Pod Save America - “Thanksgiving mailbag.”

Episode Date: November 27, 2019

Jon, Jon, and Tommy answer your questions on impeachment, 2020, politics, Thanksgiving, and more. Then Ady Barkan checks in with Jon F. about his endorsement of Elizabeth Warren and his fight to achieve Medicare for All.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Today's pod is our annual Thanksgiving mailbag, where we answer some of the great questions you've asked on social media over the last week. And some not-so-great questions. And some not-so-great questions. Yeah, well, you'll know which ones those are.

Pundit just peed on the rug in here. It's happening right now. Just let it finish. Just let her finish. What is going on with you? She is five years old. That was crazy. Good girl, Pundit. What the fuck? You know what?

That's about the right level of respect for us. Continue. And joining us later in the pod is our good friend and new father, Adi Barkin. So we'll hear from Adi. Before that, a few quick housekeeping notes. There's a brand new episode of Tommy's On the Ground in Iowa series in your feeds right now. You want to tell us more about episode two, Tommy? Yeah.

I mean, if you've ever wondered why Iowa gets to go first, we'll walk through that history. If you want to understand how the caucuses work, we'll explain that and we'll actually take you to a caucus location in 2016 and talk through some very important rule changes this year that could change the way people see the results. And we'll go to a house party with undecided voters outside of Des Moines. We'll spend more time with the field organizers we met in episode one. And I think you will like that part the most because they're awesome. But then if you hate Iowa and you think it sucks and shouldn't be first, stay tuned for episode three great also the first season of America Dissected with Abdul El-Sayed is now completely out and Thanksgiving break is the

perfect time to catch up on this fantastic series if you have not had a chance to check it out finally we've got some new merch on Cricut.com we got holiday merch we got gay news shirts we got call congress sweatshirts that are I'm told the softest ones we've ever made.

Which ones? I guess the call Congress shirts. Oh, cool. Softer than... Softer than gay news? Softer than the Republican response to Donald Trump's crimes. The workshop at Comeback Later. The gay news shirts are legitimately really cool shirts.

I'm definitely going to put, I definitely was thinking we should do a funny picture where you two are in the Gay News shirt and I'm not and I'm just furious between you. And you're in like a Patriots jersey. I will always be a prop. Okay, so make sure you're following at Crooked Media on Instagram

to find out all the new merch that we'll be dropping all season long. I'm just doing the marketing stuff. I think Pundit thinks that rug is outside. I think she thinks that's grass. Yeah, no, we can have a whole bunch of excuses. Okay, let's get to the mailbag. And we're going to start with a few questions about impeachment.

IndigoSwirl on Twitter asks, that's my favorite part of doing this, if the House votes for impeachment, how will Senate proceedings differ from the ones we are watching? Does that indicate or sativa?

I think... Just tell us how much more or less pizzazz there will be in the Senate. I think we can actually expect more pizzazz, in part because this is now going to be,

as Trump said himself on Twitter, home turf. Check us. And congratulations to all the Republican senators who now are viewed by Donald Trump as the home team, the home team owned. He's probably right. Probably right. But this will be a trial in which Republicans will be in control of the majority and will determine the rules. It will be presided over by Chief Judge John Roberts. How this all plays out, we don't know.

What did I say? You called him Chief Judge. You know what? I'm sticking with it. And, you know, what the Senate will do, the predictions have run the gamut from conservatives saying that they should drag the trial out for six months to try to make it about everything but Ukraine,

all the way to conservatives saying that it should be dismissed without ever having a trial. Those happen to be both arguments made by Hugh Hewitt. Oh, my God. But latest reporting is they're thinking about two weeks from that's reporting from Senate Republicans and people who know about Senate Republicans and the White House on background. So we'll see. But it could change. It could change.

Can I ask you guys a question? So there was a good piece in, I think, New York Magazine about all the rules and how it works. And I think the key thing people need to know is that the Constitution writes very little about the rules of impeachment. It's really all deferred to the House and the Senate. And so they get to pick a lot of these things. But there's a question about how much senators are or not allowed to speak about the trial during the trial. Obviously, you're a juror, so you sit there silently. But there seems to be a question about whether they're allowed to discuss it after the hearings are over or on the weekends or whatever, which if there's a gag rule on them, that is materially different for those running for president and would be a big deal. It would. So I think, I mean, as you said, Tommy,

was running for president and would be a big deal. It would. So I think, I mean, as you said, Tommy, what the Constitution says about the Senate trial is only that the chief justice presides and that you need two thirds to convict. That's all it says. After that, it depends on what the Senate rules are. You know, the Republicans control the Senate. There was a note in that piece that you talked about, Tommy, that Ed Kilgore wrote in New York Magazine that in the Clinton impeachment, there was unanimous consent, meaning everyone agreed on what the rules of the Senate trial were. I find it hard to believe that there'll be unanimous consent on the rules this time around. But it does show you how much leeway Mitch McConnell has to set the rules. What has happened in the past, what should happen is there are House managers who act like prosecutors. So a few House members, Democrats, will present the Democrats case for impeachment, because presumably the House at that point will have voted to impeach the president.

And so the House managers will act as prosecutors. They will present the case. Both sides will be able to call witnesses. But again, whether those witnesses are accepted, everything else, it's all going to be set up by these rules in advance that the Senate agrees on. Now, the only thing is for Mitch McConnell to set these rules, he needs, of course, 51 votes. So if he tries to pull anything too shady, you know, you could imagine a scenario where a Susan Collins, Elisa Murkowski or Cory Gardner, some of those people, Mitt Romney, even people who might ultimately vote to acquit Trump may say to themselves, I don't know if I really want to do this whatever crazy unfair thing that McConnell wants to do, though. You know, we'll see what what level of tolerance they have. And it's also, I think, the John Roberts question.

He is a conservative, but he's also someone that takes a great deal of pride in representing the court faithfully. So I think it's an open question how active a role someone like John Roberts would play versus someone like William Rehnquist during the Clinton impeachment. Josh Marshall in Talking Points memo got an email from a former U.S. attorney noting that, you know, Pelosi spoke the other day and she said, so we didn't get Bolton or Mulvaney or any of these people to testify. The Senate may be able to get that testimony. And this former U.S. attorney said the reason why is and what Democrats may be thinking is they could call John Bolton or Mick Mulvaney as witnesses in the Senate trial. And then instead of it going to court, the person who would decide whether it was acceptable to have them as witnesses or not is John Roberts. And so instead of having stuff hung up in court until the summer, John Roberts could just decide right then and there to do it.

Now, Roberts could say, I'm not going to make these decisions. I'll kick them to the Senate. But again, I'd rather Susan Collins vote to say, no, none of these people should testify and have to take that politically painful vote than to just have it tied up in court. So it could be what the Democrats are thinking on this. Good for them if they are. That's savvy. Smart Democrats. Man, Democrats.

What a new feeling, huh? Smart Democrats. Thinking strategically, planning ahead. You might say they have high high hopes all right for a living oh my god i can't get out of my head i know and i look i don't say that in any way to denigrate the pete campaign or anything else it's just that song is an earworm and i hate it someone someone on buzzfeed set the high hope song to a video of the 96 democratic convention with hillary Hillary Clinton dancing and people doing the margarita. And it's so funny. So there's a theory of the Internet that says it's impossible to tell the difference between extremism and the parody of extremism, that it ultimately always looks the same.

that it ultimately always looks the same. And I think that there's a corollary, which is dorky, sweet earnestness is impossible to distinguish from the parody of it. And so my feed is filled now with two sets of videos, people earnestly doing the Pete dance and people ironically doing the Pete dance. It's all the one dance. You all look the same.

I cannot tell the difference. I would just say to anyone making fun of the kids in those videos, when you're doing visibility and you wake up at 4 in the morning to go stand on a corner at 5 in the morning and you're there for 12 hours, you need to do some things to stay warm and to occupy your mind. So if you want to do a stupid dance, do a stupid fucking dance. Like, good for them. Yeah, like, all of the mockery should be in good fun only

because these are people out there knocking on door. I feel that, too. You know, I'm sick of the fucking cynical Internet anyway, but I'm going to keep having fun with it. You know, the song will break me. Jason Tondra on Twitter asks, can the House's vote to impeach or the Senate's vote to impeach be held anonymously, presumably freeing some Republicans to vote their conscience? Is that even possible? Republicans to vote their conscience. Is that even possible? It sounded crazy at first, but Juliana Glover, who is a Republican lobbyist in D.C., wrote a piece in Politico about this, where she raised the fact that because, as we just said, that the Senate can basically set their own rules with 51 votes, technically the Senate could probably set a rule that

it could be anonymous voting. Will they? Seems doubtful. Right. And you think of it like a jury. It's outlandish when you consider that, like, well, hold on. These are members representing constituencies, representing states. They ought to be on the record. But then you think, well, they're also behaving like a jury. And jurors often are able to cast their votes anonymously. So it seems very, very unlikely.

Rural jurors. Rural jurors. Rural jurors. Yeah, honestly, we're going to get fucked by a bunch of rural jurors. It's an interesting idea and question. I think in practice, after the vote, the first thing that would happen is Lindsey Graham would be like, teacher, teacher, I voted to get you off. And everyone else would follow suit. And it would be so funny because you know

that what people said publicly and the final vote tally would not line up and be like some of you lying some of you voted to remove this guy michelle bop on twitter asks whatever happened with the making the military stop in scotland to prop up trump's failing resort stuff is it still under investigation will it have enough steam to include as an article of impeachment what do you guys think whatever happened to that it's still there still there there was a story in politico i think that showed that there were i think 250 000 worth of expenditures at that resort uh there's the ongoing problem of the u.s secret service having to pay tens if not hundreds of thousand dollars to like rent golf carts and things from Donald

Trump and put money in his pocket. So, yeah, it's terrible. It's grifting. It's something that should be, you know, examined by the oversight committee or whatever the appropriate place is. I don't think there's any chance it becomes part of impeachment. Yeah. And I mean, I guess the reason why there's no chance or very little chance is because we just saw two weeks of sort of painstaking hearings where witness after witness comes forward and you know republicans try to muddy the whole thing up and i think adam schiff and the democrats and the house intel committee were near flawless in in their performance here but you could you know it's hard now to imagine another two or three weeks of hearings where you bring in all these witnesses and start educating all everyone about the emoluments clause and what it is. Regardless of that,

though, because so much of impeachment is an exercise in public education, I would hope that as the House managers make the case in the Senate or even as the judiciary considers articles in the House, someone raises and makes a little speech on the fact that the president's foreign policy could be influenced by the fact that foreign governments are making him richer every day and have been since the beginning of the presidency. And really, it fits right in with his sort of corruption with foreign policy in the Ukraine scandal, too. So I think it's not some side issue here. I think you should think it's good for Democrats to sort of weave it into the larger story at the least all right let's move on to a few 2020 questions this is from jennifer db on twitter please opine on the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates respective foreign

policy experience and if you have specific advice you'd give them tommy this one's for you their experience okay you can just go with the top ones I think it's too much to go through all 20. I would happen to agree with you. Mayor Pete and Tulsi served in the military. That's relevant experience. I think Bernie Sanders has done a ton of work since 2016 on foreign policy. He's got a really smart team

and he's shown a lot of interest and fluency in the issues. So for example, there was a leadership change in Bolivia recently. Evo Morales was forced out. Some say it was a popular uprising. Some say it was a coup. And it's actually become a distinction on the left between Bernie and Elizabeth Warren.

So that's one recent area where they're starting to talk about these issues. Biden has the most experienced period, but he also voted for the Iraq war. So that probably cuts both ways. Who i missing here um elizabeth warren yeah look i mean she has a put out a bunch of plans she gave a major foreign policy speech early you know she's smart and thoughtful on almost all these issues yeah biden i mean biden does i think when he is at those debates and says uh you know i've met all these foreign leaders, I've traveled around the world. Like he does have, you know, like you said, someone could make the weaknesses. Someone can make judgment arguments against him about Iraq.

But his foreign policy experience, even before he ran for president or was vice president, was extensive. Can I just say one thing? Like he gets dinged a lot for voting for the Iraq war and he should. And everyone who ever voted for that war, you know, has to own it. But he's also, I think, learned from that mistake and was like one of the people in the situation room in 2009, arguing against sending tens of thousands of more troops to Afghanistan. And I think in hindsight, his position was right in the decision Obama made was wrong. So, yeah. Uh, and one, one piece of advice, you know, I'm not a foreign policy expert, but I am a worldo. I was, and I think I said this in the focus groups I did for the wilderness, I was surprised at how many voters who are sort of low information voters, don't pay a ton of attention to the news, aren't, you know, familiar with all the details of every policy as we are,

brought up on their own when talking about trump how embarrassed he has made them feel to be americans and how he's fascinating embarrassed us on the world stage and we got to get rid of this guy because he has ruined all of our alliances and we're worried about that and what if that doesn't make us safe and it's just and i was just like it's it's as those of us who worked in politics where i'll, it's hard to get voters to care about foreign policy when it's not when there's not an imminent war, a terrorist attack or something like that. And to have all these people talk about America's standing made me think that's an argument that Democrats should probably make more because you don't hear it very much. This is from Osho Chell on Twitter. What do you think is the best strategy for Bernie to win

the nomination? What's he doing right? And what should be the focus? Sometimes we don't talk about Bernie enough and he's one of the front runners. So I figured this would be a good question for us. Uh, love it. What do you think? I would say, I don't know how you do this, but I think the clear question for Bernie is how do you broaden your coalition beyond the incredibly enthusiastic young base that he has built since 2016? There was this question after 2016, which is what share of Bernie's support was pro-Bernie? What share of it was anti-Hillary? I think what we've seen is there was a good chunk of people that were with Bernie and are not with him now. But that does mean that he could earn their support again.

I think you make a really interesting point, because when you look at some of the data out of Iowa, like Bernie's. So the Iowa State University has been polling people and then repolling portions of their respondents. And the Bernie people are rock solid. They're not going anywhere. And then everyone else's candidate, they're just sort of bumping around like Warren gained a bunch and she lost a bunch. And you can see the fluidity of the race that like 60% kind of willing to be convinced cohort. And then there's just the rock solid Bernie or bust folks. And I'm not saying that they would like not vote for the Democrat in general. I'm just saying they're like all in for Bernie. And it's a big question whether their strategy is even to expand the base this time or whether they think like if we're over 15%

in a whole bunch of precincts, we're going to be viable and like they can outlast everybody else by just getting through it. And like, I get the sense that that's their strategy. They're not really trying to grow. They're trying to maintain, but I don't know that. So I think, yeah, one path for him would be he, so he's been like second or third or fourth in Iowa, right? So let's say he either wins Iowa, which is within reach for him, or he comes in second or third in Iowa, right can see any any anywhere from one to three in Iowa Bernie keeps going for sure now he goes to New Hampshire he won New Hampshire in 2016 it's always been a good state for him he's from Vermont um with a little bit of momentum now say you know if someone like Pete wins Iowa and then it's tough for Warren to keep going or

Warren wins and it's tough for Pete to keep going you start winnowing the field after Iowa you get to New Hampshire obviously Joe Biden will still be there. Now Bernie wins New Hampshire. Now he came in first through third in Iowa and wins New Hampshire. Now they're both off to South Carolina. And after Joe Biden, the one candidate with the most support

in the black community is Bernie Sanders. He has more than Warren or certainly more than Pete or anyone else, at least nationally. In South Carolina, you know, it goes back and forth. But so then he's got a race against him and Joe Biden. And then he tries to make the case at that point, he doesn't need to make the case that he's a democratic socialist, but he needs to make the case that he is the more progressive alternative to Joe Biden.

And it starts to look a lot like 2016. The one thing I would add to that is, okay, that's the kind of political delegate path and how it could all play out. I do think that, you know, thinking about it just rhetorically, if I were thinking about how Bernie needed to go beyond his current base of support, I would think, what is the language he could be using to reach out to people that doesn't in any way contradict his rhetoric and his left wing credentials? And to me, I think that there's a part of the case I would

really be interested in Bernie talking about more. So he has this critique. He has this incredibly powerful critique about what's broken in our system, the power of corporations, the need for a revolution of working people. And I think it resonates with a lot of people. And I also think one thing, I know it from my own family, you see it in the polls, you see it in how people respond to Bernie. You believe him, you like him. You know that in the polls. You see it in how people respond to Bernie. You believe him. You like him. You know that he's telling you what he thinks. It's what makes him such a strong debater. When he says something on that stage, he has this incredible armor of him never, ever seeming as though he's being political. He's always telling what you think,

what he actually believes. And it's effective. I think that there's a positive version of his story that he doesn't often tell, not just about the villains he'll take on, the enemies of working people, but a positive vision for the good in America that he's trying to exploit. And I think if I were thinking about how to get Bernie to see beyond the current people supporting him, I would start there. The other thing that's notable, I think, is they just announced 4 million individual donations, not donors, but donations, which makes me believe that there's several million donors. And if he can turn all of them on the day after Iowa and get 10 bucks out of people, he's coasting financially into New Hampshire. Yeah, three candidates definitely are going to have the cash for the long run here. It's Pete, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

This is from Sonia on Twitter. What could a Democratic president really do on actual day one of her or his presidency in 2021? How much can realistically get done that day? And what could they do slash fix by executive action on the very first day? Well, it depends on your bedtime and your wake up time. And whether or not you're a procrastinator. Yeah. Are we talking nine to five? You can get a lot of EOs drafted during that transition.

What about executive? We walked into that White House on day one and our emails didn't work. We had those fake Gmails. We couldn't figure out what to do. You literally get on buses after the inauguration and the buses drop you off at the White House and you get in there, you sit at your computer and you're like, now what? How do I work? What do I do? What happens? Yeah. I mean, things that people have proposed are Kamala Harris has talked about proposing gun executive orders, gun control executive orders.

If Congress doesn't act in the first 100 days. So that's that's more of a reasonable time frame, I think, than day one. Yeah. Warren has proposed a moratorium on drilling. You could get all the candidates or most of the candidates have proposed getting back into the Paris climate agreement on day one. The American prospect did a great, a very cool project called the day one agenda that everyone should go check out. You just Google it and laid out a whole bunch of other executive actions that they looked at legally and that the president could do on drug prices, effective marijuana legalization, labor movement stuff, corporate accountability stuff. So I think there's a lot you could do. I would say from a media perspective, it's probably not a great idea to do a ton of things on day one, even though you could pass a bunch of executive orders on day one and sign a bunch of executive orders on day one. It's not great to do a bunch because you can only

get so much media attention at one day and i think one thing we suffered from in the obama administration at the beginning is like we passed we passed the recovery act right and in addition to like propping up a kind of economy that was about to collapse the recovery act also made like historic investments in education in clean energy and all these other things never got credit really for any of it because it all happened at once yeah and one of the things you learn when you're any of it because it all happened at once. Yeah. And one of the things you learn when you're in the White House is like you have to really sort of spread out the accomplishments. And then when you achieve something, really hammer home the accomplishment in the media. Because when things happen too fast, people forget about them.

And then when it comes election time, they're like, well, what have you actually done for me? Yeah, it's not just a political concern. They're like, well, what have you actually done for me? Yeah, it's not just a political concern. I do think it's a genuine governing necessity because proving that the ideas that we believe in are not just good on policy grounds, but good politics is, I think, is really important. One other thing I'd say is I think you also just should divide them into two buckets. There's the bucket of undoing the damage Trump did. There's a bunch of environmental rules, coal rules, pro-corruption decisions. There's a host of things that I would say are more urgent.

And I would say you do those very quickly. And then you look at the kind of the new and positive changes you want to make as something you meet out in the early days of the administration. Fire all those lobbyists. Like the personnel stuff is a big deal. Like getting a white nationalist named Stephen Miller out of the White House is a big deal. Putting someone in charge of the State Department that's not denigrating and like driving out career diplomats is a big deal. Like getting a white nationalist named Stephen Miller out of the White House is a big deal. Putting someone in charge of the State Department that's not denigrating and like driving out career diplomats is a big deal.

There's so many. Every little thing is going to be such a welcome change. I would love so many more questions at the next debate and just of the candidates in general about executive actions, plans to do stuff without Congress if Mitch McConnell retains control of the Senate, which is very possible. Will you do a White House briefing? Yes. And questions about, like you just said, Tommy, personnel. Who are you thinking about? What kind of person would you put in this position? And yeah, because I think it's really important and it may end up being the primary power of the president, the next president. From Moni Ray on Twitter twitter what are your thoughts on making presidential primaries all in one day

to that i was gonna say to that i would say um if you enjoy what michael bloomberg's about to do with 50 billion dollars on television that would be the kind of campaign we would have a bad idea i think it's a very bad idea especially because i think um uh demar you think in a primary, there are flights of fancy. There are moments of mania. Candidates rise and fall in the polls. And I think the idea, I guess what I would say is if you think that's a good idea, think about all the different days that that primary could happen and how many different candidates have led at different points in the primary. The good thing about our system is A, it means that everybody gets a say over time. And B, candidates have to kind of really be tested out in different forums over time, small states, big states, caucuses, primaries. And I

think ultimately, I think it redounds to the benefit of democracy. In episode four of my Iowa series, we go through some other potential ways to do it that might be better. So stay tuned. Well, and look, and you have this, you've covered this in the Iowa series too, but plenty of criticisms of the homogeneity of the caucuses, right? They're too old, they're too white. They have all kinds of problems with them. But the fact that we have a primary system now that forces candidates to compete in person and travel around smaller states and meet people and hold events is very important. I do not think we want a democracy where the only time we see these candidates is on their television ads or in these debates. People should be able to meet candidates. So should we have more diverse states? Yeah, absolutely. We

can talk about that, but they should be forced to walk around these states and meet people. I've got a pitch. What new york city went first you're welcome i got a pitch you're welcome hometown only blue check marks on twitter yeah that's right yeah they should run through the fucking gauntlet of the blue check marks see if you piss everyone off all right let's get to some other issues rachel on twitter asks what is one issue that hasn't gotten any attention recently that you've been dying to talk about, but there hasn't been room in the show due to the election and impeachment?

All of them, Rachel. Let's just go around the horn. Let's go around the horn. There was a story in the New York Times last week. Fake news. About FedEx. Oh yeah, that was great. FedEx and their lobbyists

and their CEO lobbied relentlessly for the Trump tax bill that Trump pushed for and the Republicans all voted for. And as a result of that, in 2017, FedEx paid about $1.7 billion in taxes.

In 2018, their tax bill was zero. They got a rebate. They got it. Yeah, that's right. They got a rebate. The government paid them. The government paid them. Sorry. Technically, the government paid them. And during the lobbying for this tax cut, FedEx said, oh, well, if you give us this tax cut, we will invest all this money in equipment and that will create jobs and that will stimulate the economy. There was no investment.

The money went back to their wealthy shareholders. Buybacks and dividends. So that is one. So there's two stories that are connected here. So that is one story. On the other side of this, we just had two elections in Kentucky and Louisiana, where in Kentucky, Andy Beshear, part of the reason he won is because he expanded Medicaid in that state. Or he defended the Medicaid expansion that his father actually did. And the Republican opponent, Matt Bevin, the governor, had tried to cut Medicaid.

In Louisiana, John Bel Edwards is there for a second term as Democrat because he fought for the state's Medicaid expansion and his Republican wanted to get rid of it. Donald Trump, if he wins a second term, will gut the Medicaid expansion in every state, will gut Medicaid. Millions and millions of people will be thrown off Medicaid and they will tell us it's because they can't afford it. FedEx just saved a billion dollars and Donald Trump wants to cut Medicaid. Every Democrat running for office and especially the presidential candidates should be talking about that trade-off, the tax bill for healthcare cuts in this election, and they should not wait till the general, someone bring it up on stage next time. Next time we're in the Medicare for all cul-de-sac, because I guarantee, and we saw this in our Wisconsin poll, it probably

pulled better than anything else. That's my issue. I have two. One is, so the Montgomery advertiser ran a story where they talked to prisoners inside of the Alabama prison system in truly horrid, horrible, animalistic conditions. They have just been abandoned and left to fend for themselves. There are drugs and weapons. It is cruel and unusual punishment being meted out on a massive scale. The other story, this is just something that's on my mind generally all the time, is we talk about the importance of infrastructure. We talk about tackling climate change. We talk about high-speed rail and traffic and the high cost of living.

One thing that contributes to all of these problems is the fact that in the United States, building costs more by an order of magnitude in some cases than it costs to build trains and tunnels and bridges and roads, not in countries without labor standards or environmental standards. We're talking about our costs being more than double standards, environmental standards. We're talking about our costs being more than double than parts of Europe. And it means that our capacity to deal with everything from housing costs to traffic to clean energy is hampered by the fact that every mile costs twice as much or more to build. And it's a crisis everywhere in the country. And it's something that there's no one cause of it. There's a bunch of different causes. And a presidential candidate who can start thinking about that, politicians who can take this issue seriously,

will be doing an incredibly important service because all the ups and downs of politics, this one issue is hampering us constantly and will continue to do so for decades unless we figure it out. I think we should be talking about civility. Oh, shut the fuck up. Fucking. So Ben Rhodes and I talked about this

on Pod Save the World this week, but remember North Korea? Oh, yeah. Remember how they were building nuclear weapons? Remember how they were building missiles that can launch those nuclear weapons and hit the United States? They're still doing that. And Trump's effort at a diplomatic play has done nothing but buy them another, what, 18 months of time to make more 400% more to station US troops on the Korean peninsula, something that allows us to project power into the Asia Pacific region and is obviously a hedge against this North Korean aggression because we can spot their missiles when they launch them. We can monitor

them all these ways. What's he extorting them in exchange for? Which investigation into which opponent? I don't know. Good question. Yeah. Tulsi. And so the combination of those two things, allowing the North Korea problem to fester, which is admittedly a hard problem, but he's not, he's failing and driving our allies in South Korea away from us has led to the South Koreans cutting some sort of defense agreement this week with the Chinese. And if we just, if we unravel our alliances with Japan and Korea and the Philippines and all these places in the Asia-Pacific and push them into the hands of the Chinese, because our dumb fuck president thinks about this in terms of being a cash register and not an alliance. It is something that is unfixable after he's gone. Oof.

Yeah. Yeah. It's just like the stakes of the presidency. Right. And like, yeah, those are the stakes. Speaking of things that we almost can't do anything about. Chris asks, what are we going to do about judicial appointments? How do we come back from Republicans packing the courts, if anything? It's a hard one. I think Chris, you know, look, got to win that Senate. We got to win the Senate. That's it. We

have to win the presidency. And we have to face the fact that we have been losing on this battle. We have been just getting our asses handed to us. Yeah. But I think face the fact that we have been losing on this battle. We have been just getting our asses handed to us. Yeah. But I think the judges that Trump put in place aren't going anywhere. They get lifetime appointments. So that's that. And he's reshaped almost a quarter of the federal judiciary are Trump judges right now,

which is fucking terrifying. But it just goes to show how badly we need to win the Senate and not just the presidency, because if we win the presidency, not the Senate, there will be no more Trump judges or Republican judges, but there'll be no more any judges. Well, it will certainly mean that fewer Democratic appointed judges will get confirmed. We don't know that they'll stop it completely. Yeah, well, we'll see. We'll see. We don't know. Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. I mean, you know, look, we may actually be at the point where they simply will not confirm any more judges. Regardless, winning the Senate not just means confirming judges.

It also puts even the possibility of judicial reform on the table. What that would look like is anyone's guess. Mayor Pete Buttigieg has a pretty bold proposal on that, but it does seem a bit fanciful at the moment. Get Mitch or die trying. Donate to the Senate Fund. Yeah, good call. Okay, some fun questions.

Oh, fun ones. Oh, thank goodness. JustFluffy on Twitter asks, do any of you eat tofurkey? No. Follow up, if you do, why do you hate yourself? I want to take this question. I want to take this question. I had never heard of that until I read that question.

I personally eat turkey. However, for those out there who partake in tofurkey, I think you deserve absolutely no judgment. And if you want to say that vegetarians and the moral and environmental choice they're making is silly, you can take that joke back to 1992. Yeah, I think if you eat tofurkey, you're a bad person and you deserve punishment. I'm just kidding. Being vegan is good for the environment. I didn't realize that Just Fluffy is the Twitter account for Cory Booker. I'm actually so excited.

High hopes for a turkey. Oh, my goodness. I'm so sorry. I am so, I am genuinely excited about the innovation happening in vegetarian food. Impossible burgers, Beyond Burgers, they are delicious. And I just like that. This one's for you, Senator Booker. Did you watch the Vox Explained on Netflix on this?

I have not. That show is fantastic, by the way. And they did one on the future of meat, I believe. and they did one on the future of meat, I believe. I am very excited for the day when beautiful New York strip steaks are printed by a 3D printer like the size of pizza boxes. That's what I'm looking forward to.

Think about it. No, no, don't, don't. If it's good, it's good. From LB on Instagram, canned cranberry sauce or no? Canned. I love that gelatinous garbage. No. I don't like cranberry sauce homemade or canned. I'm not a cranberry sauce or no can't i love that gelatinous garbage no my i don't like i don't like cranberry sauce homemade or canned i'm not a cranberry sauce fan i think the beauty i don't

like i i'm against i am against just taking the the can of cranberry sauce and just kind of thumping it onto the plate i love that's good uh i much prefer i much prefer a little bit of magic a little bit of theater take that and put it in a, mash it up, add maybe some walnuts to it. That's what Fran Lovett has done in the past. Then you've got a beautiful cranberry sauce. Did it start in a can? Sure it did. Sure it did.

But it doesn't end in a can. That's innovative. Kat Aaron, who is the amazing producer at Pineapple Studios, who's been doing the Iowa series with me, was saying she was making a mango pie. There's so much innovation happening, guys. Sparking innovation in cooking across the country. Mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing. Those are my two favorites.

Oh, what a man. I know. Yeah, well. Chestnut stuffing, specifically. Lil Favreau's chestnut stuffing is... I've had some Lil Favreau things. It's legendary. It's quite good.

Those are mine too. I'm pretty simple. You know, turkey's fine too. It's meat. Let's be honest. A ham is better. Right. Yeah.

That's true. Galatian nonsense. It's very Galatian. Yikes. From Aaron and Goose on Instagram, pardoning the Thanksgiving turkey. Why is this still or ever a thing? Aaron. It's fun.

Let me just tell you. Have some fun. One of our favorite White House moments as speechwriters was the turkey pardoning remarks. Right, Lovett? So fun. Such fun jokes. Because it was just how many really corny, cringeworthy jokes could we get Barack Obama to make?

And the answer was all of them because he never read the remarks until right before the best thing about that he was just he would laugh he would laugh as he was reading them which is as a when you when you snuck a joke into a barack obama speech that he would read on the fly laugh to himself and then delivered what a treat what do you remember any cut ones that you didn't make it i can't remember cody will know if he's listening right now since he was there longer than both of us. Cody, yell back through the thing. But I just remember we spent way too much time on those remarks because they're like five-minute remarks.

And like you said, the president has other things to do and did not spend a lot of time on them. But they're also something seen by millions of people. True. They get aired. They get taken live. Everywhere. Also, guys, I mean mean those were fun jokes but the drafts of like i was always allowed on the white house correspondence jokes drafts even though i contributed nothing but being on the being on the

email chains when the really mean we all know they're gonna get cut jokes went around was my favorite thing in the whole process yeah it was pretty good so fun um hi yaves on instagram asks did tommy and fabs have wedding advice for love it this question was not highlighted here's one-handed plan for you well let's just say here's the tricky part for me every couple has uh one part of the couple is the more organized part of the couple i do not know between the two of you who seem like you can barely function in society i think i did fine all right who is going to put that shit together is it going to be emily is emily going to plan the wedding for the two throw money at the problem hannah's far more organized than me here's the I had, which was when I don't have an opinion on a decision, it feels painful to have to make it. So I tried to defer it. And

then what I came to really understand was when you're constantly deferring to your partner on a decision, you're actually just loading the responsibility onto them. And that's not cool either. So you have to just find ways to have an opinion, even if they get overruled, because then you won't care. I just want dominoes in an escape room is that so much to ask what i what i would say is the thing what you remember about your wedding are the people who were there and the times that you had with the person you're marrying during that during that whole celebration because you're both really busy and there's a million things going on and so as you you think about it, make sure that the list is important. Spending time with the people who came is important.

And then obviously having time for you and Ronan to hang during the special day is important too. Thank you for that advice. I was just blacked out the whole time. I'm half kidding. I mean, dead sober hours that just sort of like anxiety just wiped away. Yeah, that is very true too.

Yeah. Have fun. Have fun. Great. You assholes. From Alexis on Twitter, like anxiety just wiped away. Yeah, that is very true too. Yeah. Have fun. Have fun. Great. From Alexis on Twitter, did John Lovett ever get Pete Buttigieg to play Risk with him online?

If so, who won? Has not happened yet. Come on. I proposed the game. Chasten did reply. I'm hoping to have an opportunity to talk to Mayor Pete at the very least about his strategy.

He has spoken negatively, and I think fairly, about the classic Australia play. While that is a good early game strategy, you do get somewhat stuck in your expansion into Asia. Obviously, famously, Asia, a land war in Asia, very difficult. It's very hard. It is hard to expand from Australia outward. Sounds like he's more interested in South America strategy. I respect that as well. Just interesting and talking through it, talking with him about some of the nuances. For instance, if you are in Australia, are you moving up to Kamchatka? Are you moving west towards the Middle East? Right. These are the questions that I need Pete to answer if he's going to be someone I can see sitting behind that resolute desk. He's going to be in the situation room and he's going to have to decide. Does he go for the Urals? Does he go for Siam? Azores? Not a territory,

I don't believe. Japan is. I was about to praise Mikey Barb's interview with Pete this morning on the Daily, but now there was a lot of questions

that weren't answered. I used to play Risk when it was a board game not online and now i feel like i want to get back into it you guys all seem like you're having fun online with risk yeah there's a there is a game always happening in this office i believe we have 40 employees 38 of them are playing not me not john f because we've never been invited never invited well you've lost the first round of risk, it sounds like. Having friends. Last question.

From across the universe on Instagram, what are you thankful for? I will say the staff at Crooked Media. And you all have gotten to know some of them. There's many others that you don't. As we just mentioned, we're about 40 strong now. And just the incredible work ethic they bring every day, the incredible spirit they bring every day, these are some of the most talented, good-hearted people.

I cannot believe every day we come to work that we have assembled a team like this. I cannot believe it. Damn right. I'm very grateful that in the midst of the Trump- Still haven't hired any assholes. Yeah. Yeah, that streak's going to end.

Yeah, every day grateful that in the midst of this sort of Trump crisis, we got the opportunity to build this company and to feel like we're part of it and helping others find a way to be part of the actual fight. Because I do think it has been necessary to know that there are outlets where you can do something

in the wake of so much unfairness and lies and mean-spiritedness and that I am very grateful for. I'd like to say I'm very grateful to my wife, Hannah, for that moment when I said, hey, I want to move to LA to start a podcast.

She somehow agreed and somehow thought, maybe this will turn out to be a good idea. Sure, let's uproot our lives in San Francisco, move to Los Angeles, so you can talk into a mic with your friends once a week. Aren't you glad you don't live in San Francisco? I love my friends up there. I was there for a wedding last weekend.

It was such a great visit. I realized that that city is very into one thing, into tech or or the people i knew and i just wasn't as into it and here we are guys here we are happy thanksgiving everyone happy thanksgiving when we come back we will have our interview with adi barkin joining me on the pod is the author of the new book eyes to the wind a memoir of love death hope and resistance a good friend and a hero to everyone here at crooked media adi barkin adi my first and most important question you and rachel just had a beautiful new baby named Willow. Congratulations. What is it like to be a father for a second time? And what does Carl think of his new baby sister? Willow is doing great.

Thank you for asking. She'll be just over two weeks old when this episode airs. She was born a whopping 10 pounds with a full head of jet black hair, which is funny because neither Rachel nor I are big or have black hair. She is eating well and sleeping relatively well. Carl is extremely affectionate towards Willow, which is very cute and heartwarming. But, as we have this three-year-old, he is also quite jealous and desirous of attention, so he is being pretty destructive and wild in the evenings.

Rachel is doing really great. She is so calm and patient with him. But it is pretty difficult for me to watch. Since I am now basically completely paralyzed, I'm able to hold Willow, which is wonderful, but I really can't do any child care and I can't help Rachel deal with Carl when he starts acting up. So the wonder and joy of parenthood is tainted for us by the tragedy of ALS. When Carl was born, I was still healthy. And for those first four months, being a father was easier for me, came more naturally to me than being an activist. So I definitely yearn for those days. I can only imagine. And, you know, I saw a picture on Twitter of you holding Willow, and I think you said something about how happy you were to be able to get that time where you were

actually doing childcare there by holding Willow while everyone else was busy. And I'm sure those moments are really precious for you. So you recently endorsed Elizabeth Warren in an op-ed that was published in The Nation. And with a video that was one of the most moving endorsements I've ever seen. You also praised Bernie Sanders and said that deciding between him and Warren is, quote, a wonderful and difficult choice for progressives. Why was it important to you to publicly announce your choice in the primary in November, as opposed to, say, you know, waiting until the California primary? That's a good question, John, and one that I struggled with. Because I could certainly see a role for myself remaining neutral as between the two of them and working to ensure that the two camps treat each other with respect and stay positive, and then join forces when the time comes. But I decided that it's important for progressive activists to pick a side and start

campaigning. We need to be stretching and building our muscles for the general election. We need to be getting our friends and family and co-workers and neighbors involved so that we have a really enormous grassroots army ready to defeat Trump. So that is what I am going to be doing for Elizabeth's campaign. Trying to get as many people as involved as possible. And I am trying to do it in a way that models progressive movement solidarity. I really deeply admire Bernie and think he would be a historically great and transformative president, just like Elizabeth. So I am trying to show both his and her supporters that we can follow the two candidates' leads and advocate for our favorite one without denigrating the other one. Because,

ultimately, we're on the same side, struggling with corporate Democrats for the soul of the party now, and then in a battle with the fascists for the future of our democracy and our planet. Yeah, I think it's so important that that kind of tone comes from both the top. And, you know, you see Warren and Bernie are such good friends and clearly respect each other. And I think if people, prominent people like yourself, are sort of setting the tone for both of the supporters being friendly to each other, even while they compete, I think that's a really great thing. they compete. I think that's a really great thing. The Medicare for All option that Elizabeth Warren wants to pass in her first year is clearly much more generous and comprehensive than the public options proposed by candidates like Pete Buttigieg or Joe Biden. But it still does represent a bit more of a glide path to single payer than Bernie's transition, which only requires the passage of one bill.

It strikes me, however, that Warren's strategy is more politically feasible, since even a generous public option has more public support and more support among Democratic senators than Bernie's bill. Do you agree with this? What are your thoughts? I guess I would say two things, John. First, it's important to highlight just how transformative Elizabeth's proposal would be. It would, in the first bill, in the first year, give 135 million people the opportunity to enroll in Medicare. It would be free for most of them and cheap for everyone. Medicare. It would be free for most of them and cheap for everyone. It would have comprehensive care, including the long-term home care that I and so many other disabled and elderly people

need to stay in our homes. So this would be a massive down payment on Medicare for all, and unlike Mayor Pete's plan, it is actually designed to attract people away from private insurance. And second, it's designed to pass with 51 votes in the Senate through reconciliation, which won't work for full Medicare for all. So I am excited about the product proposal because it gets us half of the way to our destination, and it does so quickly in a way that builds power't agreed to let the vice president sit down with you for an interview about health care. If you did have the chance to sit down with Joe Biden, what kinds of questions would you like to ask him? This is a hard question john for those of us

who watched last week's debate i do think that it's becoming increasingly clear that biden is losing his mental acuity and everyone is talking about it in hushed tones not publicly folks like you don't want to be too critical because you have a personal relationship with him and you like him as a human being. And all of us are concerned about being ableist or ageist. But the truth is that he is having a very hard time stringing together a coherent sentence, let alone articulating a powerful vision of the America he wants to create. But as you noted on the pod last week, this disturbing fact does not seem to be moving the poll numbers very much. And that is really concerning. So I would actually be curious about your take on this topic. Should we be talking more about his mental capabilities, or should

the other candidates be questioning his ability to do the job of president. So, yeah, this is a tough one. I mean, I'll tell you what I think. And, of course, I do not have any kind of inside knowledge about this. I'm not someone who can judge his mental acuity. But knowing him as I do and have, I don't think it is any kind of mental decline, at least from my experience. I think it's a couple things going on. I think the first thing that's happening is, and you know, if you haven't, you should read this really moving piece in The Atlantic last week about

Joe Biden's stutter and overcoming the stutter and which he's, you know, you have sort of for life. And I think in moments where he is feeling challenged, defensive, nervous at times, it sort of comes out and you have people saying that they see this during the debate, what you've seen, and they don't necessarily see it in some of his events. They think he's much better in the events. Now, all of that said, as you know from listening to the pod, I've been fairly critical because even if he is mentally sharp, I think he is not, as you said, articulating always a coherent vision of the country. And I worry, I mean, people talk about electability all the time when they talk about Warren or Sanders

or people like that. I'm worried about electability in the sense that you have to be incredibly nimble to take on Donald Trump in a general election. And I worry that for whatever reason, whether he's defensive, whether it's just, you know, he's sort of more of an old school politician, whatever it may be. I worry very much about that with Biden. But I do also realize that we live in a country where a lot of the electorate does not pay as close attention to politics as you or I do. And they do have fond memories of Joe Biden as Barack Obama's vice president. And that feeling is especially strong in the black community. I think the question is, as the primary moves from places like Iowa and New Hampshire to the rest of the country, what happens to his support? We see in Iowa and now in New Hampshire, it's not that great. You know, he's like fallen to third or fourth place. And it very well could be that once Iowa, New Hampshire happens, if someone else wins

besides Biden, people who are just starting to pay attention to the race, look up and say, you know what? He didn't win Iowa. He didn't win New Hampshire. Maybe he's not that electable against Donald Trump. Maybe I should back some other candidate. So that could happen. Or people could say, no, you know, I know he's a little shaky in some of these debates, but this is a guy I know and I know his values and I know who he is and I think he's a coherent vision of where you want to take the country is going to be more powerful in persuading voters than only trying to sort of draw contrast with the other candidates. So I do think the other candidates are doing this right. But no, as you've heard on the pod, I have my concerns about him too. And for me to articulate those concerns says a lot

because I do know him and I do think he's a wonderful human being and I'm still articulating those concerns. So, you know, something I think about a lot. One question I have, and this is sort of follows along what we were just talking about. You and I briefly talked about this on Twitter the other week, but President Obama, who's been quoted as saying Medicare for all is a good idea, answered a question from Stacey Abrams a few weeks ago where he said that while all the Democratic candidates should be even bolder than he was in 2008 and push the envelope even further, they should remember that a lot of voters, including Democratic voters, don't have the same views as progressive activists. including Democratic voters, don't have the same views as progressive activists. I saw that as fairly uncontroversial and took it as a reminder that it's on us to do the hard work of persuasion. But what did you think of that? John, to be honest, I think your interpretation fails to recognize the context of Obama's remarks.

We're in the middle of a heated primary with two very discreet camps, the progressive Sanders-Warren wing versus the centrist Biden-Buttajig wing. Obama has very intentionally stayed out of the debate until now. But last week in Atlanta, he joined the fray, and that is why folks on the left got upset. He said, and I quote, this is still a country that is less revolutionary than it is interested in improvement. The average American doesn't think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it. I think that using the word revolutionary was clearly an allusion to Bernie's call for a political revolution. And his juxtaposition of revolution with improvement was an endorsement of the incrementalism offered by Joe Biden.

One reason this frustrates me and other activists is that Obama built his brand on the notion that we could hope for big change, and that our activism could yield transformative results. That was the message of his historic New Hampshire speech that Goode made into the Great Will.i.am music video. New Hampshire speech that Goode made into the Great Will.i.am music video. He said, yes we can change the opinions of the country, yes we can accomplish great things. But now, in his public remarks, he's choosing to play the conservative realist, taking public opinion as a fixed, rather than as something that can be molded by organizers and politicians. Obviously, that can be molded by organizers and politicians. Obviously, Medicare for All is an excellent example of how politicians can shape public opinion, and move the Overton window, quite powerfully. So that is the first reason that Obama's remarks upset me. But the second reason has more to do with the question of prioritization than the specifics of his remarks. President Obama has chosen to

largely stay out of politics since he left office. He hasn't given speeches condemning Trump's racism or corruption or attacks on the press or the civil service or almost any of the other gasoline atrocities of the regime. Instead, he's using his enormous megaphone and credibility to criticize activists, as he did a few weeks ago, and to encourage Democrats to nominate a moderate for president. I think it is a shame. Even his foundation is focused on community service, rather than civic engagement. Imagine if he and Michelle were spending their time and fundraising abilities to raise money to build an army of community and union organizers.

Imagine just what a big change that could engender. So I will, I'll respond to that and then I will give you a chance to respond to. And look, obviously, as you know, I am biased because I worked for the man for quite a while. I also, you know, during the wilderness, a podcast that I did was quite critical of different things that Obama had done during his presidency. I'm fine being critical of Obama and his presidency, but I will just tell you, as someone who knows him very well, and not only knows him well, but has spent so much time around him writing for him that I know not only knows him well, but has spent so much time around him writing for him that I know not only how he talks, but how he thinks. I'll tell you probably where he was coming

from. And the best way I can explain it is Barack Obama often likes to talk about the world as it is as more of a political analyst or a sociologist or an anthropologist, however you want to describe it. He does, when he's having a conversation, sort of get into a mode where he's not necessarily, he doesn't do like a strategy. He doesn't do like, I'm going to go to this event and this is where I'm going to tell everyone to be a moderate and elect a moderate. Like that's just never how he's been. He doesn't view politics like that. What he does is he's having a conversation with Stacey Abrams. They get into it and he wants to describe the electorate and politics as it is.

And the way that he believes politics is, is there are most, if you can look at this with opinion polls, most people don't want to tear down the entire system. Most people do want their lives improved. Most people are really upset with the system. They are. That part is right. And Bernie has that part right. And so does Warren, right? People think that politics is corrupt, that no one's looking out for them. They're angry about that. But, and look, and I spoke to Stacey Abrams, actually, afterwards, because I'm interviewing her for The Wilderness, and she put it an interesting way. She said a lot of people have been lied to by politicians so much that when a politician comes out and talks about really, really big dreams, some people think,

is this going to really get done? Or am I just going to be let down again by this politician? She said, and so what we really need to make sure is that when we propose something, we can actually achieve it. Now, I can tell you, Barack Obama is still the guy who believes in that kind of big structural change that he was talking about back in 2008. And he wasn't talking about how hard we should push. I think he believes that progressive activists should push really hard. And I really wish that the two of you could have spent a lot of time together because I really think you would appreciate him and like him.

And it would be great to hear you guys go back and forth on this too. But I know for a fact that he does not believe that we need to choose a moderate for president. I know for a fact that he wants to let the process play out and that his comments were not intentional in any way. Now, to your second point, he definitely spoke out all through the midterms, campaigned really hard, wasn't afraid of being critical of Trump during 2018. You can look at all of his speeches. That said, do I wish he was out there more, saying more and pushing even harder? Yeah, I do. There's been times where I said, God, I really wish the boss was out here to say that this is really scary right now and And this is a frightening moment and and to sort of lead the troops. Now, the reason he doesn't is he's not

worried about himself or his own reputation. He is worried about casting a shadow over the next leaders of the Democratic Party. He thinks that it's other people's turns to step up and take the lead. And he doesn't want to cast a shadow over those people. So I think that's why he doesn't want to cast a shadow over those people so i think that's why he doesn't get out as much as much as he should but you know if it were up to me um i would like to see him out there more um because i think he is a unique talent and i know he believes in that he believes in uh in the future of this country and i think he'd be useful but um but no but look i i totally understand what you're saying so i guess the question is why he's choosing to be an analyst rather than a participant. It seems to me like we have enough talking heads who are analyzing the situation. I think that he could be doing more to build up the civic infrastructure in America, even in the nonpartisan way that Stacey and Andrew Gillum are doing.

And, as for meeting him, I would love to. There's still time. Please encourage him to come do an interview with me in Santa Barbara, or maybe we could do it at the DNC in Milwaukee. I will certainly mention that to him next time I talk to him, and that is an excellent point. We should all do a lot less analyzing and a lot more organizing, including him. that is an excellent point. We should all be, we should all do a lot less analyzing and a lot more organizing, including him. So I agree with that. As an actor, just

thinking about what he said, as an activist and organizer, what are some of the most effective strategies you've learned and used to persuade people who may not be conservative, but might be more moderate on some issues or even disengaged in politics altogether? How do you move that crowd of people from either disengaged or sort of wishy-washy to activists? What are some of the strategies you've used? Well, for people who are disengaged from politics, I try to ask them about their lives, about their dreams and their obstacles, and then I try to show them how politics deeply affects them. I am less good at persuading conservatives, which is one reason that I prefer base turnout to persuading undecideds. So Adi, I know you've already asked me a few questions, but since this is a tradition, whenever you come on Pod Save america do you have any other questions for me

first if you had to predict now who do you think will win iowa and the nomination respectively second what would be your advice to the warren and sanders campaigns respectively about what they should be doing differently and better. Great questions. All right, so the first question, I have studiously avoided predictions in public, but I can tell you that even privately, when people ask me this, I tell them I'm really not sure. Look, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg, by all accounts, are winning Iowa,

not just because of what the polls say, but when you talk to people in Iowa, they'll tell you they have the best organizations of anyone. People say that Booker has a pretty good organization too, but he's obviously further down in the polls. And so I think both of those candidates have a pretty good chance to win Iowa. But again, we are it's getting close, but we're still a little far out. And so things can change. And Bernie the running, I think it's going to be very, very, very, very, very hard for them to win Iowa. I'm not going to say never, but it's increasingly difficult. So I think the big question here is, if you have a Warren, and we talked about this earlier, if you have a Warren or a Buttigieg that wins Iowa, And in New Hampshire, if you have a Warren, a Buttigieg, or a Sanders that wins New Hampshire, I think the question looming over everything is two different things have happened in past primaries at this stage. Either the voters in South Carolina and throughout the rest of the country look at those wins and say, those are the candidates who can beat Trump, Those are the winning candidates, and it's got to be one of them. Or, and this has also

happened, people say, okay, that happened in Iowa and New Hampshire, but I still like Joe Biden, or I still like Bernie Sanders, who also has pretty high name ID. Or, and this is a very, very outside shot, I've been seeing nonstop advertising from Michael Bloomberg or something like that. But I think the question is, do Iowa and, you know, in a lesser level, New Hampshire, really have the slingshot effect that they have had in 08? or is it a campaign like we've seen in the past, maybe in the 90s and early 2000s, where, you know, because Joe Biden currently has such strong support in the black community and among non-college educated white Americans who together make up most of the party, both of those groups, or at least a majority, is that enough for Biden as he continues? And I just don't think we'll know that until we see what happens after Iowa and after New Hampshire.

Advice to the Warren campaign. It's rare. I have so little advice for the Warren campaign because I do think she's running an excellent campaign. I have been impressed with it. Just all personal beliefs and ideologies aside, just as a former practitioner of campaigns, I have been incredibly impressed with the campaign that Elizabeth Warren is running, not just organizationally, which I'm not an expert on, but just message wise. Not just organizationally, which I'm not an expert on, but just message wise. I think the candidates, and this goes to Bernie too, the candidates who have a message and stick with that message and do not have that message veer one way or the other just because the polls go one way or the other, are the candidates who tend to do best. And so I think both of them fall into that category. For Warren, I was very happy to see her Medicare plan because I think it speaks to people's desire not to have something more or less liberal or more or less moderate. But like I was saying, I think people want to understand practically how are you going to get this done,

this policy that you're proposing. And I think in almost every other policy that she had proposed, she had not just the policy and details, but a path to get that done. And I didn't think she had that as well for Medicare for inequality and corruption, which she should be. But I do think sometimes her message seems like it could be a message that a politician could deliver in 2016, in 2012, in 2008, when there were similar levels of corruption and inequality. And I think to really meet the moment, you need in your message to talk about the moment we're in. And this doesn't mean to just talk about Trump more, but talk about the precariousness of what has happened to our democracy and what could happen to our democracy if Donald Trump is reelected. I also think that if she's thinking about the general election, which she should be because she could be the nominee, and she's thinking about how to build a coalition, that speaking about the corruption in Washington and talking about how she's taken on both parties at times, including her own party, is not just a way to sort of enamor yourself to progressives, but also a lot of

moderates and independents who don't think in terms of partisan politics. And they might say that Elizabeth Warren, she's not necessarily partisan. She just loves taking on corruption, whichever party is doing it. And I actually think that's a powerful message for a general election. And I also think as people wonder, is the person I nominated for president going to be able to get the job done and, you know, actually unstick Washington and break the gridlock there? The answer is not, well, I'm going to work with Republicans because we know the Republican Party is not going to work with us. Elizabeth Warren has an answer, which is when I was in Washington as a newcomer, I created an entire federal agency from beginning to end. And I had a

wall of Republican opposition, of Wall Street opposition, and even opposition within my own party. And you heard her talk about the CFPB at the Iowa Liberty Justice Dinner. I believe she should probably talk about that even more as she gets to the homestretch, just as an example of look what she can get done. And I think with Bernie, I think it's always, you know, and Bernie does this well himself, but I think his campaign needs to be about sort of, it's a movement, right? And he's done a good job articulating it's a movement. Well, movements grow by addition. And I think to the extent that his campaign can be welcoming of everyone, you may not have been with us at the beginning, but we welcome you now.

I think that's really important because sometime, at least some of his online supporters, it can seem like they don't actually want you in the movement. They just want to prove that they're right. And I don't think that's the case with Bernie, and I don't think that's the case with a lot of the people who actually work for him. So I just think that message needs to be delivered even more. So that's my views on them. Have you heard about Bernie's effort to bring in new people into the caucuses?

Do you think he may be doing something that is not being captured by the polls and could deliver a big upset victory? Certainly, certainly. Because I can remember in 2008, when we kept saying, oh, we're going to expand the universe of caucus goers. Barack Obama is going to bring in young people, independents, Republicans, people who have never voted before, every person of color that lives in Iowa. And people would say to us, that's never going to happen. And the polls that Hillary would do and the polls that John Edwards would do would show Barack Obama in second or third, because they imagined a caucus universe that was much smaller than we anticipated.

And sure enough, the number of people who turned out in the Iowa caucus in 2008 was even bigger than we imagined. And it totally blew away the Clinton campaign and the Edwards campaign and all the reporters who thought, no way is there going to be a caucus this big. And I think according to the last Des Moines register poll you did see um there was a number about enthusiasm that suggested that the caucus universe could be even bigger than anyone imagined so yes that that could happen it could happen for bernie it could happen for warren it could happen for a lot of the candidates okay so basically nobody has any clue what is going to

happen that is correct that is the one thing we know for sure um all right adi since this will be running uh right around thanksgiving um what are you thankful for i'm grateful for a whole bunch of things but this year i am particularly grateful to the five amazing caregivers who bathe and dress and feed and move me every day and keep me comfortable and safe. And I am grateful, of course, to Michael Bloomberg, who is sacrificing so much to save America. God bless Mike and God bless the pod. Adi, it is always such a pleasure to talk to you. I am grateful for you and for your friendship and for always teaching me and pushing me and inspiring me and holding my feet to the fire when I deserve it. And please give Rachel and Carl and Willow my love and Emily's love. And I hope you guys have a really wonderful Thanksgiving.

All right. Thanks to Adi Barkin for joining us. And thanks to all of you. Thanks to Mayor Pete. Enjoy your Thanksgiving. Enjoy your wrist games with Pete Buttigieg. Enjoy your cranberry sauce. Enjoy this.

Enjoy. I hope people enjoy it. Happy Thanksgiving. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Segwin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Somanator, and Katie Long for production support.

And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmal Coney, and Yael Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as a video every week.