Pod Save America - “The coronavirus debate.”

Episode Date: March 16, 2020

Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders hold a very unusual debate amid the coronavirus crisis, governments close public places across America, Trump refuses to take responsibility for testing failures, and lawmakers work to pass economic relief. Then Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) talks to Tommy about Congress’s response to the pandemic.Have questions/comments/concerns? Text us at [phone]

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Later on today's pod, Tommy talks to California Congresswoman, National Treasure, Katie Porter. Can I just pause for a second and say the 30 minutes I spent talking with Congresswoman Katie Porter is the best I've felt in like three days. Now I'm really excited to listen. Which is nice. Look, she's not like she didn't invent a cure. I hate to break it to everybody, but she is so competent and thoughtful. And it's just nice to know that people like that are

in government and hopefully Mnookin and others will listen to him sorry excellent no that's great um but first before that we're going to talk about the debate last night between joe biden and bernie sanders as well as all the latest developments around the coronavirus crisis that has now brought the entire world to a standstill uh but first love it how was the show? Everything sounds weird, doesn't it? Yeah. Hannah and her mother independently texted me saying how funny it was. Oh, really? That's so nice.

It's a great, great episode. We did an in-studio episode with no audience. We're mixing it up. We called people in their homes to ask them what they were doing to prep for Corona and the strangest thing they bought. We are, you know, Paul Scheer. what was the strangest thing that someone bought someone bought cheese cloths so they convert their milk into uh uh soft cheese uh she said ricotta but it's probably gonna be cottage cheese yeah and the uh uh that was weird uh that one didn't uh yeah

didn't translate paul sheer came and it was really a good sport rachel bonetta and uh retina frunkbaum who have their new show hall Hall of Shame, were on. And so anyway, we're going to be evolving. We're going to be adapting the format and experimenting by calling people in their homes to be on the show because we don't have the audience. I love that. Social distancing, love or leave it. Also, if you want to know more about coronavirus from an expert, Dr. Abdul El-Sayaid is back to give us updates on the coronavirus crisis and everything you need to know in America Dissected Coronavirus. It's calm, factual,

and in language that you can understand. There will be new episodes on Tuesdays and Fridays. You can subscribe to America Dissected on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also, a quick note from us on 2020 we would have already passed the coronavirus economic relief bill were it not for mitch mcconnell taking the uh taking a long weekend off he was at an event with his buddy brett kavanaugh believable um which is just one more reason why the democrats have to flip the senate in november you can help do that by donating to our get mitch or die trying fund where the money goes to the eventual Democratic nominee in 10 of the most competitive races. Here are the 10 most competitive races in our view as of now. Arizona, Colorado, Maine,

North Carolina, Montana, Kansas, Iowa, Georgia, Alabama, and Michigan. For example, this is how this works. When North Carolina Democrat Cal Cunningham won his Senate primary the other week, we sent him a check for $66,000. Thanks to all of you listeners, all of you Crooked Media fans. So if you can, please donate at votesaveamerica.com slash get Mitch. Fun name feels a little literal at this point, but you know, I get it. I get the spirit. Get Mitch. Get Mitch or? Just get Mitch. Just get Mitchitch uh okay let's get to the news the first and potentially last one-on-one democratic debate of 2020 between joe biden and bernie sanders was like nothing we've ever seen before the coronavirus emergency forced cnn and univision to move the debate from

phoenix to a nearly empty studio in washington where the two candidates and three moderators were six feet apart at all times as the three of us are now yeah around our table um and uh except for the beginning of the debate when Biden and Sanders walked out and bumped elbows the new first base uh well let's start there before we get into the substance, what did you guys think of the highly unusual setting and format? You know, it was a I felt for everyone involved. It was a debate that they shouldn't cancel, but couldn't have. It had to be about one topic, but couldn't just be about one topic. They had to be serious while at the same time they are competitors. And even though, you know, the dynamics in this primary have shifted dramatically before coronavirus took over the news, they're still looking to draw contrast with each other while recognizing both the state of the race and the state of the country. So it was just a sort of

impossible situation. It was nice to see two competent, empathetic, decent human beings on the stage talking about politics. That's been missing from my life for about three years. I definitely, my brain certainly oscillated between, okay, obviously this has to happen. These guys have to debate. We have to end this primary at some point. Between that and what the fuck are we doing?

They're 70 plus years old. Get them in a bubble. Don't let them leave the home. I know that's a little irrational, but that's where my brain is. No, it was good. Look, no audience, a plus for me. No audience ever again.

We've been saying this for a long time now. And I would do more debates without audiences because it reduces the amount of canned applause lines you try to get off as a candidate. I thought that the moderators did a great job. I agree. For exactly what Lovett was talking about. It's very hard to have a debate that is all we're talking about is coronavirus,

rightly so. But you can't have a debate for two hours only about coronavirus and the economic fallout. I mean, maybe you could. There's enough to talk about, but they had to cover other things. And I thought that the whole crew did a great job with that. Yeah, you're right. It was sort of at times Bernie and Biden looked like panelists in the situation room, just the way the camera, because there was a skeleton crew there, which there should have been for everyone's health and safety. But yeah, there were a lot of odd, odd parts of it. Yeah. And also just forget even just the fact that we're all focused on one issue. We're all focused on one issue that is immediate. And the

nature of a presidential debate is in some sense hypothetical. We're talking to two people who may be in charge next year. And we have a crisis right now. And, you know, Biden put out a plan and his plan is about what he'd do not as not just as president, but what should be happening right now and good for them. But inevitably, the more specific you get with these two people, the further away you are from the like, the real lived experience of the country right now. It is so funny to think. Initially, debates were just candidates in a studio debating issues conversational. Yeah.

Kennedy-Nixon, 1960. Why are we now at a place where it's giant auditoriums with stupid hype videos beforehand, warm-up acts, voice of God? We don't need that shit. Don't need it. It's made for TV. It's corporate moneymaking in the form of a debate. And it makes it seem sillier than it should be. And it makes it seem like more of a show than it should be. There was a gravity to last night that I think, you know, you sometimes get that level of gravity at the presidential debates and the general election because they usually ask the audiences during those debates

to be quiet. And sometimes they are sometimes the audiences during those debates to be quiet, and sometimes they are. You're right. Sometimes. But the primary debates, both on the Republican and Democratic side, are usually rowdy bullshit, which we've had for a while, especially that South Carolina audience. It is sort of a wake-up call about the glib way we've been doing things for a long time. Yeah. So the debate appropriately started with the question about what each candidate would do to respond to the current public health crisis. Let's take a listen to their answers. There are three pieces of this. First of all, I have to take care of those who, in fact, are exposed or likely to be exposed to the virus. And that means we have to do testing. We have to get the testing kits up and ready.

I would have the World Health Organization. I take advantage of the test kits they have available to us. Even though the president says a million or more are coming, let's just get all the tests we can done as quickly as we can. Secondly, I would make sure that every state in the union had at least 10 places where they had drive-through testing arrangements. I would also, at this point, deal with the need to begin to plan for the need for additional hospital beds. We have that capacity in the Department of Defense as well as with the FEMA. And they can set up 100-bed, 500-bed hospitals in tents quickly. We have to lay all that out. But we have to deal with the economic fallout quickly. And that means making sure the people who, in fact, lose their job, don't get a paycheck, can't pay their mortgage, are able to pay it and pay them now

and do it now. Small businesses be able to borrow interest-free loans. What we have got to do is move aggressively to make sure that every person in this country finally understands that when they get sick with the coronavirus, that they will, that all payments will be made, that they don't have to worry about coming up with money for testing. They don't have to worry about coming up with money for treatment. This is an unprecedented moment in American history. Now, I obviously believe in Medicare for all. I will fight for that as president. But right now, in this emergency, I want every person in this country to understand that when you get sick, you go to the doctor. When you get sick, if you have the virus,

that will be paid for. Do not worry about the cost right now because we're in the middle of a national emergency. Second of all, we have to make sure that our hospitals have the ventilators that they need, have the ICU units that they need. Right now, we have a lack of medical personnel. And I worry very much that if there is a peak, whether we have the capability of dealing with hundreds of thousands of people who may be in hospitals. So we need unprecedented action right now to deal with the unprecedented crisis. And bottom line, from an economic point of view, what we have got to say to the American people, if you lose your job, you will be made whole. You're not going to lose income.

If Trump can put, or the Fed can put a trillion and a half into the banking system, we can protect the wages of every worker in America. What did you guys think of those answers? I mean, I thought they were both good, right? I mean, Biden spoke to the urgency of the moment and he wants to focus for now on the crisis at hand. So we have to stop the spread. We need to make sure that no

one has to pay for testing, that no one goes bankrupt because of the coronavirus or no one gets evicted. Then we can get to the big structural issues. Bernie is, reminds me of the old Rahm Emanuel line, never let a crisis go to waste. And he's saying, yes, we need to deal with this urgently and stop the coronavirus. But what it's showing is how broken our healthcare system is, how broken our economy is when the average family couldn't pay a $400 bill without risking going bankrupt. And so he is making a broader argument for systemic change to our economy, to our healthcare system because of this virus. Now, I can't really tell you which is more compelling to the average person because my bias is bleeding into how I view things, right? I mean, I have a flexible job. I have health care. And so I don't know how this sounds to someone who does not have

those things. But my guess is that most people are scared shitless and they just want to hear someone tell them what they're going to do to fix it. I thought they both. I'll say this. I've been incredibly critical of Joe Biden. And even when there have been people saying that Joe Biden did well at a debate, I have been the very first to say everyone is grading Joe Biden on a curve. And I honestly don't think you need to grade Joe Biden on a curve. I think he was incredibly strong. That answer he gave was incredibly strong. We would be fortunate if either one of these two men was president right now and the teams that they would assemble. And the truth is what they are both describing is right. You know, Joe Biden is right. This is the emergency. This is what we have to do. To Bernie's credit, he made a point in that

response saying, this is what I'm for a long haul, but we need to basically do some of those things immediately to relieve people if they're worried right now, which I really appreciated. But the point that Bernie kept coming back to over and over again was these sort of, the way we're addressing this crisis that's facing everybody is the kind of crisis that hits people on an individual level all the time, all the time. And I do think, you know, there were some, I am very sympathetic to a lot of Bernie supporters who are like, this is what we're talking about now to address this crisis, whether it's UBI or paid sick leave or relieving people of their medical costs in the midst of

this emergency. That's the brokenness of our culture every single day. Yeah, it's interesting. In that specific clip, I think Bernie did a great job talking about the urgency of now. Throughout most of the debate, you got the impression that he continued to go back to Medicare for all and sort of the structural weaknesses. And we'll hear him do that again on the economy, which I get, you know, but like you said, I mean, in a moment like this, I think people are so focused on coronavirus and the urgent response. And then Biden and Bernie get into a back and forth a little bit after that, where Biden keeps saying, everything should be paid for medical wise right now. Everything, all the economic stuff should be taken care of right now. This is an immediate crisis. And we can worry about everything else later. And Bernie's,

you know, Bernie's argument is we have to worry about it all at once. And I think, I mean, look, realistically, Bernie becomes, if Bernie somehow won and became president in January, like they wouldn't pass Medicare for all in the midst of this crisis. They wouldn't pass it not in the midst of this crisis because they don't have the votes, right? But he would take all the emergency steps required to get through the crisis. Yeah. I mean, I think the weirdness of the debate is I think that we are in a fundamentally different political paradigm than we have ever been before, maybe since the financial crisis or since 9-11. And that debate didn't necessarily adjust in terms of tone when we started talking about votes from the 80s, votes from the 90s, old positions and views. And so

what I think I wanted to hear as a scared human being is where are the respirators, where are the ventilators, how are we going to get more testing? And obviously none of these individuals have any control over that, but hearing someone talk about it in an urgent way made me feel a little better. It was interesting. A little bit later, Biden says, you know, Italy has a single-payer healthcare system and that didn't save them. And I saw a lot of Bernie supporters, you know, say that was a cheap shot and get upset about it. And Biden wasn't saying, like, Italy has a single payer system and they're fucked. It was basically like, even with a single payer system, even the countries that do have Medicare for all or single payer, they are still being overwhelmed, not necessarily because of the makeup of their

health care system, but because a crisis like this overwhelms even the best health care systems. Part of this, too, is, you know, I this is an this is an emergency. And Bernie is talking about the larger systemic changes he thinks that are important to be made. And maybe there's an argument that that doesn't help Bernie Sanders become president in this moment. But part of me thinks that's not what Bernie's worrying about anymore. He is there. If there is a reason to have this debate at all, if it exists, it is to point out the differences that he feels with Joe Biden. And the biggest difference to me is the commitment Bernie has made to systemic change as the core of

his argument. And the most, the best thing maybe Bernie Sanders can do on this platform now is agree with Joe Biden on the steps we need to take right now, but say, hey, everybody, when this is done, or even as you're watching this unfold, remember some of the ghastly ways we treat each other. And so I'd like, I just, I appreciate the humanity of Bernie Sanders throughout this debate, even in the moments where it got incredibly caustic because they're human and they're tired and they've been campaigning against each other for a year. Yeah. So a little bit later, the candidates were asked about the economic fallout of the pandemic. Biden once again talked about the need for urgency while Bernie talked about our broader economic challenges.

Here's a clip. So the lesson to be learned is we have got to move aggressively right now to address the economic crisis as a result of Ebola, as a result. Keep talking about Ebola. You got Ebola in my head here right now as a result of the virus here, the coronavirus. What we have got to do also is understand the fragility of the economy and how unjust and unfair it is that so few have so much and so many have so little. People are looking for results, not a revolution. They want to deal with the results they need right now. And we can do that by making sure that we make everybody whole who has been so badly hurt in terms of their they lose the job in terms of not having the ability to care for their children

in terms of the health care costs that they have related to this crisis. We can make them whole now now and put in process a system whereby they all are made whole. That has nothing to do with the legitimate concern about income equality in America. That's real. That's real. But that does not affect the need for us to act swiftly and very thoroughly and in concert with all the forces that we need to bring to bear to deal with the crisis now. I think that exchange probably crystallized the debate between these two candidates for more than anything else, because that was Biden bringing it back to the urgency

and Bernie talking about sort of the broader economic challenge. Now, in fairness to Bernie, I'm sure he would agree with everything Biden said about now. But I mean, this is almost an answer that Biden could have given in other debates about other topics. Right. I mean, and he has, right? It's people want results, not a revolution. And it's sort of, I don't know, I thought it crystallized the debate pretty well. Yeah, I look for me, and I'm biased, again, by my financial situation and everything else in life. But Biden spoke more clearly to the urgency of the moment and to the unprecedented nature of what we're dealing with. And I agree that economic inequality is a massive issue in this country. But I think maybe the way you get to address it

is through a really successful government intervention in the near term now. And then you point to that later and say, look, these programs work. We should implement them more broadly. And maybe we pay for it with a wealth tax, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, there was a few moments in the debate debate and that was one where I was surprised that Joe Biden went to a line like that. There really wasn't a need. There were a few moments where Joe Biden like Joe Biden would swing at all, swung at every pitch. And it's part of why the debate turned so caustic, in part because Bernie also, you know, threw punches, too. But but that moment, like we need results, not a revolution. It was actually a moment to me where Joe Biden could have said, I agree with everything.

And he does later, actually. There's a moment where he does that later. But he could have said, you know, I think Bernie's critique is exactly right about the larger problems in our economy. And that's something we all need to work on. You know what I was thinking about in these two answers, Tommy, is remember Obama responding to Katrina back in 05. And so Katrina happens and Bush completely bungles the response. And this is sort of the moment that Barack Obama really like jumps onto the national scene and starts talking about it a lot. And he would talk about all the immediate challenges

that required a response after Bush bungled Katrina. And then after talking about the urgency of the crisis at hand, he would say, but let's not forget that, you know, when the levees broke, not everyone in New Orleans in the lower ninth ward could just jump in an SUV, have a bunch of food and water and take off because there was inequities before that, which I thought was a really nice way to frame it because he talked about the urgency. And then after getting on that, he talked about sort of the broader challenges. And I don't think either of them actually combined the urgency with the broader challenges in the most effective way. The other thing Obama said at the time was the private sector doesn't pay to fix the levies.

Right. You know, he made it. Yeah, he made it about the role of government. There are core critical government functions that protect us in times like this. Yeah, no, that's a, it's a great point because neither of them actually contrasted their view and the fundamental democratic view of the role of government with what a Republican view of sort of laissez-faire capitalism has given us. You know, Bernie's hard talking about it because Bernie's trying to say that the Democratic establishment is part of this as well. But Bernie's talking about is like larger structural issues. But this is what Republican governance has given us. You cut government,

you cut government, you cut preparedness, you damage the health care system over and over again, you cut taxes for rich people, you cut regulations. And then when a pandemic hits and you actually need government to be ready and you need government action, where does the conservative philosophy around government get you? Nowhere good. health care view. Not a contrast on health care, but also to policies where people have been left behind in larger ways in the economy. And that is actually, I think, where Bernie was stronger as they got further into the debate. Family and medical leave, the minimum wage, people who don't have $400 in their bank accounts in case of an emergency, the fact that our economy runs on undocumented labor, many of whom do not have any access to care or afraid to go get care. I mean, all of these things contribute to what makes us vulnerable. And all of that has been made worse by Republican this role. I mean, these moments,

like they underscore the role and the need for government. Unfortunately, Republicans are willing to learn that lesson after a terrorist attack like 9-11 will explode the spending on military and intelligence capabilities. But, you know, like I remember during Katrina thinking of Grover Norquist, who used to say, I want a government so small you can drown it in a bathtub. And that was a pretty fucking gross quote to juxtapose with the current moment at that time. Yeah. And how many how many episodes, how many crises do we have to go through that teach us this over and over again? Katrina, the financial crisis. Now this. I mean, it's... So the debate moment that generated the most headlines came during Joe Biden's response to a virtual audience member question about the financial and physical health

of women. Here's what he said, as well as Bernie's response. Number one, I committed that if I'm elected president and have an opportunity to appoint someone to the courts, I'll appoint the first black woman to the courts. It's required that they have representation now. It's long overdue. Secondly, if I'm elected president, my cabinet, my administration will look like the country. And I commit that I will, in fact, pick a woman to be vice president. There are a number of women who are qualified to be president tomorrow. I would pick a woman to be my vice president. Senator, just to be clear, the vice president committed to picking a woman as his running mate. If you get the nomination, will you?

In all likelihood, I will. For me, it's not just nominating a woman. It is making sure that we have a progressive women and there are progressive women out there. So my very strong tendency is to move in that direction. So the answer was obviously a plan by the Biden people. You know that it was planned because it was not sort of a direct response to the person's question, but it was sort of a planned thing that he executed on, which good for Joe Biden for executing on a debate moment. Good for you, Joe Biden. You executed on a moment. But what do you think the rationale was behind announcing that here?

And what did we think of Bernie's answer? I mean, look, it's always smart to go into a major event like this with news to make, right? I mean, in normal context, that would be the big and maybe only headline that came out of this debate. Obviously, we're dealing with a post-pandemic world, so it's a million different things swirled out of the debate. But Bernie's answer probably showed that

he hadn't fully vetted potential vice presidential nominees, that they hadn't totally thought through it. And I think that's understandable, but it did look lesser in terms of the contrast in that moment. And I also think, look, just stepping back for a minute, like Bernie's fans on the internet and even some of his staff didn't help him very much by driving down expectations for Joe Biden relentlessly over the course of the last week, right? I mean, the worst people online were saying that Biden had dementia, but others on his staff were saying that, you know, oh, he can only speak for seven minutes. Why won't he do a debate standing up? And it made Biden's performance look that much more impressive. They lowered the bar for him, which usually you don't lower the bar for your opponent. No. Remember the Bush people

said before they debated John Kerry that he was the best debater since Cicero, which is a silly, performative, dumb thing. It's so funny. It's such a good line, though. But everyone quoted it, right? Yeah. We all remember it this many years funny. It's such a good line, though. It's incisional. But everyone quoted it, right? Yeah. We all remember it this many years later. On the nominating a woman, I thought Bernie was caught off guard

and gave, I think, the best answer. Like, I'm not going to make a blanket commitment on stage in response to a question, but I'm very strongly considering it

or leaning towards that or whatever he said. I'm surprised. Bernie has been asked this before. He was asked it at the New York Times editorial board meeting. And he said, I can guarantee you this. It won't be an old white guy. Yeah. That probably would have been the better answer because then he didn't have to commit. But he also didn't have to seem like he was,

you know. Yeah, I think it all comes out in the wash. I will say I just I what I like about the Joe Biden answer is it's actually kind of runs counter to traditional political advice, which is you don't say something like that. You don't run the product. And if there's any campaign that I would worry would be traditional, it would be the Biden campaign. So I'm glad. Yeah. I really like it. I like it obviously for, for what it represents, but also because it's basically saying, I'm going to pick a fucking woman. Obviously I can't, I can't possibly at this stage not have a woman on the ticket. It would be, it would be, it would be malpractice. And so why not just stop playing games and just say that I'm going to do it?

Clearly, I mean, we're all stuck. You know, there's Kamala Harris. There's Stacey Abrams. There may be other people on that list, but it's not a very long list. And we've all been talking about it for a long time. He's on his way to being the nominee. I like the just cutting the shit in this moment. The other thing they achieved by breaking this news is they turned everyone's focus towards Joe Biden as the nominee and his vice presidential search. So they sort of started pushing everyone's minds past the primary to the general, which, you know, obviously they wanted.

And look, he also, you know, he had said before that he would his first nomination to the Supreme Court would be a black woman. But reiterating that, he also talked about how the cabinet would reflect the face of America, would look like America. And, you know, all of this sort of reminded me of what he said in Detroit at that rally with Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, where he talked about himself as a bridge to the younger generation and that's how he sees himself and that's how he'll see his presidency, which I think is both self-aware and reassuring to people because it's been hinted at before,

like does Joe Biden, if he becomes president, run for two terms, right? He's gonna be quite old. And I think what Joe Biden is trying to make clear is his theory of the case is Donald Trump is an emergency. We get Donald Trump out of there. And then I realized that a younger generation should step up. And I should have an administration that reflects the diversity of America

and the face of America right now in 2020. And my vice president will reflect that. My Supreme Court nominee will reflect that. The cabinet will reflect that. And I think that could give a lot of younger progressives, at least younger Democrats, more reassurance. Yeah. So after all the questions about the current crisis, Bernie tried to turn the debate into a discussion of the former vice president's record when he was a senator, including a lengthy exchange about Biden's position on Social Security.

Here's the clip. Let me ask you a question, Joe. Yeah. You're right here with me. Yeah. Have you been on the floor of the Senate? You were in the Senate for question, Joe. Yeah. You're right here with me. Yeah. Have you been on the floor of the Senate? You were in the Senate for a few years. Yeah.

Time and time again, talking about the necessity with pride about cutting Social Security, cutting Medicare, cutting veterans programs. No. You never said that. No. All right. America, go to the website right now. Go to the YouTube right now.

Go to the YouTube right now go to the youtube right now go to the youtube oh no that's it's so funny bernie sounded like biden in past debates yeah i will you know i think these are two people that really like each other i do think bernie was genuinely caught off guard by how emphatic Biden is being given Biden's record. Given the video evidence. The video evidence of Biden's willingness to raise the retirement age, consider cuts as part of larger budget deals. I mean, that is, they're both, I get why Bernie was flustered. But it is, for both of them, and you know how this happens on campaigns, you so deeply believe your own story about your contrast with the other candidate.

And usually neither story is 100 percent accurate. Right. Like so Biden hears Bernie saying you bragged on the floor about cutting Social Security. And Joe Biden thinks I never talked about cutting Social Security. I talked about freezing all government spending for a year that included Social Security. Now, that would mean a cut. Right. spending for a year that included social security. Now, that would mean a cut, right? As Democrats say, but by the way, it's worth pointing out, Democrats for a very long time have clung to this idea that if you reduce growth of a social program, you are cutting that social program. It's part of our fucking, what do you do in church? Our liturgy.

Right. And so Joe Biden, like, look, what Joe Biden should have said is, yeah, there were positions that I took back in the 70s and 80s and 90s. Look at my record as vice president. You know, and of course, Bernie said during vice president, of course, there were the negotiations over the budget deal. And Biden did admit in the debate everything was on the table, including Social Security. Again, that was slowing the growth of a certain part of Social Security, which resulted in. Which if Republicans do, we call it cuts. Which we call it cuts, too.

Yeah. Look, I mean, this sort of kicked off the part of the debate that you could kind of summarize as old guys who have been in the Senate a long time, who took a lot of votes, and now we're going to go into a deep and boring history. And I think what you have to remember is that in the early 80s, Social Security was nearly insolvent. So there was an amendment that Biden co-sponsored that would have frozen a year of military and domestic spending, including cost of living adjustments on Social Security.

Ted Kennedy supported it. But more recently, Biden expressed openness to raising the Social Security eligibility age. That was back in 2007. Then Bernie got asked about a comment he had made several decades ago, I presume. It all felt like a bit of a wash to me. And yes, these are very important issues. But my brain is unable and unwilling to think about things you said in 1983 when I'm wondering

if I'm going to catch a fucking pandemic. Yeah, look, Biden was inaccurate about his record. And all he had to do there, what should have done is said i have just like you bernie i have changed my mind on a lot of issues this debate about is about the future we have a crisis right now and then we have the future to talk about and look at my plan for social security right now not only do i protect it but i expand it but you know at one point too but then biden biden always takes the bait from people and he has it every debate. He brought up Social Security on his own.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he brought it up on his own. Because he was prepped for it. That's right, because he was prepped for it and he was prepped for it in past debates, right? Because Bernie didn't bring it up as much in other debates. And he is always, you can always, and they should do this again for the general election, you know, if he goes after Trump. Though I don't doubt that Trump would be able to execute on this. I doubt that Trump would be able to execute on this. I doubt that Trump would be able to execute on this.

Do not talk about Senate votes from 30 years ago. Just don't go there. There was a period where Bernie was talking about Bull Simpson and they were name checking. And there was 99 percent of the audience had no idea what they were talking about. It was wild. I will say Bernie did. Bernie tried to. He goes to Biden. He's like, you can you can say come on joe it was really funny you can say that maybe you had some

bad votes you change your mind well then biden was like i never voted to cut social security and bernie's like okay you didn't vote to cut social security but you said he was like and then biden then biden's rejoinder was about bad gun control votes from Bernie in the past. And it just felt like politics as usual. And it was a bit of a wash. Well, personally, I feel the same way about Bernie and the gun votes. Like Bernie had bad gun votes. I'm glad he doesn't have that position anymore.

Joe Biden had bad Social Security proposals that he was willing to do. I'm glad he doesn't have those anymore. And it's basically, you know, it is a stand-in argument for what kind of president these two men would be. And the implication is Joe Biden may be saying these good things, but for him, Social Security is expendable in some way. He would give it away in negotiation. That's the attack. Right. And, you know, now the attack against Bernie that he somehow would become against gun control once he's in the White House, I think, is a little less salient, a little less saleable.

against gun control once he's in the white house i think it's a little less salient a little assailable but um oh i don't think joe but i think after what everyone went through in the obama white house with the debt ceiling bullshit i don't think there's any chance that president joe biden would put social security back i don't either because some of bernie's supporters have been asking me that and i just know that like i think i'm pretty sure that everyone involved has learned their lesson well that's the other that's the other thing that's the sort of i felt like throughout this debate, like Joe Biden embraces Elizabeth Warren's bankruptcy proposal. Bernie Sanders.

Yeah, we didn't even talk about that. Bernie Sanders is out here making an argument. And I do think that one of the- And he embraced Bernie's college proposal. And, but the, there's a cost to us constantly treating, like political media treats these men as protagonists, like they're protagonists in the story. And so what's good for them or what's bad for them is treated as what's good and what's bad.

And everything comes down to their decisions, who they are, their ideology, their identity. And you look at what's happening in our politics and like there's an incredible amount of pressure that can be brought to bear on Joe Biden. If you're worried that he's going to be less protective of Social Security because of his past record, you have a role to play in making sure that isn't true. So there were some flickers of unity last night. Here's Joe Biden answering a question about how he'd go about appealing to Bernie's voters if he ends up winning the nomination and Bernie's response. If Bernie's a nominee, I will not only support him, I will campaign for him. And I believe the people who support me will do the same thing because the existential threat to the United States of America is Donald Trump. It's critical. I would hope that

Bernie would do the same thing if I'm the nominee and encourage all of his followers to, in fact, support me as well, because it's much bigger than either of us. Character of the nation is on the ballot. It goes well beyond whether or not Senator Sanders and I both agree we need medical health care should be a right, not a privilege. We both agree we have to give deal with student debt. We both agree we have to deal with education and access to education. We both agree that we deal that we have a new green deal to deal with the existential threat that faces humanity. We disagree on the detail of how we do it, but we don't disagree on the principle. We fundamentally disagree with this president on everything.

This is a man who wants to cut Social Security, cut Medicare, not not Bernie, the president of the United States. So this is much bigger than whether or not I'm the nominee or Bernie's the nominee. If I lose this thing, Joe wins. Joe, I will be there for you. But I have my doubts about how you win a general election against Trump will be a very, very tough opponent unless you have energy, excitement, the largest voter turnout in history. I like that a lot me too i look it was really it was very smart politically for biden to look magnanimous and also there has been a lot of debate probably way too much debate over whether bernie supporters would ultimately uh support joe biden and vote for him or whether they're going to sit that out and what he did was

use that magnanimous moment to get Bernie to commit to essentially the same thing. And look, I don't think Bernie needed to be pulled that direction. He would have gotten there anyway. Bernie Sanders damn well understands the threat from Trump, but it was a nice moment. Yeah. Bernie says right afterwards, I'll be there for you, Joe, too, if I lose this thing, which is great. But that that answer from Biden, I think, was one of his best answers of any debate so far. And that tone was perfect. And I started thinking to myself, if Joe Biden had maintained that magnanimous tone through the entire debate, we wouldn't just say that he won the debate, which I think he did because he's in

the lead and Bernie didn't change anything. We would say that like, that's it, home run. It's done. And it's just, it was a great tone. I think Bernie's answer was quite good as well. I mean, what do you guys think? Like, you know, Bernie gave the speech after the last set of primaries where he basically laid out a bunch of questions for Biden in a way to sort of push him on certain policies. The debate was obviously a little more heated than those questions because he went after Biden's record a few times and Biden certainly went after him a few times, too. But how do you feel about how the debate ended in terms of how to bring this sort of party together and end this primary? I think the moments we just played were the best moments of the debate. Bernie saying, I'll be there for you, Joe, was the way he said it. I really appreciate it. I just found it- It was heartfelt, I think.

Yeah. I mean, maybe it's because I hadn't left my home for 72 hours, but I was genuinely moved by it. But maybe just seeing another person express an emotion. But it was the debate was on the whole more caustic than it should have been. And I think that's both of their faults. Yeah, I do. And, you know, there was a moment earlier in the debate where Biden was basically asked some very specific question like, you know, will you will you shut the port of Miami level specificity? like, you know, will you shut the port of Miami level specificity? And clearly they prepped him. He said, listen, when I'm president, what I would do, if I were president, what I would do is I would convene the smartest people and experts and we'd figure out the best plan together to be prepared. And it was a response to any question, basically saying, I will put in place a more serious

process in this current president. And I wish that he had a similar place to go when he's challenged on something, when he's pushed on something that is more magnanimous and less defensive, that he knows how to place to go when he's challenged on something, when he's pushed on something that is more magnanimous and less defensive, that he knows how to let a pitch go by. But those moments were good. There's a lot of advantages to being vice president. You have universal name ID. You're associated with Barack Obama, who's a very popular former president. In this instance, Biden could talk about his very specific experience of managing the ebola crisis the h1n1 swine flu crisis that i thought gave people confidence um my critique of the debate

is i wanted more forward-looking future discussions i wanted more moments uh where they came together to talk about the magnitude of the moment and of beating trump and less talk about social security votes from the 80s and comments about fucking fidel Castro. I just I have no more time for any of those things and I don't care. But in general, you know, I thought it was good from from the online chatter and the spin room chatter, the virtual spin room chatter after the after the debate. My guess is that both candidates are at the stage where they both probably want to be more magnanimous than their staffs. And this happens at the end of most primaries. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the first two to make peace. And our staff and your staff were at each other's throat for a lot longer.

Not you and me, come on. Not you and me. Yeah, we were the exception. You and me. Yeah, we were the exception. But, you know, after the debate, you know, Anita Dunn, who's Biden's senior advisor, made a pretty graceless comment about how, you know, Biden went in there. And it was like him dealing with a lot of the protesters who show up at his rallies for two hours, which was completely unnecessary. Also, hey, credit to protesters who show up and fight for things like climate change that they care about. Let's not diminish any of those. protesters who show up and fight for things like climate change that they care about. Let's not diminish any of those. No, we should never diminish protesters, make democracy work. And then, you know, and then some of Bernie's staff went from, you know, insinuating that Joe Biden may not have the capabilities to be president to just saying that he's like an outright liar and liar, liar, liar, you know, as opposed to, you know, the misstatements he made about his record.

And I just think, and then they all went after each other on Twitter all night. And I'm like, we got to, this is only going to end in a good way if the candidates, if Biden and Bernie themselves sort of take the responsibility and tell their staffs we're ending this in a friendly way to bring the party together, because staffs will go at each other forever. in a friendly way to bring the party together because staffs will go at each other forever. That's just how it goes. So we have voting tomorrow, Tuesday, in Arizona, Florida, Ohio, and Illinois.

I mean, there's a lot of issues around that. I don't know how these states can guarantee free and fair elections when people who are 65 or older or people with underlying physical conditions want to stay home because they don't get infected. And also, you know, other people who, you know, maybe not might not have symptoms or know they're infected can still spread the disease to others. So I don't know what happens tomorrow. Yeah, I mean, I think it's pretty simple. I mean, these elections may go forward. They may not. But we should just be honest about it.

If the government is advising you to not leave your house, and the only way to vote is to leave your house, the government is advising you not to vote. And if the government is advising millions of people to not vote in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio vote on Tuesday. And look, I don't know the right answer, but it just seems profoundly unfair to people who care deeply about democracy and want to vote, but are scared. Yeah. I was asking people about this on Twitter because I honestly didn't know the answer. And part of the issue is a lot of people have already voted in those four states. I think we know that every primary after those four tomorrow are all going to be postponed. So that's fine. But the four tomorrow, the problem is that a lot of people voted already. Now, Illinois, the only one of the four states that has a Democratic governor, J.B. Pritzker,

who's been great during this response so far, said everyone in the state can request a mail-in ballot up until Tuesday, through Tuesday, on Tuesday. Arizona, Republican governor. Florida, on Tuesday. Arizona, Republican governor, Florida, Republican governor, Ohio, Republican governor. Now Ohio's doing drive up curbside voting, which is good. Mike DeWine, good job. But it's, it's not, it's people like, oh, why isn't Tom Perez doing this for the Democratic party? It's up to actually the Republican governors in those states to run the elections, which is the problem. But you're right. You have a, you have a discrepancy between the national government saying no crowds over 50 and state governments who run the election and telling people that-

The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, is asking Trump to restrict domestic travel, right? If you're going to do that- And having an election. Can you make some accommodations for people voting? And look, this isn't about like an advantage to one candidate or the other, right? Joe Biden's coalition is quite old. And if they don't show up tomorrow because they want to stay home, that doesn't, it's not that it doesn't help him.

It doesn't help Bernie. It doesn't help one of the, one of the other candidates. It's just, it's, it's really tough for the voters. Yeah. I mean, look, I, you know, CDC is saying no gatherings of, of more than 50 people, but they're also telling people in the risk categories to remain home to self isolate. And if that's the advice, if that's the advice, it's very simple. That's it. We should have mail-in voting all over the country. I do hope Democrats make a push to make mail-in voting available to everyone in every

state because it's long past time. And Republicans should too in the middle of this crisis. Like I said, it doesn't, it's not going to necessarily advantage one party or the other in the midst of a pandemic when we get to November. Just my usual reminder that I've seen what Trump rallies look like. They are older. Right. And those MAGA hats offer no protection. All right. Let's talk about the crisis at hand. We still don't know the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. because of how little testing has been done. But the disease has left 50 dead and at least 3000 infected, a number that will likely skyrocket this week.

at least 3,000 infected, a number that will likely skyrocket this week. As of this morning, the governors of California, Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts, Washington, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut have ordered the closure of schools, bars, dine-in restaurants, gyms, movie theaters, casinos, and other public facilities. Here in California, Governor Newsom directed all Americans over 65 and those with underlying physical conditions to self-isolate at home. And on Sunday, the CDC recommended that all events throughout the entire country, including 50 or more people, be canceled for the next eight weeks. Guys, why are governors taking these very drastic steps and are they enough? I mean, I thought Governor Cuomo in New

York put this well, this is a national pandemic, but there are no national rules. And Fauci, the head of the CDC, is doing his best, but I can't help but see the disconnect between what he's saying on Sunday shows that he would do for himself, that he wouldn't travel, that he wouldn't go to public places or restaurants, and the lack of a national closure of bars and restaurants. And this is all being left to states and governors and county level municipalities to manage it. And it's making me lose my fucking mind. Because when I look at Twitter or Instagram and you see Bourbon Street packed or spring break

still happening or St. Paddy's Day's bars with lines out the door in Chicago, social distancing does not work if we all aren't part of it, if we're not participating. If you are at a bar with 200 people, it's not that you are young and you're going to be fine and you won't get that sick and everything will be okay. It's that you could give it to someone else that is immunocompromised or old and you could kill them. You could murder these people if you do not take personal responsibility. And everyone who thinks this is not a big deal, it's only impacting old people. We all know somebody we used to work with who is literally a specimen of a fucking human being. One of the most healthy people I've known played football in college, served in the military,

has been battling coronavirus for five or six days now. And it's just leveled, absolutely leveled, unlike anything he's ever dealt with before. And if you think that's not a big deal, you're crazy. So pardon me for browbeating listeners who are probably doing the right thing, since I know you people, you're pretty cool. But yell at your kids and your cousins and your friends to get your shit together. And more importantly, yell at the federal government to put clear rules in place. Yell at state and local governments to put clear rules in place. We need to shut stuff down now before it's too late. This is why we have a government. This is why you need a president and national leadership. This is why the conservative vision of government that everyone

just volunteers to do the right things, right? That you don't pay taxes. You just, you know, you just give to charity and that'll do enough. Like you can't always count on people doing the right thing for the larger community. That's why you have regulations and rules. And right now we don't have a president. We don't have a real president who is putting in place rules and regulations to protect the country. And that is why this response, as you said, is completely patchwork and it's state dependent. But guess what? Like state dependent responses don't work in a country where there's 50 states and you can cross borders. Same thing globally. I mean, right? Like Cuomo said, this is a national pandemic, but there are no national rules. There are also no global rules. And it doesn't seem to be that there's a global response of leaders getting together to work on this together. Yeah, I mean, who knows what the situation will be right now. Forget national rules. Forget all of that.

If Trump had just done the step of declaring a national emergency earlier. Right. And if Trump had just taken a better tone earlier. Would Post Malone have done a show in a packed arena if donald trump had not been saying it's going to be fine and if you're young you'll be fine uh would people be packing the streets and the bars if there was a coherent argument from a national leader that everyone recognized saying this is real this is serious international argument though donald trump picks up the phone gets all 50 governors on the phone,

and says, shut it fucking down by tomorrow. That's all that had to happen. To Leavitt's point, I mean, NBC, Wall Street Journal did a poll, and 47% of respondents express less or no concern about the impact of the coronavirus. That seems to track pretty consistently with political parties.

And, you know, when you're seeing Trish Reagan on Fox Business News, or, you know, when you're seeing Trish Reagan on Fox Business News or, you know, like, look, this guy, David Clark, who no one should have heard of because he's an actual lunatic. He's a sheriff in Milwaukee whose horrible practices led to the death of people. He's one of the worst people on the planet. But he speaks at CPAC every year. He spoke at the Republican National Convention. Last night, he was tweeting that no one has gotten to the bottom of how George Soros is contributing to the coronavirus. Right. And like that kind of madness and disinformation is going to lead people not to take easy steps in their own lives to just not put themselves or others at risk. So the Republican Party is a party of rural America and ex-urban America, and this is a pandemic that is first striking big cities, right? So if you are an average Republican voter, you are sitting in some far-flung suburb or in a rural part of America where you do not see the virus affecting anyone yet.

And what are you watching? You're watching Fox News. You're watching Donald Trump. You're following all your favorite Trumpy Republican politicians online. And they're all telling you it's a hoax. It doesn't matter. The governor of Oklahoma put up a picture saying, eating with my kids and all my fellow Oklahomans at a local restaurant.

Packed tonight. Devin Nunes, as one of you pointed out earlier, was saying, if you're healthy, you and your family, it's a great time to just go out and go to a local restaurant. This is a fucking congressman. Devin Nunes. Devin Nunes, everybody. Look, obviously, this is very serious, but I don't think we need to give up the things we care about most. That's why I'm once again leading the annual bobbing for apples at the Central Valley State Fair. Line up with your kids and elderly parents.

We're bobbing for apples. I mean, look, Trump said at one of the press conferences over the weekend when press on this, I don't take responsibility at all. And I think that quote is going to Bobbing for apples. I mean, look, Trump said at one of the press conferences over the weekend when pressed on this, I don't take responsibility at all. And I think that quote is going to define his presidency. He does not want to own this. He wants to play down the health risks because he thinks that might help him with the stock market in the near term. And it is so back ass word in approach that it's going to make everything worse.

And it is so back ass word in approach that it's going to make everything worse. And then on top of that, I mean, Jared Kushner has now been put in charge of the coronavirus response. Jared and Stephen Miller wrote the Oval Office address that had to be corrected three times on Twitter right after the speech. I mean, like. And Jared also deputized Karlie Kloss's dad to crowdsource suggestions on Facebook. I wasn't in the White House still when the Ebola crisis hit, but I was in a million NSC meetings during my time at the White House. And like the health pandemic issues tended to be managed by the same people that did like counterterrorism, things like that. And so John Brennan, Susan Rice, Dennis McDonough, those people, Tom Donilon, they would be leading those meetings as well as the health related ones. And the times you saw those people frightened to their core were the health related issues. It was the pandemics. It was the viruses.

That's why they set up this NSC office. It wasn't a thing to say you did. It was a critical, urgent need because we kind of think we know how to stop an al-qaeda fucking suicide bomber we have no idea how to stop a brand new novel coronavirus that's raging across the world and again just don't look you know it's some of their uh conservatives trumpy people have been saying oh this is some like you know liberal hoax media hoax to take down donald trump of course which means that italy is in on the hoax as well. And so is like China and South Korea and all these other places. But look at the difference between what is happening in Italy and what has happened in South Korea. Even if you don't want to take China as an example, because people don't know exactly all the information that's true out of

China. South Korea, they ramped up the testing. They took social distancing very, very seriously. They shut things down. In South Korea, the curve has been flattened. They took social distancing very, very seriously. They shut things down. In South Korea, the curve has been flattened. And now, you know, I think yesterday was the cases came down. And in Italy, in northern Italy, the wealthiest part of that country, great hospitals, wealthy population, they are overrun. And they have had to shut down the entire country and even still shutting down the country. The deaths are spiking every single day. That is where we are headed if we do not take this seriously. The idea that what we're seeing is a panic is so dangerous and stupid. It's very frustrating. Where is the panic? Is it Anthony Fauci? I don't think you're suggesting he's panicking.

Is it the airlines who are shutting down service because no one's flying and they're being told that it's not safe to fly international? I think they're panicking. I think they're responding to events. Are you saying that the markets are panicking? Is that what it is? The markets are panicking? Okay, well, every stock sold is a stock bought, right? This is what is happening. This is the collective judgment of the entire financial system about what we're about to go through. So the only thing I can think is we are not panicking enough. When I see those lines of people at the fucking St. Patrick's Day bar,

when I see the Post Malone concert, when I see the O'Hare Airport crowds. Oh, we haven't even talked about that. But that the administration wasn't ready for people coming into customs, making this whole crisis worse. I think we haven't panicked enough. And the one thing I just wanted to say about that too is,

you know, I do feel like we're seeing so many of our cultural problems sort of explode because of this. And obviously one of them is the virus of the mind that has infected people like Devin Nunes about how to talk about politics. But also the divide between news users and people that don't follow the news that, you know, people say all the time, you know, Twitter's not real life, Twitter's not real life. This is a situation where we might be looking at a bunch of people who follow the news really closely, engage in it, reacting appropriately,

and a bunch of people who don't, tuning it all out. And I think it's incumbent upon all of us. The virus is real life. The virus certainly is in real life and not on Twitter. So the thing I would just say is if you, this is a situation where Twitter has to become real life and not on Twitter. So the thing I would just say is if you, like we have to, this is a situation where Twitter has to become real life

and take your message to the people in your life that don't follow the news. I want to talk about the, I want to end by talking about the economic fallout, but Michael just sent us this breaking news. Mike DeWine of Ohio announces that voting will be extended until June 2nd, that no in-person voting will happen tomorrow in Ohio.

He said, quote, it is clear that tomorrow's in-person voting does not conform and cannot conform with these CDC guidelines. We cannot conduct this election tomorrow. Mike DeWine, Republican governor of Ohio, is such a great example of a pre-Trump Republican who is acting responsibly and thoughtfully and doing the right thing. And then you have these goobers like the governor of Oklahoma who's tweeting selfies with his kids and doing the right thing. And then you have these goobers like the governor of Oklahoma who's tweeting selfies with his kids and Devin Nunes. I mean, thank you to all these, you know, Tom Cotton just put up a tweet storm where he recommended all kinds of good ideas, including essentially universal basic income for people suffering right now.

Tom Cotton usually sucks. He's one of the worst. Well, you know why? Because Tom Cotton is a raptor testing the fences. And we should all watch Tom Cotton. We should watch Josh Hawley because these are people who know what Trump is doing and what's working and what won't. And they are watching very, very closely. Mike DeWine falls into the category of sort of the old school country club Republicans like your Mitt Romney, who we'll talk about soon, and Larry Hogan in Maryland and Charlie Baker in Massachusetts, those two governors who are also doing the right thing during this. So, and Tommy, you were over the weekend talking about how annoyed you were that everyone was talking about this through, it's a partisan lens, you know, but it's like, there's a bunch of Republican governors doing

the right thing along with a bunch of Democratic governors. It is Trump and his fucking cult that is going to get us all killed. It's not necessarily just Democrat versus Republican. Look, he's a fringe extreme example, but Donald Trump went on Alex Jones' show on InfoWars. Right now, Alex Jones is selling random weird supplements that he said will protect you from the coronavirus. It's going to get people killed. All right, let's talk about the economic situation.

Even though the Fed announced another round of emergency rate cuts, the Dow was in free fall again, down about 2,000 points when we started recording. And most economists predict we're almost certainly headed for a deep recession if we're not already in one. Though the president's top economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, said this morning, this morning, that, quote,

this is a great opportunity to buy stocks and that, quote, the fundamentals of the economy are still strong. Everyone remember that one? Yeah. Playing the old hits from 2008. Everyone remember that one? Yeah. Playing the old hits from 2008. There's nothing more alarming than Larry Kudlow saying bye,

because when Larry Kudlow says bye, a lot of people sell. Yeah. The House passed a coronavirus response bill early Saturday morning after final negotiations between Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnookin. It includes paid sick leave, free coronavirus testing, food assistance funding, and strengthened unemployment benefits. However, the sick leave provisions only cover about 20% of American workers because it exempts both large and small businesses from some of the requirements. Guys, does this bill go far enough and why hasn't it passed yet? No, it doesn't go far enough. It hasn't passed yet because Mitch McConnell needed the weekend off, presumably to, I don't know, sleep upside down or like, you know.

He was hanging with Brett Kavanaugh at some event. But, you know. Mitch McConnell only feeds every 28 days. and to Speaker Pelosi in particular for fighting with Secretary Mnuchin as hard as she possibly can to get something done. Katie Porter in our interview later is crystal clear that it's insufficient. I think we need to do much, much, much more. I have to say, over the weekend, Mnuchin was the one guy at these press conferences that actually seemed to get how big a deal this was and want to be proactive and bipartisan and work with the other side to get something done. But no, this isn't enough. Yeah. Go ahead, Levin.

No, it's striking. It does remind me a bit of 2008 in that, in the same way the Democratic primary in 2008 was about change. And then in the final days of the election, it became about who could stably take over and run the country amidst crisis. And I was struck that Joe Biden in the debate went back to the financial crisis, which is actually something that hasn't been central to our conversation yet. And thinking this through, we talk about Ebola, we talk about SARS, we talk about all those other diseases. And then you realize, wait, this is unprecedented. This is a financial crisis now. And it was striking to see Biden go back to that because it does seem as though suddenly a conversation about how to get rid of Trump becomes also a

conversation about who's best to lead during an emergency. Yeah. So much of the critique of the response to the financial crisis in 2008 has to do with, you know, too many bad actors were bailed out that shouldn't have been. And we could debate that for a long time. But one of the lessons that I have learned from it is there was a fear about proposing an economic stimulus package that was too big because politically it wouldn't get through the Congress. And so you had people like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner probably knowing that you needed a bigger response to such an economic shock but thinking we're not going to be able to get it through because we don't have the votes and I think learning from that this time around like you're already seeing as we just said Tom Cotton of all people talking about a cash payment of

direct cash payments to Americans you're seeing Mitt Romney talk about a thousand dollar cash payment to Americans. Ro Khanna in the House, Democrat Ro Khanna and Tim Ryan co-sponsored a bill last week that would be a thousand dollars to six thousand dollars per month to Americans. And I think, you know, for all the good faith negotiations between Pelosi and Mnuchin, Democrats in the House and Democrats in the Senate have to think pretty hard and propose the most ambitious package they can think of and talk about it publicly and fight for it. And if you don't get it right, if Republicans stand in the way of Trump stands in the way, then so be it. But go as big as you think we need to. That is the lesson from 2008. And do not be shy about this. Don't start counting the votes in your head now. Propose the biggest thing you can do and then work backwards from there. Yeah, I also do think one of the lessons

is that thankfully a bunch of Republicans were pretending to believe in austerity and pretending to believe that stimulus doesn't work because now all of a sudden when there's a Republican president, suddenly they discovered that stimulus works. The other pieces of it too, and I think this is why it's amazing how quickly we go from universal basic income as a quirky idea from a quirky candidate to an embraced, widely held position during a time of crisis. Yang, Yang. Yang, Yang.

Seriously. I wonder how quickly, like Andrew Yang absolutely softened the ground for that as something people were aware of, understood. But one of the lessons too of the financial crisis is people felt as though the worst people were being helped and they weren't seeing the benefit. And so I do think that going to a simple, big help to everyone is the right thing. This is also just a cleaner example, right? I mean, a bunch of bankers and people peddling mortgage-backed securities did awful, horrible things that unraveled the economy and hurt all of us. In this instance, no one is to blame for a pandemic. Other than Trump.

That helps. Well, look, he's to blame for exacerbating it. But cynically, I think our best hope, as you sort of said, Lovett, is Republicans not wanting to own a financial disaster with Trump having this much runway between the election. But like what what makes me apoplectic when I sit on Twitter all day and read about it is knowing that like Jared has his like little teenage goober, Avi Berkowitz and Hope Hicks working on it's like that's the level of brains and mindshare in the White House. He doesn't have a chief of staff. He wakes up in the morning and he tweets about Hillary's Benghazi emails and judicial watch. So there is no seriousness of purpose coming out of the White House. We really need Congress, and which is why I'm heartened by like a Tom Cotton tweet like that, to take this on and just

push it through. Yeah. And look, you're right that there's not bad actors involved in this like last time. But, you know, they're already talking about what the bailout package for the airline will look like. And again, the airlines didn't cause this, so it's not their fault like it was the banker's fault. But a bunch of people are going to see a lot of money end up going to airlines and other big industries that probably has to go to them because they employ a lot of people who are going to be out of work. And that stuff snowballs very, very quickly. It's not just to help the CEOs of these companies. It's to help the thousands and millions of workers who are in, you know, the restaurant industry, the entertainment industry, the hospitality industry, the airline industry, who could be out of work for quite a bit. This is why it's so dangerous

to have someone so untrustworthy as Donald Trump in this job, because we also know that he's taken calls from shale gas billionaires and his buddies saying, help me here, help me there. Donald Trump owns hotels. We know he's not as rich as he says, because we know how much he needs the regular income to keep his whole fake operation afloat. So we're in this situation with completely unreliable, untruthworthy human beings at the helm. And this is, you know, three years it took to get here. But man, two things, two few things have been as well predicted as the switch to streaming and Donald Trump failing in a crisis. We all knew that eventually we would switch from cable boxes to streaming. They predicted it for years and then it happened. We all knew that Donald Trump was a fundamental risk in that he was completely unable to manage a crisis like this.

And now we're in it. And it's so close to the election. So close. And we almost made it. Yeah. And look, it's just bailing these companies out is so awful in the near term. And it was so thoroughly demagogued. And it's easy to attack these people.

We all need to remember that TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and the auto bailout was paid back. And in fact, it yielded like billions in profit. So these things are so painful in the short term. The headlines are so awful when a bunch of assholes on Wall Street paid themselves big bonuses. And yes, I would have loved to have seen them in jail either. But hopefully we can just focus on the big problem and the solution. And the answer is to take care of the people being hurt more than we have before. And if you want to beat up on some companies, which everyone wants to do, you know,

this paid sick leave thing, you know, Pelosi tweeted, the paid sick leave is basically the government funding paid sick leave. And it's not a regulation on the companies to do that. But so all these very big companies got off the hook here and police said, well, we don't want to have the government, the taxpayer funding, you know, what these companies should be doing on their own. And I do think that there should be pressure on some of the big companies that do not offer paid sick leave right now. Not the smaller ones that are struggling in this, but the very big ones. McDonald's, Walmart, those are the two biggest companies in America that don't offer paid sick leave. 800,000 workers combined. There's also Kroger's, Subway, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Taco Bell, Target, Publix. These are very, very large companies that do not offer a good paid sick

leave thing. And if you're out there, you should pressure them to do so. Yeah. It's also just worth noting too that the seasonal flu kills tens of thousands of people. And every day people have to go to work when they're sick with the flu. And so, you know, as we put pressure on these companies, I do think it's all of us worth remembering what this moment feels like, because a miniature version of coronavirus happens for families every single day. Do I go to work? Do I keep my kid home? How do I stay home when I need the shift? All of that happens constantly and we ignore it at our peril. Yeah. And to your point, John, like we should be pressuring those companies. And let me tell you, no way in hell I am going to a business or a restaurant that does not offer its employees

paid sick leave right now. Because that means odds are someone in there has the coronavirus and it's just working anyway. And fuck you to the CEOs who put them in that position. And we as consumers should punish that CEO. Well said. And now Tommy's going to talk about all this stuff more with another consumer crusader, Representative Katie Porter. That'll be up when we come back. Hey, guys. I'm Rachel Bonetta. And I'm Retina Fruchbaum. And we're the hosts of the new Crooked Media podcast called Hall of Shame. It's a podcast all about the craziest, messiest, most interesting moments in sports.

Rachel here has been in the sports world for years and co-hosts Lock It In on Fox Sports. And I'm from Cleveland. You're also a comedy writer. Okay. Okay. Parks and Rec. Nothing. Fresh off the boat.

Let's not do this. Do you want me to read this whole resume in front of me? That's it. We're going to cover a bunch of sports scandals from the Boston Marathon cheater to the biggest sting operation in sports history that you've probably never heard of. So you can expect a lot of laughs.

Maybe some, I don't know, maybe some cries. At the very least, stories that'll make you seem super interesting at a dinner party. New episodes drop every Monday. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, wherever you like to listen to podcasts. I am thrilled to be joined by Congresswoman Katie Porter from the 45th Congressional District here in California. As I told you the other day, you are way up on the Crooked Media Power rankings of members of Congress based on some of your recent questioning.

So thank you so much for joining the show. Absolutely. Delighted to be here. So can we just start with the basics? Like people are scared to death. That includes podcasters. We all assume that you as an elected official probably know more than us about how the government is responding or is not responding. What's your sense Monday morning about efforts to ramp up testing and mitigate the spread of the coronavirus?

I actually don't feel that I necessarily know that much more than the American people. To be perfectly honest, we are getting regular briefings. getting regular briefings. I think there's a big gulf here between what we know about the science of this disease and then what we know or are doing about how to respond to it. So, you know, a shout out to Dr. Anthony Fauci, who I think has been relentlessly consistent in presenting the existing science, and that science has actually been pretty consistent. What has not been consistent is how the government's been responding. And I think that is where the struggle continues. We have a Democratic caucus telephone call here this morning. And so I'm sure there'll be ongoing discussions about what we need to do.

And I've gotten probably a dozen phone calls in the last 24 hours from colleagues who are seeing things in their district and want to be in conversation with me about what do I think we should do about what they're seeing. So I'm pleased that my colleagues are having those conversations with their community in a safe way, often by phone, keeping their distance, but trying to understand what does this really mean in people's real lives. Yeah. So let's take through the government response. I guess I'll start with the most recent first, which is on Sunday, the Fed announced that they're going to slash interest rates to zero. They're going to buy hundreds of billions of dollars in bonds. Now, obviously,

that's not a healthcare related response. That's a stock market response. But can you help explain to listeners in kind of basic terms for dumb people like me, like, what does that mean? How does slashing interest rates and buying bonds help your average person on Main Street? The idea behind the quantitative easing, which is what we call some of that bond buying and slashing the interest rates, is to try to make the cost of borrowing cheaper, which is an issue as we're going to be asking, and we're going to see businesses needing to take on lines of credit. We're seeing retailers who are drawing downs on their lines of credit right now to be

able to continue to pay workers even if they don't have revenue coming in the door. So that's a monetary policy tool. It's designed to help stabilize the markets. And even if you don't have any investments, you're not in the stock market, you're doing your best to just get to the grocery store and pay the bills like most of us are, this is still a good thing. Widespread market panic doesn't benefit anybody, even those of us who don't have a direct connection to the market. At the same time, I would just say, well, I'm fine with what the Fed did, and I think it was probably appropriate, it is not a substitute or an excuse to misunderstand that the heart of our economic defense against a recession is American families, it's American workers. And so we do need to be putting cash in the pocket today of American workers who are going to be, you know, their hours are cut, they're being told not to come into work, they're not being paid, businesses are not having revenue, all of those things are happening. And so I support immediately delivering cash to every American

worker. We can do it right now. We can use the Treasury Department and the IRS to administer that. And it's incredibly important. I think we can have a debate about how much money, whether there should be categorical restrictions for workers that we know are still getting paid, for instance, state workers or government workers. But if there's one lesson from the foreclosure crisis, which I was in the thick of, is that if you try to means test programs and you make the paperwork complicated and you create 10 million eligibility requirements, you really can kill people from paper cuts. I mean, the thousand paper cut death economically is a real thing for American families. And so I urge my colleagues, one, to prioritize American workers. They are the front line in our economic stability. And two, to understand that we are all in this economically together, just like we're

all in this together in terms of physical health. That's a good way to think about it. So again, working backwards, the House, the democratically controlled House passed a sick leave bill quickly. And I think that is our credit for moving quickly. But a lot of people are angry or confused why companies with 500 and more employees were exempted in that bill. So I mean, I guess the question is, why does a small business have to offer 10 days of paid leave, but McDonald's or Amazon does not? And are you worried that, you know, exempting those companies might limit the

impact of social distancing efforts? Since you know, big companies employ, I think, about half of American workers? I'm going to do something that's probably rare, even on the Pod Save America format, and just directly answer the question. We failed. The reason this happened is because of Secretary Mnuchin and the Trump administration. So when you say, why did this happen? Let's be clear. The House Democrats went in. We wanted to provide happened is because of Secretary Mnuchin and the Trump administration. So when you say, why did this happen? Let's be clear. The House Democrats went in. We wanted to provide 10 days minimum of paid sick leave. We talked about 14 days of paid sick leave for all workers. And after two or three, four very intense days of negotiation, late nights in the Capitol, 1 a.m., 2 a.m., hoping we were going to vote.

This is the deal we got, and it's really an example of putting the largest corporations ahead of small and medium-sized businesses. There's just no rational explanation for why you give the biggest employers, those that have the most flexibility to accommodate sick leave and the most ability to afford to pay sick leave to let them off the hook here it's simply for me it's another example of money in politics it's another example of bailing out those the too big to fail those at the top and leaving behind those in the middle and the bottom who get squeezed so i think any the next bill the House passes, we need to go back to the, we need to go back to our core principle here, which is that paid sick leave for all workers is a necessity. I think the sick leave portion of the Families First Act

is actually the weakest part of the bill. Some of the other portions of the bill I actually think were extremely well done and really some credit should be given to House Democrats and Speaker Pelosi for achieving because we're already seeing them make a difference right here in our communities. Yeah, I mean, so I don't mean to focus on the economic piece of this, because I think that the health piece is so much more important. But honestly, like that's seemingly being left to governors and mayors and state based health authorities to deal with. So I'm just not sure what to even ask you. So I guess sticking on the questions about the financial impact of... Well, Tommy, can I give you an example of where this bill, the Families First Act,

is going to make a difference? And it's making a difference right now. So while I'm disappointed with the sick leave provisions, I think they help, but they don't go far enough. We also included in the Families First Act $1 billion in authorized funding for food assistance. And this is for things like senior nutrition, Meals on Wheels. It's to expand the school lunch program. Right here in Irvine today, we passed that bill in the middle of the night on Saturday morning. It was like 1 a.m., 1245 in the morning, middle of the night between Friday and Saturday. Today, Monday, the school district and the 45th congressional district, Irvine Unified, is open right as we speak, distributing school lunches on a drive-out basis to any child who needs it.

That's amazing. Any child. And so that is possible because the school district believes it knows that there's going to be that additional funding for the school lunch program. So there is real help that's being delivered here. But I think what we found is where the government's willing to foot the bill and we have great partners like our local school districts, we can make a difference in American lives. time to ask the largest corporations in the country to step up and take care of their workers and be part of this pandemic response, we were met with resistance from the Trump administration. And it's incredibly disappointing and frustrating. And I hope the American people will push back, both on their government representatives, but also in terms of calling on American businesses

to do what's right here. Yeah. So, I mean, you are like one of the foremost authorities on financial issues. You wrote a textbook on consumer laws. You were tapped by Attorney General Kamala Harris at the time, then Attorney General Kamala Harris, to be the state's independent monitor of banks in this big mortgage settlement. What lessons did you learn from those response efforts that you think we should be thinking about and getting ready to apply to the likely fallout from the coronavirus? So I think first and foremost, there can be no unconditional bailouts of industry here. We need to make sure that we're getting workers and families taken care of first.

Their voices are more diffused. And let's face it, in our current political system, at least with a lot of my colleagues, the big corporations have more of a say and more of a voice than everyday families. So we need to put workers and household well-being first. If we stabilize the economies of each of our households, then that has the strongest possible macroeconomic effect that we could have. The second thing is we cannot dither and waste time with means testing. We can't be spending time worrying about whether this person or that person deserves help. Just like everybody is at risk of getting sick from this pandemic, everybody is going to be hurt by a major, serious, prolonged economic downturn. So the goal here is

to get help out quickly. And to go back to the foreclosure crisis and remind people, President Obama and his team came up with a foreclosure prevention program, making homes affordable. It was variously called, had components called HAMP and HARP. There was really, in my opinion, nothing wrong with those programs. The problem came in that the qualifications, the paperwork, the limitations, the who got help and what they had to do to get help meant that nobody, particularly the most vulnerable, didn't get help for literally years from when that program was enacted until when it began to really be ramped up and be operational in an effective way.

And so there's a huge lesson here for us about the need to develop government programs that we can implement to help families just as quickly as the Fed can implement a 0% rate cut to help the Wall Street banks and the macroeconomic market. That's such an important point. I mean, there are so many moments in our history where you can point to the cruelty of bureaucracy and how it prevented people from literally having their lives saved. So I think that's an incredibly important point to keep making. A lot of people recently saw this amazing clip of you just relentlessly, doggedly questioning the head of the CDC during a congressional hearing. You finally got him to commit to making the coronavirus test free of charge. First of all, thank you for doing that. Second, have they followed up with you about implementing that promise? And why does it take

a dogged member of Congress to get the CDC to agree to do something that seems so obvious? to get the CDC to agree to do something that seems so obvious? The government has quite a bit of authority here to respond. One of the most fascinating things about that moment, for me, sort of the backstory of it, is that that statute that we were asking him to use, that rule, it's been on the books since early 2017. Government actually did its job here. books since early 2017. Government actually did its job here. Previous administrations and Congress and the folks who do this work, they propagated that rule. But then when it comes time to respond, nobody wants to use the existing authority to just get it done. And particularly in this case, you know, my colleagues Rosa DeLora and Lauren Underwood, we had written a letter a week before

that hearing, more than a week before that hearing, asking the CDC director to use this authority. No response. The hearing starts on Wednesday. They have to shut the hearing short. I'm at the very, I'm the second to last person to question. I'm at the bottom of the pecking order in Congress. They cut the hearing short. They leave. They come back the next day. That night before they came back, we contacted the CDC and we said, we are going to ask Director Redfield to commit to using this existing authority to make sure that testing is free regardless of insurance. I have never in all my years as a professor given a student the answer in quite that way.

Yeah. And he still fumbled it. Right. answer in quite that way. And he still fumbled it. And so I think this is where leadership really matters and where reminding government authorities like the CDC director, the responsibility that they have is a heavy one and they need to be using the tools that they have just as Congress has an obligation to be thinking about creating and implementing additional tools. Yeah. Congresswoman, I don't know if you watched the Bernie-Biden debate last night. I mean, it was weird for a lot of reasons, right? It's weird to have just the two

of them, no audience, social distancing happening in real time on that stage. But it also just felt like we're in a new political context. And so I'm still wrapping my head around it. But the big divide was sort of Biden saying, let's respond narrowly to the crisis at hand and get through that and take care of families that are impacted by this immediate need versus, I think, Bernie's message, which is like sort of harkens back to Rahm Emanuel saying, never let a crisis go to waste. We need to reform the entire system. This is laying bare how broken our healthcare system is. It's laying bare the vast amount of economic inequality in this country. That means, you know, the average family can't pay a $400 bill or go bankrupt. So it's really a, it's a philosophical change. Like, do we need to manage the crisis or do we need big structural change, as Elizabeth

Warren might say? Do you have a view on that debate in terms of what we should do now or how to approach this? Both. We need both. So there are some things that we need to be doing right now in the immediate. And hopefully one of the lessons of those things is that these are just good ideas. So one of the things, just to use a small example, it was not a small example, but to take one issue that would actually make a big impact and see how this plays out. Paid sick leave is a benefit to both workers and employers. It actually saves employers money in the long run. We should have paid sick leave, period, regardless going forward. But there's an opportunity to use this moment to get people to enact it.

So one of the things I'm really watching is, are we saying you have to give paid sick leave for the next month? Are we saying you have to give paid sick leave only for coronavirus? saying you have to give paid sick leave only for coronavirus. And so I'm seeing some corporations say, well, we'll do sick leave for those who get affected by coronavirus. And I'm thinking, well, what if they just have cancer? They need paid sick leave. And so I think this is not actually as big of a contrast as it might seem. I think it's a little bit of a difference in sort of how to frame it. But the correct answer here, in my view, is that most of these policies are good policies to have in place. And paid sick leave, I think, is really a critical example of them. But I'll offer you another one that may seem a little more abstract, but it's one that I'm

thinking about a lot, is Congress, which is very eager to put burdens and responsibilities on government, local government, state government, onto businesses, onto Americans, to deal with this pandemic, to be flexible, to implement social distancing, to plan for continuity of operations, to facilitate telework. You plan for continuity of operations to facilitate telework. But Congress itself does not have continuity of operations plans. So we don't, and I'll give you the big example here is remote voting. It is very possible that folks like me will not be able to travel back to Washington to take our next vote. Our governor here in California,

Governor Newsom, just called for everybody ages 65 and up to home quarantine for the foreseeable future, for an unknown period. Our California congressional delegation has 20 or more members who are over 65, including Speaker Pelosi, including some really important figures, committee chairs, people like that. So Congress needs to make sure that we're not accepting ourselves from either the need to ensure continuity of essential services, and we're not accepting ourselves from basic public health safeguards. Most people, I think, have seen one or more pictures of the House floor during voting. It is 435 members and 100 plus staffers running all over, touching the same voting machines in close proximity. We should implement a remote voting procedure.

One, because it's maybe necessary in this pandemic. But two, because we can't foresee when else we might need it. Parallel to paid sick leave. It's a good idea today for this, but we also think, I think it's a good idea to have a remote voting procedure in place. We may or may not need to implement it, but we ought to be prepared as we're asking businesses and families to prepare. We should not accept ourselves from those standards. And frankly, there's a long history of Congress accepting itself from things, from OSHA regulations, from sexual harassment policies, from all kinds of things. Congress members here should be asked to develop the flexibility in how we do our work that we're asking businesses, schools, and local governments to be doing. Yeah, I totally agree. Listen, I mean, I was sitting there watching a debate last night and

thinking to myself, why on earth are we asking these two 70 plus year old men, one of whom will lead the Democratic ticket to be together, to be not in their homes? And I'm sure all kinds of procedures were taken to keep them safe. But the other thing I keep obsessing about is people are going to go to the polls on Tuesday, including lots of seniors. And I just, I obviously like, look, the darkest regions of people's brains are like, what if Trump suspends the election? Right. And you get very easy to get conspiratorial. But I think in the near term, you have a lot of older voters who want to exercise their right to vote this Tuesday, tomorrow. And they're wondering, is this safe? And I like I don't know what to you think we might do in either the near or the long term to address that. the near or the long term to address that? So I think our mantra here that's coming out of this conversation for me is things that are a good idea today because of this pandemic and because of coronavirus were actually a lot of them were good ideas yesterday and are going to be good ideas tomorrow. Paid sick leave, the possibility of remote voting, voting by mail. This was a drop-off ballot boxes that you can drive through.

This was a good idea yesterday. We have it in California. Everybody in Orange County received a vote by mail ballot. This is something we should be implementing actively now. And then it's frankly just a good idea going forward because it's going to help people who on any given election day are sick or at any given election day are stuck in traffic and have trouble making it to the polls. So the solution here, it's hard to implement it for this week. It's hard to implement it maybe even for next week. But we have lots of states that already do voting by mail, including places like Oregon that have been doing it for 20 years. So there's a solution here. It's a mail ballot process. It's every reason to think that it's actually more secure than any other

method. And so I think this is another example of we have had good ideas out there. We haven't acted on them. And now when we really need them, we're going to have to scramble to make them happen. But the good news is there is a solution there. Just like paid sick leave would help slow down and flatten the curve of transmission, vote by mail would help make sure that everyone has the ability to participate in our democracy with upcoming elections. My final question for you, and those are, I agree with everything you just said, by the way, is just how are you doing personally? I mean, a lot of people I think are pretty worried. I mean, I had a moment over the weekend where I heard about a friend who's younger than me, who's in better shape than I will ever be in my life, and who is really having a hard time fighting off

this virus. And it shook me to my core and it made me worry about my mom who is in her 70s and a smoker. And, you know, it's like it's easy to spiral. And I'm wondering how you're dealing with this anxiety and if you have advice for people listening about how they can too. Yeah, I think one of the most important things, I have to face this every day because I have three children. I'm a single mom. I came home from D.C. I was extremely tired. My mom kept seeing me on TV and very helpfully she kept texting me that I looked terrible and looked exhausted. And I was like, thanks, Mom. It took a little bit of work to browbeat the CDC director and stay up all night to fight past this bill. But when I got home, I had to talk with my children about this virus. And I think kind of saying to them, look, this is not normal times. Here's what stays normal. I love you.

We're going to be together as a family. I'm going to be able to take care of you. We have plenty of food. Here's what you need to do to help. Here's what's going to change. And just trying to walk through and divide in people's mind. I mean, I think we actually used our family whiteboard to make a list of ways that we could change what we usually do to let us still continue to do things, but in a slightly different way. So one quick example is we usually go to the library as a family and check out books and movies. We now signed up for the e-book service. So where my kids are getting books and downloaded books onto their devices.

A quick example like that, we now are having FaceTime playdates instead of getting together with our kids' friends. So I think the more people can try to ask themselves, what do I need? And how can I get it even while following all of the good public health guidance that we're getting? Congresswoman, somehow this conversation actually made me feel a little better for the first time in a couple of days. So thank you. I am so glad that you are in Congress and that people, you know, the administration, if they choose to listen to you, have people with your expertise around to help them make better decisions, because I feel like we're going to be talking about this for a while. Absolutely.

Wash your hands and stay home. Okay. Thank you so much. Have a great day. Thank you. Bye. Thanks to Katie Porter for joining us today. Thanks to Katie Porter for joining us today.

Look, I've enjoyed doing this episode for a very long time because it's just nice being around more people. Yeah, buckle up for some long pods. Yeah, Emily and I are just sitting home and going stir crazy. You know, it's nice to talk to some folks. Yeah, I appreciate the respectful distance we're all keeping at the moment. Yeah, there's only six of us here, all separately, all spaced out by six feet. How are you guys doing? Everyone good? I mean, look, this sucks. And I think it's going to get a lot worse, not to be a total downer, but I think in a week, we are going to look at the steps that are being taken today and think

it was crazy that they weren't taken earlier. I think you're going to see numbers spiking of people who have the coronavirus or are seeking treatment. I mean, I think everyone should just mentally prepare themselves. This is going to get way, way, way worse before it gets better. Yeah, I also just think people... One of the things that I'm sort of feeling and realizing is like, oh, right, this is unprecedented. This is deeply strange. This is scary.

No one really knows exactly how it's going to end, how it's going to play out, because we are in unknown territory and just giving ourselves the space to just be okay with that and give everyone at your job, at your school, in your life, the space to figure it out while following the advice

I just think is important. Yeah, I think being patient with people and being kind and compassionate and empathetic at this time is important because everyone is freaked out. And like you said, Tommy, it's going to get worse before it gets better. And we just got to be able to pull through here. It does feel like going through 9-11, it feels like what it did in the financial crisis, only this is even more uncertain in terms of how long it's going to last. Yeah, I'm big into patience and empathy and caring about people with the exception of public officials. Oh, yeah, yeah.

I was talking about each other. Drive them like they're running your Viking ship. Donald Trump. That goes for Mayor de Blasio who went to the fucking gym today.'s just you know come on everybody look take tighten it up in a difficult moment could ronan and i fight over the playstation 4 controller sure we could but that's not what we're going to do right now not when all this is going on we're going to alternate an hour plus a little buffer time to get to a safe point and you know and. And take care of other people too. If you have extra money, if you can donate, food banks need help.

A lot of people have had a great idea where if your local restaurant's in trouble, buy a gift certificate to your local restaurant that you can use later. People who have the means, who are able, reach out to some people who are really going to be hurting through this too. So that would be great.

All right, we will continue to be doing these podcasts as going to be hurting through this too. So that would be great. All right. We will continue to be doing these, these podcasts as long as we can in this thing. So we will hopefully Dan and I will talk to you on Thursday and then we'll be around later. Bye everyone. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.

It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos every week.