Pod Save America - “The Trump Pod Challenge.”

Episode Date: April 27, 2020

The White House weighs cutting back on Trump’s daily briefings, Republicans start to worry about November, and Joe Biden’s campaign adjusts to life in the midst of a pandemic. Then Senator Brian Schatz talks to Jon L. about the next economic relief bill and the Senate map in 2020.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Later in the pod, Lovett talks to Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz about the fight over the next economic relief bill and the 2020 Senate map. Before that, we'll talk about what might have been the series finale of The Daily Trump Show, the growing panic among Republicans over the November election and Joe Biden's homebound campaign. But first, Lovett it how was the show this week we had a great love it or leave it john hodgman came by and judged the monologue which was a delight uh akilah hughes egged on by travis hellwig quizzed ronan and i on our relationship ronan and me in a way that uh

tried to get us to break up and talk to Katie Porter. Star studded. Who we love about what's happening in Congress. So it was a great episode. We talked to listeners. It was a nice break from everything. So check it out. We also have a big announcement today.

Crooked Media has partnered with Pineapple Street Studios and Spotify to bring you a brand new limited series podcast called Wind of Change, an original series hosted by investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe. The show begins when Patrick hears a rumor that Wind of Change, the very popular power ballad by the Scorpions that was an anthem for the end of the Cold War, was actually written by the CIA. This series is Patrick's journey to find the truth. The trailer is out now on Spotify. Follow Wind of Change on Spotify to binge all eight episodes on May 11th. Exciting, huh? Yeah, I just have to say, you know, we've been working on this show with Patrick for the

better part of a year. I've gotten to know him. I've read all his work forever. He's one of the best journalists in journalism period. His book last year, Say Nothing, was one of the best books I've ever read. And this story is incredible. I've literally thought about it ever since the first day he pitched it. And to hear this thing finally come to life is so exciting. It is such a fun journey. It'll be a great break from coronavirus hell. Subscribe to Wind of Change. Do it on Spotify. Then you can binge it. It's going to be great. All right. I'll start with what might be some good news after being subjected to Donald Trump's hours-long White House briefings nearly every day for the last two months.

The country may be getting a break. Trump held no briefing on Saturday or Sunday, and White House aides say they may be cutting back the president's appearances. That's the good news. The bad news is that it's because the president suggested a cocktail of sunlight and disinfectant might cure COVID. Let's take a listen to what happened on last week's briefing. So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light. And I think you said that hasn't been checked, but you're going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body,

which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you're going to test that too. Sounds interesting. Right, and then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets on the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it'd be interesting to check that. So that you're going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds interesting to me. So Tommy, I don't want to dwell

too much on the story since it's been covered uh quite thoroughly but uh trump later said he was being sarcastic is that how people took it trump is that friend we've all had who says something really shitty to you and then pretends he was kidding he's like come on what i was kidding you know they're like uh your haircut looks like neil patrick harris got stranded on a desert island what he's being funny you know that's what my wife said hannah was like hannah said to you drink bleach i'm just kidding so yeah so we had some fun with that uh when you're the president it's less fun fun. I mean, in this case, Trump suggested that, I guess, like getting a sunshine enema or drinking bleach could could could cure you of the coronavirus because we all know, you know, the way HIV goes away is you just you get a tan. And it ended up having people calling poison hotlines. The surgeon general had to clarify on Twitter, Clorox and Lysol were putting up statements. And so again, like the stated

rationale for broadcasting these coronavirus task force briefings live is that viewers will get important medical information. And again and again, we're seeing that's not happening. I mean, anyone who watched this comment knows he was not being sarcastic because we have eyes. And also who tries out some jokes at the pandemic response briefing? That's not the right venue. So anyway, of course he wasn't kidding. It's ridiculous. It would be funnier if it wasn't like if all of these states weren't getting calls through their hotlines about people actually thinking this could be a fucking cure.

I mean, there's also some useful information there. Like it does seem like direct sunlight and humidity can help kill the virus outside. And maybe that's good to know. Maybe we all shouldn't hang out inside. We should hang out outside. But all that information is washed away by him saying this crazy nonsense. Well, it does seem like this is part of a larger pattern where Trump just completely contradicts his own public health experts. His CDC director said the virus could be even worse in the fall and winter. Trump said then it might not come back at all. Dr. Fauci says we need to do a lot more testing. Trump said last week he not come back at all. Dr. Fauci says we need to do a lot

more testing. Trump said last week he disagrees with them, that we're doing great on testing. They demoted the doctor in charge of developing a vaccine last week because the guy refused to promote Trump's favorite unproven treatment, hydrochloroquine. What's the danger here for Trump? I mean, there's the danger for us, which we just talked about. What's the danger for Trump? Yeah, well, so one thing that happens after this is every serious health official associated with this administration goes on television in the next day or two and doesn't say five or six important things people ought to know. know, I heard that, you know, Birx was asked, like, what what was Trump talking about? And she's desperate to try to make sure people don't drink bleach, while also not being too contradictory, because that ends up coming back on you, you know, tenfold in the form of Trump insulting you retweeting someone calling for you to be fired. And there and you know, this is a

person who has vacillated between just trying to do her job and being a bit of a Trump flunky. But she was she was making the point that Trump, oh, he just had learned something and he was trying to think it through. And sometimes he thinks out loud. Like, obviously, that's incredibly irresponsible. It's incredibly irresponsible for the president to be thinking out loud about something he learned. Now, the thing he learned was sunlight may be the best disinfectant. An old saying that is just sort of common wisdom about the ways, you know, the way sunlight may help us in this situation. He was learning some basic information. Now, one of the things I was striking is that this whole question of will the virus come back in the fall or not, right? And Fauci says, probably, we don't know, but looks like we should be prepared for a combo

flu season, COVID season. That seems like where we're probably heading. And Trump says, well, maybe, but maybe not. Maybe it will go away. It doesn't matter. This is a silly and stupid prediction debate. We should be preparing. This is very simple. Like a legitimate president would say, you know, I'm a bit more optimistic because that's my nature. And but the scientists tell me we need to be ready for it coming back. And so we're going to be ready for it to come back. We'll hope for the best and prepare for the worst. But we end up in these endless loops that are not about the best way to respond to this growing pandemic. But actually, the axis of debate is only about Trump. Was he right? Was he wrong? Is he smart? Is he dumb? Is he helping himself? Is he hurting himself? Is he lying? Is he telling the

truth? And we do that over and over and over again. And that means that I think in like a lot of ways, like forget the like specific information, the cultural societal response to this virus is confused in large part because this incredibly important podium is so thoroughly misused. Yeah, I mean, look, from from the public's perspective, we've seen in every poll since the beginning of this that they trust public health officials and experts far more than they trust Donald Trump. And that's been even more true the longer this goes on. And so as he continues to contradict a number of people that the public trusts more than him, it makes him even less credible in the eyes of the public during a pandemic that goes on and on, in which he seems to always be looking, as you said,

Lovett, for the easiest way out. Everything is like he wants the miracle cure. He wants it not that goes on and on in which he seems to always be looking, as you said, love it for like the easiest way out. Everything is like he wants the miracle cure. He wants it not to come back in the fall. He thinks everything's gonna be fine. And like it's this just debilitating short termism on his part where he just wants to get through that new cycle. But like that doesn't work that well as the pandemic drags on. What happens if it comes back in the fall and winter and everyone's like, oh, Donald Trump told us it wouldn't be back. It's only going to be worse for him, you know? Yeah. I mean, but he just knows that like if it does come back in the fall, everyone will say you told us it was going to be better. And he'll say,

no, I didn't. And he'll just lie about it again. My favorite thing of the day is that the New York Post reporting that's being regurgitated on Fox News this morning that Trump is just working so hard that he's skipping lunch sometimes. And, you know, as you can tell by looking at the guy, he's not exactly wasting away. It's like so ridiculous. I mean, I believe like whatever Stafford decided last night to pitch every single reporter on a new strategy that involves less time for Trump at the podium and more of a focus on economic issues. I believe that person. I believe that's what they want. I believe they think that's smart. I don't believe for a second Donald Trump is going to give up that

podium because as a human, he's a broken narcissist and he's desperate for praise and affirmation. But as president, like this seems like his main activity for the week every week, right? He doesn't attend the coronavirus task force meetings themselves. That's how you get a scenario where you like half hear some briefing and decides to riff on the healing powers of ingesting bleach. He just watches TV all morning, gets mad, tweets and then rages on reporters in the briefing. Like I literally don't know what he'll do with his time if he's not at these events. I also want to just let's just also just be clear here. You know, there have been a lot of people saying that the cable networks are wrong to take these briefings live. And now that we know

that they may be politically toxic for Trump, and that's the only reason they're considering not airing them. I want to once again, continue to urge CNN and MSNBC and Fox to carry these briefings live. It is their obligation. We need to see what the president is saying every day. Well, that was gonna be my next question. I mean, you know, we have worried that these briefings are sort of artificially propping up his approval ratings because they're nothing but propaganda. It's clear now they're having, they're either not doing that or they're having the opposite effect. Why do you think that is? I mean, Tommy Navigator's daily tracking poll had Trump's approval at forty seven forty nine a month ago. Now has him at forty two approved, 56 percent disapprove, which is the worst rating he's had in a month.

Why do you think the briefings have been pushing things the other way? I mean, look, we should stipulate that. I mean, maybe the briefings are unrelated to his polling, right? I mean, early on, there was a rally around the flag effect for every leader in the world. Trump got less of a bump from that sort of impact, and it went away faster. It's also clear that things have gotten way worse just on the ground in everyone's lives. The global death toll is over 200,000. The financial impact is mounting. It's been devastating. I do think, though, as president, and we've seen this in polling for Trump on other issues like China, sometimes you get credit just for looking active

and seeming like you're on top of something. You get credit for trying. But I do think as people get impatient, as their lives get worse, as you round six weeks without leaving your house, the briefings strike you a different way. You can tell he's making mistakes, you know, and then like saying something like this drink bleach comment, like that jumps out and be part of a national conversation that includes SNL and like late night shows and all the places that might not otherwise be talking about the coronavirus task force briefing. I think it compounds the problem because people don't believe him. They want to hear from scientists and they think he's chaotic

and not necessarily in charge. Love it. What do you think? You know, to Tommy's point about not knowing how the briefing is really affecting this one way or another. I do think because we're in the thick of it, it's hard to know the relationship between, you know, Trump's blundering and the biases that a lot of people who might be sympathetic or prone to voting for Trump, like kind of older white voters, how that is kind of running headlong into the fact that these are people who are most at risk and most afraid of what this virus could do to their families, themselves, their communities. You know, we talked about this when this first started that, you know, Trump plays on people's emotions. That's what he does. He plays on their fears and he plays on their, their, their, you know, their, their worst instincts. But that is sort of,

it's hard for that to be a match, uh, for the scale of what we're facing. This is a global pandemic. It is affecting every corner of the country. It is making people afraid and closed off from one another and insecure and uncertain with a whole bunch of economic calamity on top of that. And so his usual bag of tricks feel completely insufficient for this moment. And so, you know, he can try all he wants. He can, you know, retweet a Joe Biden deep fake. He can attack the Nobel Prize. He can go to the briefing, not go to the briefing. He's at war with reality. And that's not something he can win. Yeah, I mean, I think people are getting tired of the Trump show in the middle of a pandemic. You know, 23% now trust what he says about the coronavirus,

just incredibly low when you consider that his base is like 35 to 40% of the population. It's from an AP poll. Navigator has 63% of people say that self-absorbed applies to Trump's response. 57% say the response has been chaotic. 56% say erratic and irresponsible. Axios did a focus group of Obama-Trump voters in Ohio. And I thought it was interesting because they all said that they wished he would act more like their Republican governor, Mike DeWine. They all said that they wished he would act more like their Republican governor, Mike DeWine. And sort of the conclusion from the focus group, what a lot of the voters were saying is there's a little appetite for partisan politics among these voters when it comes

to a crisis with life and death consequences. They want a leader who will work with health and science experts, find solutions and activate in a way that won't polarize the country. So, of course, his move when things aren't going well for him is to blame people and try to divide people against each other. And, and like all you and like you said, love it all these little tricks, right? Like, everything is a game. He's mad about everything. He's yelling at the media and all that stuff. Like a lot of people don't tolerate that normal times. And they're really not tolerating it in the middle of a pandemic and an economic crisis.

Yeah. So because of Trump's political problems, Republicans are starting to act like Democrats and panicking. According to the New York Times, quote, Republicans were taken aback this past week by the results of a 17-state survey commissioned by the Republican National Committee. It found the president struggling in the electoral college battlegrounds and likely to lose without signs of an economic rebound this fall, according to a party strategist outside the RNC who's familiar with the poll's results. Times also notes that a recent wave of polling

that showed Republican senators in Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina, and Maine trailing or locked in a dead heat with potential Democratic rivals. Tommy, should we allow ourselves to enjoy this news? Or do we think the Senate's more in play than it was? And why? I mean, look, these polls are good news for Biden generally. Let's start with Biden. So it's not just national polls that have him winning and that don't end up meeting much

when applied to the Electoral College. These are real leads in state polls in Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, states he really needs to win. Trump's trying to go on offense places. And Minnesota is the only state they've really targeted for a pickup. And that's not looking good. I think he's down 10 there. So we're lucky that we have great Senate candidates on top of that. And they've been fundraising well.

But I don't think anyone should get cocky here. I mean, the best thing that listeners can do is pick a Senate race or two, promote the hell out of those candidates on social media. Maybe you set up a recurring donation, give them five bucks a month because that that adds up and really matters. But, you know, I'm going to let myself feel hopeful. And I think we're going to talk more about the Biden campaign and what is and isn't working. But, you know, Sarah Gideon in Maine, Doug Jones in Alabama, Cal Cunningham in North Carolina, Mark Kelly in Maine, Gary Peters in Michigan,

the Colorado race, like we got to win a lot of those races and defend elsewhere to to take back the Senate. Well, but I know you're going to talk to Brian Schatz about this in a little bit, but what do you think about this, the improving poll numbers for Democrats here? I think they're horse shit. I'm not going to buy them. I'm not. Look, it's nice to see. I hope they're right.

I hope it gives people a jolt to support their candidates. I think we should just continue to assume that winning back the Senate is hard and may get harder as we get closer to the fall. We don't know. We also just don't know how all of this will play out with the virus and how it affects turnout, which is, I think, just this big, flashing unknown. And so beyond that, you know, yes, I think it's a it's it's heartening to see. It's hopeful. And we talked about this from the beginning too, that this virus was going to shift people's expectations and the economic fallout would

shift people's expectations of government, that people are going to turn to government and look for a well-run, active government that helps people in their time of crisis. And I think that that lends itself to voters considering Democrats more than they might have otherwise. But beyond that, I think it's still so early. One thing about the Senate is, you know, we've been seeing in the last couple of election cycles, this has just been a trend that's continued, is it's not as likely that when there's a competitive Senate race and a presidential race, the Senate race goes to one party and the presidential goes to another.

So I think in 2016, like if Hillary won a state, then the senators who were competitive in that state, who were in competitive races also won that state, Democratic candidates. If Trump won a state, then the Republican candidates were competitive. So the Senate's much more closely linked to the presidential race. So you would expect now if probably even more important now because of the pandemic and the economic fallout, as we heard from Mitch McConnell last week. Like if Joe Biden wins the presidency and Mitch McConnell is still the Senate majority leader, I do not think anyone should expect any more economic relief, stimulus, anything to come out of that Senate. Mitch McConnell is going to fucking put the brakes on any more stimulus, and he's going to rerun the play

that he ran when Obama took office amid the Great Recession. It's just abundantly clear. And so I do see winning back the Senate almost as important as winning back the presidency when it comes to digging us out of this economic crisis. All right, let's talk about our fellow podcast host, Joe Biden. Over the weekend, the New York Times and the Washington Post published a pair of deep dives into how the former vice president's campaign is adapting to the pandemic.

He and Dr. Biden are holed up in their house with very few staff. He's doing Zoom fundraisers and virtual rope lines. He's calling volunteers and first responders to thank them. And he's doing hours of policy briefings about the coronavirus response each day. This has reportedly been a tough adjustment for Biden, who truly does love one-on-one campaigning. It's also fueled concern among some Democrats that the Biden folks aren't doing enough to steal the spotlight from Trump. All that said, Harry Enten wrote a piece for CNN over the weekend arguing that from a polling perspective, what he calls Biden's, quote, invisible campaign is actually working. And he points to some of the polls we just talked about, recent polls from Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, that show Biden

with clear leads. And he argues that all the extra coverage is actually hurting Trump and helping Biden. Tommy, what do you think about this? Is Harry right? Is some of the some of the worry overblown there? I mean, look, I think Harry's right in that Trump tends to do worse when the focus of the media's attention is on him. Right. I mean, ultimately, when when he finally surged against Clinton, it's because we were wasting our time talking about her emails and Comey and all that bullshit. So it's a good contrarian point. It's a good pushback to all the people freaking out and saying, where's Biden? Why isn't he getting more coverage? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

That said, like, I don't think we should feel comfortable now. Right. I mean, if this is a snapshot of the race in the midst of a pandemic where Trump is getting hammered every day for a failed government response. I think it's entirely about that and not really at all about Biden's campaign. So we know from some good reporting how he's trying to reach voters. They're doing cable hits, virtual events, virtual rope lines, strategic local TV interviews in swing states, like all those are very smart things. Is that message really penetrating? Are people seeing him where they need to see him? I just don't know. But I'm sure almost any campaign would tell you like they would like to do more. They would like to reach more people. And so some of the articles you mentioned, it does sound like Biden is spending a lot of the time every day prepping for the job of president, which obviously that's important. But if I were his staffer, I would probably argue like, let's skip the economic briefing or national security briefing today and just spend another hour doing these local satellite

hits in North Carolina or whatever. I do think this thing is going to turn. No one can get cocky like the press will get bored of talking about only the coronavirus. Trump will attack Biden. They will find a way to make it about him and drive down his numbers. So again, like I do think a bit of this is on us. The easy things listeners can do is like follow Biden on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, like post things about him, about the platform that you like, like be an influencer in your own little online community. Donate a little bit of money if you can, because that's where we should all get really scared is Trump's financial

advantage. It is going to be hundreds of millions of dollars and it could swamp any message from Biden. Well, what do you think? You know, part of this is we're in the middle of a pandemic that focuses on the people in charge, right? That's why we're talking about governors. That's why we're talking about Trump. So there's some part of it, just sort of exigent circumstances make it hard for Joe Biden to intercede. And I do think that they should be looking for places to make news. I think they are doing that. So some of this is just the reality of the situation. It does remind me a bit of what we were saying during the whole primary, where Joe Biden was doing fewer events than virtually any other candidate. And there was an argument made again and again, where's Joe Biden?

How can he become the nominee if he's not doing as much, if he's not on the trail? And now here we are, he's the nominee. I do think what Tommy said about the money is really important. One thing I was thinking about too, because the Biden campaign has been putting out ads and also longer, like one minute, two minute, three minute videos telling a story about a policy response, what have you. And they're excellent. And what's striking about them is when you take Joe Biden and you edit Joe Biden and you remove some of the halting phrases and some of the places where he's a bit meandering and tries to answer three questions at once, what you're left with is just the pure best version of his message delivered by him. And it's really effective.

So part of this too, is I think getting them the resources they need to put a lot of money behind those ads is going to be increasingly important if he's campaigning from home. Yeah. You can tell that, you know, one indication that Harry's analysis is right is that it's bothering the Trump campaign that Biden isn't getting as much coverage because and because they're what they want to do is define Joe Biden before he can define himself. And what the Biden campaign seems to be doing is they think that a generic Democrat would beat Donald Trump in this environment because people are sick of Donald Trump as approval ratings are falling and they just basically want to be that generic Democrat. And the slight advantage Joe Biden has is, compared to many of the other people he ran

against in the primary, some of the newer candidates, he is fairly well known. So unlike, say, John Kerry against George W. Bush in 2004, most people can identify Joe Biden. They know he was Barack Obama's president. So he has that baseline of of people who know who he is. I do think to your point, Tommy, there's you know, there's still that doesn't mean that they should rest on their laurels. This thing is fucking far from over and will turn a million more times. You know, Jason Goldman, who was the chief digital officer in the Obama White House, he talked to Dan on Thursday after he talked to Dan about some of the stuff. He wrote a Medium post that I think is really smart and everyone should go look at. He talked about how Joe Biden is never going to catch up with Donald Trump in terms of followers on Twitter, YouTube, all these social media channels. But what he can be doing is sort of

what he's doing in terms of local media on television, doing all these like local television interviews, but do it digitally. So you should be, he should be using existing channels with a large reach already to find persuadable voters that aren't sort of his own YouTube channel, his own Twitter feed, right? Like he did Desus and Mero on Showtime

a couple of weeks ago. It was great, right? Desus and Mero has an entire audience that Joe Biden will never reach with Joe Biden's own media channels, his Twitter and stuff like that. He could, you know, I saw that his podcast is getting 40,000 downloads an episode in the Washington Post story. He could, for example, come on our podcast. We reach more than 40,000 people.

Oh, he's getting 40,000 downloads. So he should probably want to promote his podcast, he could probably come on this show. That's what I'm saying. And then he never has to talk to us again. You just promote his podcast. Because it's almost like doing his podcast 50 times. So well put. I mean, look, a friend of mine recommended last night, like, hey, why isn't Biden tweeting about the Jordan documentary?

And you know what? I don't know if Joe Biden is a big NBA fan, if he's ever met Michael Jordan. You wouldn't want to be authentic sounding. But that is a huge cultural conversation that's happening online that's not about the coronavirus that lets you introduce yourself to voters who might not be watching CNN or talk about something that shows who you are in a different way. or talk about something that shows who you are in a different way. And I do think finding those opportunities is important. And so, yeah, right. You don't have to match Trump's 73 million Twitter followers,

but do what AOC does and have conversations on Instagram Live or whatever with people who have big audiences. And you guys are half kidding about booking Biden on PSA, but you don't have time to build a huge podcast audience and nor like that's not an end in and of itself. You're just trying to reach people. So if you're spending hours and hours and hours on the thing that's getting downloaded 40,000 times, it's probably not a better use of time than going on like Tim Ferriss's show, right? Not about politics does huge numbers. It's not people seeking out political views.

You might reach Republican swing voters. Like there was a big dust up with Bernie and Joe Rogan. Like you can think his views are wrong. You can think they're offensive, but have a conversation with him, change his mind, push back on those views, and then reach that audience that otherwise will hear like a shittier, like alt-righty sounding conversation more often. Right. Like, I do think you have to get out of the bubble of people that are searching out political news or coronavirus news to reach new folks.

I'd also say, too, that first of all, yes, the Jordan documentary also sometimes 90th birthday, another option for those that were only familiar with one and not the other. Christine Baranski was on the dream team. So, but I'd also say too, is that, you know, there was one study looked at sort of, you know, Trump's hours and hours and hours and hours in the briefing room. And I think that the sum total of the moments in which he's expressed empathy for victims was something, I think like, was it four and a half minutes, four and a half minutes total of empathy. And I was thinking about what Joe Biden can do in that and taking moments to just do basically a political presidential thank yous, thank yous to nurses and doctors. Also, you know, summer is coming. And when it's

here, people are going to want to be out and about. They're going to start bending the rules. And there's no voice at the national level thanking Americans for doing the hard thing of quarantining, right? Of like, thank you for what you're doing. It seems like it's exhausting. You're staying home. It feels like you're not doing anything, but actually you're doing something really important for the country. There's no one really offering that. And that is something that I think Joe Biden can do. And it would contrast with what Trump fails to do.

That's all. Yeah. And look, I mean, it is the end of April, right? He has become the presumptive nominee faster than most. So he's got time. I do think the most important things he can be doing right now are a raising money and be sort of assembling a staff for the general and staffing up and figuring out policy and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, it may turn out to be true that not being Donald Trump is all he needs to win. But like, don't want to bet on that.

is all he needs to win. But like, don't want to bet on that. And like you said, Lovett, like they do have sort of an ability because we're in the middle of a pandemic to control the message a bit more than usual, control what you hear from Biden more than usual when he's just sort of at a rally spouting things off. So you might as well use that advantage

to present the best case for Joe Biden to as many people as possible and reach them where they already are. And instead of trying to get turn their attention to the Biden media apparatus, find them where they are and present your best case. There's also the constant challenge with Donald Trump of him doing 40 offensive things a day. And you can't talk about all of them because then people learn about none of them. And I do think that the Biden campaign can help focus people on the right things because the problem is if Trump in any way insults the press corps or ask someone to move their smooth CNN from the front row to the back row, that's obviously a ridiculous, shitty, offensive thing that shouldn't happen. But the press corps likes nothing more than to report on his attacks on the First Amendment or his criticisms of them and to retweet how great their colleagues are.

Like this story about Trump forcing the West Point cadets to return to campus to quarantine for two years to maybe be alone, to maybe not have their families is one of the most selfish acts I have ever heard of in my fucking life. Then you're going to deploy these kids overseas to war. You should be talking about that every single day until this bullshit idea is canceled. And like, I'd love to see Biden carrying that message constantly. Yeah, that is fucking crazy. And it also is like it is the ideal contrast with Joe Biden, right? Yes. Who is like very good at ideal contrast with Joe Biden, right? Yes.

Who is like very good at showing empathy and helping people grieve. Whose son served and lost his life. I mean, not related to war, but yeah. And then versus Donald Trump, who's like putting kids at risk, who are already risking their lives to serve their country just so he gets a photo op. Let's dig into Biden's message, particularly as it relates to the economic crisis. He did an interview with Politico's Michael Grunwald, where he was fairly populist and combative in a way I haven't heard in a while from him. He hit the big banks for not lending enough money fast enough to small businesses, saying, quote,

this is the second time we've bailed their asses out and that, quote, they're only alive because the American taxpayer. He said the next economic stimulus bill should be, quote, a hell of a lot bigger than the last bill, which was two trillion dollars. And he used his own management of the 2009 Recovery Act to hit the Trump administration, saying, quote, there's no coordination. There's no accountability. Come on. The guy waits to hold up money because he wants to make sure his name is on the checks. What do you guys think of this interview and message from Biden? It was it was strong. I mean, that's it was the most sort of direct and well articulated an argument for the kind of stimulus he would seek would be. I appreciated him coming back to the checkpoint because it was a little bit of a non sequitur where he dropped it, but he clearly needed to get that in. He wanted to hit Trump on the checks. I do think you see someone trying to

strike a more populist note and that, you know, the conversations he's having with the left and the party, whether it's around these sort of policy groups or his conversations with Bernie or his conversations with his advisers about how he has to shift to appeal to the broadest coalition of Democratic voters is in there and coming out as he's speaking. Yeah, that's what I thought. Tommy, what do you think? I loved hearing it. I loved it. I mean, listen, Democrats, we have this responsibility gene that flows through everything we do and makes us less savvy politically right now, because I think Democrats understand we need these the CARES Act one and two to work. We need like massive government intervention to get people back on their feet.

And so you don't want to, you want to undercut that process in any way if it'll have long-term ramifications. But it was great to hear Biden calling out bullshit that was in the earliest forms of the relief, right? Like specifically saying we need massive aid to states and cities. That's important. It's a marker we should lay down, not only to push Trump, but also to push Schumer and Pelosi. He was talking about, we got to make sure that cops and firefighters get paid and don't run out of money. He was talking about the lack of oversight. He was saying, you know, of the banks, this is the second time we bailed

their asses out. Like, I think that's great. He needs to outflank Trump in terms of populism. If that creates some discomfort for Chuck and Nancy, I'm totally cool with that. I imagine the rest of the House Democrats in particular he's already nailed because it was basically his primary campaign message, which is what we saw in that or what we heard about in that Axios focus group of Obama Trump voters. They want to they want competent leadership. It's not going to divide the country against each other. They want to sort of pull people together. So Biden's got that covered. But there's another essential message that is because of this economic crisis There's another essential message that is because of this economic crisis and the rage and and despair that so many people are going to be feeling for a long time who are out of work or have seen their wages cut or don't have health care. And if if he can't channel that, you know, he's going to be in trouble. And I think he we're now seeing him start to channel that anger in a really important way.

And again, like, you know, hope he does it on television interviews in a whole bunch of different ways instead of just a political interview. But, you know, if that's a reflection of what his team's going to look like, his policies, then that's a very good sign. On that note, there is a balance he has to strike. There is a balance he has to strike. You know, on Thursday, Bloomberg reported that one of the people who Biden has been getting economic advice from is Larry Summers, a veteran of the Clinton and Obama administrations who's managed quite a few economic crises, but also viewed by progressives as too centrist and too lax when it comes to regulating the banks. And a number of these groups called on Biden to remove Summers from his list of advisors. How big of a deal do you think the Summers thing is. It feels like a very Twitter focused controversy. I mean, look, Larry Summers is one of the few people on the planet who has been a part of an effort to rescue an economy. I think it's worth hearing him. But it's also notable that during his time at the White House, Biden's like econ guy was someone named Jared Bernstein, who was seen as too progressive, too far to the left. He was criticized by Wall Street. So this would be an opportunity, I think, for Biden to use some of his own channels, like sit down, have a conversation with Jared Bernstein about what should be in the next round of the CARES Act. Like, what do you want to see in it?

Flesh out a bunch of progressive priorities in a long and thoughtful way that speaks to what you really believe and want to see happen and gets you around a headline that you like dared to call Larry Summers. You don't dared to call Larry Summers. You don't have to like Larry Summers. A lot of people don't, but he's a smart economist. So maybe give him a call. What do you think? Love it. I know you're a huge Larry fan. You know, I actually, you know, Larry is a very, very smart, very, very strange man. You and I have worked with him on speeches. We know you guys, we've worked with him on speeches. You have to, very smart, very, very strange man. You and I have worked with him on speeches, we know. We've worked with him on speeches.

You have to, listen, I have sat in a room with Larry Summers as he kind of waxes economic and try to take what he's saying and try to translate it into human English. So I've been there. He's one advisor among many. I actually understand why his critics would blow a gasket because he's not just to the right of where they want. He's also really smart and effective about getting his point of view reflected in policy. That said, he's one of a bunch of advisors. And Joe Biden should absolutely be free to talk to a full range of advisors from the far left to the Larry Summers wing and use that to help synthesize the best but also more progressive policy. So I just see it as a short term,

small controversy. And the way you answer it is, as Tommy said, is by making sure that what you actually end up advocating for is progressive in a way that sort of fulfills the expectations of a lot of people who are getting behind Joe Biden. Yeah, I mean, there's only a handful of people in the world who have managed governments through economic crises. Larry Summers is one of them. So if you're going to call Larry up as someone who, first of all, he knows him because he worked with them and someone who has been through economic crises for advice, that's fine if you're just calling them informally for advice. It's very different than him saying like, yeah, he's floating Larry's name for fucking treasury secretary. Right. Then, you know, then we can all have our debate about that. But I do think you're right. Like if, you know, the same story said he's still relying on Jared Bernstein and a whole bunch of others.

I know the Biden campaign is talking to a lot of progressive groups. This goes back to sort of a conversation we've had before. Like, you know, it might be a good idea for Biden to start announcing members of his economic team or people who he's going to be that are going to be, you know, he's going to be relying on advice from in the White House and floating names. And, you know, the Biden campaign can do a lot to sort of allay progressives fear over this while still saying, yeah, he's going to call a wide range of people for advice sometimes. And that's just how it's going to be. Yeah, I do think part of this, I think whether it's what he's advocating for in terms of what should be in the next round of stimulus, who he's talking to as he's generating new policies, you kind of see the push and pull of sort of the political challenges of the situation

he's in. In that, you know, people are saying like, where is Joe Biden? Why isn't Joe Biden in the fight? Well, one way he can get more in the fight is having a more stronger, more specific set of positions he's advocating for in a stimulus. It can be in announcing policies he would pursue as president and announcing the members of his staff putting out there that who he's talking to and what he's talking about. Now, that may get him more coverage that may get people to understand what kind of president it would be. But also with that comes a lot of scrutiny and some of that scrutiny will have have downsides and have risks. So I think that's sort of the balance. Yeah. And then in short of that, though, you could do a little roundtable conversation with Katie Porter, Elizabeth Warren and Pramila Jayapal, who endorsed today,

who would offer you a thoughtful, well-informed, progressive view of how to go forward. informed progressive view of how to go forward, let the press hear it, let them cover it, make it part of the conversation about this next package of relief that should come out of Congress. And that would be a net benefit in many ways. Maybe Biden even skips it. The. All right. On that note, when we come back, we will have Lovett's interview with Senator Brian Schatz. We will have Lovett's interview with Senator Brian Schatz. 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 Street Studios, Crooked Media, and Spotify. He's the senior senator from the great state of Hawaii. And he's so good at Twitter, he makes Chris Murphy look like Chuck Grassley.

Please welcome back Senator Brian Schatz. Thanks for having me, John. Very fun to see you. So, Senator Schatz, first of all, it's good to see you. How are you and your family doing right now? Everybody's okay. Kids are in school, such as it is. They're doing distance learning. And I'm in my bedroom, and everybody's sort of ensconced and trying to get as much work done as possible. But we're safe. And Hawaii has done a really good job in lowering the case count and in doing a sufficient number of testing. So everybody's safe and sound. So everybody's safe and sound and the economy is awful. But our health care situation, at least over the last month, has been exactly what we expected, given the restrictive measures we took.

Hawaii is a state that is more dependent on tourism than most. What has it been like in Hawaii? What are people doing to get through this time? What are you hoping to see in terms of stimulus to directly help places like Hawaii? Well, it's a ghost town. I mean, we walked through Waikiki, just to give you context, it's 10 million visitors a year across the state of Hawaii. And now we're getting fewer than 100 a day, which is appropriate in terms of making sure that we don't get overrun with coronavirus cases. But every Waikiki hotel is shut. Everybody who works in tourism is out of a job. It's hard to know the number precisely, but certainly 30% unemployment sounds about right. So people are really,

really suffering. Everybody seems to be following the rules, but it is deeply, deeply painful. And I'm sure you see this in LA and everybody sees it from where they're from. A lot of local institutions, small ones especially, are on the edge of shutting down and never reopening. So that's sort of hitting home for a lot of folks at Leaky Leaky Drive-In, this old drive-in that everybody grew up going to finally shut down forever. And so we're just trying to make sure that our small businesses, our institutions, and our families can survive this kind of short-term extinction event. And then we come out the other end, we can talk about some structural reforms to make sure we're less vulnerable in the future.

So let's talk about what we can do in this emergency. You know, we hear a lot about what's happening with Phase 4 in the Senate. A lot of that coming down to a fight over funding to support first responders and others that are funded through state and local governments. What's the latest on the negotiations right now? Well, I don't think there are really negotiations right now. I think Mitch McConnell is taking extreme positions in order to make it look like if we get to the middle, that that's some big progressive victory. But there's a couple of things. First, defunding the post office. If the Republicans want to take defunding the post office to the electorate this year.

They can be my guest. But the truth is that funding for the United States Postal Service is both essential under normal circumstances, but especially essential during a pandemic. And it is deeply unpopular to defund the post office. So we're not going to haggle over that. We're just going to fund the post office. That's not something we have to trade for. And likewise, as it relates to funding states and counties, Republican governors, Republican mayors, they are all going to their individual senators and members of the House and say, don't die on this hill for us. We need these resources. And as we

imagine, even in a best case scenario where we can do a partial reopening or even an eventually more fulsome reopening, system, the full funding for first500 billion, not because it reflects their view about the right size and scale of the state government, but because this is a desperate situation and we've got to fund the people on the front lines. So, you know, you've seen McConnell in the past few days strike out a bunch of maximal positions. One was that he wasn't sure there was a need for any more stimulus that we've already spent too much. The other was to your point about saying that he doesn't see the value of rescuing states, even though states are in the midst of mounting an unprecedented response to this virus, while at the same time having no revenue, because every business is closed and people aren't paying taxes. People aren't paying

for the services that they normally pay for, at least to a large extent. How much of that is, is that pure posturing? Is this just a means for him to create leverage? Because if he says he needs a bill, he's lost the one option he has, which is to walk away. Yeah, I think that's right. I think this is pure posturing. I think the deal will be cut eventually. I think Nancy Pelosi will go first and put together a draft of a bill, which we're going to like. And then Donald Trump is going to deputize Steve Mnuchin to negotiate with all of us. And look, it's a clunky system and it's the result of the Senate being run by Republicans and a result of the president being the president. But we're going to get to a deal eventually. And I'm not particularly troubled by Mitch McConnell's

posturing because I don't think he will win in the end. So in terms of what people listening can do, you know, for reasons that I understand, you know, a lot of these negotiations have been Pelosi and the administration, Pelosi, Schumer, McConnell and the administration kind of hammering things out relatively quickly because of the scale of the emergency. But at the same time, there are a lot of ways in which Congress can bring in the views of Americans and Americans can have their voices heard in this process to create pressure that feel more difficult right now. You know, at Crooked,

we've been pushing people to call on senators for vote by mail. Where are the hinge points that you see right now where people listening should be calling their members to push their Congress people, push their senators on to kind of make sure we get the most progressive and most helpful bill out of these negotiations? Well, I think voting rights is a good place to focus because it's the high ground and because the Republicans are legitimately awful as it relates to voting rights. You saw what they did in Wisconsin. You see what they are trying to do in New Hampshire to prevent students from voting in North Carolina, in South Carolina, in Georgia, all over the country. They are making it central to their strategy to make it difficult to vote. And it's always disgusting to do that, but it's especially disgusting when you're asking people to take a

physical risk in order to exercise their constitutional franchise. So that is a great place to focus. I also think state and local funding is essential. These are your teachers and your firefighters and your nurses and your cleaners. And I just want to emphasize, you know, one important aspect of this pandemic has caused us to realize that these people that we call essential are the people that we pay the least. And so when we talk about our public officials, it's very common to talk about teachers, nurses, and firefighters, but it's also the people who

clean facilities. It's also the people who pick up our refuse. It's the people who make it possible for us to have sufficient sanitation and sufficient confidence in that, that we can start to reopen buildings and reopen operations. And so that is something worth fighting for. And just tactically, even though a lot of these negotiations are not happening on the Senate floor, you can still hammer your senators' offices' phones. Everybody's still picking up the phone. Everybody's still picking up the phone. Everybody is still picking up their email. Most offices are operational.

And so the same tactics calling your member still work. So the last financial crisis a decade ago, Mitch McConnell had a very different position on large influxes of cash to save an economy. He basically kind of tried to thwart President Obama viewing his job as to make him a one-term president. Obviously, McConnell's taking a different tack now. But if we are so fortunate as to elect a Democratic president, we will once again see Republicans become intransigent, suddenly rediscover the deficit, suddenly rediscover spending. Are there steps that

Democrats should be taking right now to inoculate our economy from future sabotage when we will almost certainly in 2021, hopefully under a Democratic president, need to continue to take action to help people? Yeah, I think it's a really important point, but it's actually hard to talk about because we have to win first, right? Yeah, we have to win first. And so we have to win first, but we don't have the luxury of saying, hey, we've got to win first. I do think we should be pursuing things like automatic triggers for the availability of unemployment insurance and even the PPP program. We ought to consider whether or not automatic triggers make sense so that it's not up to the discretion of Mitch McConnell to decide whether to tank the economy, depending on who's in charge of the executive branch. But you make a really important

point, which is everybody needs to know that the op-eds are going to start flying in October, November, and December. And all of these anti-debt, anti-deficit groups are suddenly going to find religion again and say, we got through that, but now we face a new crisis. And that crisis is the debt and the deficit and responsible people. The only thing we can do is cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. We couldn't possibly reverse the tax cuts that we passed three years ago. We couldn't possibly find any new revenue or close the carried interest loophole. The only way, the only responsible way to deal with this, according to many Republicans and pundits in Washington, D.C.,

is going to be reduced entitlements for people for whom their average Social Security check is $1,400 a month. So now, one way we can avoid Mitch McConnell exerting this power is by winning the Senate. You know, you talked about winning first. There have been a flurry of stories in the past few days suggesting that the Senate is more in reach now than we previously thought. What is the latest on Democratic efforts to win the Senate? And where are you most hopeful? Where do you think listeners should be directing their resources right now? Well, yeah, the field is wide. Look, we could we could do poorly this election cycle or we could do well, and nobody really knows. And I've gotten out of the business of predicting. But I will say that we have more than four races to work with. You're North Carolina, Arizona, Maine, Iowa, Colorado are your first cut. But we also have Kansas and Montana and South Carolina and Texas and Kentucky and the two seats in Georgia. Now, all of those are winnable races. The likelihood that we win, say, all nine or 10 of those, pretty low. But the important aspect of this, and I just encourage

everybody to do this, do not just contribute money and contribute your time to the person running against the person you hate the most. We really do need to spread the love around and make sure that every single one of those races is in play because we just don't know who's going to be the next Heidi Heitkamp or John Tester or Joe Donnelly, the unexpected Democratic win of this cycle. And if we only have four well-funded candidates, then we have to run the table on all four of those and not lose anything else. And so it's really important to expand the playing field, which means that you guys may want to do, you guys, all your viewers may want to do

your own research and not just donate to the sort of most famous Senate candidate of this cycle, whomever that ends up being. Yeah. And I do to plug if you go to VoteSaveAmerica.com slash get Mitch, you can donate to our get Mitch fund that's supporting a bunch of different races at once. And we'll kind of spread your money around because it is now such a wide field. One last question, Senator. You know, this is an incredibly dark time. There's a lot of people hurting. Every day we have the president playing an amateur epidemiologist slash pharmacist slash doctor on television. But there's a real chance here that Democrats could win, keep the House, win the White House, and potentially even take the Senate. win, keep the House, win the White House, and potentially even take the Senate. Can you talk a little bit about how much our politics change if we all do our part and make that happen? Just

how different our economic policies would look if right now there were Democrats doing the legislating? Everything would be different. Everything would be different from the top to the bottom, from the way you would deal with a pandemic in the first place, to the way you would structure your economic response. All of it would be different. And it's not just this pandemic, although that's top of mind for every single person in the country. It's also what we do with climate. It's how we treat each other. It's the extent to which we can believe our government. And I just would like to offer one thing, because I know you've got plenty and plenty of viewers here. If you are currently a person who sort of consumes political content like you consume other content, so you have a predisposition towards love it and you like political content and you think it's entertaining and you root for the Democrats,

you have to transition right now from a political consumer of news to a political actor. And that's what's going to be the difference in this election cycle. We all have to go from passive consumers, political hobbyists, to figuring out what material act you're going to take in the next two or three weeks to change the course of history. Because democracy is not what we have. It's what we do. We all have to get involved. If we all get involved, we're going to be very successful this cycle. If everybody sort of treats political activism like replying to someone they disagree with on Twitter and listening to a few liberal podcasts, that ain't going to get it. We really all have to personally get involved. Everyone has to get personally involved. You have to do more than just listen to get it. We really all have to personally get involved. Everyone has to get personally involved.

You have to do more than just listen to this show. If you haven't called, you have to- Although that's an important start. Look, it's important. Obviously, keep listening, keep downloading to podcasts. That's critical. But you have to do more. And if you haven't yet, now is the time.

You've been listening to Pod Save America for now three years and you've yet to pick up the phone. It's time to pick up the phone. Senator Brian Schatz, thank you so much. Are you at all concerned about what happens when Chris Murphy hears my dumb joke that I started this interview with? I am a bit concerned about that because, you know, we're like, we're like brothers. Oh, you're like brothers. Have you been zooming? Have you zoomed? No, we're like brothers who are competitive with each other. Oh, I see. I see brothers. Is it brothers with a, with like a, uh, a Kennedy-esque overbearing father who set you against each other your entire lives and left you nothing but a husk of ambition in an effort to destroy the other.

Yeah, I'm not sure how to respond to that, John, but that sounds pretty good. Would Chuck Schumer be our Kennedy-esque overbearing father? Okay. Okay, great. All right. Senator Brian Schatz, thank you. Stay safe, stay healthy, and thanks for joining us. Take care. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks to Center of Shots for joining us today. And we will talk to you guys later. What's up, boys? What's happening?

Why do we have to? I mean, we guess we can end the show. We didn't even talk about Alex Azar getting fired. Oh, no. Not Alex Azar. Did he get fired? No. There's all these floats that he might get fired. Azar's the one. Azar. Did he get fired? No, there's all these floats that he might get.

Oh, yeah. Azar's the one. Azar's responsible. Once Azar's out of here, we'll be smooth sailing. Got to get rid of Azar. It's funny because on paper, he actually is qualified. He was deputy HHS secretary under Bush. But he's just such a political hack.

That is amazing that he was able to fuck this up so badly. I mean, like, like, I love a good Labradoodle, but why would you have a dog breeder as your like head political guy for six years? Yeah, there was that barking up the wrong tree with that guy. You know what I mean? I also felt, um,

should have hit pause. I felt fairly good that we did not cover any number of the, uh, crazy tweets that Donald Trump let loose yesterday. I was watching them on Sunday and I'm like, you know what? He is like desperate for attention now. I mean, to our point earlier, it does feel even... Are we doing the show or are we not doing the show?

This is getting so meta. Is this an outro? I think we're in an outro. I think it's a fun long outro for the true fans. Well, it's like, you know, now we're just listing things off that we didn't do. It's like the Nobel tree. When he confused the Nobel for the Pulitzer Prize. Was that what was going on?

He confused the Nobel for the Pulitzer. And then he spelled Nobel wrong, too. I don't know. Who the fuck cares? Spelled it Nobel. We're in the middle of a pandemic. Seems like there are bigger issues. But then what the president's tweeting about every day.

of a pandemic. Seems like there are bigger issues than what the president's tweeting about every day. But then he pretended that he meant noble, misspelled, because they are not noble because they're journalists and they're a fake news bat. So he's always right. Bad stuff, guys. Bad stuff. Bad president. Idiot.

Alrighty. We'll talk to you later. Bye, guys. Bye. Bye. 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 Somanator, 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 Kemp, who film and upload these episodes as videos every week.