Pod Save America - “The Freedom to Kill Workers Act.”

Episode Date: April 30, 2020

Republicans’ top priority is giving corporations the freedom to let their workers and customers get sick, former Republican Justin Amash explores a third party bid for president, and new reporting emerges about an allegation of sexual assault against Joe Biden. Then Congressional candidate Christy Smith talks to Jon about her May 12th special election in California’s 25th district.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's pod, I talk to California congressional candidate Christy Smith, who's running in a special election here that's just a few weeks away. Before that, we'll talk about how the Republican response to this pandemic has turned into a war on workers. We'll dig into Justin Amash's potential third party run for president, and we'll cover new reporting about an allegation of sexual assault made by a woman who worked for Joe Biden in the 1990s.

But first, don't miss this week's Pod Save the World, where Tommy and Ben figure out whether North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is gravely ill or just on a bender with Dennis Rodman. And they walk through some good news about how countries around the world are beating the coronavirus and working to develop a vaccine quickly. Also, as part of our push for election safety, last week we asked you to send us videos telling us why you need safer voting options. Thank you to all of you who've already sent them. And if you haven't, please do keep them coming. We would love to share your story. Text them over to us at 323-405-9944 finally there is a fantastic new video at youtube.com

slash crooked media starring the one and only dan pfeiffer uh dan you want to tell us about this video sure the um very smart content people or at least I previously thought they were smart content people at Crooked Media, persuaded me that I should record a video. And the goal of the video is to break down political ads from both sides of the aisle to help explain what's good about the ad, strategically good about the ad, strategically bad about the ads, and what it tells us about how the campaigns are seeing the race. So we did the first episode released yesterday, and we looked at ads from the Trump campaign, the Biden campaign, and various super PACs about how they are litigating the question of who is responsible

and who is closest to China as it relates to China's role in the coronavirus. And the goal, as we talked about in the video, because campaigns put money behind, they put limited resources behind ads, they were a real window into what the campaign sees as their most valuable messages. So it gives us a view of what they see as the strength of their own candidates, the weaknesses of their opponents, and their path to victory. And so we did the first one. If people like it, we are open to doing more.

So stay tuned. I hear it's going viral with the kids, Dan. Yes. Elijah really, really suggested I do a TikTok, but I didn't fully understand what that was. So we're doing YouTube. So next time, a TikTok. It's really great. Everyone, please go check it out.

It's at YouTube.com slash Crooked Media. All right. Here's where we are. It's at YouTube.com slash Crooked Media. All right. Here's where we are. On Tuesday, the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic surpassed the number of Americans we lost over two decades in the Vietnam War. On Wednesday, we learned that the economy suffered the worst contraction since the Great

Recession. And a few hours later, this is how White House senior advisor Jared Kushner characterized his father-in-law's response to this crisis. We're on the other side of the medical aspect of this, and I think that we've achieved all the different milestones that are needed. So the government, federal government, rose to the challenge, and this is a great success story. Well, Dan, if there's anyone who can identify a success story, it's Jared Kushner, right?

I think we are being, people have really spent a lot of time over the last 24 hours dunking on Jared Kushner for this. They've called it his mission accomplished moment, referencing the infamous President George W. Bush banner at the outset of the Iraq war. But I think it's unfair to Jared Kushner in the sense that he has never actually experienced success before. His entire life has been one giant chain of failing up and being told it was a success. So if he is confused by what success looks like, you would not be surprised.

So in that sense, it helps explain why he went down this road. Like, do we think he woke up in the morning thinking, I'm going to star in a very famous Democratic ad today by saying the dumbest thing possible about the response. And sure enough, this morning, a super PAC supporting Joe Biden has already turned Kushner's response into an ad, 30-second ad. I have always had the sense that Jared Kushner lives his entire life without any real sense of reality, that he's operating in this world.

Like in Jared Kushner's mind, he got into Harvard all on his own. He completely deserves to work in the White House. He's always two meetings away from solving Middle East peace. He doesn't – no one has ever explained to him that he is basically a useless dilettante of a – who bought his way into Harvard and married his way into the White House and has no redeeming value or skills other than being rich. And so I've used this to describe Trump before, but I think it also applies to Kushner, which is – you know the famous quote about George W. Bush that he was born on third base and thought he hit a triple? Yeah. about George W. Bush, that he was born on third base and thought he hit a triple. And Jared Kushner, like Donald Trump, is someone who strikes out swinging and returns to the dugout thinking they hit a home run. I mean, look, he did marry his way into the White House and was made senior advisor. So that is some kind of a strategy.

Yeah, I guess that is true. But some people would acknowledge that, Oh, what a like fortunate lottery ticket that I ended up in the White House. As I said, he thinks that he is in the White House despite being married to Ivanka Trump. Not because he Jared definitely thinks Jared is smart, which is hilarious. that interview, Jared went on to predict that by July, the country will be, quote, really rocking again. And what he appears to mean by that is Republican politicians will be forcing people to go back to work, whether or not it's safe to do so. Just a few examples from this last week. Donald Trump ordered workers back into meatpacking plants without requiring the proper safety precautions. Mitch McConnell's top legislative priority is to protect all companies from being sued if their employees or customers get infected due to negligence. And Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, who announced that she was reopening most of the state the day

after its biggest increase in coronavirus deaths, said that if people don't go back to work because they're worried about getting infected, they will no longer be able to collect unemployment insurance. Dan, aren't you inspired by Trump's transformation of the Republican Party into a bunch of working class populists? Before we get to that, I would like to just spend five seconds on Jared Kushner saying the country will be a rockin'. Who the fuck says that? How old is he? will be a rockin who the fuck says that how old is he it's gonna be really rocking again by july look if this country's a rock and don't come and knock what is rocking what are you fucking talking about it's so bizarre i mean yes it like one thing this crisis has done is lay bare the truth about the Republican Party.

And all the examples that you list make it very explicit that their first and primary concerns about how to address the virus is how to spin the results in the way that are best for Donald Trump and Republicans at the polls. And to ensure that rich people and large corporations can continue to profit amidst the pandemic. But Dan, I thought, you know, Josh Hawley in Missouri and Marco Rubio in Florida, I thought, you know, they're populist now. They're going to try to turn the Republican Party. They're big working class populist. That's what I read about in some stories. I am shocked to find out that the Republicans view essential workers as disposable. That's what this comes down to.

Well, so let's take these examples one at a time. Trump's order was in response to the fact that 22 meat processing plants have closed because of coronavirus outbreaks among staff. At least 6,500 workers have contracted COVID at these plants. among staff. At least 6,500 workers have contracted COVID at these plants. The head of Tyson Foods warned that the U.S. could soon be facing a severe meat shortage because of these closings. So, Dan, what does Trump's order actually do here? Nothing other than give these companies permission to continue to put their workers at risk. Yeah, he's finally using the Defense Production Act, but he's using it to classify meat processing plants as critical infrastructure related to national security. And because he's classifying

them as that, he then can say workers have to go back to work. And it seems as though he keeps saying it will help them with liability. Yes. So two points about this. There are some questions about how the order is drafted and what force of law it actually has. But that's sort of irrelevant because what he wants to do is give these companies permission to make their workers choose between getting infected with the virus and a paycheck. Right. Like that is what this is ultimately about. And the liability one is a really important point. And you've seen a number of legal scholars and lawyers make this point,

which even though it is not explicitly liability protection, it doesn't say to them, you cannot be sued. It creates a fact pattern that would give these companies an argument for why they are not liable for what happens to their workers if they go back to work. And so he's giving them a better case before the courts. So obviously, you know, it would be very bad if the food supply was disrupted. What should Trump have done here? What would a normal president do about the fact that there was there is there could be a food shortage because of outbreaks in a lot of meat processing plants.

Well, I think this is a very scary microcosm of what we're looking at in the larger conversation about, quote unquote, reopening the country, because there is a way to do this that minimizes risk, right? It means ensuring that each of these companies has a very specific CDC approved plan about how they're going to mitigate the spread of virus. Do they have enough masks? Is there other PPE? What is their plan to sanitize at the end of the workday or between shifts?

How are you changing your workflow so that these workers are six feet apart from each other? And Trump has no plan for those things. That is not in place. We know we're operating in a world in which masks and sanitizer and other PPE are in grave shortage. And in the best of times, these meatpacking companies are some of the worst actors in all of American business. They are infamous for the very low regard they have for the safety and health of their workers. Much of their workforce is immigrants, in many cases undocumented immigrants, and so they do, they treat them as disposable. And that's in the best situation. So now they're in the worst situation, and these workers are in grave danger, and that's a direct result of Trump being unwilling to do the work to protect the American people before he puts companies in a position where they continue to profit. With the obvious stipulation that the food chain is very, very important,

but there is a way to do this safe. But it requires thoughtful, smart planning, which this administration has showed no ability to do from the very outside of this crisis. Yeah, he could have issued an order that also detailed precautions that companies should take to protect workers and put sort of the force of regulation behind those precautions. The Agriculture Department has deferred to the CDC, and OSHA, instead of issuing its own rules, has issued recommendations, but they are not mandatory safety rules. And it does seem like at the baseline, opening up any businesses in this country should go along with sort of mandatory safety rules for workers and not recommendations that any employer can simply blow off because,

I don't know, they're too costly, right? Like that should be the baseline of protecting workers. And if you want to, you know, call meat processing plants critical infrastructure, then I think the workers are part of that and protecting the workers' health and their lives are also part of that. And the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress and all of these companies just aren't interested in doing that, or at least they haven't shown it in this instance. So then we turn to Mitch McConnell, who doesn't just want liability protection for meat processing plants. He wants it for all businesses that reopened during the pandemic. He wants it so badly that he's refusing to pass another economic relief bill unless it includes liability protection, which he says is, quote, for those who have been

on the front lines. Is that who liability protection is for, Dan, the people who've been on the front lines? I mean, the front lines of board meetings and CEO office suites. The front lines of Republican campaign donations? Yes, yes. It is a very important piece of legislation for the group of people who were at the last Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee retreat at Martha's Vineyard. The front of the photo line. Yeah, that's the front of the photo line. Yes, that's very good. Damn it. How did you get there before me? I mean, we should be very clear what this is. The proper name for this policy position of the Republican Party is the Freedom to Kill Workers Act. I mean, it's true.

It sounds harsh, but that's exactly what it is. Because if it was truly safe to reopen, you would not need liability protection. Right. reopen, you would not need liability protection. Right. No, I mean, it is a completely horrible idea because allowing workers and not just workers, but customers who frequent these businesses, allowing them to hold these companies accountable if they get sick, if they have not taken proper precautions to prevent workers and customers from getting sick is one of the only ways to ensure that they will operate safely. That is why you have liability for corporations, because it is a tool to make sure that they follow regulations and operate safely. If they have protection from

liability, these companies can do whatever the fuck they want. They can allow workers to come to work in the worst kind of conditions. If they get sick, it won't matter. And they basically it will force workers to choose between their health and their jobs, their lives and their livelihoods. And this is what will happen if there is the kind of liability protection for these companies that Mitch McConnell and the Republicans want. So it's a horrible idea. Why is it also horrible politics? I mean, it lays bare the fact that that is who Trump and the Republicans are fighting for.

They are fighting to give corporations the right to put their workers at risk. And it is just like to be very precise about it is if these companies force their workers to come back, they do not provide the mask. They do not provide them PPE. They force them to work next to each other in a site that they know is infected with coronavirus and their workers die. The families of those workers have no recourse to hold that company accountable. And so it creates an environment that lends itself to corporate malfeasance. And it is terrible politics because it is very easy to explain why this is a bad thing. And it shows that the Republicans are saying, because what McConnell is actually doing,

we'll talk about this in a second, is he's saying, I am not going to give any help to doctors, going to give any help to doctors, hospitals. I'm not going to give help to states, which means I am going to allow teachers, firefighter, cops, other state and local workers to be laid off or have pay cuts if I do not get to allow large corporations to disregard worker safety. You are choosing who you are fighting for, and you're making it very clear. And these discussions about economic legislative battles are often, in the context of politics, proxy discussions about who you're fighting for. And McConnell is very clearly fighting for CEOs and large corporations and not workers. So you don't believe Mitch McConnell when he says that liability reform is the thing that relates the most to regular people? I think that Mitch McConnell and a lot of Republicans think regular people is lobbyists, CEOs and Republican donors.

He is doing the sort of like lawyer boogeyman thing where he's like, you know, lawyers will be lurking around the corners of these businesses. And he actually said we will have a second pandemic of lawsuits is what Mitch McConnell said. So he actually said we will have a second pandemic of lawsuits, is what Mitch McConnell said. So he does think that there is some sort of common fear out there about, you know, too many lawsuits, which, again, I just I've never heard ordinary folks talk about the fear of of their employer getting sued because they got a lot of people sick by forcing them to come to work. Yeah. I mean, this should also be viewed in the context of politics, and we'll talk about that in a sec, but also in the context of McConnell's negotiating strategy. But she is taking something that is so unpopular that it would pull through the floor. But he is adopting it so when then he, if he were to give

it up, it'd be this giant win, right? He was like, okay, Democrats, I'm not going to take this position that no one would ever want because it's so politically toxic. So therefore, what are you going to give me in exchange for it? And Democrats should give him nothing, right? I think Dave Roberts at Vox has a very good article about how, once again, McConnell is using his public posture to dictate the terms of negotiation and we shouldn't play this game. Yeah, I mean, let's talk about that. So, like, obviously, liability protection for corporations cannot pass without Democratic votes. And Pelosi already said the House would, quote, not inclined to be supporting any immunity from liability. McConnell, as you noted, has said he won't pass anything else at all until he gets liability protection. No state and local aid, no unemployment insurance extension, no expanded vote

by mail, nothing. So what if Democrats saying no to this means we don't get state and local aid, expanded vote by mail, anything else? What if it results in some kind of a standoff where McConnell says my red line, as he has, is liability protection? And if you don't agree to some form of liability protection, you get nothing else. I think Democrats have to hold the line on that. It is very painful, but that is not a choice that Democrats are making. That is a choice that Mitch McConnell

and Donald Trump are making. They are choosing to hurt American families, to hurt the American economy, to hurt workers in exchange for a SOP to corporations that would have potentially fatal consequences. And Democrats should not play that game. They cannot play that game. And they are not the one.

If Mitch McConnell demands liability protection for every single corporation in America in exchange for aid, that is not. And we end up without an aid package. That is not Democrats fault. That is Mitch McConnell's fault. political perspective, Republicans and Donald Trump need this economy to get all the help that it can if they want to win in November, knowing that most voters are going to hold the president responsible for economic conditions to some degree, or at least the party in power to some degree. And, you know, Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump are out there now calling aid to state and local governments a blue state bailout. Of the top 10 states facing the largest budget shortfalls, six are red states, including the swing states of Florida and Michigan. So are Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump and all the Republicans in Congress going to say, I don't care. I want thousands of layoffs, millions of layoffs in Florida, in Michigan, no services, higher tuition, fewer cops, fewer teachers. Like, are they just they're

going to run on November on that in those states? I mean, that like that, that is the terms of the debate. And it'll be up to Democrats to ensure that's the case, because this is what Republicans will, this will be the Republicans alternative story. And I think there is a question that as to whether McConnell really wants another aid package. Right? That's what I'm Yeah, I was trying to figure that out. I think it's, it's possible he does not, not for policy reasons, but he's made a political calculation about the consequences of more spending would rather be in an oppositional position with Democrats. And so you can see a world in which the Republicans want to rerun

a strategy they ran after 911 in 2002. So in that election, one of the big issues was around the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Democrats wanted TSA agents. TSA was going to be a new agency that was being created. Democrats wanted those workers to have collective bargaining rights. And that was something that was holding up the bill in Congress. And Republicans basically ran a whole bunch of ads that said that Democrats were choosing unions over fighting terrorism. And so you can see, I can see in a way in which I can put myself in Mitch McConnell's deeply evil brain, I can see him thinking, you know, what would be an appealing way to run against a bunch of these very strong

Democratic challengers in purple and reddish states is to put them on the position of opposing fixing the economy because they are siding with unions and trial lawyers. Trial lawyers. Right. Now, that's like we haven't had the Democrats are siding with trial lawyers discussion in a number of years, but it's sort of an old, it's an old trick in the Republican bag. And you would tie that to the fact that unions and trial lawyers are likely to have been, you know, large contributors to a lot of these Democratic challengers. And so that's one element of the politics of this that I think are driving McConnell. I do think in this instance, the Democrats' message is easier.

The argument is easier. Chuck Schumer was asked about this on a call with reporters. He said, instead of making sure businesses have PPE for their employees, McConnell wants to make it harder for workers to show up at their jobs and to hold their employers accountable for providing safe working conditions. Instead of fighting for more testing to help everyone working on the front lines. McConnell is fighting to protect corporate executives. I mean, the attacks on Republicans sort of write themselves here about this in a way that I don't know that the Democrats have

had this clean of a hit on something that's in their wheelhouse, which is, you know, exposing the fact that Republicans care about corporations and the rich before anyone else, which is already a narrative that's sort of baked into what people think about the Republican Party. You know, we haven't had this clean of an argument a long time. Yeah. The Democrats have the moral and political high ground here and we should not cede it under any circumstances. Yeah. All right. Just in case you were feeling too confident about November, Michigan Congressman Justin Amash, the former Republican who voted to impeach Trump, announced via the following tweet that he's launching an

exploratory committee to run for president as the libertarian candidate. Quote, Americans are ready for practical approaches based in humility. Good one. And trust of the people. We're ready for a presidency that will restore respect for our Constitution and bring people together. One person who welcomed Amash's announcement was Donald Trump, who tweeted, quote, I think Amash would make a wonderful candidate, especially since he's way behind in his district and has no chance of maintaining his congressional seat. He almost always votes for the do nothing Dems anyway. I like him even more than Jill Stein. Dan, I see a lot of Twitter pundits, sort of smart election analysts saying this either won't matter or it hurts Trump. But Trump doesn't seem to think so. What about you? What do you think?

I mean, it's just so funny that Trump just can't. He feels such this compelling urge to comment on all things in politics that he can't even let this gift to his campaign go unmentioned, right? He has to try to find some way to say the quiet part out loud. It's just his brain is too broken to do the thing of minimal human intelligence, right? And I guess you could say about so much of Trump. I see a lot of people, you know, very smart people who look at these numbers saying, this isn't a big deal. It doesn't matter. Democrats shouldn't panic. I would just take a note that obviously Democrats shouldn't panic. You should never panic, right?

You should worry, but panic, like in an emergency, don't run around like a chicken with your head cut off. That's never good advice. So don't listen to people who offer that. But the, like, it makes me worried, right? And I'll say worried for the following reasons.

One is, and then I'll tell you the reasons why I'm less worried, just so we try to have a yin and yang of hoping to spare. We like to do both sides here. Some people do BAPOCs on both your houses, both sides. We do hope and despair, both sides. Right, exactly. And so the concern would be, Justin Amash is from Michigan. Michigan is in a state that was decided by less than 11,000 votes in 2016. The Libertarian candidate, which was Gary Johnson last time, he received 170,000 votes.

So the Libertarian received 17 times Trump's margin. So even if you tell me, as a lot of these people do, that most of those votes are votes that would either go to Trump or no one. If 15% of those votes or 20% of those votes are votes that could go to a Democrat, could go to Biden, then that could be the difference in the election. And there's been so much focus on Jill Stein and the Green Party candidate, and that's also something we should worry about going forward. But the Libertarian candidate got many times the number of votes of Jill Stein in all the swing states. Just the other way of thinking about this is a lot of people are like, well, who could these

votes go to? And that's an unknowable question in this situation. But I would think about it this way. Donald Trump has a very high floor as a candidate. He sort of starts at 42%, say, and maybe a few points higher, depending on the state. But he does not have an easy path to getting to 50.1. It is much harder for him. He's never been at 50 in a lot of these states. And so if it's a two-way race, it's very hard for him to win. Every candidate who gets in the race who takes some chunk of votes lowers Donald Trump's win number to closer to his base. So if Donald Trump only has to get to 46, that means he only has to grow his base 4%. If he has to get to 50, he has to grow his vote share 8%. And it really matters in a situation where in these more conservative and demographically less favorable states that Democrats need to get to 270, if there was a place for Republicans

and independents who do not like Trump to go, that is not Biden, that helps Trump. And we should be very just that. That is why we were concerned about Howard Schultz. Remember him? Yeah. He was the first president once.

We don't remember him because he ran a hundred years ago and none of us have been to a Starbucks in six weeks. Look, I have, I have I share the same concerns. There will be a lot more polling on this. So we'll wait and see. But there was a poll in 2019. Detroit News poll found Biden leading Trump in Michigan back then by 12 points with Amash added as an option. Biden's lead shrunk to six points with some independents and Republicans moving away from the Democrat. There's also been sort of a trend in recent polling where, you know, in 2016, voters who

didn't like Trump or Clinton went to Trump by 17 points. Now, voters who don't like Trump or Biden in polls prefer Biden by huge margins, 30, 40 points in some of these polls. So if those voters who don't like Trump or Biden, that Biden is currently winning, if they have a third option, Biden loses more votes. And like this is a, you know, I've seen this. Go watch my focus group in Miami for the wilderness. Like I sat down with a number of people who in 2016 either didn't vote or voted third party. And I think it's a mistake to sort of line these voters, these third party voters up ideologically with different candidates. Like you hear people saying like, well, this kind of voter would be attracted to Amash and they would not like Trump for this and they

would like Amash because of his certain policy positions or his ideology. That's not how a lot of third party voters actually think. These are people who are disgusted with the political system, think that both parties are to blame for our problems, want to try something new because they still vote and they're still somehow engaged in politics, and they're just looking for another option. And if that option happens to be someone whose name they know, because they're from Michigan, or who just gets a lot of attention somehow, that's going to, like you said, that's going to end up hurting Biden because A, he's winning voters who are displeased with those candidates, and B, it takes that win number under 50%. And like you said, you know, Trump didn't win Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin by hitting 50%. No, 46.

He was below in all three of those states. And so making that win number lower is, you know, it is a problem. Is there anything we can do about it, Dan? Well, let me give you the positives, which. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's right. You were going to do positives. I'm always I'm stuck in despair right now.

OK, here the positives is there isn, like this is a small sample size, but historically third party candidates tend to play bigger roles in an open seat election than a race against an incumbent. That's right. 2000 was 2004 is sort of the sample size there. A little bit 92, 96, but Perot still had a,

enough of a margin that he kept Bill Clinton under 50, but Bill Clinton was like at 49 point something. The other positive, I guess, is the Libertarian Party is currently not on the ballot in a number of swing states, including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. And so their influence, the ability to impact the election there is limited. Troublingly, Amash, who was from Michigan, it could be on the ballot in Michigan. And that is where it could be decisive. And we're gonna have to watch it very carefully. I think we're gonna have to take a real effort to educate voters about the stakes of the election, the consequences of not voting for the Democratic nominee, and the policy positions of these third party candidates, be it Justin Amash,

if he becomes the Libertarian Party nominee. He is not yet. He is one of many people advocating for that role. And I guess he changed his registration. So now he is officially a Libertarian. He is the one libertarian member of Congress. He's like an official member of the party now, but he still has to be chosen by the party delegates, whoever they may be. And on the other side, you have former Minnesota governor wrestling star and star of many

Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, just the body of Ventura potentially running on the Green Party ticket. I would also note that. A climate denier on the Green Party ticket. Climate denier. And I think a lot of people in the party were overly sanguine about the role, about the entire 2016 election, obviously,

but also the potential roles that Gary Johnson and Jill Stein could play in these states and was probably not enough effort was done to educate voters about who these people actually are. Last point. It was about a year ago that I remember we were doing a show back when we were allowed to travel and see human beings when Justin Amash came out for impeachment before he was removed from the Republican Party for having morals. But it's just the fact that our Republican hero of last year has put himself in a position to help Trump get reelected as a reminder that there is no such thing as a Republican resistance hero.

Well, I was going to say one thing that can be done, we can't really do it, but a lot of our never Trump Republican pals on Twitter and strategists, go talk to Justin Amash. Tell him that like the guy that you impeached, that you voted to impeach, you are potentially helping get a second term by running for president right now, if he ends up running for president. And I do think it's also, we should say, an open question. Amash said to CNN, I don't know, a couple months ago, that if he decided to run for president, it would only be because he saw a path to win.

I don't know what the fuck maps and polls he's looking at. It is mathematically and structurally impossible in the current state of American politics for a third-party candidate to win. Because, we said this for Howard Schultz, we'll say it again, it is not who has the most electoral votes. It is if you have 270 electoral votes or not. And if you do not get to 270, then the House decides, based on majorities of state party congressional delegations, which means that the Republicans, despite not controlling the House, would get to put Trump back in office. So there is no path for you, Justin Amash.

There is only help for Donald Trump. Hi, I'm Patrick Radden Keefe, and I'm a reporter at The New Yorker magazine. On my new podcast, Wind of Change, I investigate a rumor I haven't been able to shake since I first heard it years ago. It came from someone inside the CIA, and the story was that the agency had written one of the best-selling songs of all time. That was the tip that started me on this story, and it only got crazier from there. Search for Wind of Change on Spotify to hear the trailer today. A new original series from Pineapple Senate staffer named Tara Reid, who claimed on the Katie Halper Show in late March that she was both sexually harassed and sexually assaulted by

Joe Biden in 1993. So for the last few weeks, various news organizations have been investigating these claims. Some of you might have heard Tommy talk to Salon's Amanda Marcotte about the New York Times and Washington Post pieces. And then late last week, The Intercept reported about an episode of the Larry King show in 1993, where Reed's mother called in to share a story about how her daughter had left a job with a, quote, prominent senator and that she, quote, could not get through with her problems in her workplace and that her only option would have been to take her story to the press, which she didn't do, quote, out of respect for her former boss. A few days later, Business Insider found two people who said that Reid

shared the allegations with them years ago. One of them, a former neighbor named Linda LaCasse, told reporter Rich McHugh that Reid shared with her in the mid-90s a story about Biden assaulting her and shared the details with her. A second source, a former coworker named Lorraine Sanchez, said that Reid told her in the mid-90s that she had been sexually harassed by her former boss while she was in D.C. And as a result of her voicing her concerns to her supervisors, she was let go, quote, fired.

Biden's campaign has encouraged reporters to investigate these accusations, but says they are false. And Biden himself hasn't said anything about this. So I will stop there because this is a big story with a lot of different details. Dan, what is what is your reaction been to this story? Complicated. And I want to sort of begin this conversation with the stipulation that you and I are two men having this conversation. And we are two men who have known Joe Biden for many, many years.

We are two men who have donated to Joe Biden and are sponsoring a fundraiser with hundreds of other Obama Biden administration alumni in the coming weeks. And so I do not know, and it's going to sound, I know I will, and I suspect you will as well, sound deeply uncomfortable as we're having this conversation. And it's because I don't fully know how to have it in a way that is appropriately sensitive to everything that is surrounding it. And as you and I talk about it, and you guys talk about it on the Monday podcast, I think the way we're going to try to approach it is we're not going to tell anyone how to feel about this because people are going to have to come to their own conclusions. I'm not sure I know how to feel about it. I'm going to tell people what we think happened because we do not

know and may never know. And I think the thing that we can do that is constructive or informative or whatever else is to talk about how it's unfolding in the context of the political campaign we're in and point people to, you know, voices that we think are important to be heard that are more informed, either more informed experientially than ours necessarily. Does that make sense? It does make sense. And, you know, I was going to say, I think one thing to keep in mind, because a lot of listeners have reached out to us about this. A lot of people talked about it. And I think they're looking for like, how do you feel? How should we feel? And I think, you know, I think the New York Times sort of concluded in their investigation that they can't conclude either way, whether this happened or not. And I do think people should be prepared for the possibility that we could get to November, we could get to forever and not know one way or the other conclusively whether this happened. And that's going to be very uncomfortable.

But that may be the reality that we live in. And we don't know. Further reporting could come out. So we, again, we're in early stages here. I think the most important context for any discussion about this issue is that we live in a country where credible allegations of sexual assault and sexual harassment are routinely dismissed, disbelieved, and ignored, and they have been forever. And that's especially true when those allegations involve powerful men. We have seen that. That alone doesn't make the specific allegations against Biden true, but that is the reality that we live in. And that is why allegations like this

deserve serious scrutiny and can't just be dismissed and can't just be talked about or dismissed because of the political context or where you stand politically or where, you know, who you support for president. Like they just the reason we take these so seriously, partly is because they have been, you know, so many allegations that women have brought forth have been dismissed wrongly for so long. that women have brought forth have been dismissed wrongly for so long. And that and, you know, that that's just an important context here. I think, you know, part of what makes this tricky to sort out for Tara Reid is that there are sort of two different allegations here that have been talked about at different times. Right. So she, you know, in April of 2019, she talked about sort of sexual

harassment in Biden's office. And she also talked about sort of unwanted touching on, you know, his hand on her shoulders or on his neck, which other women have talked about Joe Biden doing over the years as well. And she talked about the harassment and she talked about that in April of 2019. And then on the Katie Halper show in March, she made the assault allegation. So just to know those two stories. Right. Three people have now said that she shared the details of the alleged assault. Her brother, who first told The Washington Post that that she told him Biden touched her neck and shoulders. who first told The Washington Post that that she told him Biden touched her neck and shoulders.

And then a few days later, he texted The Washington Post back and said, actually, he also recalled her telling him that Biden put his hand under her clothes. There's another friend who's talked to reporters but asked to remain anonymous, who she who says that she told her about the assault. And now this former neighbor who went on the record with Business Insider that said that she shared the details with her in the mid 90s. So and then there's a few other people who said that she shared the details of the alleged harassment in the Senate office, but not the assault. Then on the other side of this, you know, the New York Times went and talked to about two dozen former Biden Senate staffers, and none of them offered any corroboration of the allegations or any behavior like it. Reid mentioned three of her former supervisors in the Biden Senate office. And those three supervisors have gone on the record and said that the harassment incident never happened, that they would have remembered it if it had. The New York Times also found a couple of interns because Reed at one point was assigned to manage the interns.

And those two interns remember Reed being abruptly reassigned from them, but they don't know why. So that could have something to do with her allegation that his office retaliated against her for reporting harassment. Or it could be about something else. Again, we don't know. We also know that she filed a report with the Senate about harassment, not about the assault, but about the harassment. But there is no copy or record of that so far that anyone can find, either Reid or any of the reporters who have dug into this. And as the New York Times said, and we said this, they also said, you know, there's no other other allegation of assault. And there is no pattern of assault that they could find in all of their investigation or all the people they talked to. And that has also been true with all the other outlets so far. So that's just so everyone knows if you haven't been following it, like, that's where the story is now. And again, like you said, Dennis, is tough to talk about. So

if we left out details, it is not intentional. It is a very long and winding story. And so, you know, I encourage everyone to read the Post piece, read the Times piece, read Business Insider, listen to the Katie Halper interview, read Ryan Grim in The Intercept, who's reported on this, you know, sort of read everything you can about this. And again, and we will continue to talk about the different developments in this story. But again, you know, everyone who's listening, I think you should read it all and make your own decision about this on how you think. Yeah. And I think, you know, the one of the reasons why this is there was sort of a rhythm to this story, which was the allegation. Originally, Tara Reid made the allegation on the Kitty Halper Show. Ryan Grim in The Intercept did a bunch of

reporting on this. It was not really covered in the mainstream media in any way. We learned later, and that was in part because this is all happening exactly as the primary is winding down, the pandemic is taking hold. And what we also learned later is that the New York Times, the Washington Post, a bunch of other people, they had not reported, they had not written a story on it, but they were engaging in a in-depth set of reporting. And they're kind of reporting that with the sort of resources that they brought to a bunch of the, you know, their Pulitzer Prize, in the New York Times case, Pulitzer Prize winning coverage of Harvey Weinstein and other people who were engaged in sexual misconduct. And, you know, you laid out with some of the very important points that

they found, which was no, they found no corroboration. Now, that does not mean that it did not happen, right? Just that they were unable to find additional corroboration. But one of the things that was missing from those stories and has been seen sort of as a threshold issue in how you go about covering and discussing these examples, because oftentimes there are no witnesses or it is two competing accounts. And one of the ways in which had been sort of the journalistic threshold for how you evaluate these was whether the victim shared contemporaneously what happened. And the Times and the Post and others had not found that. And then Business Insider did, which then brought this story back up and has led to the context we are currently operating in, where it is a major story in American politics and a major point of discussion, both among Democratic voters, certainly activists online, and, you know, as we know from some of the Times stories that New York Times and Washington Post wrote to me yesterday, also among Democratic politicians and groups.

And it's happening all with the backdrop of Joe Biden being the first candidate to ever pledge to select a female vice president and some of the most impressive, qualified, progressive women in the party being on the putative shortlist for that role. And a sort of being seen, if not explicitly auditioning, being seen as auditioning every time they appear in public. Yeah. I will say, I think when the Post and the Times ran, Reid said that she had shared the story contemporaneously with her mother, her brother. I think she said there was a friend in Kennedy's office, Ted Kennedy's office that she shared with at the time. And then there was another person and those people remained anonymous. The Business Insider story was sort of the first person to really go on the record who she told the assault allegedly

happened in 1993. And she talked to that person a couple of years later in 1995 or six. She said she shared that with her neighbor. Let's talk about the political reaction here. Democratic leaders are so far standing by Joe Biden. He was endorsed this week by Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton. Stacey Abrams said, quote, I believe that women deserve to be heard. And I believe that has happened here. Nothing in the Times review or any other later reports suggests anything other than what I already know about Joe Biden, that he will make women proud as the next president of the United States. Kirsten Gillibrand, who was one of the first senators to call for Al Franken's resignation over sexual harassment claims, said, quote, Vice President Biden has vehemently denied

these allegations and I support Vice President Biden. Dan, what did you think of these reactions? I mean, they have run the gamut across the party. Like there's the ones you mentioned that are very explicitly backing Joe Biden and from people who with a long history of being very fierce advocates for the victims of sexual assault, Kirsten Gillibrand, most notably, who was obviously, that has been a,

she's led the efforts about victims of sexual assault in the military, was obviously prominently involved in the incident involving Al Franken a couple years ago. And my assumption is that they have looked at all the available evidence that we have, which is insufficient to say the least, as is often the case situation like these, and drawn a conclusion based on what they've seen and what they know of Joe Biden. I think you're going to see a range of that from a lot of different people across the party.

Yeah. I mean, so Tarana Burke, the founder of the Me Too movement, had a different kind of response in what I thought was a really thoughtful Twitter thread about this. And she wrote in those tweets, quote, the defense of Joe Biden shouldn't rest on whether or not he's a good guy or our only hope. Instead, he could demonstrate what it looks like to be both accountable and electable, meaning at minimum, acknowledging that his demonstrated learning curve around boundaries with women, at the very least, left him open to the plausibility of these claims.

The New York Times then reported yesterday that other progressive activists and women's rights advocates had prepared a public letter that praised Biden as, quote, an outspoken champion for survivors of sexual violence, but also pushed him to address the allegations, saying that Biden has, quote, the opportunity to model how to take serious allegations seriously. So the Biden team knows about this letter, has reportedly talked to these groups, but Biden still hasn't made a statement. Why do you think that is? And do you think he should speak about this? I will just say for myself, I think he should. Right. Like you started by saying, you know, I'm I'm a supporter of the campaign. I've donated to the campaign. I would like to hear what he has to say about this. And I also do not know how he can.

There's zero chance he can get through the rest of this campaign without talking about it. So I'm not clear as to why he hasn't yet. I think that's right. I just like I'm glad you brought up Tarana Burke's Twitter thread, which is something that was very impactful on me and how I think about this. Two other things I would recommend to people who are trying to process their thoughts on this is Rebecca Traster's piece in New York Magazine about it, who has been a strong critic of Biden for a long time and was not particularly supportive of his candidacy, but sort of offers in a way that, I mean, she's a beautiful, evocative writer about how she feels

about it and the larger context of this with regard to long-term feminism and the immediate challenge of running against someone like Donald Trump who poses so many dangers to women. I think that's really... And the other conversation that I listened to this morning in preparation for this podcast is the one that Alyssa and Aaron had on the episode of Hysteria out today, which I would really recommend to people as a way to help them think about it. Not that you should immediately agree with any of the people, but I think it's all context. As for Biden, you're exactly right. I think he has an imperative to address this. And the part from Tarana Burke's Twitter thread that's important is, I think it is critical that we take a serious allegation seriously. And Biden owes that to everyone involved. And it's not like, this is sort of a philosophical question, because it's not if he's going to address it because the next time he does

a television interview he will be asked this question and like he's going to have to do it the question i'm shocked he hasn't yet right the question is when and how and do you do it on your own terms or do you do it when you've been asked? And my general communications advice and experience is you should do it on your own terms. It's always better to do something voluntarily as opposed to appearing to be dragged to it. And by waiting so long, the public pressure is mounting, the private pressure is now public. And I think he absolutely needs to address it. I understand. I don't agree with. But I've tried to understand why his campaign has taken the approach they've taken. And after the Katie Halper interview, Biden's deputy campaign manager, Kate Bedingfield,

said, women have a right to tell their story, and reporters have an obligation to rigorously vet those claims. We encourage them to do so because these accusations are false. Now, they have stuck to that story throughout this whole process. And I thought that was the appropriate statement to make at the time. Reporters did go get those comments. And the Biden campaign, which sent out a set of bad talking points that suggested that the Times proved that the incident did not happen, which is not what the times proved, and they retracted those statements. But that's sort of where they were. But now we're in a different situation that they stuck with that statement for a long time. And then I think what was driving it is, they didn't know there was nothing more to say in their view. Right that and there is this sort of fear sometimes in PR that I think is somewhat outdated, which is if the candidate or the president says something, it will add oxygen to the fire.

Such an old view of PR. It's a pre-internet view of PR. And it's just, it's an uncomfortable situation, I'm sure, internally in the campaign. It's a comfortable situation, conversation I'm sure to have with the vice president. And it's all happening in the backdrop of a situation where none of them can go sit in the room and have a real conversation with them about this. You have to do it. Which you would do in a campaign. Everyone would be like cloistered in an office talking about, you know, how to say this, what to talk about.

Right. Like you'd be doing that normally. And that's, you know, now they're probably just on conference calls where it's even more awkward. Yeah. And it's like, none of this is an excuse for what they've done, I think, or excuse for, it's just trying to explain how they've gotten this position, but the circumstances on the ground politically have changed since that original statement. And the vice president is going to have to address it sooner rather than later and sooner is much better than later. So one thing that's fairly unsurprising is Trump's

campaign and the Republicans are already trying to weaponize the story against Biden, even though Trump himself has been accused of sexual assault by more than a dozen women. Trump's campaign has been gleefully tweeting about it. And Mitch McConnell said in a Fox News radio interview on Monday, you know, he was complaining about a double standard. He saw with how people reacted to the allegations, these allegations and how they reacted to allegations about now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. So it seems like Republicans don't actually think that this will cause voters to move from Biden to Trump. But they do hope that it persuades some voters to stay home who would otherwise have voted for Biden. Do you agree? And how do you

think Democrats should respond to this obviously nakedly political play by the Republicans on this? Shamelessly hypocritical. I mean, just fuck all of these people, right? I think Alyssa and Aaron talked about this. It's just like we should pay as we as Democratic activists, Democratic voters ever think about how to analyze this story. We should pay no mind to the obvious worst people in the world operating in the worst faith possible. Let's not forget that Donald Trump weaponized Bill Clinton's conduct against Hillary Clinton, inviting alleged victims of sexual misconduct from Bill Clinton to the debate and tried to put them in the front row so Hillary Clinton would have to look at them. Fuck all these people. I don't have great advice for what to do about this. It's all it's all it is partially why it's important for Biden to answer this on the record. And yes, because you want something you can point to, right? You like you want to be able to, like this can this is that moment whenever it comes and given

our past history, I suspect it's going to come five minutes after this podcast drops, that you want people who, who are looking at this in good faith, who are saying, can I vote for Joe Biden? Right? Not, am I going to vote for Donald Trump? Who's obviously terrible on every dimension, but particularly this one. Can I bring myself to vote for Joe Biden? Like they need to hear from Joe Biden on that. And like Trump fills a vacuum and where we

currently stand, there is a vacuum because there has not been an on-camera response from Joe Biden himself. Right. And I do think, look, this, this was the play from the Trump campaign in 2016. It will be their play again. They are trying to, you know, they have all kinds, right? They're going to try to get people to stay home who would vote for Joe Biden because, you know, they don't like either Donald Trump or Joe Biden. And they're going to do that on this issue. And they're going to do that on a number of issues. And I do think you're right. There's no easy answers for what you do about it. But I think you start by pointing out that it is purely political in nature and that these people do not give a shit about actual sexual assault allegations. But the way that you stand on firmer ground in making that argument is to show that, you know, you took those allegations very seriously.

And part of taking it seriously is talking about it if you're Joe Biden and you want to be president. It is not just like politically than that thing that you need to do. president. It is not just like politically than that thing that you need to do. It is morally the thing you need to do if you want to lead this country. And if you, you know, talk about how you are a champion of women, right? Like that, you have to address this. I think that's just, there's no way around it. I think one other thing about this is there's going to be a lot of overly facile comparisons between how Democrats handle this accusation with how Republicans in the Senate handle the Kavanaugh accusations. And you'll look at fact patterns and changing stories.

And in some cases, you'll say elements or inconsistencies of Democrats dismissed in this instance, they are hanging on to in this instance. But I just think we should be very clear that from Joe Biden, via his campaign, to the overwhelming amount of people within the Democratic Party have said the following things. One, these should be investigated, reporters should vet these claims, the victim should be heard. And what the Republicans did was chastise anyone who brought them up, did not want them to be looked at, short-circuited the investigation in order to put someone on Supreme Court for life. What Democrats are saying is there is this allegation out here. It should be taken seriously.

People should look at it. And people are going to have to make up their own mind based on the facts. No one is trying to short-circuit anything. make up their own mind based on the facts. No one is trying to short circuit anything. These are very different situations, even if in both cases, as is often the case in these situations, there can be no 100% certain conclusion as to what happened. But Democrats are trying to, and I think when we hear from Biden, which I am confident who we will hear from soon, we are showing that this is a serious allegation that we are taking seriously seriously and we want people to look into it so voters can make their judgment. Republicans short-circuited an investigation to jam a person on the Supreme Court when there was

no immediate urgency to do so. Right. Okay. When we come back, we'll have my interview with California Assemblywoman Christy Smith. I'm now joined by California State Assemblywoman and Democratic congressional candidate Christy Smith, whose special election to fill the congressional seat for California's 25th district is on May 12th. Thanks for coming on the pod. Thanks for having me, John. So you didn't initially expect to be running for Congress right now, and you certainly didn't expect to be running in the middle of a pandemic. How has that changed the way that you are campaigning and connecting with voters? And what have you found most effective? Yeah, right. Well, I mean, it's an excellent question. I mean, nobody could ever plan for a moment of like this.

And, you know, notwithstanding, you know, the real concern that people are going through, so many people have lost their employment. So many people are worried about their health. But also for us and given the way that I like to campaign, what this has provided is a real opportunity for two things. provide it as a real opportunity for two things. First of all, to draw the distinctions between me and my opponent, because people's health care and their access to well-paying jobs and job protections are something I've been running on for a long time. But then secondarily, in our outreach to our voters, it's really a two-pronged approach. We know that a lot of people who are staying safe at home maybe haven't had a whole lot of contact with other folks. We know that incidents of domestic violence have gone up, that people are still suffering with mental health challenges, but without able to have the ability to access care.

So when we're making calls to our voters, we're checking in. We're seeing how people are doing. We're seeing if there's any services that we can connect them with. And then secondarily, we're saying, hey, if these issues that are impacting you are important to you, there's a special election May 12th. So, you know, not to say that certainly there are a whole lot of silver linings in the crisis that we're all experiencing right now. But we're trying to lean in on the areas where we know that this crisis kind of speaks to where we are as a campaign and what my primary issues are. So the 25th was a competitive district in 2018, though Katie Hill ended up beating Republican incumbent Steve Knight by a fairly good margin, 54-46. The Cook Political Report is now rating your race as a toss-up, called it a nail-biter. Do you agree, and why do you think it's become even more competitive than in 2018? Well, look, I mean, you know, everything that's a special election anywhere becomes a toss-up

simply because, unfortunately, we just haven't figured out what that magic is to get our Democratic voters to turn out in these off- elections. Um, we know that given this COVID crisis and all of the, you know, intervening factors that are going along that are impacting people's lives, voting may not be top of mind for them. And that's why I said, you know, we're taking a different approach with contacting voters, but turnout is everything in this moment. And so, you know, we've got a lot of volunteers engaged. We could always use more, but it's simply, if we change the turnout modeling, we can win this thing. You know, Katie won this district handily. We've got a registration advantage here of nearly

seven points, but unfortunately right now in ballot returns, we're under performing the Republicans because Republicans more persistently vote. So what we need to do is get in contact with our Democratic voters and get those ballots in. Hear that, everyone? If you have a ballot and you're in the 25th, get it in. What are you hearing from voters right now about how their fears, hopes, priorities have changed because of this pandemic? What are the specific issues that keep coming up that might not have come up in a normal race? An overall feeling of uncertainty. And I think people didn't anticipate that we would be in a moment of crisis like this and not be able to rely on the institutions of our federal government. And that goes directly to the

leadership that's in the White House. You know, when you talk about the fact that we have underfunded really important institutions like the CDC and the NIH and the WHO, which we're now withdrawing resources from, you know, people expect those things that are part of our national well-being to be in place in a moment like this. of why government is important, why a social safety net is important. Most of us don't need it or rely on it all of the time. But in a moment like this, it becomes easily apparent why we need to be taking good care of those institutions that take care of us. So I think people are now feeling that. Unfortunately, they're seeing it and how it's impacting their daily lives. And as I said, the difference between myself and my opponent couldn't be more stark. He is a person who is absolutely steadfast against any social safety net. He said people should have to fend for themselves. And in a moment like this, that just doesn't work. So we've heard a lot about what Governor Newsom has done to respond to the pandemic in California.

What kind of work is happening in the state legislature right now? What have you all been working on? Sure. Well, we're working in a couple of ways. First of all, we're working in our districts with the very important work of constituent service. So I have a wonderful team who is daily answering phone calls and emails, connecting people to their unemployment insurance, making sure that they have all of the relevant data information to navigate through wherever they are. We've got renter protections in place, and we've got some mortgage and banking protections in place and support for small business and business owners. So making sure that our constituents have everything they need,

that they're getting good, reliable information about the crisis, about how to care for their own health. So that's on the one side. We're working regionally. So I'm part of an LA County delegation where we realized early on that while our county was doing a fantastic job moving what PPE they had out to our hospitals and healthcare providers, there was this whole secondary essential workforce that also needed PPE. And so we stepped in with the help of some business partners across the LA County region to set up a streamlined donation and distribution process for PPE to essential workers that aren't in hospitals. So, you know, it really runs the gamut. It's from constituent service then to like

now starting in a bigger scale to figure out what our policy work is going to look like when we get back next week, May 4th, more financial support for families and really starting to tackle some of these underlying issues that are going to continue for as long as we have to create a new normal. If you do win next week, you'll be sort of stepping into Congress in the middle of a big debate over the next economic relief bill. What are your priorities for that bill? What would you like to see in the next economic stimulus bill passed by Congress? Well, I think we need to recognize a couple of things. First of all, we need to recognize that people who are already living paycheck to paycheck, while they are grateful for an initial outlay of $1,200 and whatever access they have to unemployment insurance right now,

that has to continue for as long as the crisis continues and until we can fully rehab the economy. Secondarily, I would say, and I've been running on this issue since 2016, we have got to improve our healthcare infrastructure and support hospitals better. But right now in this moment, our hospitals are going to need to be bailed out financially. And that's incredibly important. They expanded capacity. They were ready for the surge. They brought employees back. And they were prepared to be engaged in this moment. We need to make sure that they can continue to do that. We need to, if we cannot, if we have not gotten to the point where we've got the logistics in place to do a comprehensive

national testing program, we have got to push for that. Our reopening our economy depends on two things. One, our ability to test everybody. And second, having a healthcare network in place that allows us to do contact tracing. Without those two things, we are going to continue to function in this really limited capacity. And there is no better mechanism for that than the federal infrastructure. I mean, our Defense Department are some of the best logistics folks that we've got. And we need to deploy that resource in this really critical time to get all the things that we need, the swabs and the reagents, and part of an overall arching testing system that's going to allow us to do this. You know, our governor is working really hard in the Western States Alliance, and you see

that in the Midwest and the East Coast as well. But these governors can't do it on our own. It is time for a transparent national strategy on all of this and some real leadership. Do you think that some measures to protect election security should be a precondition of the next stimulus bill? And in your own race, obviously, in California, they can mail us ballots. But how are you handling sort of making sure that everyone can vote safely, everyone gets their ballot in, etc? Well, that's a really big part of our robust voter outreach right now. We are connecting people by text and by phone to make sure if they hadn't received their ballot, they know which county to check in with to receive a ballot. Incredibly grateful to our Secretary of State, Alex Padilla, and our Governor Gavin Newsom, though, for deciding that in the interest of public health, everyone would get a ballot in this moment. I mean, I think it is a tribute to their leadership, but also an important opportunity for us to make sure that voters understand that voting has changed. You know, we saw in the primary, a lot of people do still rely on going to their neighborhood polling place

in a garage. And a lot of that will change for the foreseeable future. And we need to make sure we're communicating that clearly. National voting security, absolutely. I think every single voter in the United States should get a ballot for the November general. We should never have what happened in Wisconsin. It should not be a binary choice between exercising your franchise and your health. So I'm really grateful that California is demonstrating some leadership. Would love to see this go nationwide. And also critically, the next round of funding must include support for the United States Postal Service. We cannot in this critical time, let them not be funded. What do you think about Mitch McConnell and some other Republicans calling aid to states, especially states like California, blue state bailouts? Yeah, well, I tell you what, here in

donor state California, where we pay in more to the federal government than we get back. Yeah, we'll take our donations back. Thank you, Mitch McConnell. Like, I just I don't even understand how we've gotten to this point in the American narrative where they're now trying to create this disconnect between the federal government and the people. I mean, that exercise we all participate in every April 15th when we file our taxes and we send that money to Washington, that is for our own benefit. That is for our support. That is for those very institutions of government that we should all still be able to believe in, should be doing the right thing and functioning for us. So I will say to you, Moscow Mitch, it's our money. So last question, what can listeners inside and outside of the California 25th do to help you get over the finish line in this next in these next few weeks? Oh, thanks. I really appreciate that question. So Democrats all over the country, please engage in this race. Christy, C-H-R-I-S-T-Y, forcongress.org. Volunteer, donate, help us out.

We have got to engage every single Democratic voter. We still need to do a lot more talking to our Latino voters, our African-American community, and our young voters. So come on, young voters, 18 to 35, don't let us down. You talk a big game, but please show up. We need you right now. But for everyone else, it's Christyforcongress.org. You know, we need you right now. So but for everyone else, it's Christy for Congress dot org. Please engage in whatever way you can. But we've got

callers, you know, from Brooklyn to San Francisco, and we can always use more. We welcome you to the effort. All right, everyone, this is very important. You heard Chrissy Smith. Please get involved. Chrissy, thank you so much for joining us today and best of luck to you on May 12th. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Thanks to Christy Smith for joining us today and we will have a good weekend and we'll, we'll talk to you next week. Bye everyone. Pod Save America is a product of Cricket Media.

The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somenator, 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.