who calls on the country to pull itself together. And it's funny, because clearly there's someone in Trump's White House who knows that's what he should be doing, because he goes to these fucking briefings, and he reads his dumb speech. And when he gets to the end about Americans must come together and overcome,

and it's like, you know, the C-plus Santa Monica fascist writing there. And he seems so uncomfortable, and it seems so out of character and he just can't fucking wait to just dive into some press questions where he can start attacking the press because that's where he feels good he doesn't feel good as someone trying to bring people together even love it when he was talking about the friend of his who has it or elmhurst hospital which he knew because he used to live by there. He just it was it should have been this real human personal moment. And it just it came off sounding so phony and weird and robotic because he's a fucking sociopath.

He doesn't he doesn't have the capacity to lead a nation through the crisis, even if he wanted to. And he doesn't even have the capacity to fake it because. Right. Because because leadership leadership is hearing a criticism from Gretchen Whitmer and saying, thank you for telling me. Yes. And he can't do it. And so he will bite off his nose to spite his face, and he will hurt all of us in the process. Because I'm bummed out all the time, can I tell you guys two things that made me happy over the weekend?

Please. Sure. One. So there's this incredible hospital ship called the USNS Comfort. It has a thousand patient beds. It just steamed into New York Harbor today. And back in 2010, Alyssa Mastromonaco and I

were down in Haiti trying to help out with the earthquake relief stuff there. And we got to go on the Comfort and meet those people and tour it and see their capability. And it's like the greatest human beings in the world are on this boat, like saving lives and just seeing it steam into port this morning made me hopeful. And then also like seeing the press conference yesterday with Trump berating our guest made me enraged. But then CNN's Jeremy Diamond

finally showed press corps solidarity by giving his question back to Yamiche when Trump had cut her off rudely and repeatedly. And so seeing that kind of solidarity happen and not let reporters get steamrolled, it made me think, okay, we're figuring out how to do this live press conference thing so it's not a propaganda festival.

Oh, and then, and one more thing that that just reminded me of, the other thing that makes us all hopeful here at Crooked Media is how much you have all donated to our coronavirus relief fund. And so if you can, again, this is going to the people who need help the most. And we had no idea it would be this much money because we know this is like a tough time and a scary time. And we've been overwhelmed by the number of donations and how many people have donated. So if you can, please go and give. We've set a goal of a million dollars. We originally set a goal of 250,000. We're over 700,000 now. If you go to cricket.com slash coronavirus, you can donate to the fund.

All right. When we come back, we will have Levitt's interview with PBS White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor. I'm joined today by PBS NewsHour's White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor. Welcome to Pod Save America. Thanks for having me. So first of all, I want to start with this. Your colleague, Hunter Walker from Yahoo News, he's self-quarantined with a suspected case of COVID-19. He tweeted over the weekend that he believes his most likely exposure was in covering the White House. How are you protecting yourself and how are you doing? I'm protecting myself by being very, very diligent about wiping everything down, washing my hands a ton of times, not going into the White House unless I really have to,

and just also staying away from people that I love. Unfortunately, I have a really good friend that's 96 years old, and I would love to go visit her, but I'm staying away from her. So even though that's more me keeping other people safe, I also think that I have a lot of exposure because I'm at the White House. So that's kind of how we're living our lives now, washing our hands. And I have a husband that I've been still talking to and seeing every day. I have not quarantined away from him because we're newlyweds, so we can't do that. So, you know, yesterday at the briefing, Trump accused you of trying to get him, told you to be nice, not to be threatening. Meanwhile, you were quoting Trump himself. You were just quoting him on Sean Hannity.

Why do you think that specific question elicited such a caustic response? I think yesterday, as the president has lashed out in the past, he was in a position where he had to backtrack after giving out some misleading information. So the president had been saying he wanted to see church packed on Easter Sunday, that this was gonna be a miracle, the coronavirus and cases would go down to zero. And then he had to get up in front of the world and say, actually, we have to extend our guidelines

till the end of April. And by the way, if 100,000 people to 200,000 Americans die, that's a job well done. So I think he was in that frame of mind when he was already taking questions. And my question was one that was, I think, pretty straightforward, which is you said very clearly that you think governors are asking for medical equipment that they don't need. And I think the president was just caught off guard with the idea that he would have to answer to his own words and that would have to

explain what that would mean for governors who are desperately trying to get ventilators and masks and all sort of medical equipment. So I think that's why he was so upset. There was the frame of mind of what was going on before I asked my question. And then there's this, of course, this reporter now coming up and saying, here are the words that you used. Could you explain this to the American people? And he, of course, didn't like that. Right. There's something he finds really outrageous to be confronted by things he said even a day ago, days ago, weeks ago throughout this.

Now, that's always been true, but it's specifically pronounced now. And yet it seems like he lashes out. He attacks the questioner. He attacks the press, he attacks the media so that he doesn't actually ever get around to commenting on the substance of the question itself. strategically, in that room, when the whole point of the briefing is to try to get someone to be accountable for their words and actions. And he has no, he has no shame, he has no appetite for actually participating in that dialogue. I think it's by continuing to press him on the subject that you decided you want to press him on. For me yesterday, it was about the fact that I really wanted to know how his thinking was going to be impacted when you don't believe that governors

need what they're telling you they need. So for me, as the president was lashing out, I continued to say, my question is, my question is, my question is. And then afterwards, I just pointed out, hey, the president didn't answer me directly. So we should just note that for whenever we come back to this subject down the line. So that if in two weeks, New York says actually, President Trump didn't follow through on the orders of ventilators we need. And by the way, maybe this amount of people suffered because of that decision. We can go back to that moment and say, well, here was the moment where we pushed the president on that specific issue and he didn't answer. So even if he doesn't answer, I think a non-answer is a very illuminating

answer. And clearly there's like value, even if he's not answering, there's value to how his thinking has evolved. And there's sort of a record of when he said there wouldn't be more cases, when it would be behind us, when he would open us up for Easter and all the rest. But at the same time, there's this question now about whether the briefing should be taken live, because even as you point out, you're able to kind of get important information. You know, an NPR station in Seattle last week said they weren't going to air them live anymore because it's impossible to prevent dissemination of misinformation in real time. You know, you're in that room.

of misinformation in real time. You're in that room. You're trying to kind of hold the task force accountable to the truth. Where do you stand on that question of whether this information should be broadcast live? I think it's a tough question. I'm not a network executive. I am a reporter. So in some ways, I will frankly say that that issue, that decision is so above my pay grade, literally. Yeah. As I talk to my two-room apartment that we're quarantining in here. But what I can tell you is that I think that Americans are so thirsty for information. People are so eager to know when are their lives going to go back to normal. information. People are so eager to know when are their lives going to go back to normal.

And I think having Dr. Fauci, having the president explain, hey, this might be going on until June, there might be 200,000 Americans who die. I think that that information is important and that people can choose for themselves whether or not they want to take that in live or not. I do think this president is a president who begs for fact checks and context. And I think when I tweet his press conferences live, I try to really have notes or context, because I think that just quoting him without actually saying, well, here's the actual numbers that he's talking about. Here's where he's right. Here's where he's wrong. It's a disservice to viewers and to audience members. So I think reporters have been really good at that. Even if

it's after the briefing, people say, okay, let's walk through all the things that the president said that aren't true. I think people stick around for that information. And I also think Republicans and Democrats, having interviewed a lot of Trump supporters, they also understand that even if you support the president, that he's at least, in best case in people's minds, an exaggerator, and at worst case, a full-on liar. So I think people, Americans, unfortunately, have gotten to the point where his credibility is shaky, even if you're a supporter of President Trump. So, you know, there's been this very rapid evolution, right? He said last week that he

was looking at Easter Sunday as this very important date, obviously, because he's such a spiritual person. But also, but now he has let, he said, no, they're extending the guidelines. And then he let slip in that, in the briefing, he says the word June, right, which is not something he did by accident. What have you learned from your reporting about that shift? The shift is something that's always been there from the very beginning. The federal plan, the White House plan, it was leaked to the New York Times. I got a copy of it afterwards. The policymakers were warned that this could go on, this coronavirus outbreak, this need for social distancing could go on for about 18 months. That was the original idea.

So the president, even before yesterday saying June, before that he had said, this might go till August. So there are every now and then, there are times where the president kind of lets slip what health officials are telling him. These numbers of people, 100,000 to 200,000 Americans dying, those numbers have been out there for a while. I think they're just now sinking in to the president because he's watching TV and he's seeing body bags in his old neighborhood in Queens, New York. And he's saying, wow, this is really bad. So I think for a lot of health experts and reporters, we've all kind of known that the worst was coming. And I think that the president's just now becoming sober with that idea.

One of your colleagues during the briefing, so you had asked your question, the president behaved the way that he did, and the briefing continues. And then one of your colleagues in the briefing room said, actually, I want to go back and let Yamiche ask the question she was going to ask her follow up. And it was a striking moment because it's not something that seems to happen very often. Is there any move to kind of work together to follow up now that there are a fewer reporters able to do these briefings and be collectively we're all focused on one story? I think so. I think especially well, for one, I have to say thank you so much to Jeremy Diamond of CNN. It was a gracious moment. He had my back. I felt like I felt seen and heard. And I felt like

those are all the things that you want as a journalist. And as someone who you who especially for me, who I feel like is rooted in civil rights journalism and thinks that like people's I represent a certain people's perspective. And I think that that's everyday Americans who are working class who are just trying to figure out what what the heck is going on. So I think that that was what was going on in that moment. So I'm eternally grateful. I also think that reporters are understanding that covering President Trump is sort of a team sport. And I think that we've started to learn that, I would say, over the last two to three years, really, because you realize now there have to be follow-up questions to colleagues' questions. If I ask a question and it doesn't get answered, I know that sometimes an NBC reporter or a CBS

reporter will follow up. And it's just what has to happen, especially because now, as you just noted, the questions are kind of basic. It's like, well, when are people going to get, are people going to get enough validators? Are people going to get tested? Are the governors going to get what they're asking for? Are we all going to die of this? Like, I need real, we have simple questions. So in some ways, the fact that the questions are so whittled down, I think that it makes it easier to follow up on colleagues' questions. Do you think that the briefing is combative enough? Do you think reporters are pushing back hard enough when Trump is not telling the truth, are pushing back hard enough when Trump is not telling the truth, when Pence is misleading,

when Azar is misleading? Do you believe there is still too much solicitousness in that room? I'll say this. I think that when I'm asking questions, I don't even think I'm being combative. So I think I'm literally trying to hold people accountable and asking simple questions and asking people about the statements that they've made in the past, namely the president of the United States. So I don't know if if if these settings are combative enough, because I think that I don't know if the setting is supposed to be combative. I think it's supposed to be getting at the truth. And at the truth. And I don't know, you know, I know that that looks at times like I'm fighting with the president. But I like joke that like people when they like people who know me know what I look like when I'm fighting and I'm not fighting. I'm actually just like asking questions that then turn into like, you know, moments where the president's mad. No, that's totally fair. I guess I don't mean right. That's that's a combative is the wrong word.

Right. Combative is the wrong word. I suppose I mean questions that make the White House combative because used to be a print reporter. I love when print reporters ask questions because they kind of read long statements. And on TV, you're kind of taught to try to simplify your questions as much. But sometimes you really do need a long intro to understand what's going on. So I think there are a lot of people that are asking really smart questions. And in this moment, I am proud of the journalists that are sitting around me because, like I said, I think the questions are simple. It's like, what are we doing to stop this? And are we why are we behind other countries? And what is the federal government doing? So I want to ask one more question about just some of the the sort of cast of characters that are coming out to the briefing. You know, there is sort of Pence as the leader of this task force representing, you know, Trump and kind of being deferential to Trump and protective of Trump, to put it mildly.

You have Fauci, who I think is widely respected and someone is generally regarded as doing his best to get real information out there while delicately balancing Trump's ego. There have been a lot of questions, I think, about Dr. Birx specifically as to whether she should be in the kind of Fauci camp as we think about what she's offering as someone who's trying to get us real information. And then at times when she's behaving more like a Trump administration political figure, like when she held up that chart showing the testing process that turned out to not be true, some of her defenses of the administration. To your mind, sitting in that briefing, examining these people every day, do you believe Birx is an honest interlocutor, an honest scientific viewpoint that we can rely on?

So I think that as a reporter who's objectively covering them, it's probably not my place to say whether or not I think someone's honest or not. What I can say is that based on like my health expert sources, people say that Dr. Birx is someone who is credible, who has been a scientist and been working on infectious diseases for a very long time. So I take her at her word a lot of times. And I have not found her to be someone who, I guess, is intentionally misleading people in some sort of pattern that seems nefarious. But again, I think that there are people who will write columns who can say what they personally think of kind of different administration officials. And my job is really to ask them questions and not to make judgments on who they are.

I guess right then, fair enough. I guess it's more, do you, in asking Burke's questions, expect to get scientific information or do you expect it to be more political? I guess when I'm asking her information, I mean, her role is both. It seems like her title is like White House Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator. So that title is both Dr. Birx as a scientist and also Birx as an administration official who's coordinating information. So I think her title is both. One last question.

You know, there have been times in the briefing room where reporters look for chances to mix it up. Some of the TV reporters do that, maybe make a moment out of it. But, you know, Trump has come after you before repeatedly. And this is just my observation. And you can tell me if I'm wrong, but sincerely, you don't seem like you relish in it. You seem tough and poised and unshaken, but you also seem sad. And I say that because it seems like even in the moment,

you are open to a dialogue with a president that doesn't come to the table with that same sense of openness. So how do you maintain that posture day after day? I maintain that because the reason why I became a journalist was because Emmett Till, this 14-year-old boy in Mississippi, was killed, and it sparked the civil rights movement. And I am at my heart a civil rights journalist, And I'm at my heart someone who is constantly thinking we don't have time for foolishness. We don't have time for sideshows. The reason why I'm a reporter is because I really believe vulnerable people in this country don't have a voice. And I think about them every day as I craft my questions. So it can never be about me. It should never be about me

because I'm so focused on all the people in this country who will never see the White House, who will never get to speak to a president. And they deserve me to be professional and to not lose my cool and for me to be so focused on the truth that I'm not wavering on anything else that's going on around me. Yamiche Alcindor, thank you so much for coming on Pod Save America. Stay safe. And thanks for joining us. Thanks so much. All right.

Thanks to Yamiche Alcindor. And all right, guys. It's good talking to you again. You too. Maybe you, listen, I just want you to know that I tried the ring light. Okay? I got a present

from Lovett delivered to my house. You sent that to us, Lovett? I did. I didn't realize that. I mean, like, you know, I had help, but I sent you ring lights. so brian sent us the ring lights excuse me it's the thought that counts all right listen like like steve jobs in the film

steve jobs i play the orchestra okay by the way we're at eight hundred and twenty thousand dollars eight hundred twenty million dollar goal so shit. You guys are the best. Thank you. All right, everyone. We'll, we'll talk to you soon. Bye.

Bye. Bye everybody. Pod Save America is a product of Cricket Media. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long,

Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos every week.