Pod Save America - “Subpoena cannon.”

Episode Date: November 26, 2018

The Border Patrol fires tear gas at unarmed migrants, Trump threatens to shut down the government over the wall, Mike Espy looks to pull an upset in Mississippi, and Democrats ponder their rural strategy. Then Vox’s Dave Roberts talks to Jon L. about the Trump Administration’s climate report, and the push for a Green New Deal.

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Later in the pod, Lovett talks to Dave Roberts from Vox about the rather terrifying climate change report released last week by the Trump administration. Also, they talk about why more Democrats are pushing the party to support a Green New Deal. We do. We do. We do. Okay, Tommy, what was on the most recent episode of Pod Save the World?

It was a two-parter. I talked to Karen Ataren attia who is a global opinions editor at the washington post she was uh jamal khashoggi's editor so we talked about the pretty disgraceful uh statement that came out of the white house last week about saudi arabia and how they will pay no cost for murdering a journalist uh and then i talked to jared holt from right wing watch about all the work he does to keep track of the uh maga alt right and worse online so good episode check it out nice okay how's everyone thanksgiving thanksgiving it was lovely i ate everything and never left california which i love a great combo yeah i highly recommend that i tried connecticut pizza How was it? Whoa

Siren Got any feedback? And I will say this now Uh oh And we'll race to the Twitter machine To make sure There we go Make it public

Before this comes out I want to say to the people Of Connecticut something Your pizza's delicious Wow Wow And I will say this Big walk back

It's You know people change. All right. Marco Rubio is for immigration reform. Then he's not based on the wins. You're the Marco Rubio of pizza. I mean, you sort of set that up. Yeah.

I don't know what else I was supposed to say. Cut all this. Nope. Leave it in. The pizza is good. It's the best pizza you can get outside of New York State. Okay. Well, one holiday down, another holiday coming up. We have, on cricket.com, we have holiday merch.

It's that time again. So check out the holiday merch if you want. There's some ornaments. Unless you work at California Pizza Kitchen. Now your feelings are hurt all over again. I think the California Pizza Kitchen people know what they make and know what they do. We love you, CBK. Okay.

Let's get to the news. The caravan has made its way back into the headlines now that a few thousand migrants have reached tijuana and other places along the border but primarily tijuana where they've been camped out in a sports complex for the last few weeks as they wait for the united states to process their claims of asylum. On Sunday, a few hundred of those 5,000 or so migrants peacefully marched towards the border. They were stopped by Mexican police. And at that point, many of them started running towards the border. When they got there, American Border Patrol officers

fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the unarmed families, many with children. Guys, tear gas is banned for use in warfare by the Geneva Convention, but it's allowed to be used for domestic riot control, and it has been in places like Ferguson and even at the border in the past. But unarmed families seeking asylum, what is the possible reason for that? No defensible reason. Don't fucking fire tear gas at families with kids. Little babies in diapers are getting tear gas wiped out of their eyes. I mean, Brian Schatz, senator from Hawaii, tweeted,

tear gas across the border against unarmed families is a new low. And he's absolutely right. And I hope that this incident becomes one of the many things we investigate about Trump's immigration policies, because it's been a slow descent into total madness. Love it. What'd you think? Yeah, I mean, I thought two things. One, it coming to this is not just, it's not just what happened on the day. It's the culmination of the mercurial and vicious immigration policies of the administration that's left a lot of people in a state of limbo, unsure of what the law will allow, unsure of whether the law will be enforced, unsure of whether they will be treated humanely or not, unsure of what their future holds after having made a very long and dangerous journey.

And then the second thing is, to your point, you know, I saw a lot of people outraged about the tear gas, and you're right to be outraged about the tear gas, but it takes a long time to get to the point at which these are the kind of things that not just happen, but then get applauded and celebrated by a lot of conservatives, a lot of right wing pundits. And it is about this slower, long term process of dehumanization of people in our prisons, of protesters, of immigrants, of people of color. And that to me is what I see when I see that not just that the Trump administration is willing to go this far, but that they view it as not just politically palatable, but a positive story for

them. To your point, I think that some people in the right wing and the Trump administration and Fox News and some of the propaganda machines that they have, they want people to think of this as a black and white issue, right? That it's either you send tear gas over the border and rubber bullets and use all the force necessary to stop these people from coming in, or suddenly our country's invaded by a horde that's going to commit crime, right? Like, there's no recognition that, yes, it can be complicated when thousands of people arrive at our border, but there is an orderly way to process asylum applications, and there has been in this country for a long time.

And the reason that 5,000 people have been camped out in Tijuana for the last couple of weeks is because the Trump administration has dragged its feet in processing the asylum applications. Like they could have sent a whole bunch more judges, a whole bunch more officials to go process the applications quicker. Like we have had for decades people who apply for asylum in this country, which is their legal right to wait in this country while their applications are processed. And 80, 90 percent of them, they wait here. If their application is granted, then they're in the United States and it's fine. If it's not, then they go home and they are sent home. This works. We have a process.

So most of their argument for this is based on lies. And it's important to realize that because they want to make us think like, what were we supposed to do? The other thing, this isn't some remote border crossing area where there were just a few guards on duty. This is 100,000 visitors go through this crossing place a day. I mean, it's not a place with no wall or no infrastructure or no CBP forces there to deal with that. I mean, I can't understand what would get you in place to not shoot one tear gas canister, but literally dozens of these people.

And this, right, as I was saying, like this comes on top of sending 5,000 troops down there for literally no reason. I mean, it's creating and manufacturing a crisis. These images are what Stephen Miller wants you to see when you turn on the TV. Yeah. Well, it's also like Fox news had some, um, former border patrol official on this morning who said,

it's pepper spray. You could put it on your nachos. It's fine. Like there's, there's a reason why like you choke on it. People have, have died from too much exposure to it. Like this is not something that you fucking play around with.

And then of course there's people say, well, there was an incident in 2013 when a group of migrants came over the border during the Obama administration. And they all descended upon one border patrol agent who used tear gas on them. He used pepper spray. Pepper spray, right. So first, that's one difference. Second, like, when a whole bunch of people are going after one person and he tells them to stop and they don't, that's very different than sitting where you are on the United States side of the border and lobbing multiple canisters over the

side when there are women and children there. Don't tell me that's the same thing. Right. This is the shift that happens when you have someone like Trump at the top. It is permission. It's permission to go farther, go harder. Everything Trump says and winks at tells people like, do what you need to do, do what you want to do, do what do whatever, because I'll have your back. This isn't a national emergency. This isn't a national crisis. Fox wants it to be. They want to be on television all day. Trump wants it to be. He wants us talking about this and nothing else. And the thing I was struck by was like watching this and there was obvious people have been circulating that photo of a family and the mother is wearing a Disney shirt as she's trying to get into the country. And everybody noted the irony built into that. But we're talking about this

very ultimately small issue of asylum seekers at our southern border. And what's ironic about it to me is all these people are trying to get in. And Trump is trying to make it an issue because the thing they think they can get in this country now, which is a chance, a dream, success, all those things are slipping away from everybody. And Trump became president by playing on those fears and those insecurities and that sense that these people are out to get you. These people are taking something from you. And we're going to talk about this and we're not going to talk about all the actual problems we have to solve. And this is why demagoguery, this is why scapegoats hurt people. It's why they hurt more than just the people they're directing the tear gas at.

And just some more context. I mean, BuzzFeed's Mexico bureau chief noted that 11,000 people in the last 37 days have been deported by Mexican authorities back to their home country. So like there is a major movement happening. authorities back to their home country. So like there is a major movement happening. You know, apparently the Mexicans have agreed to a policy where asylum seekers will now have to wait in Mexico while they're going through this process. Now, I imagine that that's exactly the kind of policy Trump desperately wants, something Fox News will cheer. But now you're gonna have people living on a baseball diamond in one of the most dangerous parts of Mexico for up to a year waiting for this process. I mean, it's not humane. It's awful. And so Mexico is denying that they ever made that

deal. And so now, and the question is, will that even work? And what incentive does the new Mexican president have to make such a deal where they, where everyone waits there because the, you know, the authorities in Tijuana right now are saying, we don't have the money to even house these 5,000 migrants in our city anymore. And there's no indication the U.S. is offering Mexico food, shelter, or care for these asylum seekers. But I imagine the cost of doing that would be exponentially less than the 100 million we pissed away to send 5,600 troops down to the border to ruin their holiday. Again, and this goes back to like how would a normal administration handle this, right? Because it is true that it is a problem to deal with.

It's not a crisis like they're making it out to be. But we can't pretend it's not an issue to deal with. And we're not saying, yeah, open the borders. Everyone come in all the time. issue to deal with. And we're not saying, yeah, open the borders. Everyone come out all the time. We're simply asking for an orderly immigration process or an orderly asylum process where you grant asylum applications based on need like we have for our whole history. It's also just this version of America. It's like America wounded and desperate and sad and unhelpful and broken. How could America accept a thousand asylum seekers?

We're in no position to have these people here. 300 million people in the country. You know, who's in a better position is Mexico. What are you talking about? This sort of this version of the country that's just so weak and like pathetic and sad. And the numbers are not big. 80% of Central Americans pass the perfunctory credible fear interview when they reached the US and seek asylum, but fewer than 10% are ultimately granted asylum by a judge. And the backlog of those cases has ballooned to 750,000 cases. So you could be waiting for years, literally. Right. So there was also, by the way, a 60 Minutes piece on Sunday night that everyone should watch, which reported that the Trump administration's family separation policy lasted for months longer than what was previously known,

and that close to twice as many children might have been detained and separated from their families than previously accounted for, due in part to just awful record keeping that they didn't even bother to keep records when they separated families from their children. So they took these kids from their parents, they deported the parents, and in some cases, they just didn't keep track of the information. Should this be one of the top things the Democrats investigate when we get back to the House, exactly what happened during this period? Yes. It's not just that this went on longer. It's that they set up a pilot program to test this cruelty out in one area to see just how mean they could be. Everyone should watch this 60 Minutes piece. It is heartbreaking to see this family try to reunite with their three-year-old son who just doesn't really act like he knows them anymore. The damage is real and it's ongoing. They didn't take any steps to

ensure proper record-taking so they could get people back together. We also know now that, I mean, we knew this already, Secretary Nielsen is a liar and she should be hauled up in front of Congress to explain how she lied to us repeatedly from the White House podium, because there's a memo that says the point of the policy is deter people from coming, something she explicitly rejected. And she took umbrage at. She's a liar. This government is run by cruel, terrible people who are playing to a Fox News base because they thought it would help them politically. And also, by the way, deterrence doesn't work as a policy like that.

Even though she lied about deterrence being the policy, deterrence as a policy didn't work, which we've known for some time, which we knew from when this happened in the Obama administration. Like if these people are running from Honduras, from Guatemala, because they fear violence, because they're being threatened to join a gang

or we'll kill you, right? So they're not thinking about what happens two or three weeks from now when they get to the border in Mexico. They don't know the policy. Yeah, they're not following CNN. They're just trying to escape for their lives and their children's lives. Last quick note, it costs $30,000 per kid to reunite them. $80 million total. Insane. To your point too about deterrence, you know, you mentioned, oh, there's this asylum backlog. There's no great Trump plan out there to try to solve any of these immigration problems. There's no, this has been true on so

many issues. It was true on DACA. It is true on family separation. It was true on Obamacare. It was true on the Iran deal. It was true on the Paris climate accords. When there is something from the Obama era, or when there was some policy that is humane, that Donald Trump has a problem with, they suggest that this is part of some broader strategy to solve some deeper issue that is real to them. But there's never any plan. They just shoot the hostage. That's what they do. And that's what they're doing here. That's what they will do again and again. They're shutting the border, creating chaos, unleashing this scapegoat for their Fox News viewers. And it is toward absolutely no end because this administration has no discipline or forethought or plan to kind of get to any kind of a policy outcome. So this isn't going away

anytime soon. Trump is still threatening to shut down the government soon if Congress doesn't allocate five billion dollars to fund his border wall. They're trying to get that done in the lame duck. On Thanksgiving Day, he said to reporters, quote, there certainly could be a shutdown and then it would be about border security. How should Democrats respond here? And what kind of leverage do we have now? I mean, he needs 60 votes, right? So he needs Democrats. So there's been talk of attaching legislation to protect Mueller's role to I think let's attach $5 billion worth of shit. Let's let's do DACA. Let's do Mueller. Let's do every single thing we can load up. And if he

wants to shut down the government over that, fine. But I want to make this hurt as much as humanly possible on a policy front to get us things we want, like DACA reform, to get funding for whatever we need, but also to protect Mueller. But we should make this a fight because for him, 39 days until we take back the house or have control of the house. I would love for him to set up this crazy scenario where he's shutting down the government once again with full control. Yeah. I mean, I just don't think this works long term for him because even if he, I guess what would happen is he says, okay, I want $5 billion in border security funding. The Republican house gives him that it goes to the Senate um he doesn't get 60 votes for democrats democrats

should say abso-fucking-lutely not we're not giving you five billion dollars especially for nothing right um we're not going to give you five billion dollars for a while then the government shuts down he tries to blame it on democrats for not funding his wall which seems absurd because we just had an election where republic Republicans were beaten as badly as they were at any time in 30 years. And then in less than a month in January, a new Congress is seated

and they have to do funding bills all over again and the House Democrats are going to say, okay, well now we're House Democrats where you're still not giving your fucking bill. Don't give him an inch.

He just doesn't have the votes to fund the wall. No. Yeah, well, he's been president for quite some time. And this Congress has been the Congress for quite some time. And this Congress has been the Congress for that entire time. And it has not happened yet. And we actually did make a deal with him. We made a deal. We said, protect the DACA kids, and we'll give you your border wall

funding. People said, we shouldn't do it. But the Democrats did it. Schumer did it. They made that deal in the way that they can say they made the deal. They made the deal. And then Trump walked away. So, you know, he wasn't willing to do the deal. He's not willing to give anything up for this thing. They haven't gotten it done now. They're not going to get it done now. Yeah. I mean, a broader question here, since Trump will continue to force immigration onto the national agenda, how should Democrats respond? Do you think the midterms have changed the politics around immigration in any way? We went through all kinds of fits and starts over the last two years about this, because I think a lot of us thought we should do the right thing. The politics are unknown unknown let's see what happens in the midterms now we have seen

what happens in the midterms does this i mean do we have more leverage to sort of ignore his bullshit is what i'm asking it's a complicated question because you know immigration isn't a monolithic issue where the politics are the same. I mean, I think when family separation was at the forefront, that was very, very bad for Trump. Those were some of the worst days of his presidency, I think. And I think to the extent Democrats can hold hearings on family separation, to hold hearings on the fact that as Lovett said, he's bad at being president and he's been president for a long time and he hasn't solved the problem. I'm fine with that. If he wants to keep having these funding fights about the wall, I sort of don't care and think we can ignore it. Yeah. I mean, I do think Amy Klobuchar on one of the Sunday shows said, you know, Democrats would be willing to negotiate funding for border security as part

of comprehensive immigration reform. I realized like this very dry, boring position that we've had for the last however many years should be the message, right? Like, yes, of course we want border security. By the way, there's also more border security than there's ever been ever in the history of the United States. So I don't know how much more you fucking need. I mean, we were talking, we were making those jokes

during the Obama administration where we were saying how we've, every time he would increase border security, they would say, now we need border security to get the comprehensive immigration reform. Right, yeah. But what I think, I think just Democrats need to say like, no, of course we're not for open borders,

but we do want to path the citizenship for the people who are undocumented. We want to protect dreamers in this country and we want to fix a broken immigration system. We have forever. If Republicans ever come around to wanting to negotiate on that. Sure, we're here. But if Donald Trump is going to keep screaming about his wall and firing tear gas over the border, then we're not going to play with you. Right. Yeah. It's almost feel like there's two tracks. There's the, here's what we want, right? Here's the democratic position, which is comprehensive immigration reform that includes border security. And the other is these one-off fights where he wants border security, money for the border, money for this, money for that,

whatever he wants, whatever he's sort of clamoring on about that week. I think on those cases, you can decide, how much do we want for that, right? And you can set a really high price. I think we should set a really high price. But I think one of the lessons of 2018 is our position on immigration has been successful. And it has not been one that required us to reach moral compromises with Trump on immigration. Yeah, he basically went as far right as he could possibly go in the midterms said there was going to be invasion of our country it led the news every single news channel everywhere for two weeks straight and democrats won almost 40 seats in the house and lost a senate seat or two and a couple seats in states where trump won by double and they tried in virginia before that and they've been trying this forever Yeah.

Okay. Speaking of elections, we have one more Senate race on Tuesday. The runoff election in Mississippi between Democrat Mike Espy and Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith. Polls favor Hyde-Smith but have narrowed a bit after a string of race-related revelations. Let's call them. Hyde-Smith said she'd be in the front row if someone invited her to a public hanging. She attended a segregation academy in high school, has praised the state's Confederate history, and once offered a measure in her state legislature honoring a Confederate soldier for defending his homeland. Espy, who was the state's first African-American congressman since Reconstruction, is trying to become the first Democrat to win

statewide in Mississippi since the early 80s. So, guys, during the debate last week, the only debate between the two of them, Espy took, in the words of the New York Times, a milder approach to Hyde Smith's public hanging comments, saying, quote, the world knows what she said. The world knows that those comments were harmful and hurtful. What do you guys think of this strategy and what is his what is espy's path to victory in mississippi i mean i he had his most recent television ad essentially talked about her being an embarrassment to the state uh and i thought that was an interesting tone that was similar to what was used in alabama yeah when they ran against roy moore I imagine they have something that shows that that might work. His path to victory involves getting huge turnout among African-American voters and somewhere

between 25 and 30 percent of white voters. So he, you know, SB has run a pretty moderate, I think, pretty universal campaign. But I think I like this. There's sort of these think pieces written about how or how much should one talk about race in these campaigns. Neither candidate has a choice because she Hyde Smith is so terrible and said unbelievably stupid, awful things like I don't know. There's this false choice out there that we should be ignoring this or not talking. I think that he's talked about it in the right way i mean it's i don't even get it you know it's the story of politics in the trump era it goes back to hillary and trump in 2016 like trump says something racist and sexist and whatever and like yeah obviously you want to stick on your own message and talk about the economy and talk about health care and stuff like that but when someone injects racism into the news you got to talk about it yeah i mean look we're talking about trump's policies along the southern

border today we're doing it because even though we know that's the topic he wants to discuss it's important because he's doing inhumane things yeah fired tear gas at children got to talk about it yeah it's it's it's newsworthy it's notable you know it's a tough state for democrats we haven't won a mississippi senate race since 82 uh years ago, our candidate got 37.4% against Thad Cochran. So that's not great. But Thad Cochran is a once in a generation political figure. But I mean, I do think that, you know, Hyde Smith has said terrible things and major companies like Walmart and Major League Baseball are asking for donations back. So I do think attention to who she is and what she's done and said has benefited SB politically.

Yeah, it's an odd thing to say. The question is, are her embarrassing racist gaffes in history enough to equal the stories about pedophilia that sank Roy Moore? So sad. No, I mean, Tommy, you talked about his path here, and it's right. It's exactly what you said, and sort of the third ingredient that Doug Jones had that we will see if Espy has is a bunch of conservatives and Republicans staying home.

Right? Like, ultimately, Doug Jones won because of astronomically high African-American turnout and a bunch of Republicans staying home. And if Espy can replicate that, he wins. If he can't, he'll fall short. And one other thing, just also, a lot of Espy's chance of winning depends on turning out African-American voters. It's about turning out people who may not be regular voters. And it's worth also remembering that Mississippi is a state that disenfranchises a lot of people,

which is again, something that dogged us basically everywhere, but a dog dogs us in these races. So yeah, the voter suppression tactics that have been ongoing forever, I think undergirds this whole discussion about how and where we should be talking about race in a way that it frustrates me because it's not front and center. You know, like if Stacey Abrams hadn't had votes stolen from her, we would be talking about the Georgia results in a very different way. And probably that would set the entire narrative about how to talk about race. If Andrew Gillum had a little better turnout in Miami-Dade, we'd be having a very different conversation about how to address race in 2018. So I don't think we should overlearn from these elections.

If Hillary Clinton had been able to receive more votes in Wisconsin, she might have won that state despite their efforts to disenfranchise people. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure I had the fact, which is that almost 10% of citizens in the state of Mississippi are disenfranchised. One in 10 adults. So that gets us to the larger analysis in this New York Times piece that I just referenced, which is written by Jonathan Martin. And he wrote, even as Democrats made gains in the 2018 election in the suburbs that were once Republican pillars, they're seeing their already weak standing in rural America erode even further. The campaigns of Stacey Abrams in Georgia, Andrew Gillum in Florida, and Beto O'Rourke in Texas may have electrified black and progressive white voters, but they had an equal and opposite effect as well. In rural county after rural county,

this trio of next generation Democrats performed worse than President Barack Obama did in 2012. Now, I have a few issues with this analysis, but what do you guys think? I do think it combines two things that the evidence doesn't suggest to combine. Democrats have a problem in rural areas. That's real. It's a serious issue. Has been for a long time. Has been for a long time. Now, I think based on the outcome of this election, you could say, well, focusing on the suburbs instead of in rural areas seems to be what Democrats ought to do. But if you're someone who thinks Democrats need to compete everywhere, that in order for us to do things like pass climate change legislation, you need to be able to win in smaller states because

you need the votes in the Senate. That is a reasonable question. I think it's an important question. I don't think it's a question to dismiss out of hand. What is not supported by the data, what is not supported by the evidence is to equate decline of voting for Democrats in rural areas with more progressive candidates. That, to me, does not seem to have a basis, in fact. And Jay Martz said this, too, at one point. You know, he said, oh, I did say in the piece that moderates and conservatives also did worse than Obama 2012 in rural areas. And it's like, well, yeah, but then why was the piece about Beto and Abrams? Like, but that that is exactly the point is that there is no evidence connecting

progressive policies or progressive candidates to a Democratic decline in rural areas. There's kill them like but that that is exactly the point is that there is no evidence connecting progressive policies or progressive candidates to a democratic decline in rural areas there's just zero and in fact as and you pointed this out love it right after the election progressive policies did quite well in very red states utah idaho nebraska expand medicaid um arkansas raised the minimum wage they also passed a pro-union uh resolution in 2018 democrats did very well with voters we might get up to 63 million votes 2018 in a fucking midterm when when it's going to be about what trump got in in 2016 it's more than romney it's more than mccain in kansas laura kelly outperformed clinton in rural areas in wisconsin

tony evers outperformed clinton tester outperformed clinton in rural areas. In Wisconsin, Tony Evers outperformed Clinton. Tester outperformed Clinton in rural areas. So there's a lot of anecdotal evidence. I struggle to draw large conclusions from this because it's a little bit apples to apples when you're looking at a midterm versus presidential, blah, blah, blah. I think we need to compete for all voters everywhere, and we shouldn't wrap ourselves around the axle with these debates. My issue, and you just pointed this out, is Democrats cut Republicans' margin in rural areas by anywhere from 7 to 13 points, depending on the exit poll, between 16 and 18. So we actually did, I mean, it's weird to use Obama 2012 as the jumping off point, as this piece does, because we improved upon Hillary's margin in 2016. And in fact, if Democrats had done as well as Hillary

did in rural areas in 2018, the three people you just mentioned, Tommy, wouldn't have won. Laura Kelly, Tony Evers or John Tester. And so that's not to say we figured it out and now the trend is reversing and now we fixed our. No, we have a problem in rural America. But it's to say that because this is such a close country and all these races are so close, it matters when certain groups of voters in certain areas of the country sort of go back and forth between elections, even if it's by a little bit. What it should tell Democrats is, yes, you should go and play in rural areas. I mean, what happened in Wisconsin? The Democratic Party, the local Democratic Party, the national one, they went up there.

They went to some of these counties that Clinton lost that had been trending away from Obama. And they, you know, rebuilt relationships in those counties. And it helped Tony Evers, you know. I would also just say a larger point on this. Stories that look to find evidence of a simple divide inside the Democratic Party between the progressive wing and the center wing, sometimes they're true. Sometimes they're very good stories. Sometimes they are a thesis that goes in search of evidence. Another example of it, Gerald Nadler has been talking about that goes in search of evidence. Another example of it, Gerald Nadler has been talking about subpoenaing Whitaker, saying, I'm going to invite him to testify or I may subpoena him. Elijah Cummings gave an interview where he said, we're going to be very careful about subpoenas

and make sure we're not going too fast. And those two things were set side by side as some sort of evidence of the kind of divide within the Democratic Party. Should we go too hard? Should we not go harder? And it's like, those two things align. They do. And so we've spent a lot of time in the space between Bernie and Hillary, in the space between Manchin and Ocasio-Cortez. You know, that's been a big part of our conversation, but there are many other conversations to have. I think that is so important. Like there are real debates in this party to have, especially around policy areas. Like, is it Medicare for all? Is it a public option that gets there is it what how big is the green deal how expensive right have all these debates for sure but just know that the media has a lot of people in media have a very

strong incentive to come up with simplistic divides about the party that aren't necessarily true especially and the one that's most common and one of the laziest ones is ideological, right? Like, is there a divide between the center of the party and the left of the party? And now this time around, it's also, should you go hard at Trump or should you go less hard at Trump, right? And like, all of this stuff is just so silly because usually the answer to everything is it's always a little bit of both. It's also premature. If Nancy Pelosi and Cummings, they want to go out and their message is we're going to find common ground and we're going to use the subpoenas sparingly blah blah see what they actually do let's all wait for you that's the other thing that's that's a smart thing

to say even if you're about to put more subpoenas you're going to start rolling subpoenas out like toilet paper subpoena cannon yeah you're gonna get it. Just raining down subpoenas on Washington like you're trying to tell North Koreans that things are pretty good in South Korea. Cool, cool. All right. On that note, I think we're done. When we come back, we will have Love It's Conversation with Vox's Dave Roberts about climate change. And guess what? He loves it. And guess what? He loves it. Joining us on the pod today, he is a reporter who covers energy and climate change for Vox.

I also think he is one of the smartest and best thinkers on climate change. David Roberts, welcome to the pod. Thanks for having me. So the National Climate Assessment Volume 2 is out. The Trump administration tried to bury it over the holidays, but it's here. It's pretty bleak. What did you learn from the report? Well, it's sort of funny, you know, following this area for a long time, these reports come out with great regularity and they haven't changed a whole lot since they started coming out. So for me, at least, you know, who've been paying attention to the previous reports,

I didn't learn much of anything. I mean, all that happens with a new report is the numbers get a little worse at the margins. But the basic message is the same as the last report and the report before that and the report before that. Right. So because the IPCC put out a report in October that had similarly dire warnings. What is the value of a report like this when the gap, it's not as though the problem we have right now is that those who believe we need to act don't understand the stakes. It's that

there's political and economic barriers to action. Well, that's right. I mean, I think a report like this, which is, you know, a really deep diveS. federal agencies, 15 of them, I think, worked together on this report, would be extremely helpful for an administration that is geared up to do something about this to help them sort of guide and shape their efforts. But as to its usefulness in persuading anyone, I think at this point, anyone who's persuadable by a report has been persuaded. So I really honestly don't know what the usefulness of another report like this is. I would like to see all these reports shift toward solutions, shift toward solving the problem. At this point, I think everybody who's open to hearing that it's a problem has heard. Well, to that, there's one, I agree with that. But one aspect of it, I did think sort of struck a chord with people anyway, is that the report is very precise about long term economic impacts and says it could hit as much as 10% of US GDP by the end of the century. You

know, we've seen Republicans, including some of the more serious, supposedly serious Republicans, oppose action on economic grounds or suggest that regulation isn't the answer. You've said that the idea that addressing climate change would hurt the economy is every bit as nonsensical as the idea that climate change is a hoax. Do you think that this kind of sort of specific number, 10% of GDP, will help cut the legs out of that argument? 10% of GDP will help cut the legs out of that argument? Well, I wish it would, but no. I mean, first of all, it's worth saying that 10% of GDP by the end of the century is the very, very, very high end. I mean, I think if that was the median projection, that might cut through.

But, you know, there's only so precise you can get about these very long-term economic projections. But at this point, the exact numbers don't matter so much as if this thing is going to, if the economy is going to be hurt, as they say, worse than the Great Recession, and we know this is coming, the idea that it's expensive to prevent that kind of disaster is just sort of conceptually incoherent. Almost by definition, you know, we would have a lot of trouble spending enough money to cost us more than climate change is going to cost us. That's the point. It's also a bit tinny to be talking about sort of global dislocations and massive immiseration on the scale of billions of people in terms of, you know, trade deficits.

Yeah. I mean, one thing that's always worth noting about these reports is a lot of the most sort of grim human damage isn't going to have that much impact on GDP. I mean, the sad, sort of the sad fact is like hundreds of thousands of poor sort of Southern Africans could die in heat waves, and it wouldn't move the needle all that much on global GDP, but it would still be worth avoiding, it seems to me. So that seems right. So let's talk about what we can do. We have this proposal for a Green New Deal being pushed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives. What did you make of it? Well, I have mixed and complicated feelings about it. I mean, on the one hand- You seem to have mixed and complicated feelings on virtually everything.

Yes, that's right. So on the one hand, I mean, it's just, it's fantastic. It's not, and I don't think it's meant to be any kind of detailed policy roadmap. I mean, if you look at the sort of bullet points on it, each one of those bullet points is itself an enormous national undertaking that would involve dozens of policies. I mean, it's really, it's less a policy program than a sort of marker. Like this is what a real solution would look like. And in that sense, I think it's a fantastic development. I mean, it's the first time that a solution on the scale of the problem

has been put on the table by a political actor, like in Congress. It's the first time an adequate plan has graced the halls of Congress. So in that sense, it's great. Well, someone willing to, sorry, I mean, but someone willing to state the goals,

right? The, the actual goals being, being on a hundred percent renewable in a, in a, in a short timeframe. That's right. Right.

It says, for instance, decarbonize us transportation. And that's great. We really do need to do that, but that's, you know, that's going to involve more than a to do that, but that's, you know, that's

going to involve more than a single bullet point. So, I mean, I think it's great to have that as a marker for people to rally around. People who want to do something adequate now have a sort of, you know, place where they can plant their flag. As to the sort of political maneuvering and how to push the Democratic House as far as possible on this that's going to require more than righteousness let's put it that way it's going to require some savvy it's going to require knowing who has the power and who can do what and sort of what are the sort of limitations of the possible so i just hope that people within that movement are are deploying their savvy behind the scenes that movement are, are deploying their savvy

behind the scenes as much as they are deploying their sort of, um, you know, sort of righteous outrage in the press, which is, you know, obviously a justifiable part of all this. Well, I would say, look, one, one piece of the sort of public campaign for something like a green new deal would have to be shifting what is possible, right? I mean, the last time we made a big push on climate change, Democrats, this was during the Obama administration, Democrats managed to get something through the House, which was an incredible achievement by Pelosi, viewed as a tough vote for a lot of Democrats. It ended up dying in the Democratic Senate, even getting all Democrats on board, took a ton of compromise along

the way. How do you see the politics of this changing? The reason we didn't have a stronger bill then is not because we lack the savvy on the part of those pushing for climate action. Right. Well, like Henry Waxman, I think, is the person you'd want to give most credit for that, too. And there was nobody more savvy in the House ever than Henry Waxman. And I think if you look at the sort of Waxman-Markey bill that got through the House in 2009, that is what sort of the median position on climate change in the House looked like then. And it was pretty conservative. But as you know, the Democratic Party was considerably more conservative back then. So the party has moved left. We will find out how much. I mean, I think people really need to understand just how radical this proposal is. I mean, the proposal that she has put in front of Pelosi would demand that as a precondition of this committee forming in the House, it would completely decarbonize electricity,

provide a federal job guarantee for everyone in the U.S., you know, spend hundreds of billions of dollars. So this is as far left as you can go. I don't think the median in the House has moved nearly that far left, but this is a good way, as you say, of sort of like sounding out how far left has it gone. So that's what we need is sort of a modern day Waxman to find the limits of the possible, to find out how much, you know, sort of the suburban Democrat in, you know, Topeka or whatever, like how far is he or she willing to go? So all of that very difficult task is still an intrademocratic task that you're describing. And I don't know if you've been paying attention to the news, but Republicans control the Senate and the White House. What? So, you know, people, I think people feel pretty hopeless about climate in part because they look at this and they say, all right, even the good faith actors, some of whom have their own sort of whatever, more prurient motives. But nonetheless, the collection of, on the whole, good faith actors coming together might be willing to potentially do something that could be on the way to doing enough.

on the way to doing enough. And yet, there is this rearguard action, this group of conservatives in the United States standing in the way of not just American progress, but also, to some extent, to global progress. What do you say to people who feel that sense of hopelessness? Well, I mean, this has obviously been a central problem for climate politics in the U.S. since it started. The Republicans are immovable. So, you know, the question is how to move them. And what has been tried for decades now is reasoned persuasion. That's what all these reports are. There's, I mean, I could point you to just billions of words patiently sort of explaining the science, blah, blah, blah. That didn't work. It's not going to work. I think at this point, it's clear it's not going to work. So what's the other way to move politicians if persuasion doesn't work? The other way is fear. So the only

road I see to moving some Republicans on this is to make it good politics, make it popular, make it so that they're scared not to come along. And to do that, you can't do that with these sort of backing into the future, halfway incremental, Waxman-Markey style sausage making. If you want the politics to be popular, if you want people to rally and create some genuine grassroots enthusiasm and passion about this, you have to go big. You have to give people a big, clear vision. So, I mean, that's what the Green New Deal is about. It's obviously not going to pass in this Congress. I hope I'm not saying anything controversial when I say that,

or probably any Congress anytime soon. But it might shift the politics and create some real grassroots energy around this. And then eventually, you know, Republicans, what remaining Republicans are in sort of purple districts and purple states, and even, you know, sort of renewable energy is invading red states, like eventually they'll just be scared not to get on the bandwagon. And that's what will bring them along. So if you feel sort of this sense of hopelessness, just like double down and go forward faster. Like that's the only thing that could possibly work. So it seems like there is, in terms of how we, inevitably the conversation about climate change becomes a conversation about how we talk about climate change.

Oh God, believe me, I know. So there's been all kinds of thought about how to do this. You know, you need to make people feel like it's solvable. You need to make people feel like it's dire and an emergency. It needs to feel like a national security threat. What is your thinking on this right now about what Democrats should be saying differently than we're currently saying on this issue? Yeah, well, first a meta note on that. You're right that climate change politics have been dominated in the U.S. by discussions of language and framing. And I think that's a sort of symptom of the fact that this came out of science

and scientists want to explain things to people and persuade people. And it hasn't been working. And so they just analyze and analyze and analyze how they're talking. But the reason action is not happening on this subject is not that people are not saying the right words. It's not some magical phrasing that's going to shift things. It's power. It's fossil fuel interests have a lot of power and money, and so changing that requires counter power and money. No amount or variety of talking is going to substitute for that work. It's power and organizing that are going to change things. And sort of that said, I've cycled through a lot of opinions on this subject, but I've sort of come back around to, I think we're talking about it mostly fine. It's a giant problem that's already beginning to manifest. It's going to get worse and worse and worse until we clean up and decarbonize. So let's decarbonize.

I think that's a perfectly fine way to talk about it. perfectly fine way to talk about it. Danger to our fellow Americans and future Americans, looming serious danger seems like a great motivator to me, and it has motivated a lot of people. Majorities of Americans want to act on this. Majorities of Americans support renewable energy, and they support alternative energy Like Americans are more or less persuaded and on board for action. It's not, it's not persuading ordinary Americans that's, that's holding things up here. It's concentrated power and money at, at the elite level. And the only thing will change that is counter power and counter money and organizing. So one, one thing I wanted, I was just curious to talk to you about, you know, the IPCC report makes this clear. It's sort of often sort of almost an aside in the discussion that that's keeping global temperatures from rising more than two degrees will require some form of negative emissions. you've written about this. On the one hand, it's seen as like sort of this far off technology. And yet, on the other hand, it seems like it's essential to any, any or the vast majority

of reasonable estimates for how we could keep global temperatures from rising too high. Can you just tell people what negative emissions are and what the status is on these technologies? Sure, sure. I mean, the basic frame here is that climate change is a concentration problem. It's about the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. And so the rate at which you're emitting doesn't really matter physically. All that physically matters is how much of the gases are up there. And so the idea is if we want to limit temperatures, it's going to be really hard to prevent concentrations from rising above the level that we would think would produce two degrees. But then we can crank the concentrations back down by pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

And we can do that with new kinds of agriculture, with reforestation, with different kinds of soil, but we can also do it with machines. Like we've built these machines now that will directly suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and then you can bury it. So, I mean, I think the thing to say about that is getting to the point that we're going negative requires first getting to zero. So, I mean, Going negative requires first getting to zero. So, I mean, it's great that people are worried about the sort of what we're going to do in 2050 or 2080 with negative emissions. I'm glad we're looking ahead to that. But the first task is doing all the stuff we know reduces emissions now at economically positive returns. So I would just say we need to have our eye on that. It's definitely, we need to be doing R&D. We need to be doing testing. We need to be thinking

about how to construct a giant continent-spanning network of burial sites where we can bury tons and tons of CO2. All that stuff needs to be researched, but we've got plenty of work ahead of us before we get there. Like maybe we could like raise the gas tax, you know, before we start talking about like burying gigatons of CO2 or dimming the sun or all these sort of crazy things we're coming up with, you know, we could just like raise the gas tax first. Let's take things one at a time. I think that you and your fellow anti-snow piercer uh zealots i want to get so much carbon out of the air that we cause an ice age the mammoths come back well also this is all premised on the idea that like we can turn the entire

earth system you know sort of up and down like we've got hold of a knob and and you know i i don't know that i want to bet the future of the species on that it's like we have to turn the whole machine from from suck to blow is that that's basically where we're at right we should just try restarting one last question then we'll let you go thank you so much for your time are you hopeful today well yeah okay i mean i've i've come i've gone around and around about that about that question so many times also that i sort of come out like uh what does it matter like what what does it matter whether i'm i'm i'm i see a big dangerous problem. I'm doing everything I can to sort of explain it to people and raise warnings about it

and talk about how we can solve it. Whether I have hope or not is not going to change whether I do that work. The work is the work, you know? Like I have hope in the sense that I know that there are thousands and thousands

of people of goodwill out there in America who are also doing the work. So that gives me hope as to like trying to predict some outcome in 2100. Like, you know, don't waste the mental energy. Just do the work. David Roberts, thank you so much for joining. That was great. Thank you. That's our show for today. Thanks, Dave Roberts, for joining. That was great. Thank you. That's our show for today. Thanks, Dave Roberts, for joining us.

Do you think that people in Connecticut bought it? Yeah. What I said about the pizza? Do you think they're still listening? I don't know. People in Connecticut have such a short attention span.

Sucks and sucks. I don't think people in Connecticut can listen to something this long and concentrate. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. It's really good pizza. Oh, man.

All right, everyone. We'll see you on Thursday. long concentrate i'm just kidding i'm just kidding it's really good pizza oh man all right everyone we'll uh we'll see you on thursday