Pod Save America - “The voter suppression will continue until morale improves.”

Episode Date: March 22, 2021

President Biden and Vice President Harris call out anti-Asian hate while Republicans make excuses, the GOP says that voter suppression is now their top priority, and new polling shows how Democrats can fight back. Then Jon, Jon, and Tommy each pick an under the radar headline to talk about.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, please visit crooked.com/podsaveamerica. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Levitt. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, we'll talk about what our political leaders are doing and not doing about the rise in anti-Asian violence, why Republicans are saying that passing voting restrictions is now their number one priority, and new polling that shows how Democrats can fight back, plus a new segment where each of us picks an under-the-radar headline that we want to talk about. But first, Levitt, how was Love It or Leave It this week? Fortune Feimster. Very funny. Talked to Chase Strangio. Love Fortune. Talked to Chase Strangio

about trans rights. And it was a really good conversation. We like went a little bit deeper talking about how people's fears of gender, people's fears to a changing definition of gender kind of factor into what's happening in the trans debate. It was a great conversation. And we quizzed a listener. And the high notes, we had some A plus high notes. in the trans debate. It was a great conversation. And we quizzed a listener. And the high notes, we had some A-plus high notes. They were very moving. It was a good episode. Awesome.

Also, two more cricket shows to check out this week and every week. What a Day is your morning 20 minutes of all the top stories you need to know. Listening to Akilah Hughes and Gideon Resnick is like getting the news from your smartest, funniest, most thoughtful friends. It's the only daily news podcast you'll ever need. So go subscribe and listen today. And check out this week's episode of America Dissected, where Dr. Abdul El-Sayed talks to former Chicago City Health Commissioner and member of President Biden's COVID-19 Transition Task Force, Dr. Julie Morita,

about the lessons we've learned and those we still need to learn in this pandemic. All right, let's get to the news. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke in Atlanta on Friday about last week's deadly shooting that left eight dead, including six Asian women. Biden had previously called out anti-Asian racism in his primetime address on the pandemic. And even though the FBI director said on Thursday that the shooting doesn't appear to be racially motivated, both the president and the vice president, who's the first American of Asian descent to hold that job, drew a direct link between Atlanta and the frightening rise of anti-Asian hate and violence over the last year. Let's hear a clip.

They've been attacked, blamed, scapegoated, and harassed. They've been verbally assaulted, physically assaulted, killed. It's been a year of living in fear for their lives. Silence is complicity. We cannot be complicit. We have to speak out. We have to act. For the last year, we've had people in positions of incredible power

scapegoating Asian Americans. For the last year, we've had people in positions of incredible power, scapegoating Asian Americans. People with the biggest pulpits spreading this kind of hate. Whatever the killer's motive, these facts are clear. Six out of the eight people killed on Tuesday night were of Asian descent. Seven were women. The shootings took place in businesses owned by Asian Americans. The shootings took place as violent hate crimes and discrimination against Asian Americans has risen dramatically over the last year and more. Tommy, why do you think it was important for Biden and Harris to draw this connection to

anti-Asian hate, even though the motive remains under investigation from a law enforcement perspective? Sure, yeah. I mean, I think Biden and other elected officials can show support for people in Atlanta who are hurting and pledged to offer help, while also making a broader point that there has been a global increase in crimes against the Asian community. That's true in the US, it's true in the UK, France, Spain, I think, lots of countries. I think it stems from this toxic increase in xenophobia and nationalism generally, with a very targeted, specific effort to blame the coronavirus on China and on the Asian American or AAPI community.

There's also a gender-based piece of this. Clearly, we've heard a lot about the shooter's motive and his hatred of women. The UK is also having a big, important conversation about gender-based violence right now. So I think what the vice president was referencing there was Trump used a lot of racist language against China early. He called it the China virus. Remember, some horrible staffer referred to the coronavirus as Kung flu to a journalist. That language was parroted by other Republicans, by conservative media outlets. There was a proliferation of anti-Asian forums and hate groups online. And unfortunately, that kind of behavior often translates into real world harassment and violence, and it's unacceptable. So I think it's appropriate for law enforcement, for Biden to say, we're going to gather all the facts before we,

you know, talk specifically about this instance. But these broader trends, these broader factors are undeniable, and we need to do something about them. Lovett, what do you think? I mean, I do think that even though the motive is still under investigation, like there just hasn't been enough attention from the media, from politicians, though, you know, Biden did address it in his primetime address, which was good, about this unmistakable rise of anti-Asian hate and violence over the last year. So it was important to draw that connection. Yeah. You know, it's, um, it is sad, is sad on many levels that it takes a crime like this to have a national conversation. We probably should have been having already to Tommy's point. Yes, there is this sort of, there's this global rise of nationalism. We've seen it in

our own country that creates habits of thought of politics that leads to targeting of all kinds of people. And it has been used to target Asian people in the wake of Republicans looking for a scapegoat around the coronavirus. I do think that this combines two issues. One is regular mass shootings in the United States. The other is anti-Asian bigotry that's on the rise, that's on the rise in we see increased hate crimes. It's also, I think, a harder piece of this to quantify is like, I know that there are Asian people in my life who have had terrible things shouted them on the street for the first time in their lives or more frequently than in the past, just over the past year because of the racism that Trump and

others have drummed up against Asian people. I think there is something troubling that happens after mass shooting, which is there is this race to find out the motivation. The motivation is important, is important that we understand why this person did what they did. But a debate about the motivation, especially when there's not enough information, does make that mass shooter a protagonist. It makes their issues, their personal motivations, their values, their reasons more central than what actually happened, which is the destruction of a number of lives. And I think that that is concerning because ultimately, whatever the motivations that this person had, it does not change the underlying conditions in our country, which Tommy described,

right? We have a long history of policy and bigotry against Asian people. We have a grievance-based Republican Party that looks for various scapegoats or people to target, to make the enemy. And all of that, I think, is in play regardless of what the motives of this one person turned out to be. There is a buffet of hateful ideologies for broken, angry, violent, narcissistic young men to choose from. There are incels, which is misogyny. There is anti-Asian hate, which has only grown online in the past year. There's anti-LGBTQ extremism in communities you

can become a part of. There's anti-black and anti-Semitic communities you can become a part of. So in the one sense, of course, the motive matters. In another, what we see is a mass shooting that will ultimately follow a pattern that connects mass shootings that have used a bunch of different ideologies as their justification, and that will have other pieces that connect them, like the fact that this person was able to buy a gun on the day he committed the crime. Yeah, I think it's also important to understand what are potentially mixed and complicated motivations as a warning flag to prevent other mass shootings, right?

So that in addition to racism at play here, there's misogyny that you mentioned there's potentially discrimination against sex workers there's fucked up religious beliefs there's potentially mental illness and right from a law enforcement perspective if we want to prevent further mass shootings we should be able to be on the lookout for all of these potential motivations in uh in mass shooters. In addition to, like you said, there's been very little talk after this about gun laws, which, you know, I guess we don't do it anymore because Congress never passes anything. But again, you know, the House just passed background checks again to the sponsors in the Senate. Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey seem like they could be in a good position to take that up in the Senate again and try to pass more gun background checks, which is, you know, doesn't solve the whole problem, but it's a small piece of it. It's important thing too. And it's also, I think you see, you see, you see some people saying, hold on a second, you don't know that racism is involved here. And, and I find that really frustrating too,

because there is no, this shooting takes place in a context in which Asian people and Asian women in particular are dehumanized. It's in our history, it's in our culture, it's in our politics right now. There is no way in which the shooting took place in that culture, in that society. So there is, it's ridiculous to me, the parsing that some want to do to avoid it confirming the priors they bring to these kinds of debates. want to do to avoid it confirming the priors they bring to these kinds of debates. I also think that's why it's so important that Kamala Harris said what she said in that clip that we just played. So the president said in his remarks that we have to act. He then called for the passage of the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which was introduced by Representative Grace Meng and Senator Mazie Hirono. The bill would force reviews of federal, state, and local COVID-19-related hate crime data and strengthen the hate crime reporting systems.

Some members of Congress and many AAPI activists are saying that focusing on hate crimes is a good but not sufficient step. Why is that and what other steps do activists want the government to take? Tommy? So, you know, this is a tough one. I mean, I'm by no means an expert on this, but my understanding is that there are some federal hate crimes laws on the books, and then there are state laws in 47 states that involve hate crimes. But it can be hard to track these hate crime incidents because some states do and some states don't collect the data.

The data is inconsistent at best. And hate crimes prosecutions can be challenging because you have to show intent or motive in this specific incident. That's easier when someone paints a swastika on a building, right? The intent there is obvious. It becomes challenging in less overt instances where the perpetrator isn't as clear about what their motive is. So, you know, I think activists want to recognize, you know, that this is a big challenge. There's a lot of pieces to the solution, but they don't want to over police neighborhoods that are experiencing this uptick in crime, because we can know that sometimes that can lead to life being

worse for people in neighborhoods that are suddenly more policed, right. And not better. So we want to help the victims here. And so you're also seeing advocates talk about the need to increase funding for helping victims report incidents, including in their native language, to help people get mental health support. They want to fund crisis intervention that isn't coming from the police themselves. A lot of the conversations we had around the Defund the Police movement over the summer are coming back up here. And it's good. I mean, it shows that I think we've at least progressed in some ways that showing that, you know, the solution to violence isn't necessarily just cops, more draconian laws. It's got to be looked at more comprehensively than that. Yeah. And Axios reports that AAPI community groups have

actually called on the White House to set aside $300 million for some of the safety and relief programs that Tommy just mentioned. Republican politicians are already deep in reflection over their own role in fueling this anti-Asian hate and violence. Many of them have parroted Donald Trump's use of the term China virus or even Kung flu. And surprise, surprise, they still don't see anything wrong with that. Republican Congressman Rodney Davis told CNN that phrases like China virus and Kung flu are, quote, no different than saying UK variant. And here's House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on whether he regrets using the term China virus. Do you regret using terms like Chinese coronavirus? I don't know. Does CNN regret that? Does the Democratic committee that started out regret that?

I would wait to see why the shooter did what he did. But if the virus came from China, and I think the knowledge we had at the time is exactly that. I don't think people, from the standpoint, should go after any Asian from any shape or form, and I condemn every action to that. Love it. What do you think? Why are those phrases any different than saying UK variant? Aren't Donald Trump and Kevin McCarthy just describing where the virus came from? I noticed none of you are criticizing Mickey Rooney for his performance in Breakfast at Tiffany's. So yeah, I mean, look,

they want to decry the incidents, but they still want the benefit from making this about scapegoating China. I mean, obviously, I don't know if we need to actually say what the difference is. The difference is there was a political goal in trying to get their base and get people to blame someone else. It was, look who's responsible. It's not Donald Trump who's responsible for a failed response.

It's not the federal government. It's not Republicans who didn't take this seriously enough. It's not anti-mass politicians. We know who's to blame. It's China. Blame China. Focus on China. Focus on that place. Focus on those people. They're the ones that you should blame. That's why they did it. That is why it is different. And look, Kevin McCarthy has the same position on virtually every issue. He wants all the benefit of right-wing misinformation and propaganda. And he also wants to practice it at time.

And then when questioned about it, he will issue a, you know, a tiny little correct phrase while embracing every other part of the of the rhetorical strategy and grievance strategy that propels all of their politics. Tommy, what do you think? Where's the where's the line there? And, you know, a lot of these Republicans saying, you know, Marco Rubio is like this, too, like, oh, I never wanted to say anything bad about Chinese people, but it's important to take on China. Like, where's the line between taking on China and fueling shit like this by calling it the China virus? Yeah, I mean, like this. So there's like sort of different levels of this. There are some people like Tom Cotton who have suggested that maybe the coronavirus was manufactured in a lab,

maybe for a bioweapon, maybe as just part of research, and then it got out. I think the line for me has to be drawn at blaming the Chinese government's handling of the coronavirus from Chinese citizens, right? We know the Chinese government covered up what was happening. They blocked effort to investigate the coronavirus. But heroic Chinese doctors were sounding the alarm early. They provided us the gene sequence to this virus that have led to these vaccines being available in record time. So that to me is the distinction. Like, yeah, people aren't demagoguing the UK variant right now or the

Brazilian variant. But if there's some country that McCarthy can demagogue down the road where there is a new variant, you could absolutely see an increase in xenophobia about some new iteration of this disease. So I think it's something to keep an eye on. I also just think that, look, these Republicans, the thing that animates them is telling social justice warriors like us that we can't tell them what to do or think or say. And it doesn't matter to them if their language leads to people getting hurt or hate crimes or if, you know, this online demagoguery translates into offline violence. They don't care. The thing that animates the party is telling people like us we suck and that we can't censor

them and that we've shadow banned them on Twitter and they've lost followers and it's our fault or something like that. Right. Like that's the thing they focus on. Also, if there's another variant that comes from China and we want to call it the China variant, that's a lot different than calling it fucking Kung Flu. Come on. It's just, you know, and Donald Trump said that. And remember when he said it, they were no one wanted to talk about it. No one wanted to condemn it. And the Republican side also House Democrats passed a resolution condemning racism and violence against Asian Americans in September. We don't, not a lot of people don't remember this because he didn't get a lot of coverage. Only 14 Republicans voted for that bill that simply condemned racism and violence against

Asian Americans. And one House Republican who didn't vote for it called it woke culture on steroids, a resolution that simply condemned racism and violence against Asian Americans. So it's a little much. And I just like we hold them to no, there's no standard, right? There's no actual kind of serious conversation to be had about why it matters when Republicans do this. They are playing off a very old idea, which is that Asian people are less American. It is why Japanese citizens were interned during World War II. It continues all the way to people having terrible things shouted on them at the streets in New York City right now, right? And like,

the reason it's different is because people like you have spent a lifetime making it different, right? That's why it's different. It's different because you're targeting people and you're making them the target. And Trump is giving people permission to make them a target. That's why it's different. You're different. The reason you're saying it is different. You're the reason it's different. All right, let's talk about voting rights. Two big headlines over the weekend. New York Times, in restricting early voting, the right sees a new center of gravity. The Associated Press, quote, on all hands moment, GOP rallies behind voting limits. So pieces go on to say that just about every major right wing group, got the Susan B.

Anthony list, the Heritage Foundation, the Family Research Council, the Tea Party Patriots, all your all-stars. They have all now put all of their own issues aside and they've prioritized voter suppression above everything else. They are raising tens of millions of dollars to fund these efforts. They've got Republican state lawmakers who've introduced more than 250 bills across 43 states intended to make voting harder. across 43 states intended to make voting harder. Ted Cruz led a call with some of these lawmakers last week where he said there's no room for Republicans to compromise on H.R. 1,

that they will try to rebrand the For the People Act as the Corrupt Politicians Act, and that if it passes, Democrats, quote, will win and maintain control of the House of Representatives and the Senate and state legislatures for the next century. I like that part. Don't threaten us with a good time. Don't threaten us with a good time, Ted.

Tommy, Republicans have been trying to restrict voting rights for decades now. So that part's not new. But why do you think it's become their top priority now? Yeah, I mean, Lindsey Graham also said, if we don't do something about voting by mail, we're going to lose the ability to elect a Republican in this country. Look, these are all the same awful groups that we've been watching dominate Republican politics for decades. Normally, they manifest their political activities with initiatives that attack abortion rights or attack the LGBT community. Right now, they're just surfing the wave of outrage that Donald Trump has kicked up. The base of the party is owned by Trump.

He has told that base for months now that the election was stolen. And so all these groups swoop in to fundraise off of that anger and exploit these people for their money, for their email addresses, for their volunteer time, for their votes down the road. So I think it's one, an incredibly cynical effort by these groups to fill their coffers and increase their political power. But two, I think they're incredibly worried that Democrats might get rid of the filibuster past H.R. 1 and expand voting access for a lot of people, especially people of color, right? Republicans want to make it harder for people of color, especially black people, to vote because they think that will help them win elections.

Like, that's the overarching strategy. It's very, very simple. Lovett, what do you think? I think clearly, you know, as Tom mentioned, the big lie looms large here, right? The voting base of the Republican Party believes that Donald Trump, in fact, won the last election and that the only reason that Joe Biden is president is because Democrats rigged the election

and stole it from him by using their mail-in ballot magic. Is there anything else going on here? I think it's, well, I think, yes. I mean, I think it's very fitting that this, you know, Ted Cruz basically, it's interesting that Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton in the past week have been like, their policies are for bad criminals. That's who's going to be held. That's, are going to be the people voting on a call with ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, which is a mercenary organization that exists to accrue power, deregulate, and support big businesses in states. They don't have an ideology, really. They just want to protect the business interests that fund them and the

billionaires and others that fund them. Because it's about power. I think the big lie creates a nice opportunity for them to use it to accrue power. And Ted Cruz sees it as an opportunity to distinguish himself in the Republican field because most Republican voters, what, eight out of 10 believe that Donald Trump was the rightful president. And that is a way for him to make himself a leader of the movement he is desperate to be embraced by. I think they are also, and this has been sort of a longer project of theirs, just trying to lock in minority rule, right? The base of the Republican Party grows older and whiter, and they have a choice.

They could try to expand their base by reaching out to Black voters and Latino voters, which Donald Trump did somewhat better with those voting groups in 2020. They could continue to try to go on that path and reach those voters. Or they could try to just stop Democrats from voting and stop people who vote for Democrats from voting, which is also predominantly black and Latino voters. And I think the other thing is to not, we talk a lot about voting access as we should, but don't sleep on the redistricting part of this here, too. Republicans know that they have enough majorities in these state legislatures that if they are allowed to draw the districts, now that we have redistricting after the last census, they will be able to potentially lock in a House majority and keep the House of Representatives for a decade by packing voters into districts and splitting up other districts. So I really think that this is the big prize for them is they want to draw these maps in 2021. Yeah, voter suppression will continue until morale improves, I think is the way that I see it. And it connects, by the way,

it connects to the kind of cancel culture stuff in that, like, it's all about telling a group of aging white voters that, like that their power is under threat, and we're the only people that will maintain your cultural hegemony, that will maintain your political power. We are your last hope. And if you don't elect us right now, you may never get a chance again. And there's some truth in it. They are losing power in the culture. They are losing power in our democracy because we are a multiracial, multi-ethnic society in which the country is changing and it makes a lot of people really uncomfortable. Yeah. And demographics aren't destiny. But in one respect, the country is

getting younger and Republicans are doing much worse with younger voters as each four years. So every four years, the electorate gets a little bit more democratic just because of the younger voter issue. So Republicans are sounding the alarm on this just as Senate Democrats are holding a hearing on the For the People Act this week. House Democrats are also holding a hearing on a bill that would make D.C. the 51st state, renaming it State of Washington, Douglas Commonwealth, in honor of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who's getting more and more recognized these days. That was what a moment that was. What a callback. I think if Republicans and right-wing groups are making voting rights a

top issue, it's a pretty strong sign that Biden and the Democrats and every progressive organization should do the same. What do you guys think? What should we be doing to fight back? Love it. We should pass H.R. 1. We should pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. We should make D.C. a state. We should do all these things as soon as possible. I'm glad to see that Schumer has at least said that they're going to bring H.R. 1 to the floor, the plan of which is to let it be filibustered and let it get killed. We have more and more Democratic senators open to filibuster reforms, including holdouts like California's own Dianne Feinstein. We are headed towards some kind of a reckoning on the filibuster and on voting rights, which is what we have to do. We have to go.

Tommy, what do you think? I think it's really good that lots of people are talking about it. I think listeners to this show know that we are obsessed with and seized by the need for filibuster reform and the need to pass H.R. 1 and fight back against state-based voter suppression efforts and fix the problem of money in politics and deal with gerrymandering. I think it's a very good sign, though, that you're starting to hear lots of people who probably didn't know what a filibuster was one or two years ago talk about it all the time. You know, like Trevor Noah is doing segments. You're like late night shows are talking about it. So it's just a bigger part of the conversation. And I think this is one issue where the far left to the sort of most moderate

parts of the Democratic Party should be able to come together because the Republican Party wants to voter suppress us out of existence. They want to draw a map like everyone's talking right now about how Biden is or isn't selling his stimulus. And, you know, should he be doing a roadshow or Sunday shows or an Oval Office address? None of that matters. If Republicans draw congressional maps with surgical precision that just lock us out of being able to win the seats, that's how it works. You use computers and really great, you know, fucking computer data. Yeah, fucking computers. And you can draw maps where like, it doesn't really matter. So that's what we're up against, right? We're up. We're up against getting locked into these horrible maps for literally a decade, as we did in 2010. And we got to fight back. Well, to your point, Tommy, about Biden selling the stimulus package. Look, I in the Obama White House, I would be very annoyed when people would think that we would solve a big problem with an Obama speech because then we would have to write an Obama speech. But I do think the bully pulpit here matters. And I think that Joe Biden and every Democrat needs to get out there over the next month when H.R.

One is on the floor. And look, there's an inside game on the filibuster that, as you pointed out, is also becoming an outside game. And that's great. But I think where the passion and energy is going to come from is people wanting to protect and expand voting rights in America. I saw a story a couple of weeks ago that a lot of civil rights groups are thinking about like another march on Washington. Yeah. Right. Like I think this needs if the right sees this as the number one issue and they are pouring all this money and they're doing all this grassroots activism like it has to be matched on our side. We need to take this as seriously as they do, because like for people are like, well, you know, voting rights, they can. I've heard I heard some people say, well, the tougher they are and the more restrictions they put in place, then psychologically

it makes our voters say, well, we're going to fight really hard to vote anyway and to find a way to vote. That may be true. But if you think we can take this lying down, that we shouldn't have to worry about this, just look at what they're doing on their side. Look at how important they think this is to their political future. And it should scare the shit out of you. And we should be organizing just as much. And it should be from Joe Biden to every single Democrat on down to be making voting rights the fucking issue for the next several months. Yeah. I mean, I interviewed B. Wen, who's a state rep in Georgia, and we talked about

the Georgia voter suppression bill on the show a few weeks back. One of the provisions in that bill is they want to limit voting during early voting to only one Sunday. Why? Because black churches do something called souls to the polls, where everyone gets together after church and goes to vote. That is, people are saying that that is modern day Jim Crow. That is racist, clearly, purely racist voter suppression tactics. It is also,

frankly, an attack on Christian voters. And like, that's the kind of level of cynicism we have to be fighting against and talking about it. Because I think when people hear that, that's obviously appalling. And the idea of filibustering, again, a piece of legislation about voting rights has god awful echoes in our pretty recent history that I think will continue to elevate the issue and get people talking about it and talking about the actual motivation here from these Republican organizations, which is to just suppress the votes of black and brown voters, period. It's also at the national level, like we're talking about what we're talking about, how to focus people on the fight at the national

level. But these fights are playing out at the state level. And Republicans are really relying on the fact that people have no idea what's in these bills, are not paying attention to state politics nearly as much as they should. None of us do. And so kind of like this is a lot of this is playing out basically in the dark, right. They they'll pass these voting restriction measures. They'll get a little bit of local coverage. They don't get the attention they deserve. And all of a sudden the rules are stacked against against Democrats, against people of color. And the only hope we have for them either fighting at the local level, but also putting in place some basic standards at the national level to prevent these restrictive measures from from taking effect. from taking effect. Yeah, I think lifting up some of the I mean, these are like some of these are some of the all time worst Republican arguments of all time for around voting rights, right? And

lifting up some of the crazier bills, like Tommy was just mentioning with the souls to the polls issue is going to be really important. Just just at the hearing today on D.C. statehood, we had some real gems. The Heritage Foundation's Zach Smith said, D.C. residents already impact the national debate because members of Congress see their yard signs while driving to work. And then a Republican representative actually said D.C. would be the only state without an airport, car dealership, or landfill to be a state. That was his argument. I don't... The landfill...

Why are we on a landfill? What? Landfill. What does that even mean? So they don't have great arguments, guys. And speaking of arguments, we do have some new polling on voting rights that we did with our friends at Data for Progress, where we tested Democratic arguments in favor of H.R. 1 against Republican arguments opposed to H.R. 1.

The good news is that support for the bill holds up even after you give people the Republican arguments, though some of those Republican arguments are more effective than others. What was your takeaway from the polling in terms of what Democrats should both emphasize and be ready for? Love it. emphasize and be ready for. Love it. I would say like the, to me, the biggest takeaway was not what individual arguments did, but rather how the numbers change once people find out it's a partisan issue, right? Like Republicans are far more in favor of HR1 until they find out it's a Democratic proposal. And to me, you know, Republicans are pushing a lot of this because of the big lie and because

of some of the motivations and fears that we talked about. But because a lot of this is based on a lie, there are a lot of assumptions baked into into these Republican proposals that aren't necessarily true, like the assumption that mail-in voting somehow in a normal election will benefit Democrats. And so to me, what I took away from this is if you want to fight back against the argument that this is particularly partisan, we should be saying that Republicans, that Democrats want to make it easier for Democrats and Republicans to vote. We want nonpartisan gerrymandering commissions. We want to make it easier for everyone, no matter their political

affiliation to vote. And Republicans are so afraid of voting that they want to punish their own voters and make it harder for their own voters to show up at the polls just because they're afraid of Democratic voters. I think we need to be making this a non, we should be explicitly nonpartisan. I think that's super important. Totally agree. Also, a good example of that is, again, in Georgia. I mean, Georgia Republicans were totally in favor of no excuse absentee voting until they lost in this last election. And now they're not in favor of it. So I think explaining some of that cynicism and hypocrisy is important as well. But just to emphasize Lovett's point, when you look at the language in the poll, and we can we

can tweet this out to everything that is framed as, you know, expanding and protecting access to voting for all voters, no matter which party or, you know, requiring districts to be drawn by a nonpartisan commission so that no party has an unfair advantage. These are the things that are most popular. This is the strongest arguments. And then the Republican strongest arguments is the otherizing of this, right? Like, you know, undocumented immigrants are going to vote illegally. Ex-felons are going to vote illegally. Not everyone should be voting in this country, right? Like they want to otherize this issue and make it about Democrats, their constituencies, and a power grab. We win by saying this is for everyone.

This is for every single person in this country. It's a civil rights issue. It's an equal access issue. All right. We're going to try a new segment where each of us throws out a quick take on an under-the-radar story that interested us for whatever reason. Give me a ping, Vasili. One ping only, please. Tommy, why don't you kick us off?

Sure. Well, I'm just going to have two. One, I just want to note that Barack Obama's all-chalk NCAA bracket was garbage and has been destroyed by recent events. So get that out there. Here's a controversial one as well. Netanyahu is facing so many corruption allegations and different charges that they had to number them. Case 1000 involves him allegedly accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of luxury gifts like cigars and champagne. Must have been good champagne. Case 2000 alleges that Netanyahu did special favors for an Israeli media mogul in return for better coverage. Case 4000 is similar. It's allegations of special favors for media coverage. Case 4000 is similar. It's allegations

of special favors for media coverage. Bibi's son is basically the Don Jr. of Israel. He is so stupid and terrible and right wing that he has said things that his own father had to disavow. Israel's political system is very different than ours. They don't elect a president. It's not binary Republicans versus Democrats. They elect representatives to their parliament, the Knesset. So lots of parties will run. It's a motley group. And then the seats are awarded proportionally to parties that get over 3.25% of the vote. The prime minister is chosen when someone can figure out how to build a coalition that brings together 61 of those 120 seats. So this election is very important and should be on people's radar screen because Israel is a key ally in the Middle East. We send billions of U.S. tax dollars there every year. And also,

I just wanted to have a little empathy and solidarity for our progressive friends in Israel. Like Bibi Netanyahu was Trump before Trump. We had to deal with our Trump for four years. The Israelis have been dealing with Bibi Netanyahu in power since 2009. It's also a cautionary tale because Netanyahu was prime minister from 96 to 99. He lost and then he came back. So let's not make that mistake. Also, I just feel for anyone who had to go through four elections in two years, that sounds like a huge pain in the ass. Is there a chance we can finally get rid of him in this one? Can you Nate Silver this for us? It's hard. It's hard to the board, Tommy. He's just not.

What Netanyahu keeps doing is he'll build his coalition with parties that are further and further to the right, including some who believe some troubling things. But then the people that run against him ultimately just lose their will and cut deals with him and go into coalitions with him. So there hasn't been any organized opposition. their will and cut deals with him and go into coalitions with him. So there hasn't been any organized opposition. So Ben Rhodes had a conversation with this really cool, inspiring new labor party leader on Pate of the World a couple of weeks back. You can check that out if you want to hear about the future. But yeah, we'll see.

I mean, look, Netanyahu is just a survivor. He knows how to win these things. So Biden will probably be dealing with him for a while. Levitt, what do you got? All right, gentlemen. As we speak in Cocoa, Florida. I love this. There is an important milestone. It is unfolding right now. And it is this. There is a company using a special kind of technology to build a tunnel, an underpass,

a rail underpass. And what makes it special, it is the first time in the United States a rail underpass has been built under a highway and the traffic on the highway is continuing to flow. So it's called box jacking and they slide these big giant prefab boxes under the highway and the traffic can still run. The reason this is important is, you know, we talk a lot about how we have to invest in infrastructure. We're about to have a big debate over a multi trillion dollar infrastructure package, but we don't talk enough about how we do it and specifically how the United States does it poorly. We are incredibly behind technologically. The company building this tunnel is an Italian company. They've already done this thousands of times,

but it's the first time that this exact kind of tunnel is happening in North America. It's also incredibly expensive to build infrastructure in the United States. And that is, uh, uh, unfortunately making it really difficult to build projects basically anywhere. And it's not about Democrats versus Republicans. This is happening in places with Democrats have total control. Uh, Alon Levy, he's a, uh, a researcher who does a lot of great work in looking at the cost of infrastructure projects. Listen to these numbers. In Spain, building a train station costs about $14 million. In Los Angeles, it costs $120 million. That's more than 10 times the cost. Out of several hundred subway lines all around the world, the five most expensive

are in New York, all well above $1 billion per kilometer versus $250 million globally. That's four times the cost. Tunnels in Seattle cost $1 billion per kilometer. In Paris, it costs $300 million. In Madrid, it costs $130 million. These are in countries, they have labor standards, they have environmental standards, and distill between three and 10 times the cost. So it's not about geography. It's not about the wealth of the country. If we don't solve the high cost of infrastructure, no matter what we do, no matter how much we spend, it won't matter. We will, we, our economy will push up against this kind of a cage.

And so my hope is that secretary mayor Pete will make this a priority. We can start solving the many, many little problems in professionalizing the way we build things in contracting procedures, in legal procedures, in a host of different ways to start bringing down the cost of these projects. It's an incredibly important issue we don't talk about, and it is central to the future of the country. Question. Didn't Elon Musk recently announce that he had invented the subway? I'll tell you, I don't know a lot. I'm no expert, but I'm very confident that eccentric billionaires are not the solution. Yeah, that seems right. And tunnels for Teslas. And listen, you boys know this. I got one of those things. All right. Before we went on Joe Rogan, I didn't know he was going to go on Joe Rogan. But no, Elon Musk does not have all the answers. The answer is, unfortunately, like making sure we don't understaff the government and outsource all the work to private contractors. It's figuring out how to do environmental protection without bogging down projects for more than a decade. It's how we spend money. It's how we oversee money. We need to send like smart, capable public servants to Europe, to Spain, to Italy, to learn how they do these projects and then come

back and bring that expertise. That's how we ended up with, you know. The big dig. Secretary Pete, if you are listening, that was Lovett's job interview for dot um he would like a position preferably not a senate confirmed position but anything else you got in that department ambassador of infrastructure short of that short of that secretary pete would love to talk to you about this we'll have a very good conversation about infrastructure spending i feel like i feel like this is your issue you You could be a hero. I hope so. He's the Secretary Hero Mayor Pete. All right. So I know that there is a stiff competition for the title of America's dumbest senator. But the New York Times over the weekend made what I consider an airtight case with their profile of Wisconsin's Ron Johnson. He is refusing to say that vaccines

are safe for COVID, but still pushing hydroxychloroquine. Remember that? He thinks the January 6th attackers were fake Trump protesters, that there was only violence on the House side, and that he would have been more scared if they were Black Lives Matter protesters, of course. And here's the best part. He believes he believes that Greenland is called Greenland because it was green at one point. And, quote, it's a whole lot whiter now, which means that we've experienced climate change throughout geological time. change throughout geological time. When asked about Johnson, retiring Wisconsin Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner told the Times, quote, Wisconsin voters love Mavericks. They really love Mavericks. You go way back to Joe McCarthy. Mavericks. Yeah, like Joe McCarthy. Got it. Like Joe McCarthy. So favorably joe mccarthy the reason this is an important story is

ron johnson is up in 2022 it's going to be one of the big competitive senate seats whether or not he runs he has not yet said he's going to run again he originally said that he would um you know this would be his last term and of course he's only raised i think half a million dollars so he's not raised much but he's been saying lately that because he is now this, you know, he's drawn so much ire from the left that because the left hates him, he might have to stay in this fight. So that is Ron Johnson, America's dumbest senator. The Greenland thing. I was upset that you left out his 2014 claim that ISIS militants were going to catch Ebola on purpose and then cross the border. That's a real demerit.

See you, John. The thing about a guy like Ron Johnson is my instinct is to assume that they're just like cynical and willing to lie. But the truth might be far worse. I think he's dumb or delusional enough to really believe this. So actually, everyone should just set a recurring donation to the Wisconsin Democratic Party. Do like 10 bucks a month. You could help get rid of them. It's interesting. You know, for a month, you could help get rid of them. It's interesting, you know, for a time you would have said Jim Inhofe, worst senator, you know, Ted Cruz always in the conversation. Ron Johnson, you know, quietly kind of going for the going for the mantle of the absolute worst senator. He is what would happen if an email forward became a person. Yeah. And it's and you know what? Like, it does seem as though with him, it's hard to know when the cynicism ends and the

idiocy begins. But that might make what makes him kind of a powerful enemy and that like he truly believes the dumbest fucking shit. I was going to say that, too. He is dangerous nonetheless. Right. Because like someone who's that ignorant and stupid can still be dangerous because he's in this position of power. But like you're Josh Hawley's, you're Ted Cruz's.

I'm not going to say that they're they're they're brilliant by any means. They're they're not the sharpest tools in the shed either. But they are. They're cunning. Right. They're cynical. They know what they're doing. They know they're Tom Cotton. Right? People like that. Mitch McConnell. I think he I think Ron Johnson genuinely believes the bullshit that comes out of his mouth. I believe he is that fucking stupid. This man is dumb as a fucking pile of rocks. He's just every time you see him speak, when you watch him on Fox, you listen to him on the radio, he is so stupid. You know, I'm not sure who to blame for this. I think I'm going to point my

finger squarely at Elijah, but we missed a great opportunity to chase some clout and not do a bracket of the dumbest people in politics. Lesson learned. Lesson learned over here. We should do a bracket. I'm doing a bracket with that. Elijah jumps in

and says, just start with the final four. Next week we'll do an elite Eight or a final four. That's our pledge to you on Monday. I like that. Dumbest people in politics. All right. That's our show for today. Have a good one.

And we'll talk to you later this week. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Rustin,

and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmal Konian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos every week.