Pod Save America - “Slush Fund Baby.”

Episode Date: March 23, 2020

Trump refuses to force the production of life-saving medical equipment, Democrats fight to eliminate a corporate slush fund from Mitch McConnell’s stimulus bill, and the coronavirus pandemic upends the 2020 campaign. Then, health care workers share stories about how they’re grappling with 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/coronavirusWe played clips from listeners around the country in today’s episode about how they’ve been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. if you’d like to share your story, send a voice note or video to 323 405-9944.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's pod, we'll talk about Donald Trump's refusal to use his authority to force the production of life-saving medical equipment, the Democrats' fight to get a worker-friendly economic relief bill through Congress,

and how the coronavirus is affecting the 2020 campaign. But first, you should all know that, unfortunately, the three of us are not together this morning. We'll be recording all Crooked Pods from our respective homes until it's safe to head back into the studio. So please bear with us, but know that we will all keep churning out our regularly scheduled pods. Because what the hell else do we have to do? Right, guys? Nothing. My laptop is balanced on a copy of Hillary Clinton's Hard Choices. Wow. It's like a lot of metaphors there, but you know, we'll just...

Lovett, how was the show this week? I hear your quarantine bunny showed up. Yeah, we did another episode of Lovett or Leave It Back in the Closet. I was joined by Ronan Farrow of The New Yorker and my couch. We also took calls from couples struggling in quarantine. And then I talked to Adam Schiff about the latest on the congressional response. It was a welcome respite. That's good. I'm glad. Two other members of the Cricket family who will continue to churn out daily episodes are Akilah Hughes and Gideon Resnick of What A Day fame.

They help you keep up on all the day's news in just 20 minutes. So if you haven't yet, please subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. And finally, thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who's helped us raise over $465,000 for Crooked's Coronavirus Fund, where your donation is

split between groups helping food banks, healthcare workers, restaurant workers, seniors, kids who depend on school lunches, and others during this crisis. Please donate at crooked.com slash coronavirus. And also throughout this episode, we're going to play a few more stories from healthcare workers, from people who are really freaked out about what we're dealing with right now and sort of the lack of medical equipment and supplies. And so we'll be playing a couple of those stories that you sent us, the voice notes that you sent us throughout this episode. All right, so here's where we are. The coronavirus pandemic has now claimed the lives of over 400 Americans and affected nearly 40,000. And even though one out of every three Americans have now been ordered to stay home in an effort to slow the virus, this is going to be a really tough week because thousands more who were infected before these orders took place will start showing up at hospitals that are already running dangerously low on beds, masks, gowns and ventilators.

going to talk about what the government can do to avoid the worst case scenarios here. But first, I want to talk about why the U.S. has been slower and more unprepared for this pandemic than countries like Germany or South Korea. This is from an incredibly damning Washington Post piece over the weekend, quote, U.S. intelligence agencies were issuing ominous classified warnings in January and February about the global danger posed by the coronavirus while President Trump and lawmakers played down the threat. One anonymous U.S. official said, quote, Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were. They just couldn't get him to do anything about it. The system was blinking red. Tommy, how significant was this story and what was your reaction?

I mean, I honestly predicted that this story was coming. It's one of the most damning things I've read about all the warnings Trump ignored for months, literally. I mean, the coronavirus threat didn't need to be in the PDB, the President's Daily Intelligence Briefing, for him to know it was serious. He could have turned on the news and or turned on social media and looked at hospitals in China. Or later on, he could have looked at what was happening in Italy and seen that this threat was coming. And the WHO was saying, you guys need to prepare for this. Dr. Fauci and people, the CDC were saying it. But that Washington Post report laid out in unbelievable comprehensive detail just how long of a head start we could have had

to prepare for the coronavirus. And you juxtapose that with what Trump was saying at the time, that it's handled, we're going to be fine, it's just like the cold. It's really one of the most damning things I've read. In my mind, it's akin to George W. Bush receiving a PDB bulletin about Bin Laden's determination to attack the United States in August before 9-11. I think it's that scale of a government wide failure. Love it. What do you think of the story? Yeah, I mean, we're Trump has slow rolled this every step of the way, and he's still doing it right now. He is still you know, we are going to read stories a month from now

about the slow rolling on using the government's power to get companies to make ventilators and masks. Donald Trump has been concerned about one thing from the very beginning, which is how this would affect his poll numbers and the markets in the very short term. That is why he was keeping ships, the number of people on ships from being counted against our totals. That is why he was keeping ships, the number of people on ships from being counted against our totals. That is why he was saying we had it under control. That is why he was so obsessed with how low our numbers were early on. And every step of the way, he is failing to actually take it seriously enough. And it's continuing right now. He is right now still not using the powers he has in his office to take care of people as we speak. So this idea, you know, he has kind of two modes. One is I'm the best. And the other is no one could have done better than me. And they're subtly different. I'm the best is what he says when he thinks he can defend every action he's taken. No one's done better than me is what he's been doing lately, which is because he knows how many of these bad stories are out there. And he knows

that there's all these people talking about testing and all the rest. It's why he's redounding to nobody could have predicted this. Nobody could have imagined this. Nobody could have seen this coming when everyone was telling him this was coming. This was the most predicted event possible. He's also in his, you know, blame China mode now also. And, you know, he's calling it the Chinese virus. He's doing all this bullshit. But I found it fascinating in this piece that part of the whole problem is he took President Xi's word over U.S. intelligence.

There's a quote, there's a tweet from Donald Trump in February that says, China has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus. The U.S. greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. I to thank president xi and this piece is basically

saying that like well all the people in the government including his own by the way it wasn't just like the world health organization all the other people it was his uh director of domestic policy in the white house it was his own cabinet telling him all this. And the intelligence officials, too, are telling him that like China is not telling the truth on this. And at the same time, he's thanking President Xi for like, you know, telling him all this stuff. It's crazy. Yeah. I mean, look, he wants the racism. He wants to demagogue this as the China virus because he knows that it's an easy thing to pick a fight about in the press. He knows that his base loves when he attacks China and it is actively racist towards them. But he doesn't want to upset Xi Jinping for a variety of economic reasons, probably. And so we're in this weird place where he ignored all these warnings,

but has been praising the guy publicly over and over again. But yeah, I mean, to your point, John, it's not just that the Intel people were warning Trump about what was happening with the coronavirus and the looming threat. And we have to assume that they had access to, say, intercepted Chinese communications that really talk to him about the coronavirus. And he berated him about restrictions on vaping because he's worried that's going to harm his reelect. So that's what was in this guy's head. That's why we are where we are. There's another part of this story that reminded me we we've almost forgotten about this story. It took place like last week, quote, the surge in warnings coincided with a move by Senator Richard Burr to sell dozens of stocks worth between six hundred twenty eight thousand dollars and one point seven two million. As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Burr was privy to virtually all of the highly

classified reporting on the coronavirus. Burr issued a statement Friday defending his sell off, saying he sold based entirely on public available information. And he called for the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate. So that's that's one of two Republican senators that we know of who basically dumped stocks because they knew that shit was going to get bad, even as they told the public that everything was fine and that everything was being overhyped with regard to the coronavirus. What a monster. Burr. Yeah, I mean, Burr put out that statement with his like, you know, his tail between his legs. I would really love to understand the technology he used to only use the part of his brain that used public information and not use the part of his brain

that had private classified information to make that sale. Obviously, like if there's a real investigation, we'll find out what he told people at the time when he made that decision. But he's counting on the fact that he can get away with that because it's in his mind. Then there's Loeffler, Kelly Loeffler, who gave this incredible denial of kind of the like, it's a strongly worded denial that leaves room for a bunch of different ways in which you could have actually made these decisions. But what I found so galling about the Loeffler, about the Loeffler and her husband, by the way, who runs the New York fucking stock exchange, cool power couple, that what I love about that, the audacity of her decision making. Yeah, she sold a bunch of stock, but she did make some purchases about telework. She saw that there was a real opportunity in telework.

Yeah. Incredible. Incredible. Coincidence. Coincidence there. Can't wait till we find that like Mitch McConnell started investing in Zoom right before this. And look, I am not one. I'm sorry.

I am not one for just wildly speculating about Donald Trump's finances and the houses in Russia and Turkey and all the rest. However, Donald Trump pauses in every fucking press conference. He's talked every president talks about how doctors are seeing patients via telemedicine. press conference. Every president talks about how doctors are seeing patients via telemedicine. Then he leaves his talking points and gives a weird plug for the field of telemedicine every single time. Jared got him into telemedicine. That's where his money is. And we have no idea, but I just want to lay it out there. I mean, just to spell this out on Burr. So Burr is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He would be privy to all the highest level briefings Trump was getting at the time. So he had the longest

head start of anyone outside the federal government or the intelligence community. We then heard this audio of him speaking to some private audience of like very influential people who bought into some club in North Carolina. And he was giving them pretty dire warnings as he was telling the broader public that everything was going to be fine, the coronavirus will be taken care of, etc. And so it really is as bad as it gets. And then, yeah, Trump was asked whether he sold any stock yesterday. He said, I don't own stocks, I own assets or own things or something like Hugh Hewitt, like exploded with joy was like, you know, pleasuring himself to this quote. And then I like Google Trump, you know, was like, you know, pleasuring himself to this quote. And then I like Google Trump, you know,

personal financial disclosure. He owns like hundreds of millions of dollars in stocks and equities. So I don't know if he sold them or not, but it's just amazing that the MAGA sycophants, what they're willing to believe from this guy without doing a simple Google search just to verify it. It's so easy. Not Hugh. I can't imagine that coming from Hugh. Hugh Hewitt. All right. So let's talk about the current response uh the world health organization says that the only way to really slow the virus is by mass testing so that you can catch some portion of the 80 of people who have mild or no symptoms and make sure that they self-quarantine we are nowhere near that capacity yet um and so mayors and governors and health care workers are begging the federal government for more beds and ventilators and masks and other protective equipment.

Meanwhile, Trump and Pence and the rest of them give a press briefing every day where the message is basically always help is on the way. The tests are coming. Navy ships are coming. Masks and ventilators are coming. Treatments are coming. Tommy, what's the real story of where the response is right now and where it's falling short on the federal government side? I mean, what it seems like is that the spread of the coronavirus has gotten so out of control that the early need for testing to identify which individuals had the virus and then specifically isolate them is kind of gone. Like the, the, the, the, the, you know, the, the horses left the barn to struggle for a metaphor. And so we're at a place where we are all essentially as a country being asked to not leave our home for at least 15 days to ensure that

everyone who has it, whether they know it or not, is self-isolating. And so in the meantime, you know, we are still, I think, pretty far behind what will likely be the peak of the number of cases of coronavirus. And already we're seeing hospitals in some places starting to get overwhelmed. I mean, it's not just that we can't test at this point. The bigger concern is that caregivers in many of these hospitals don't have the gear they need to protect themselves from contracting the coronavirus in the process of trying to care for people. And that, in many ways, is a far more dire situation. I mean, if half the workforce in the health care community contracts the coronavirus

and can't treat people, then what the hell do we do? I was going to say, Lovett, can you talk about what's going on with the Defense Production Act, which is, you know, part of what a lot of these governors and health care workers and local officials are hoping will solve the problem that Tommy's talking about? Yeah, I mean, look, the Defense Production Act gives the federal government the ability to direct supplies, resources, and the making of needed supplies and resources to get things like masks, ventilators, and important equipment to places it's needed most. There has been an incredible confusion from Donald Trump about whether he will has plans to invoke the Defense Production Act. He has lied about it in press briefings for a week now, maybe longer, saying

he is doing it, then saying he's only planning to do it. Then Chuck Schumer calls him and says, can you please do it? And he, like he's a small business owner who just found out about a package that didn't get shipped, like puts Chuck on hold and shouts, hey, we got to invoke the Defense Production Act. Where are we on that? Chuck wants it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Doesn't happen. So and the press conference yesterday, they they had the audacity to say they're not invoking it because private sector is taking care of this on its own. And we don't want to employ the heavy hand of government. just had to move into the garage at his house and find a mini fridge so that he can stay away from his family for the next month, however long, not see his kids, not see his wife, not talk to anybody, not engage with the supermarket, figuring out a way to keep himself away from everybody because

he knows he's about to go to a hospital that doesn't have the equipment it needs to protect himself, to protect his nurses, to protect the people that are coming in for treatment. These doctors are screaming for help. They're working 18, 20 hours a day, barely able to sleep, afraid to talk to anybody, afraid to go home. And we have the president and his team saying the fear is there'll be government overreach in the production of the supplies that these doctors need to keep people and themselves alive. I mean, he compared it to Venezuela, right? I mean, he said like, this is socialism is what he sees. So I think the thing is important is like, this is so complicated. Our supply chains are so complicated, right? I mean,

I heard a story about a organization that makes N95 masks, but the raw materials they need to make those masks, they source from Wuhan, China. So that shipment is going to be held up for a little while. And so the notion that like private sector can just come to us piecemeal and we can figure billion N95 respirators, a bunch of ventilators, face shields, etc., to try to force his hand here. But the notion that the federal government shouldn't be coordinating this because it's socialism is like offensively stupid. Well, it was it was at least clarifying after all the lies that Lovett was talking about that at the press conference yesterday, he finally revealed the real reason he's not invoking this power that he has, which is he said, you just mention it and it sends a tremor through CEOs, a tremor through CEOs that the government directed them to produce things in a time of crisis. When health care workers are literally making their own masks, reusing masks, using bandanas. I mean, the stories, everyone can hear these stories. They're everywhere right now.

And this is a very, like, you're right. This is like, Trump keeps saying, oh, well, all these companies are volunteering. But like, that's why we have a federal government in times of crisis. You don't have fucking companies volunteering here and there. Like, as Cuomo has been saying, Governor Cuomo has been saying, like, the problem here is different states are competing against each other for these supplies. And so what you need is to have the federal government say, OK, this company make ventilators, this company make masks, this company makes parts for this thing that we need. And then you coordinate the whole response.

And again, like, you know, Roosevelt did this during World War Two when we needed sort of mass production to have government control the supply chain. And governors are asking for it, governors in both parties. It's not a partisan thing. It is fucking insane that Donald Trump doesn't want to do this because he's worried what the CEOs may say. And it's also just also worth just pointing out just how like this is the ideology and this is it's incredibly dangerous. These companies, like those CEOs, these companies, they have obligations to their boards, to shareholders, to employees. They may want to be enlisted in this fight. They may want the government to come in and say, make me do this.

Whether it's banning smoking in restaurants or a minimum wage, when the government comes in and says, these are the rules, this is what we're expecting of you, and every company knows that every company is participating in this effort, then the responsibility is shared and nobody is trying to compete to not be involved in the response, to not do their part. Right now, we have a bunch of companies trying to figure out if they can participate in some way, get supplies to some place in this incredibly ad hoc way, called by a governor, called by a mayor, called by fucking Mike Pence, whoever it is. Like we are in a historic once a century crisis. This law exists for this moment. Also, the government's going to pay them fair prices for this. The government's not just like taking over and making them do stuff without paying them. Like it's going to be a fucking orderly process here. Well, maybe not because Trump's running it but um so uh a lot of people are wondering how

long life will be like this and late last night we got a pretty strong hint about where trump is on this question from an all caps tweet that said we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself at the end of the 15 day period, we will make a decision as to which way we want to go. Then he retweeted a bunch of random Twitter morons saying we should isolate the high risk groups and let everyone else go back to work. Tommy, where is this coming from? I mean, it seems like he was watching a segment on Fox News hosted by some goober named Steve Hilton that I thought might have been associated with the hotels, but is not. And thus, I don't care about his opinion. And he just copied what he said, which is that we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself. Now, like

public health experts are calling for longer periods of social distancing and quarantine. The people who aren't are Trump and his political aides and people on Wall Street who are worried about the stock market and Trump's guys who are worried about the general state of the economy and reelection. And so I do think it's worth having a conversation about the impact that a long term self quarantine might have on the economy and on individuals, right? Like 30 million kids in the U.S. count on school lunches for one or two meals a day. We have to worry about that. Families on the brink of bankruptcy. We have to worry about that. Just loneliness and isolation. I mean, that can cause mental health problems and we should talk about it. But that's not what Trump is talking about.

Like this is gross and it's cynical and it's considerations from Goldman Sachs CEOs and like people on his political team who want to pretend that this virus is going to go away because we just started to find it inconvenient when the reality is we are just starting to do the things we need to do to address it. Love it. What do you think about that whole Trump Trump's turn? So there is that strain. It goes beyond Trump. There is that strain of like. You know, there was a Goldman Sachs call that seemed like it was written by the writers room of succession to make Goldman Sachs seem completely sociopathic and evil, explaining like, you know, yeah, if the if this really spreads, sure, we'll lose a lot of people. But a lot of those people would have died anyway. And it really reminds me of Dr. Strangelove, where one of the guys is advocating for nuclear war and how we'll win the nuclear war. And the guy says, but millions of Americans will die. And he says, I'm not saying we won't get our hair must a little. It's sociopathic.

What public health officials have been saying repeatedly is the goal is to slow the spread so that we do not overwhelm the medical system so that more people don't have to die. Because if we can slow the spread, it's not saying it won't reach a lot of the American population. But if we slow the spread, those people can get the care they need. The health system won't be completely overwhelmed. They'll be the ventilators we need for people, or we'll have had time to build up the stock of ventilators and masks so that we're ready when the surge of patients eventually comes. What they are talking about is abandoning the American people. And by the way, high risk, I would love to know what they're going to ultimately

define as high risk when they let people come out of their homes, because if they're talking about over 60, that's a huge proportion of the population on top of pregnant people, people who are immunocompromised, people with diabetes, people with heart conditions, people with morbid obesity, whatever the condition would be. It is dangerous. It is stupid. And by the way, on top of all that, one last point. The assumption that if we just open up the economy in eight days and have everybody fend for themselves, things go back to normal. What are they fucking talking about? I'm not going to the movies. I'm not going to a big crowded restaurant.

Like this is it is madness. It is dangerous. It is the same instincts that got us into this mess. We're all stuck at home because Donald Trump listened to the wrong people and didn't take it seriously. And we will be back in our fucking homes again if they open the doors too soon. Well, does Donald Trump think that while a recession would be really bad for his reelection chances, that mass casualties in the United States would somehow be better? Like, is that what he's weighing right now because and you're right it's not it's not like oh a few people will die here and there

like we are talking about fucking you know three look at what's happening in fucking italy right now right where the morbidity rate is up it's also like half the people in icus are under 52 like this is we are already so far behind the curve compared to other countries right now that to start talking, I absolutely agree. At some point way down the line, we have to have these difficult conversations about like what parts of our economy do we turn on?

When do we tell some people to leave? We're in like day 10 of this crisis right here. A crisis that public health officials tell us could last for months. Spring break ended like two days ago. I mean, like most states haven't even really taken the drastic actions that are curtailing the economy in ways that are problematic. Right. And the idea, too, that this is like something that only New York and California and Seattle are going to be dealing with right now. Like the big cities that are dealing with it right now, it's because it hit there first. It will go everywhere else in the country, even if you didn't shut down your economy over this. Like people in rural Oklahoma

are still going to be dealing with this at some point, too. Like no one is going to be able to fucking hide from this unless we get through it together by all staying home, all shutting down and like working through this as one country. Yeah, it's not you also don't have to be hypothetical. The flu comes to Oklahoma. The flu comes to Idaho. You know, there is a sinister element to this. It's, you know, the Chinese virus. You know, we will start to see them talking about the cities and the dirty cities. You know, there will be they will turn. They're ready. You know, we will start to see them talking about the cities and the dirty cities. You know, there will be they will turn. They're ready. You know, he's going to start attacking like Newsom and Cuomo and all the blue state governors who keep the restrictions in place.

That's going to be the next move. Democrats want to keep doing this to hurt the economy. There will be a look we already saw already. you know, it we've seen it was Devin Nunes till he was cowed like Devin Nunes going on television saying go to the restaurants. There aren't any lines that governor in Oklahoma, you know, bragging about this. That is that is where they're that's where their hearts are. They want to make this a political fight. They want to prove that going out and being social is like sticking it to the libs and they don't care who's going to get hurt. And it's incredibly dangerous. I have to wonder what Fauci is going to do. You know, Fauci has had this incredibly deft and delicate balance about this. Fauci has to resign if it goes this direction.

I don't think he can in good conscience be in be party to a bunch of press conferences where we just ignore all the best medical advice and in fact, you know, propose things that are going to get people killed. Well, this is already brewing because Fauci gave this interview yesterday, the day before with the journalist, the science magazine, where the journalist basically is like, how do you stand up there while he's telling all these lies? And Fauci is like, I know, but what do you want me to do? I can't jump in front of the microphone and push him down. So this is on Fauci's side. And then, but what do you want me to do? I can't jump in front of the microphone and push him down. So this is on Fauci's side.

And then in the New York Times story this morning about Trump wanting everything to get back to normal faster, it says he started to have some tensions with Fauci because he knows Fauci is this sort of celebrity now on television and Fauci's offering more warnings to people and telling people to be careful and giving the proper advice from a public health official. And Trump's already getting sick of this.

And so, you know, that there's already tension between Trump and Fauci on this, which is does not bode well for the future, guys. No. Yeah. I mean, look, we are we are lucky. We are lucky that Fauci is there and in that position. that Fauci is there and in that position. And I do like I just genuinely respect the moral calculus he has been making to make sure he's in the right place to offer the best advice he can while picking his battles during in real time, because he wants to get the important facts to the American people while knowing that if he disagrees with Donald Trump on television, he may lose that ability. It's an incredibly difficult position he's in. But yeah, Tommy's right. If it starts becoming the point where Donald Trump is going to advocate for the death

of a million Americans, which is what we're talking about, we're talking about Donald Trump advocating for the death of a million Americans to get the Dow back into the 20s, everyone of conscience will have to resign. And of course, we know that so few people of conscience are actually left. I will just say one last point on this. There is one path that would allow us to both mitigate the public health crisis and also start opening up the economy. And, you know, Abdul was mentioning this on the pot on Thursday. And that's what South Korea has done in some other countries, which is mass testing, which, as Tommy mentioned, they're starting to give up on because we still haven't ramped up testing to the capacity that we need yet. But if you start doing mass testing and you even start testing people who are asymptomatic, then you can start sort of quarantining the people who might show symptoms right away. And you know where people who might show symptoms right away and you know where

people are who have symptoms and then you can at least start figuring out all right where are the hot spots where are the where aren't the hot spots where can some people start going back to work where they can't they so you don't have to do sort of the extreme social isolation measures that are happening right now if you have a real mass testing program that's nationwide and we're not there yet and donald trump refuses to like and we're not there yet. And Donald Trump refuses to like, and we're not there yet because he didn't take it seriously. And now the first of a couple stories you'll be hearing throughout this episode from healthcare workers who called in to tell us their stories about how they're dealing with this crisis.

Hey guys, thank you so much for the podcast every week. My name is Richa. I'm an anesthesiology resident in Miami, and I just wanted to share how this pandemic has drastically shaped mine and my friends' lives. My daily fear isn't that I get this virus. I think that that's just part of the job, and we've come to accept it at this point, but I am dreading the day when we run out of masks. Anesthesiologists are at the highest risk when we put in that breathing tube and a patient goes on the ventilator. And today when the CDC said that we may have to use a bandana or a scarf when we run out of masks, it's like going into battle without even

a fighting chance. My colleagues who are physicians, one of them, her husband's also a physician, and they're talking right now about a backup plan for their newborn son if they both get infected at the hospital. And I have so many friends that are supposed to find out where they match for residency on Friday and graduate medical school in May, and their graduation just got canceled. They worked thousands of hours and so many years for that medical degree, and their parents and families and friends don't get to see them walk across that stage in May. So I just want to remind everyone, and it's been shared on social media,

we stay at work for you guys, so please, please stay at home for us. It's really the only thing that can make this better. Thanks. It's really the only thing that can make this better. Thanks. Hey, I live in southern Colorado. I work in a clinic. I think we just saw our first case yesterday, positive.

I took care of the guy. We had PPE on but we're already reusing. We get one N95 mask a piece and we have one gown left so I use the gown and we're just going to reuse it. Our ER has 20 gowns total. We're running out of alcohol wipes. We're running out of thermometer covers to cover the thermometers so if we run out of that like we I don't know how we're going to take people's temperatures we are our clinic built an entirely new wing in like a week we turned our waiting area into a dock in the box area so the idea is if people come in that are infected, we'll send them over there. But we're, like I said, I think we just saw our first case. We sent him for testing, and since I was in touch with him,

I've pretty much isolated myself. I still have to go into work. But we're already out of material. And we haven't even gotten I don't know, I don't know how we're going to protect ourselves, how we're going to protect our patients. Our clinic is not doing any non essential surgeries, which is how we make money. I'm so nervous for our community. Our community just shut down just like every other community in America. And I just, we're so unprepared. It's scary. But I appreciate you guys. I appreciate all your pods. And thanks

for keeping me sane and feeling like I have a family out there. All right, let's talk about the economic fallout. On Sunday, the St. Louis Fed chief said that unemployment rate may hit 30%, which would be higher than in the Great Depression. In response, Congress is trying to pass nearly two trillion dollars in economic stimulus that would send direct cash payments of twelve hundred dollars to Americans making under a hundred thousand dollars and a combination of loans and grants to companies that have been hardest hit.

But somehow the White House let Mitch McConnell take a first crack at this bill, and it went almost exactly how you'd expect. Tommy, you want to run through some of the highlights of what Republicans put in this bill? Sure. I mean, I think the biggest problem with this bill right now is there's a $500 billion lending program, and it's $425 billion of that will go to businesses, cities, and states with absolutely no terms that dictate how the Treasury Secretary will dole out that money. And we know from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico that Trump will absolutely punish states and governors and localities who criticize him politically. And we just cannot put states in

that position. They have to be able to say what they believe. We also can't put Steve Mnookin in charge of picking companies that live or die. I mean, that was one of the primary concerns Republicans had with the Recovery Act. They said Obama was picking winners and losers. This will allow Mnookin to do that, and it will offer no oversight. There's no transparency. The TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, had multiple layers of oversight, right? That was the fund that built out the banks. It

had an oversight board, it had inspector general, it had mechanisms for the Congress to exert oversight. And so this bill has none of that. And it also just does not do nearly enough to get supplies to hospitals. I think Democrats wanted hundreds of billions. I think this has 75 billion. And additionally, like that money that's supposed to go to businesses, there is not stringent measures in place to prevent the companies from taking the money and then firing workers anyway. It doesn't prevent them from taking the money and then buying back their own stock to jack up the share price or giving the CEO a big payout. It just says that companies who get bailout money have to retain workers to the greatest extent possible, whereas Democrats wanted them to have to hold on to 90 percent of workers.

It only limits raises for CEOs for two years. So like this thing's a fucking mess. It doesn't have enough money for snap. It doesn't extend unemployment insurance for long enough. And there's a big loophole for people. If you didn't file a tax return in 2018 or 2019, you aren't eligible to get one of these direct payments. So there's provisions to provide $1,200 per individual and $500 for kids. But if you're someone who is in such a tough spot economically that you didn't pay your taxes or file a tax return in the last couple of years, you're stuck in this bureaucratic nightmare trying to gather all those materials

in the midst of a pandemic or else you're shit out of luck. You're just going to starve. So there's a ton wrong with this thing. So love it. I mean, Democrats basically all oppose this bill yesterday. Everyone down to like from Bernie Sandersie sanders to joe mansion they were all against it mcconnell couldn't get the votes yesterday so as we're recording this now they're all on the senate floor screaming at each other by the way way too close to each other first of all um so they're all on the senate floor screaming each other mcconnell's pretending he's very outraged that the bill was completely fine until nancy pelosi went back to san francisco and came back

and larded it up with all her liberal wish list bullshit. And you can tell now that McConnell's move is either to sort of spin Hill reporters on this, just that it's really the Democrats' fault, or more likely just to get a bunch of headlines that it's like partisan warfare, partisanship in this time of crisis tanks the bill. How hard do you think Democrats should fight for what they want in this bill? Yeah, well, they should fight maximally hard. Yes, obviously. I mean, look, like, you know, it's interesting. Like this is an this is an historic crisis and moment.

But this is also kind of politics. This is politics playing out. There was a bipartisan conversation about what the bill should be. McConnell went off and tried to do it on his own, came back, went too far. If you're losing Joe Manchin, this isn't Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco, right? This is Mitch McConnell overplaying his hand or planning to overplay his hand. And I think that the the shit fit that McConnell has pulled and they have employed all of their best, you know, their best hacks in this, you know, your Hugh Hewitt's and all the kind of right wing kind of intellectual apparatus to say that, you know, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi want to destroy the economy. That is about leverage. That is about trying to tell a story that if the bill goes down, some blame will fall on Democrats, because as you and Dan pointed out on Thursday, the the responsibility will fall to Donald Trump. And Democrats have a lot of leverage because Donald Trump is in charge. And so I think this is a lot about giving McConnell some room to maneuver to claim that some of the political blowback might fall on Democrats.

So they may be kind of think twice or pull back their position a little bit. So to me, this is this is very high stakes, but it's just high stakes negotiation. And McConnell knowing that Schumer and Pelosi are in a very strong position. Yeah, there's also a difference between now and when Obama was trying to get the Recovery Act passed, which was like, with Obama, he only needed like a couple Republican votes in the Senate to get this thing through. Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump need Nancy Pelosi. They need the entire House of Representatives, the majority of the House of Representatives

to vote for this bill. And they need Senate Democrats because they need 60 votes for this bill too. So they actually have to negotiate with Democrats and they can't just pass a shitty bill on their own. So some of the frustration, I think, is the fact that for the first time in their fucking miserable lives over the last however many years, they need to compromise with Democrats and they can't just ignore them and let a bill go down. And this idea, too, you know, they're going to lean on. Well, it's a crisis. It's urgent. We must get the money out the door. Hey, we agree. We want to get the money out the door to people, too. But we don't want like their

wish list for their fucking, you know, rich CEO friends to get in the way of cash going out the door for people who need it right now. Like, I think that's a very fine message for Democrats. Yeah, I mean, look, Mitch McConnell can rightly say this is an urgent matter, but that guy took a four-day fucking weekend to go home to Kentucky to hang out with some right-wing judges and Brett Kavanaugh. So he has lost the moral authority to act like anyone but him is at fault here for the timing. But yes, I mean, Democrats, yes, it's important to do this fast, but it's far more important to do this right, because odds are we're

going to be living with this coronavirus problem for many, many, many months. And if we pass a $2 trillion bill that doesn't actually help people and there's massive frustration among voters, we're not going to be able to pass the next bill and the next bill and the next bill. And so I'm glad Democrats are fighting this. There's no reason to give some big giveaway to CEOs who just want to buy back stock. I think we need to bail out passenger airline companies. I don't know how we can be a country that doesn't have Delta, United, like a ways to get places. But they spent like 95, 94 percent of their profits the last few years on stock buybacks. It's a very simple fix to just say they can't do that. Donald Trump says at the podium that that's what he wants. So do it.

Imagine what people would think who got one $2,000 check and nothing else or who lost a loved one because there weren't enough health care workers or enough funding for hospitals. Imagine what that person thinks when a couple months from now we learn that Steve Mnookin handed out $10 billion to some company that's connected to Donald Trump or some other random industry besides the airlines like Tommy, like like you mentioned, who actually need help, you know, need help because they also employ a lot of Americans. And like, what are people going to think about that? They're going to be angry. And imagine if Democrats sign their name onto that. They sign their name onto a bill where a couple of people got a thousand dollar check and then some CEO raised his own salary two years from now and got billions and billions of dollars for no reason that we knew of because Steve Mnookin just made the decision on his own.

Do we think that's fucking good politics? Absolutely not. Yeah, it's also I mean, it's also like put the politics aside like this is about the harm. The goal of the goal of getting money into the hands of corporations in this emergency is not to make sure those corporations exist in perpetuity. The goal is to keep those corporations running and paying their people so that after this crisis is over, they can get back to work quickly. give it to a cruise line corporation. And then a few weeks later, they say, we tried our best, but we had to let all our people go. But don't worry, our ships are waiting in the harbor for you. Like that will have hurt a ton of people and not achieved any end. I don't care about the organizational structure of the fucking cruise industry. We care about the people. We care about the people. Yeah, I agree. One more thing on this before we move on. So McConnell only got 48 votes for his bill on Sunday night because five Republican senators are under self-quarantine.

Florida's Rick Scott and Colorado's Cory Gardner were already under self-quarantine. And now there are three more after Rand Paul tested positive after having lunch with Mitt Romney and Mike Lee. In fact, one Republican senator pointed out that Rand Paul was using the Senate gym and swimming while awaiting his test results. Is this best practices, guys? Rand Paul's a doctor. He's a U.S. senator and he's a doctor. But so he, like more than anyone,

should know better about what behavior is proper and how to keep himself and others safe. By the way, this is an institution where I think half of them are over the age of 60. So they are very much in the danger zone for contracting this virus. I mean, Congress writ large has been acting unbelievably irresponsibly and stupidly throughout this process. They shouldn't be going to the gym. How's their fucking pool open? What are you doing, man? Like stop gathering in groups on the Senate floor, slapping each other on the

back. Mitch McConnell refuses to pass a provision that would allow senators or members of Congress to vote remotely. And that could prove to be a disastrous long term decision. They got to move on that. I mean, Rand Paul's arrogance in this case is infuriating. I hope he's OK. You know, I hope he'll get great medical care. But it's also notable yesterday at the press conference that when informed that Mitt Romney was in self-quarantine because he might have been at risk of catching coronavirus, Trump made fun of him. is someone with a pre-existing condition. For him to scoff at that and to use it to like bring up some past political beef, just it shows you how broken and dark and soulless that man is.

It's really, really fucked up. All right, let's talk about the politics of all this. In several new major polls, a majority of Americans approve of Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic so far. According to an ABC poll released Friday, 55% of Americans approve of how he's handled this crisis, while 43 percent disapprove. A 12 point jump from the week before a morning consult poll released Friday found similar results. Most of the jump is due to independents and Democrats.

You guys got any possible explanations for this? Love it. Yeah, I mean, it's very hard to know the truth if you watch television and if you're just paying attention casually. That's not that is a fundamental bias in our media. It's not partisan. It's just baked into how the news is currently covered. That's true all the time. It is just a fact of the way Trump is covered that he gives a two hour stem winding nonsense spewing racist rally speech and it is covered generally by pulling out the salient narrative from it. You know, you know, Donald Trump launches broadside discusses immigration. It's sort of it. It attaches coherence to what Donald Trump is saying on a daily basis. You add that to a media that is responding to a crisis by just giving the

president airtime every single day and, you know, letting him go and do a propaganda briefing every single day. And then over the course of the next few hours, unpacking what was true and what wasn't and discovering that a lot wasn't or knowing in real time that a lot wasn't. All of that means that, you know, Donald Trump has he has the bully pulpit. He has this incredible advantage in telling a story. Yes, Democrats need to do better about making an argument. Biden needs to be out there making an argument. But like we should just be realistic about how challenging it is in this environment to compete with Donald Trump. Yeah, I mean, I'm not surprised by this. I mean, I don't like that 55% of Americans approve of his handling now, and that's up.

But I also think that we're in the very early stages of this, right? So, so far, he's had like a flood the zone strategy. He does this hour, hour and a half long press conference every day. He surrounds himself with important sounding, competent people. And everyone who tunes into that briefing, like Levitt said, you get mainlined propaganda with a whole bunch of claims that are lies or misstatements or exaggeration. And, you know, that's an effective short term fix. He looks very active. And I think you've seen that in past crises, like people rally around the president. But Trump refuses to prepare us for what could be coming. He won't present bad news. He won't tell us hard truths. And I think that's going to screw him in the longterm,

right? I mean, he wants to be seen. His new thing is he's, I'm a wartime president. You think that's dramatic and you think that's powerful framing and shows leadership, but like he's not FDR in world war two, right? Like that comparison holds. If the Japanese spent months saying, hey, we're going to bomb the shit out of Pearl Harbor. And Trump's response was to say their military is weak and they don't like to fight in the summer, right? And then two years earlier, he fired the guy in charge of tracking Japanese military movement. So the analogy is off. And in two weeks when some of our hospitals look like Italy, I don't think this strategy is going to be working as well.

Yeah, I don't think you can outrun the reality of the facts on the ground. Like if this is not as bad as everyone expected, which is hard to believe since it's already fucking awful. But if somehow, you know, we go back to normal in a couple of weeks for some reason and the economy is not as bad as we thought it would be. And the casualties aren't as bad as people are predicting. And the virus goes away. Then no matter how much we attack Trump, it's not going to change the fact that he's going to get credit for it. Right. And that scenario.

But if things look like they're going the way they're going, if we go into a deep recession, if a lot of these hospitals are overwhelmed, then like no amount of spin from that briefing room is going to make people think that Trump did a good job when we're sitting here in May, June, July, August, September, and a lot of people are out of work and a lot of people are sick. And so I do think it's sort of hard to judge the politics of it right now. What do you think about like, you know, Rachel Maddow, Margaret Sullivan of The Washington Post and others have called on cable networks to stop broadcasting Trump's daily briefings? Do you agree? And do you guys think that's realistic? Love it. What do you think? You know, they're right.

It's never going to happen. And they're also wrong. So, you know, it's like he's the like, what do you do when the president what do you do when the president is a monster? He's a monster. He's a broken, terrible human being who only cares about himself. And he will kill people to help the stock market. He will lie and encourage his own supporters, his own elder supporters to come out to a rally when he knows how dangerous it is because he doesn't care about anything except himself. What do you do when someone that dangerous has this much power? And is this important?

Is this important to the response? And no one has the answer to that because it's a it's an unsolvable problem. Air it, don't air it like Trump's message will get out. because it's an unsolvable problem. Air it, don't air it. Like Trump's message will get out. Trump will have the ability to say what he wants to say. So I just think it's kind of a problem without a solution, honestly. Yeah, I like sympathize with all the networks.

Like if MSNBC and CNN stopped airing these things live, I would watch it on Fox, right? Let's just be honest. I do think that the briefing room would benefit from more clear, aggressive questioning about his record compared to what he's saying at the moment, because you've seen at times when he is pressed or even when he's not pressed, when Peter Alexander said, what's your message to people who are scared? He fucking erupts in unravels because he views

that room as his propaganda stage. And it's even harder for those reporters. Like, I don't mean to dog the reporters in the room. I think if you read the print coverage, TV coverage of the reality of the response, it's been incredible. They've done an amazing job. And these people are literally risking their lives. It's just the live nature of the briefing that's really been the problem.

of the briefing that's really been the problem. Hi, my name is Cheryl and I've been a registered nurse for 38 years. I live in the Midwest. Nurses are very cognizant of isolation protocols for different diseases. You follow different instructions about masks and gowns and gloves and face shields. The biggest thing right now is because of the shortage of equipment, we don't have the things that we need to do to keep our patients safe, the patient next door safe, ourselves safe, and our families safe. Standards that we had a month ago have been lightened up because they have to, because there's not enough things. We have a thing called an N95 mask. It's a special mask that you wear for respiratory disorders like tuberculosis and COVID-19. Now they're telling us it's okay to wear a surgical mask,

and not only that, that we can reuse the mask five times in a day. So we take our mask and we put it in as a black bag and label it with our name and the date and keep track of how many times you've used that mask until you get to five, and then you can get a new mask. There's a thing going around right now on Facebook and Twitter about sewing masks. And two weeks ago, we would have laughed at that, that we would wear a mask that our volunteers made. But we're not laughing anymore.

We'll take that offer because I guess the CDC says it's better than nothing. And actually, putting a furnace filter paper in it can be pretty effective. So we're willing to be creative and do what we need to do, but it's getting really kind of scary right now. Hi, Podstate America crew. Thanks for taking phone calls. My name is Sarah, and I am a physician assistant in Portland, Oregon. Thanks for taking calls from us in the medical community. We're all anxious and worried.

Our PPE is basically being rationed. I get one mask a shift, which is 12 hours, unless it gets spoiled. I have to wash my hands before putting it on. I have to wash my hands after putting it on, before I take it off, and after I take it off. I also have to store it in a paper bag so that I can reuse it between patients. We in our clinic do not have enough gowns. We do not have enough masks. We will probably be closing our site

and consolidating at one of the main hospitals in the next few days, maybe a week, depending on what the surge plan is. There's still very limited testing. It causes me a great deal of anxiety to log on to my work email to see what has changed between yesterday when I left and today. Please, please, please wash your hands. Please stay home. The people who are showing up wanting to be tested when we have no testing are putting us at risk, especially when we don't have support from the very top.

especially when we don't have support from the very top. I think the thing that has made me so much more agitated and anxious about this whole situation is watching this administration bungle this and having bungled this for weeks. Our lives are at risk. Our families are at risk. The communities are going nuts because of all the misinformation and lack of information that this is going to get so much worse

before it gets better thank you guys for doing what you do I enjoy listening to you you help keep me sane on my drive time stay home stay safe bye you. You've helped keep me sane on my drive-thru. Stay home. Stay safe. Bye. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. We are the hosts of

What A Day, Crooked's daily news podcast. Look, we understand keeping up with the news can be a challenge, especially when we're living in an actual pandemic and we haven't gone outside in a week. That's right. Life is like a movie. But you know what? That's why we're here. We'll be bringing you the news every weekday morning in about 15 minutes. So you're up to speed on the latest developments, both coronavirus related and not. And as always, our goal here is to keep you informed, but not feeling like you're overwhelmed.

So you don't have to count on Twitter, which can be very exciting and dramatic, but also very scary and not always real. We're going to be level headed right here all the time. Yeah. So go ahead and subscribe to What A Day now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Finally, Joe Biden held his first live stream today from his brand new television studio that is now set up in his home. Politico had a story over the weekend about how the crisis has really challenged his campaign. He can't hold rallies. He can't do fundraisers in person. All his staff are working remotely. And in addition to all of that, he can't start unifying the party because Bernie is still in the race. Bernie is still in the race. What do you guys think of the live stream this morning? And what else would you be advising Biden to say or do during this to sort of get out there more? I mean, look, I'm sympathetic to how hard this is. I can't imagine being on a presidential campaign in the midst of a pandemic. I can't imagine trying to come together and prepare for a general election when your staff literally can't be in the same room as the candidate or work together, right? So it's impossibly difficult. So I give them a lot of leeway to sort of slowly ramp this up. I mean,

it's probably even harder if you can't go to Best Buy and to get the proper cameras. But his team needs to sort out these technical issues because this morning it seemed like maybe the teleprompter or whatever version of a teleprompter they were using stopped and Biden like interrupted himself and tried to reach for a hard copy of the remarks. And like unfairly, fairly, some of his performance issues on the campaign trail to date have become a thing, right? You see Bernie people talking about them all the time and they have to serve him a little better in that moment when he's live streaming.

And that's going to be his only way to communicate with the people. when he's live streaming and that's going to be his only way to communicate with the people. I don't know that a speech from a podium in your library is quite the best way to do this. Like maybe they have him do a conversation with Ron Klain, who's one of his top advisors, who is the Ebola czar for Obama. Ron made this awesome video. It's about five minutes long about what a good response could look like. you could have Biden talk to Ron about it. You could have Biden take calls from caregivers or people who are worried and like show you his ability to empathize and like reassure people. There's a lot of ways to put him in a better position, I think, to deliver the message

he needs to deliver, because it is scary to have Trump out there and then sort of a vacuum. Yeah, I mean, like I agree with what Tommy said. You know, when I saw how he was set up, like I'm really like I don't want to. It's an incredibly difficult position the Biden team is in. But what I was thinking when I saw him is, God, I want him sitting down. Like this is a cliche of all cliches. But Biden, this is to be Biden. I know it's coming.

I know it's coming. It's coming, but I can't believe how true it is. I can't believe how much it applies. I'm angry for how much of a cliche it was made before we got here to this moment. But this needs to be his fireside chat. It does. It does. You're right.

I agree with you. I 100% agree with you. And I want him sitting in a fucking armchair. I want his sleeves rolled up. I want him home. I want there to be a fucking dog sitting in front of the goddamn fireplace. Good idea. Let's get the dog. Seems rolled up. I want him home. I want there to be a fucking dog sitting in front of the goddamn fireplace. I want an idea. I want I wanted to say and I wanted to start by saying, hey, everyone, and I want him to talk to us like like he's right there. I don't need it to be live, like film it, have it come out every day.

I'd like to do whatever you need to do to help Joe Biden be the best he can be. Worry about that. The most important thing is not live or not live. Biden be the best he can be. Worry about that. The most important thing is not live or not live. It's just make Joe Biden the best Joe Biden can be and put something out as much as humanly possible with great audio quality and great shots, because that this is going to be the staging ground and brand of his campaign for weeks, if not months. Yeah. Why do live if there's no interaction? That makes no sense. Right. So I've been thinking about this with him for a while. And I think, you know, this is from a speechwriter perspective and love it. I'm sure you've probably noticed this as well.

Like Biden is the type of candidate who, you know, when he's not on a prompter, goes off, talks forever, tells all kinds of stories. And so the whole challenge is to get him on that prompter and to get him on message. And I think that for a while in the campaign, that was the right move to get him on message. But I think at a moment like this, sort of pulling him back from the prompter a little bit where you can tell you could tell he was uncomfortable this morning. He's trying to read it. He literally motioned, like you said, Tommy, for a piece of paper because I think the fucking prompter stopped, which I can't believe they let a prompter stop in the middle of a live stream like that's not serving him well either and like they put out a video before the live stream this morning of him sort of assailing the mcconnell bill we should say by the way that his message on this

is great it's the message it's the same message that elizabeth warren had been saying yesterday about why the bill's fucked up um so from that standpoint it's great but he had a video where he was just standing with no podium that they put out this morning that I actually think he was much better on. He was still reading something, but he was much better. And I just think they got to get him in a more comfortable position. Joe Biden's strength is his empathy and how he can sort of comfort people at a time like this. They also want to exude competence, which he has as well. But like you're right, have him talking to people at a safe distance, of course, but he could be like virtually taking questions from people who are hurting and

worried, whether it's healthcare workers, he could be talking to a staff like Ron, like, I just think now is the time to really get creative. And I can't imagine the stress on all of them, because they're all operating, as we all are, and everyone is from a distance, like he doesn't have a lot of staff around him. And on campaigns, all you're doing is like sitting together in a room all the time trying to figure out the next strategy and they can't do that and you know group calls of 30 people are fucking annoying and hard to come up with strategies like that so i totally get the the challenges they're having but you know you see people like andrew cuomo out there and newsom and stuff like that sort of leading their states through this and he's kind of got to get to that level right now. And look, it is it's the first

day he's got the TV studio set up. So he's got a lot of runway here. But you know, you got to get things going fast. I think he definitely has some runway. And like, again, I want to be sympathetic because I have no idea what it's like to work on a campaign in a pandemic. I can't even imagine how hard it is. A normal presidential campaign is hard, but they are going to have to really start thinking like we need to radically rethink how this campaign is going to be run through the general election, right? There's not going to be many rallies. There's going to be no rope line. There's going to be very little travel. And that can't just be conference calls with press or satellite TV hits or local radio stations. He's going to need to build his own media infrastructure that virtually gets him

with human beings and it's not through the press. Also, he's going to need to radically rethink what a field program looks like in this climate. We're not going to go back on to knocking a million doors in the general election before November. I mean, maybe that's an overreaction, but I sure as fuck aren't going to be opening my door to strangers. So they're going to need to fully transition to online organizing, relational organizing, like building little communities and empowering those people to campaign with friends in their communities. So like this whole thing is going to be more difficult than anyone ever imagined. Yeah. What I'm really worried about is the moment when Donald Trump decides he's going to go back on the campaign trail, have his rallies, and then you're going to see split screens of Donald Trump at a 10,000 person rally, a bunch of people screaming, not caring if they get coronavirus. And then Joe Biden's going to be alone in front of a television camera. And that's not going to be a good contrast, even though Joe Biden in that scenario will be the responsible one. Yes, you can bet, you know, you can bet fucking money that the fifth paragraph will be about how Joe Biden's doing the right thing in a story about how masculine and macho and tough and powerful Donald Trump looks like. I am so it. Super Tuesday was two weeks and six days ago.

Wow. I just, you know, we should all just take, like, this is an unprecedented, incredibly quickly evolving, you know, nightmare. We're in a nightmare. And I'm just, it's, and it is such a gross irony

that we are in this mess. We are stuck in our homes. You know, South Korea, their cases have leveled off and are dropping. We're now spiking. We are in this mess. We are stuck in our homes. You know, South Korea, their cases have leveled off and are dropping. We're now spiking. We are in this mess because Donald Trump is a terrible president. And the fact that this is going to make the job Joe Biden has to make that case that much more difficult, historically difficult, is such an ugly irony to all of this. So again, just like as we talk about

what Joe Biden should do, we should all just be kind of, and we all are just being, have some humility in the face of the fact that we're all figuring this out in a completely unprecedented situation. Indeed, indeed we are. All right, that's all we have guys.

It's just, it's sad to leave you both because again, it's great to have some social interaction. Yeah, it really is. It's nice to see your faces because, again, it's great to have some social interaction. Yeah, it really is. It's nice to see your faces. Yeah, no interview this week, but we'll get back to that Thursday or whenever we can. Yes, we will do that. And Dan and I will be doing the pod on Thursday. So we'll talk to you all then.

Bye, everyone. Bye, guys. Bye, everybody. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked 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.