Pod Save America - “Trump’s Medicare For None plan.”

Episode Date: March 11, 2019

Trump’s budget guts health care, education, and other programs to pay for his wall, Fox News personalities continue to be awful, House Democrats pass sweeping democracy reform, and a new poll shows that Democratic voters are less concerned about ideology than political reporters. Then Kara Swisher talks to Jon Favreau about Elizabeth Warren’s new plan to break up Amazon, Facebook, and Google. Also – Pod Save America is going on tour! Get your tickets now: crooked.com/events.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's pod, my conversation with Kara Swisher about Elizabeth Warren's new proposal to break up big tech companies like Amazon and Facebook. Before that, we're going to talk about the release of Donald Trump's new budget proposal, the latest Fox News drama, and the ongoing narrative about the supposed ideological divide in the Democratic Party. New Love It or Leave It is out this weekend, I hear. We had a fantastic episode in Madison, Wisconsin with the Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin, Mandela Barnes.

We had Anna Marie Cox. We had Akilah Hughes. It was a great episode. You should check it out. Check it out. Also, Milestone here at Crooked Media, the 100th episode of Pod Save the People is out. That's amazing. Congratulations to DeRay,

Brittany, Clint, and Sam for 100 fantastic episodes. Yeah, and this is a good one. Interesting conversation about education in Haiti. Things you don't hear about on a lot of other podcasts. They bring interesting news

every week. Every single week. So please check it out. Also, we're on tour. We're going to be on tour in April in Boston and New Hampshire. Go get some tickets.

Get those tickets. Crooked.com slash events. You can go scoop some up now. There's still some tickets left. Scoop away. Like kitty litter. We did not go on tour this month in March because this weekend we were at South by Southwest for the premiere of the new Beto documentary, Running with Beto.

Yeah. We watched it on Saturday. I just want to say the director of the film is a guy named David Modigliani. We have known each other since ninth grade. We either met in English class or when we were both told that we were not good enough to play quarterback at freshman football. The details don't matter. I'm so proud of this documentary.

We started working on it literally two years ago before we knew really who Beto was or what he was all about. But I think the cool thing about it is, yes, you'll learn a lot about Beto, but also about how hard it is to run a campaign, how hard it is on your family, how hard it is on your staff. You'll get to know what he's made of. But then I think what really got to people in the room and move them was the story of these three incredible volunteers that dedicated their lives to to support his campaign I think you will come away inspired by how meaningful that can work can be even when you lose so it will be out several months on HBO I think in May but their screenings happening all over the country and check it out yeah I mean look there's a it'll get swept up in the better 2020 talk.

But to me, it's you know, the reason why I'm so happy that we worked on this is it captures a moment in time, which is how people ordinary people responded to this devastating loss in 2016 and Trump becoming president and how, you know, the state of people in Texas who, you know, as they say, it's not just a Republican or Democratic state, it's a non-voting state, you know, and what people did to get involved in politics again from the grassroots level is pretty inspiring. So check it out. All right, let's get to the news. News. Donald Trump is releasing a budget proposal today that calls for more defense spending and $8.6 billion in additional funding for his wall, which he intends to pay for with across-the-board cuts to domestic programs like cancer research, clean energy funding, education, heating assistance, environmental protections. Incredibly, the president has also proposed a $241 billion cut to Medicaid and an $845 billion cut to Medicare. Sorry, did you say billion? I said billion. $845 billion cut to Medicare. Sorry, did you say billion? I said billion.

$845 billion. Billion to Medicare. Now, you know, Obama had proposed some of these Medicare cuts were in an Obama budget because what they are is overpayments to providers. And so it helps make sure that health care providers are focused on quality and not quantity. But that's some of the cuts. $845 billion worth of Medicare cuts. Trump 2020, Medicare for none.

So obviously this budget is dead on arrival, right? No chance of passing a Democratic House, not ever going to become law. What's the strategy behind releasing a budget like this? Ha! I don't know. I don't know what they're going for. You know,

I really don't know. I don't know why you would do this. You know, I think a lot of the attention out of the gate has been around the border funding, right? So it's clearly

there's a strategy there, right? He wants to talk about the border. And there's going to be a conversation, we'll have it here, about how he's cutting domestic programs, important things like education and the environment and health care to pay for a border wall. To me that you step back and the larger debate I think it's worth having is he's cutting he's cutting, you know, somewhere around a trillion dollars from health care to pay for a trillion dollars in tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. To me, like, ultimately, this is...

The tax cuts that he already passed. That he already passed. Like, this is a manifestation of the plan that Republicans have had since George W. Bush. Step one, massive tax cuts for the wealthiest people, people that need at least for corporations that are already doing really, really well, that already have huge amounts of cash on the books, then turn around and say, because of the deficit we created with the tax cuts, we now need to cut spending drastically, including spending for things like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Yeah, I mean, you're right. I mean, the initial coverage seems to focus on the fact that he's asked for $8.6 billion in new wall funding, and then $3.6

billion to replace the money he stole for this national emergency. That's $12.2 billion in new wall funding and then $3.6 billion to replace the money he stole for this national emergency. That's $12.2 billion in total. There's also a big increase in military spending. He's increasing it to $750 billion from $716 billion last year. To your threshold question, why do they do this? I don't know. These budgets aren't real. Congress never takes it up and passes it. They're going to write it themselves. And obviously, the Democrats are going to have a big say in this, thanks to winning a bunch of House seats in 2018. So you just create this massive political liability for yourself by putting forward a plan that would absolutely gut Medicare. And I'm not really sure what the strategy is. As Democrats, I think the strategy should be, right now, they're

trying to paint everything we do as the most radical proposal in the history of the world. We need to make clear people understand that this is an incredibly radical budget proposal. I think this is potentially the most politically damaging thing he has done in the lead up to the 2020 race. Yeah. Yeah. Because and here's the thing. I don't even know if it's Trump's priorities himself. Trump only cares about immigration. Like we know he cares about the wall. He wants the wall. He's you know, he loves xen it's Trump's priorities himself. Trump only cares about immigration. He cares about the wall.

He wants the wall. He loves xenophobia. That's his deal. That's what gets him up in the morning. The rest of this budget is... That and a 12-ounce Diet Coke. Yeah, and like whatever... Cold in a glass, no person touched.

And whatever Steve Doocy is going to say on Fox & Friends that morning. Steve Doocy, 12 out of 10. So that's what gets him up. But you have to remember, his OMB directors, the Office of Management and Budget, is Mick Mulvaney, right? Yeah, great guy. And so his administration is still staffed with Paul Ryan Tea Party traditional Republicans who what gets them up in the morning

is slashing government programs. The same thing that Paul Ryan, that got him excited around that keg all those years ago. Right, slashing government programs, The same thing that Paul Ryan, that got him excited around that keg all those years ago. Right. Slashing government programs, especially around healthcare, around education, stuff like that, so they can pay for tax cuts, right?

Let the market do everything. Don't have government do anything. Give everyone tax cuts. Don't give a shit about deficits and cut all the programs that people depend on. That's what gets traditional Republicans excited. And as usual,

traditional Republicans usually tend to have the most unpopular policies, more unpopular even than some of Trump's policies to people, at least when you're looking at across the board, right? Like, I mean, in 2012, people, you know, look at how Obama ran the race against Romney. And a lot of times they point to, oh, well, he painted Romney as this private equity guy. And that's all true. But I will say, when Mitt Romney selected Paul Ryan as his running mate, and we knew that we could run against now Romney and Ryan and sort of hang the fucking Paul Ryan budget around there next,

which was going to gut Medicare to pay for tax cuts, we were so excited because we knew how unbelievably unpopular that was, not just with Democrats, not just with independents, with some Republicans, too. Yeah, I think that's what I thought of when I saw this. I go, this is the Paul Ryan budget. This is what it would look like if Paul Ryan were in charge. And to your point, the budget is a detailed document. It's something that takes a long time to produce.

It's done over many months through many meetings. Now, usually in a functioning White House, what happens is all those different groups of policymakers coming together to kind of form different pieces of it, it kind of, there's a system, an organized way in which those ideas float up through the process that end up into smaller and smaller meetings until there's big decisions made by the president and his senior team to decide, oh, wait a second, the McMulvaney's a nut bar. We're not going to put $845 billion worth of Medicaid cuts in this thing, Medicare cuts in this thing. But of course, there's no point in which Donald Trump intervenes and says, I think you should check section J.

These are my priorities. Yeah. Just a quick aside, just another reminder why the Tea Party is so full of shit. So one annoying thing about the way these budgets are formulated is you have your military spending budget, and then you have another account that's called the Overseas Contingency Operations Funding, which is where Bush, unfortunately, Obama, a lot of presidents have funded the actual wars that are going on. So you have these massive additional expenditures, like hundreds of billions of dollars. Mulvaney used to call it a Pentagon slush fund. He was wildly opposed to so-called OCO funding. Now they are leaning hard into it, right? So all the things that these guys said

that they lived and breathed for, the reason they were elected to Congress, they are now just folding on like a cheap suit to Donald Trump. And by the way, after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, increasing defense spending ain't too popular either. No.

A budget that says we're going to build a wall we're going to give more money to the military and we're going to pay for it by cutting your education clean energy your health care the state department the transportation infrastructure yeah yeah infrastructure environmental protection right what happened to that all of this i mean like remember trump ran for president in 2016 by, in part, lying to us about his domestic priorities. I'm going to give everyone great health care. I'm never going to cut Medicare. I'm never going to cut Medicaid.

I'm going to close the carried interest loophole on Wall Street. And I'm going to balance the budget. Not just balance the budget. I'm going to get rid of the debt. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's not going to happen. But all of those, he said all those things because, you know, even Donald Trump sort of intuitively knew

that it was popular to say those things. And knew that it was unpopular when Paul Ryan and other Republicans were running around saying that they would gut programs. And so in that way, Trump and Hillary, at least the way that both of them campaigned, campaigned on similar messages on the economy.

Trump was completely full of shit, she was not. But to go now into 2020 with this budget, I think is a huge fucking political... I think we're about... I think one thing... We don't make predictions, but if I were to make a prediction,

I'd make a prediction that we read a story about how angry Donald Trump is to have been blindsided by this Medicare cut. Oh, yeah. He's going to say, Mick's fucking killing me.

Mick, you're killing me. Something like that. Or they're already, they're already saying because some reporters are noting that some of those Medicare cuts have been in Obama's budget.

So they'll be like, oh, Obama did the same thing. And it's not, it's not the same thing. One other just sort of point on the budget too, though, I think it's worth sort of stepping back

and having just an American decline moment. Love this. So there are across the board cuts in this budget, right? We have this massive budget deficit that Democrats have decided Love this. And now in a government that's functioning, this budget, obviously we have a democratic house. It would not become the basis for any kind of democratic policymaking. But we don't do budgeting the way we used to in this country, right?

What used to happen is you would have different committees working on budgets for different parts of the government. And they would be debated and there would be examining what parts of the government are working. And there would be hearings and all this. working and there'd be hearings and all this. The way we govern right now is through continuing resolutions where we barely can keep the government open by maintaining the funding levels at a certain percentage of where they were before. And so the whole budgeting part of the government is completely broken. So the president's budget would be a policy document, kind of a political document under any administration. But right now, the disconnect between the way this budget will be sort of carried out

and what actually happens inside of Congress, which is completely dysfunctional, you know, Democrats will argue for cuts in defense and keeping the spending levels as they are for important priorities in education and the environment. Republicans will try to do across-the-board cuts to Medicare and Medicaid and to the government itself. There will never be an actual debate about how to make the government work better. There will never be a debate about where our money should actually go to make the biggest difference in people's lives. We will not have that conversation.

Mitch McConnell would rather roll this document up and smoke it than actually pass it. So, yeah, dead on arrival. That's very true. A few other developments concerning Donald Trump's goon squad over the last few days. Bill Shine, the Fox president. Great guy. Turned sexual harassment cover-up artist. Turned White House communications director.

He is resigning. Good subtitle for his bio. For his autobiography. A memoir. How I did it. He's resigning. He'll become a senior advisor to Trump's re-election campaign. Why do we think he left? Can I do a little thing real quick? Yeah. Can you guys name all of Trump's White House communications directors

today? Okay, hold on. Did that guy Jason ever get in? We are including him. Jason. He pulled out, Miller. Miller. Oh, there was that guy who's named, who, Bossy? Dubkey.

Dubkey, Dubkey. And then Hope Hicks. Yep. Spicer was acting. Yes, he had two jobs. Yes. And then after Hope Hicks. Obviously, Bill Shine.

Was Bill Shine after Hope Hicks? Who were we missing? No, we're missing somebody. You're missing a big one. Oh, Scaramucci. Yes. And then after Hope Hicks. Obviously, Bill Shine. Was Bill Shine after Hope Hicks? Who were we missing? No, we're missing somebody. You're missing a big one. Oh, Scaramucci. Yeah, the Mooch. Oh, the 10 days of Mooch. He says 11.

11. That's so funny that he says 11. We don't want to rob him of that one day. What a day. What a trivia. So we don't know why Bill Shine is going to the campaign. I mean, it is a little weird that he's resigning suddenly you know there is a tendency for like some people in the white house who are high level advisors go to the re-election campaign there's been some reporting that maybe you know donald

trump didn't really gel with bill shine that much because he thought he basically someone wrote somewhere he thought he was getting sean hannity but he instead he got sean hannity's lackey right here's what i know he got really Here's what we know we got. Every political reporter dusting off their worst The Shine wore off joke on Twitter. That we got a lot of. I'm glad you did that before I made one. I mean, I think like I just don't think Bill Shine was very good at the job. I mean, what we saw him do was have Trump do little videos outside the Oval and that they would release on Twitter.

And then he like quadrupled down on doing Fox News interviews. I think Jane Mayer's piece in the New Yorker that's all about how Fox is a propaganda wing of the Republican Party said he'd done 45 interviews with Fox as president. So that's hardly groundbreaking. He was also getting millions

in severance package money from Fox as he was White House communications director. Same time. That's odd. Severance money that he got after leaving because he was covering up all of Roger Ailes' sexual harassment. Yeah, cool. I also think, I just think that like, we don't know, right? Like either, either it's a deliberate effort to put him in charge of the campaign, or it's a deliberate effort to get him out of the White House. We don't know how real. I will say, so if it does turn out that his job inside of the campaign is real, if they're putting him there, because they, you know, even if they didn't think he for just how intertwined the 2020 Trump campaign and the 2020 Fox News apparatus are going to be connected. Because we forget, but in 2016, Fox News did keep Trump at arm's length for huge parts of that campaign.

The primary. In the primary. And yeah, they got behind him in a big way, but I don't think we're really ready for it. They have fully transformed into a pro-Trump organization. Even in the. And yeah, they got behind him in a big way, but I don't think we're really ready for it. They have fully transformed into a pro-Trump organization. Even in the past few years, it's gotten worse. They covered up the Stormy Daniels story during the campaign, too. We're learning more and more about it. Sean Hannity appeared on stage

with the candidate. Yes. But now, with Ailes dead, what we have seen is an off-the-rails kind of connection, and Bill Shine running comms inside of the Trump campaign, Fox News fully behind. They'll be basically a merger now.

It's also true that Trump is his own communications director. He likes doing rallies. He likes tweeting. He likes going on Judge Jean's show. Like, that's not going to change. It's also not possible to be a successful communications director for Donald Trump. Speaking of that ghoulish organization, we had two more examples over the weekend that clearly demonstrate

what a mistake Democrats are making by not rewarding Fox with a debate. Fox host Jeanine Pirro said that Ilhan Omar's hijab may mean that she's against the Constitution. And then Media Matters discovered audio of Tucker Carlson's old appearances on a radio show where he defended statutory rape and said absolutely disgusting, perverted, misogynistic things about all kinds of famous women. In response, Carlson said he refuses to apologize, of course, and that if you want to know what he thinks, watch his show. This morning, Fox did say that they have talked to Janine Pirro about what she said, and so they've reprimanded her, I guess, by talking to her. So I assume that, you know, Chris Wallace and Brett Baer and all the real journalists at Fox News are going to push for Tucker's ouster.

What do you guys think? The Jeanine Pirro thing to me, like, you know, Tucker Carlson saying things on this radio show, they're ghastly, horrible, perverted, strange, immoral, disgusting things. The Jeanine Pirro thing to, is a signal example, right? It is just cut and dry. She went on television, and she just decided to pump into the baby boomer brains of her audience just pure, unadulterated, anti-Muslim bigotry. If you're wearing a hijab, it means you can't love America.

You should be suspicious of Muslims. How could somebody be a Muslim and be a faithful American? It was clear as day, pure racism. There was, usually, it's not pure, right? Usually they add a mixer. They put a little tonic water in it, but this was pure fucking racism. And getting an apology is just not enough, right? And so, to the Chris Wallace, Brett Baer, Shep Smith point of this, it's like, again, okay, you're a reasonable journalist. Have any respect for yourself? This is somebody you're going to share airtime with?

This is someone you believe you can be in an organization with? She's a primetime lineup. This is okay with you? You do real journalism and then you got a pure bigot on in the evening? That is the Ilhan Omar strategy for the entire Republican Party, though. I'd say they just want to show images of her in a hijab and juxtapose that with quotes that they find concerning and scare the shit out of everyone that they think is scarable.

So, like, we should just, every time you read a story criticizing something she did or said, sometimes there's legitimate criticisms, and I've talked about them at great length on Podsafe. The world check it out. Download it today. Subscribe. But, like, that's a piece of this. It's Islamophobia. I just want to make a couple of points. Like, one, the show was called Bubba the Love

Sponge. Bubba the Love Sponge. Bubba the Love Sponge. The Tucker Carlson incident. The show Tucker Carlson was on is called Bubba the Love Sponge. Bubba the Love Sponge is the guy who videotaped Hulk Hogan sleeping with his wife and then posted the video. And that video is ultimately what led to the lawsuit that took down Gawker. Who knew that Bubba the Love Sponge was

going to be so influential in our politics? It's very fucking weird. But credits to Media Matters for unearthing this stuff. I should note that they're having a protest outside of Fox News headquarters on Wednesday at 11 a.m. in New York because Fox is having an emergency meeting with their advertisers.

So if you want to send a message and you want people to actually care there, let the advertisers know because that's the only reason the Bill O'Reillys and the people actually get punished. Yours, it's the actually get punished. Yours. It's the only thing that's worked. Tucker Carlson is their most popular host and their most popular time slot.

That is, that is Fox news. And by the way, this wasn't just like bro. We shit. Like a lot of it was like, Oh, I'm a incendiary shock jock.

He said something where he defended Warren Jeffs, who was this like polygamist, the religious slash cult leader. And, and was sort of saying what he did was okay. Jeff's, uh, At Warren Jeffs' trial, they literally played the jury audio of him raping a 12-year-old girl. That's how

fucked up this guy was. And he was joking about and defending this person of all the people on the planet to joke about and defend. So you can't explain that away, buddy. Why can't Democrats answer tough questions from Fox News? I won't do it again. We did it on Thursday.

I won't do it again. I won't do it again. Just one other thing on Tucker Carlson, too. You know, Tucker Carlson is an opportunist. You know, he started out as a kind of serious-ish conservative writer. Then he saw where the wind was blowing. He becomes a CNN kind of bloviating pundit and gets to host Crossfire and represents conservatives in a moment where that was a great way to be a

success. Then he starts Daily Caller at a moment when there was this appetite for kind of right wing trolling and kind of that attitude. That's what he took on. And then the second he saw an opening under Trump for nationalism, he transitioned into this kind of nationalist figure on Fox News, bashing immigrants, talking about how dirty immigrants are, talking about how there's a war on men. But Tucker Carlson, in his opportunism, in his desire to be relevant, kind of shows you the evolution of conservatism through this era. And now he represents this kind of white nationalist fringe every night. He's their hero. They love him. Yeah. You have Laura Ingraham and Tucker doing the kind of white nationalist, revanchist,

conservative politics. And then you have Sean Hannity cleaning up with Hillary's still the problem. And Trump's innocent. All right, let's talk about what else is going on in Congress. Last week, House Democrats passed arguably the most significant democracy reform legislation in a generation, one that would strengthen voting rights and fight corruption. The bill, known as the For the People Act, includes a suite of voting rights reforms like automatic registration, designating Election Day a holiday, prohibiting voter roll purging,

ending partisan gerrymandering through independent commissions, and restoring voting rights for the previously incarcerated. It also includes a host of anti-corruption measures and new requirements for people running for and holding the office of vice president and president to release 10 years of personal and business tax returns. So, none of these measures on their face seem partisan or ideological, but Mitch McConnell has called this bill the, quote, Democratic Politician Protection Act and refuses to allow a vote in the Senate because, quote,

I get to decide what we vote on. That's a great example of begging the question and the actual reason. Like, why won't you bring it up for a vote? Because I don't have to bring it up for a vote. Yeah. And because I think that when more people vote and it's easier to vote and there's less money in politics, it will help Democrats. That is what Mitch McConnell is admitting. He's honest.

When there's more democracy, it hurts the Republican Party. That's basically what he's... That's Mitch McConnell. So this isn't obviously becoming law. House Democrats passed it. It's not going to go anywhere in the Senate while Mitch McConnell's there. What, if anything, can Democrats do here? How big of a deal should we make about this bill? I mean, I think it's arguably

the most important thing we could do as a party and as a democracy would be to push for, to make it easier for people to vote, automatic registration, an election day, you know, trying to get, they're trying a whole bunch of ways in this legislation, tries a whole bunch of ways to lessen the influence of big money in politics. There's the, there's the six to one matching system you talked about, but there's also something that's called the disclose act, which requires super PACs and nonprofits to disclose who's giving them checks of over $10,000. All the way

the Koch brothers and these big money creeps like the Mercer families are manipulating our politics would be targeted by this bill. So unfortunately, the thing was completely wiped out of the headlines last week because the Democrats were fumbling around over this dust up about Ilhan Omar's comments about Israel. But I do think we need to push this really hard. Obviously, it's not going anywhere in the Senate, but I think you could peel off pieces and try to pass it in states. I think you should figure out an organization to run ads to put money behind this, to like build a movement and build support for this kind of legislation because they're wildly, wildly popular proposals. Recent polling from the PAC and Citizens United found that 82% of all

voters and 84% of independents said they support a bill of reforms to tackle corruption. So it should be like a thing we are bludgeoning Mitch McConnell with every day. It should be a huge 2020 issue. Every Democratic presidential candidate should be talking about it. And I think all of the Democratic Senate candidates should be talking about it, too, because, you know, we get a Democratic president in there and we don't flip the Senate. This bill still isn't happening because Mitch McConnell still isn't bringing it up for a vote. We flip three Senate seats.

We control the Senate. Chuck Schumer's already talked about how much he likes the bill, how much he wants to pass it. It is the kind of bill that if we have, you know, again, at best we're going to have 51, 52 votes in the Senate at best, then, you know, you could see maybe picking off some Republican senators on some parts of this bill, maybe, but probably not, which is why, again, got to get rid of the filibuster if you want to pass it.

But this is one where there's maybe a few things in there that some Republicans could support, but probably not. McConnell, while he refuses to hold a vote on the For the People Act, does want to hold a vote on the Green New Deal to put Democrats on record. Now, is this as smart of a political move as Mitch McConnell thinks it is? Look, you know, we can go to all the ideological reasons Mitch McConnell would rather talk about Green New Deal than HR1. But there's also another rule that Mitch McConnell basically always follows, which is he brings things up that unites his caucus and won't bring things up that divides his caucus, right? And to your point, there's parts of

these sort of anti-corruption reforms, pro-democracy reforms that are divisive, that are popular, that Republicans don't want to vote on, that there's differing views inside of the caucus on. There's a unity inside of the Republican caucus on the Green New Deal. In fact, it's something that unites the Republican caucus, even as there are certain members of the Republican caucus that are willing to be a bit more forthright, although not by any global standard, but by the standard of Republicans on climate. So they're eager to vote on something like this because they can be united. They think it divides their Democratic caucus. They like the idea of Joe Manchin being in a tough spot. They like the idea of some of the moderate senators

being in a tough spot. So, you know, it's pretty transparent. Bring up things that you think helps you. Don't bring up the things you don't. Yeah. It's a show vote. It's meant to try to embarrass Democrats and Democrats should treat it like that. Yeah. I think the answer to your question is probably state by state. But it's also is maybe it's a bigger question that is unanswerable at the time, because we need to continue to fight out and argue for the policies that are part of the Green Deal. And right now, the Republican Party has gone all in on this will, this will lead to the eradication of airplanes, and we'll murder all the cows and all the silly, stupid ways that they're distorting what the bill will do. And if we're not making the case for radical changes to preserve our planet,

then, you know, we don't deserve to win. I mean, if I was Nancy Pelosi, what I would do is throw down a resolution in the house and make all the Republicans vote on a resolution that says we believe that man-made climate change is hurting the planet. Yeah. Let's, let's get them on record to see if they're climate deniers or not. And they get all the climate deniers on record.

I mean, now that we have control of another house. I do think it's a question for Democrats because one question I do have is, you know, man, one briefly public and then retracted FAQ, frequently asked questions with a few poorly worded sentences in it have been such a gift to Republicans that they

have been just turning into what the Green New Deal is. And I don't actually know, like, what do we do to get past the fact that they have now decided that that fact sheet is the only set of information that actually matters? Talk about it more, not less, because I think the bad reaction would be, and the reaction that the Democratic Party has had in the past is, you know, we saw this happen with immigration as well. Oh, you know, little political heat here. There's some problems. This one idea isn't popular, so maybe I should just avoid it and talk about things I feel safe on. I think, you know, if we truly believe that climate is an existential threat and that we need to pass some kind of Green New Deal, some kind of ambitious climate legislation,

the Democrats need to talk about it more and educate people about what it really means for the country, for their lives, how we can get to zero emissions, you know, lay out the path. You got to talk about it more, not less. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. All right. Let's talk about the 2020 primary. Thanks to the New York Times, we can add another Democrats and disarray story to the pile of kindling. This one starts with the lead. The sharp left turn in the Democratic Party and the rise of progressive presidential candidates are unnerving moderate Democrats who increasingly feared that the party could fritter away its chances of beating President Trump in 2020 by careening over a liberal cliff. Two months into the presidential campaign, the leading Democratic contenders have largely broken with

consensus-driven politics and embraced leftist ideas on health care, taxes, the environment, Guys, what do you think of the piece? Has the party moved to the left? And if so, should Democrats worry about what that could mean for 2020? What kind of gets me about these stories is that they focus on the politics of these proposals as if they're an abstract thing and the context gets left out. So for example, the last five years are the warmest years ever recorded in the 139 years that NOAA has been tracking climate data. A UN climate report says we have 12 years to prevent climate change catastrophe. Shouldn't that change the context and the consensus and what the consensus should be?

You see the same thing with U.S. policy towards Israel, which is another component of this. In 2008, people say there was no daylight on U.S. policy towards Israel among Democrats. Well, over the weekend, Bibi Netanyahu picked a fight with like Gal Gadot and a couple other people where he was on Instagram, where he was saying that Israel is not a state for all citizens. It only belongs to the Jewish people. He's opposed all efforts to advance a two state solution. So, you know, the world has changed. The party has to keep up. And as Dan Balls, who is a fantastic Washington Post reporter, noted in his piece, the interesting thing is the Democratic base in the grassroots of the party are what are shifting us, whereas the Republican base is being entirely shifted by,

or the Republican party at least, is being entirely shifted in the direction of Trumpism and whatever he's mad about or tweeting about that day. So I'm more comfortable with a grassroots driven change in policy perspective. Yeah. I mean, a small brain analysis on this is, oh, Republicans move to the right. So as a reaction, Democrats move to the left. And what you're saying, Tommy, is exactly right, that like no one is paying attention to why conditions in the country and in the world have caused Democrats to say, we need to propose policies that are commensurate with the challenges that we face. And, I mean, just use Barack Obama as an example, right? Barack Obama always used to say in 2007, 2008, if we were starting over from scratch,

a single-payer health care system would be the best way to do this. But we're not. We have this very complicated system. So what I think we can piece together is the Affordable Care Act. And why didn't we have a public option? We had a bunch of conservative Democratic senators that wouldn't let us do it, right? Since the Affordable Care Act has passed, all the Republicans have done is tried to chip away at it. And especially, and we've noted this before, they've tried to chip away particularly at

the private insurance regulations that we put in place. And they've tried to chip away at Medicaid too. And so because of what Republicans have done in response to the Affordable Care Act, because deductibles are still too high, because there's still too many people uninsured, because there's people fucking, you know, raising money for their surgeries on GoFundMe. That's why Democrats have said, okay, we need to go even further than the Affordable Care Act now. It is the conditions on the ground that have changed the policy, not the politics of the Republican Party or Trump. Yeah, I think that's right. I think another piece of it too is the intransigence that the Republicans showed for Barack Obama, even when he was moderate, you know, even when he tried to get their votes on a recovery act that

was conservative by any standard economist laid out for what was needed in the face of the greatest financial crisis is the Great Depression. The intransigence on the Affordable Care Act, not just after it was passed, but in the delicate and long-term efforts to try to get people like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and Chuck Grassley to go along with it, despite Mitch McConnell's efforts to undermine it from the very beginning, and there are attacks ever since. You know, one other piece of this too, though, is it's, there is a left shift in the policymaking apparatus, to your point, right? Because we don't believe, we look at the scale of the problems we face, we look at the opposition we face, we look at the attacks we'll face no matter what we do. And you come to the

conclusion that we should just be for the biggest and boldest version of what we believe in, because Republicans will call it socialist no matter what you do. And because economic equality is getting worse, the environment is getting worse. Corporations are getting more and more powerful. The Koch brothers are doing everything they can to stymie everything we do. Wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. But also, I do think that it exaggerates the amount of shift inside of the party. I think the presidential debate has moved to the left. I think that there's a left debate on Twitter. But I don't know that it, it's not representing the fact that Cory Booker's out there saying that he wants to keep the filibuster, you know, you've got moderates, you know, anything that Democrats

will end up doing in the Senate will, will need people's votes like Joe Manchin, you know, there is still, there is still a sizable block of moderate votes inside of the Democratic Party that ultimately will be need to won over to anything we try to pass. And not just among politicians, right? I mean, the argument in favor of this thesis of this piece goes something like at least half of all Democrats call themselves moderate or conservative, Democratic voters. The vast majority of candidates who flipped red seats in 2018 were center-left candidates.

You know, the AOCs came out of very safe blue districts. They did not come out of, you know, the candidates that flipped the House. The reason we have the House is because a lot of these center-left candidates. Now, we call them center-left now. They would have been thought of

as very progressive back in 2008, so it tells you that. Like, none of none of these candidates are like third way dlc mushy moderates that that flip these red seats like they were all in favor of the affordable care act they made most of their campaign about it right they talked about health care all the time so these are pretty progressive candidates but still um you know is there any merit to this argument that okay okay, you know, the debate on Twitter, like you said, the policy making apparatus has pretty much gone a little further to the left for what we believe are good

reasons. But we probably have some work to do convincing Democrats that this is the way to go. Yes. I mean, look, the argument for it is one, there are moderates out there too. But, you know, so let's take Medicare for all, for example. There is great frustration on the left. And for me too, when people say, well, how are you going to pay for it? How are you going to pay for it? Right. And you don't get that question about tax cuts and a lot of Republican proposals. That doesn't mean we don't have an obligation to talk about how we'll pay for things or how we'll pass things or how we'll implement things. Because if we don't talk about that on the front end and people lose their insurance or something or their taxes go up on the back end, they'll be

very pissed and they will feel misled and they will vote against us in the future. Like building political support requires big ideas and courage, but it also requires transparency and making a good faith argument. I think you can do both. I mean, look, every state that has tried to pass single payer, where the plan has fallen apart has been in the discussion around how it's going to be financed. And internationally, that's true, too. And internationally, that's true, too. And that's not to say this is an insurmountable challenge or that we should back off. It is to say that we, you know, and look, it's one thing to say we have cared too much about deficits in the past.

You know, and look, it's one thing to say we have cared too much about deficits in the past. Absolutely. A hundred percent. It's one thing to say the Democrats are always, like, you know, ready to talk about how they're going to pay for every single penny of spending. And, like, maybe they don't need to do that. I get that, too. But there's a difference between saying that and then saying we never have to worry about spending. We never have to worry about talking about taxes or how we're going to pay for stuff. Like, I don't think that is in line with most of the Democratic electorate.

I would also say, too, though, like, you know, it's interesting what's defined as radical, right? Because to Tommy's point, something we've talked about all the time, these radical positions that are now becoming the mainstream inside the Democratic Party are broadly popular. They're not just popular even among like, you know, a wealth tax, a higher marginal tax rate for the wealthiest Americans, whether it's the Warren proposal or the AOC proposal. Those are popular amongst Democrats, independents and Republicans. By the standard of what's radical, according to pundits, the American people are quite radical. What I do think is often missing, though, is, you know, you see this with, you know, John Hickenlooper.

You know, John Hickenlooper is asked, are you a capitalist? And he's like, I don't want to use a label. And he avoids it. It becomes a whole thing. And now and then Howard Schultz is saying, look, Democrats are afraid to say they're capitalists anymore. And I think I think one thing that has happened, I think it's partly because of Twitter politics. And I think it's partly, too, because a lot of the Democrats running are afraid to say what they actually think because they're trying to prove their left bona fides. It's interesting that one of the only people willing to just go out there and say,

I'm a capitalist is Elizabeth Warren, is because she doesn't believe she has to worry about proving that she is a progressive. Or Sherrod Brown saying, you know what, I think we should do a Medicare buy-in before we go to Medicare for all, because he also doesn't think he needs to worry about his progressive bona fides. So because you have a lot of people, including people like Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, who are worried that they won't seem progressive enough, there are a few, and this was also true of Hillary Clinton, they refuse to go out there and say,

I'm not a socialist, I am a capitalist, but here is the version of capitalism I support, a version of capitalism where we have a strong regulations that prevent abuse of power, that prevent consolidation, that prevent pollution, that protect workers, that protect consumers, and a safety net in which everyone can get an education, everyone get healthcare, and people pay their fair share in taxes. A humane, fair version of a market-based system in which workers and ordinary people don't feel like there's a boot on their fucking necks, which, by the way, is part of a global consensus about what an economy should look like, whether it's, you know, a version of the social democracy you see in Europe or the kind of right wing version we currently have and moving

that to the left. So to me, one problem we have is the only people out there are outlining an ideology, a coherent ideology are the left wing of the Democratic Party and the right wing of the Republican Party. They are not equivalent. They are not equivalent by any stretch. But what is missing is an articulation of what it means to be a Democrat, not on the left, not on the center, but like what is a consensus version of what it means to be a Democrat? And I would like to see more people talk about that. I mean, I just think, I think the greater danger for candidates is not what ideology they choose if they truly believe that ideology, right? The danger is not being too lefty in your ideology or too centrist or too righty in your ideology.

The danger is saying what you think you need to say to get elected. So know what you believe and say it. Absolutely. And either it works or it doesn't work. and say it. Absolutely. And either it works or it doesn't work. But don't go down this road

where you're like, oh, well, the Twitter folks and the lefty folks say this is an important policy so I'm going to say this. Or, oh, no, I shouldn't say this

because this is too centrist or I don't want to be... Like, this has bedeviled Democrats for decades now. And in the past, it used to be they would say things and they'd go to the most

centrist moderate position because they wore, you know, school uniforms and all this fucking bullshit. Or, I mean, in 2008 it was it led a lot of them to vote for the Iraq War, right? And so it went the other way for a while. Now it could also go like, well, oh, well, the new fad is that AOC is very popular, so I must agree with everything AOC says. And if you do, that's great. But if you don't, say that.

And I was like, come on, man. Hickenlooper. You have to clean it up the next day. You had a brewery. You're a capitalist. It's okay. If Elizabeth Warren can go out there and say she's a capitalist, you can too. We believe in a free market. It's still America. And by the way, you look at what the left of the Democratic Party, of the Democratic policy debate is advocating. You know, look, people are using labels like Democratic Socialists now. I think that's fine. But like, they're talking about Medicare for all.

They're talking about universal college. What they're talking about is a strong social welfare state that protects people from the excesses of capitalism, something every liberal believes in. It's not, things have not, things have changed. The party has shifted to the left, and that's good. It means we can talk more honestly about how big the problems that are party has shifted to the left. But and that's good.

It means we can talk more honestly about how big the problems that are and the scale of the solutions we need. That's fine. But but you don't have to you don't have to ignore what you actually think. You believe in a free market economy. You believe in people starting businesses and competition. If you believe in that kind of a regulatory state, just fucking say it. So the question we don't ask enough is, you know, what do voters think of all this or even just Democratic voters? So new poll out this weekend over the weekend by the Des Moines

Register about taken of Democratic caucus goers in Iowa. And look, you know, we can talk about polls. Are they accurate? Horse race, blah, blah. You've heard us all say before. We should say the Des Moines Register poll is like, you know, this. Ann Seltzer is the gold standard in polling. She does the poll for them. Yes, it is the gold standard in polling, particularly in Iowa, right? They do national polls, too, but their Iowa polls are the gold standard. She nails it. So right now, Joe Biden is the most popular choice among potential Iowa caucus goers,

even though he's still not officially in the race. 27% of respondents said that Biden would be their first choice, while 25% said Bernie Sanders would be their top choice. Elizabeth Warren is next with 9%. Kamala Harris is at 7%. Beto O'Rourke is at 5%. And everyone else is between 0% and 3%. But aside from the horse race, which changes, it's early.

Some people are in, some people aren't. I thought one of the most interesting parts of the poll was this. If Biden decides not to run, 30% of those who name him as their first choice candidate would switch their allegiance to Bernie Sanders, whom they named as their second choice. So what, if anything, does this tell you guys about this debate about ideology in the party that Biden, the supposed like big moderate in the race, a third of his supporters would just jump on the Bernie bandwagon if he wasn't in there? Feels like it tells you that a lot of people would like to support someone they've heard of and that they like based on decades of having heard about them.

Like, what a radical idea. But it is in the coverage. Yeah, I know, I know. I mean, I would love to touch on the horse race for a minute after this, but you guys, if you want to dig into it. No, no, no. No, let's become what we despise. No, but the thing that's interesting about's become what we despise no but well it's no the thing that's interesting about iowa is a poll like this this early like yes it's bad to be at zero percent

but i also think no you hate to see it radical point but it's also bad to be ahead because iowa is not necessarily about winning or losing it's about expectations and exceeding expectations because there's always a couple tickets out of Iowa, so say the national press. So I would not be worried if I were in third, fourth place, if my name ID was growing, if people were responding to the things I was saying. It is a little scary to have an early, early poll that sets this really high floor for you as a candidate, like 25%, 30%, especially if 900 people jump into the race like it creates complications about how your win or loss or third place win or second place win will be received by

the national press corps and momentum that comes out of an iowa caucus result is earned media that no amount of money can buy not even howard schultz could purchase the value of a good iowa caucus result totally agree totally agree i thought a couple other interesting points in the poll of money can buy. Not even Howard Schultz could purchase the value of a good Iowa caucus result. Totally agree. Totally agree. I thought, a couple other interesting points in the poll, Lovett, I want you to respond to. 70% of respondents say they believe Biden's political views are neither too liberal nor

too conservative, but instead are about right. That's the highest percentage of any candidate tested. 44% think Bernie is too liberal. 48% says his views are about right um that's the highest percentage of anyone who thinks a candidate is too liberal um and then 43 of voters say that sanders time as a candidate has passed while 31 of voters say that of biden so on the uh people aligning with with biden's views i think that that he is he is on a Barack Obama motorcycle just

racing, racing to that nomination. I think is so, you know, there was that poll that came out that showed that, you know, on the Republican side, they identify as conservative Republicans on the Democratic side, they identify as Obama Democrats. And I think that there is a, look, Democrats are right now, I think this also speaks to why, by the way, why there's a lot of people who would shift from Biden to Bernie. I think there's a lot of Democrats out there who feel two things. One, they want to be Trump more than anything they've ever wanted in their lives. And two, they're not confident in their ability to make that decision. I've talked about this before, but I think there is a sense in which

we're going into the most important primary in our lives without being totally confident in how to make that decision. And so you think to yourself, if what I value, I value two things, right? I value obviously a president who will pursue the policies I care about, who will be a just and humane leader. But at the same time, also, the thing I care about even maybe more than that is making sure that Donald Trump is not reelected. And you think about that and you feel unsure about how to make that decision. You think, well, what is a who's somebody that what's a kind of politics that won two majorities in recent memory? Oh, it's Barack Obama. Right. And so you look at Joe Biden, you say, maybe he's too old. Maybe he's not as left as I am. But fuck, man, I trust him. I trust him to govern like Obama. And it feels safe to me. And so I can get on board with that.

Yeah. And look, I think for Bernie and for Biden, some of this probably has to do with, maybe a lot of it, we don't know for sure um very high name id almost universal name id everyone knows who bernie sanders and joe biden are at least the democrats who answer these polls um so that's part of it part of it is also it's not just name id because there are other democrats with very high name id who don't have widely favorable ratings right joe biden and bernie sanders like it or not are very well liked by a broad majority of Democrats. Poll after poll after poll show that. The Democratic Party, Democratic voters, they like Joe Biden, they approve him, and they like Bernie Sanders.

I know there's a lot of people who don't like Bernie Sanders, but that is the truth. That said, neither Bernie Sanders nor Joe Biden has really ever had to sustain any kind of period of negative campaigning against them. A lot of attacks. I don't think there's ever been an attack ad run against Bernie Sanders, I think. So, you know, when Joe Biden, if Joe Biden enters the race, he's going to face a lot of questions about his record, about his past. And we'll see how his numbers hold up then. Bernie Sanders, probably for the first time, will face a lot of questions and concerns about his record or anything else

in his past. And so we'll see how both of them hold up as the campaign begins. But I think it's not just name ID. It is they are broadly liked as well. They're all going to get hammered. I mean, anyone who gets in this race, like the APO researchers are coming and it's going to get brutal

and the issues we're going to be talking about in six months we will not have heard of today. That is very true. No one knew who Reverend Wright was for a very long time.

Issues, controversies, scandals. We're going to have 25 a day once this thing really starts. It's going to suck. Okay. When we come back, my interview with Recode Decodes,

Kara Swisher. With us today, the host of the Recode Decode podcast, contributing writer to the New York Times, friend of the pod, Kara Swisher. Kara, how are you? Good. How are you doing? Pretty good. So I know you spoke to Amy Klobuchar about this at South by Southwest this weekend. But what was your reaction to Elizabeth Warren's big proposal to break up Facebook, Amazon, and Google? Well, it was interesting because it was the topic of a couple interviews I did with Margaret Klobuchar talking about it a little bit.

I also talked to Marguerite Vestager, who is the EU competition chief, and she had some interesting things to say. I was surprised by her reaction, which was that what Elizabeth Warren was proposing was sort of a last resort, that there were other avenues to rein in tech. And I think that's where I am. I agree with her. I think taking them up is going to be nearly impossible to do. And so why even discuss the issue? But I do like that it brings up the discussion of what to do about these companies and how to regulate them properly. And I think there's all kinds of proposals like antitrust. There's a way to do it through antitrust, which Senator Klobuchar talked about. There's privacy regulations. There's all kinds of ways to rein it through antitrust, which Senator Plobuchar talked about. There's privacy regulations. There's all kinds of ways to rein in their bad impulses, essentially.

Yeah, so it seemed like there were two major parts of Warren's proposal, right? Like, one was, let's actually break up some of these companies so that, you know, unwind, basically, Facebook buying Instagram and WhatsApp and stuff like that. The other part of the proposal I thought was interesting was she has this idea to designate big platforms as platform utilities. So Google search has to be its own thing, right? Because it's something that connects third parties. What did you think of that part of the proposal? Well, you know, breaking up the ad business, that's what she's trying to do, is that these two companies, Facebook and Google, pretty much run the digital ad business.

They're a duopoly. And nobody else can breathe in that space. And so if you separate search from the business itself, they could do hands-length, you know, arms-length or whatever length they want to do business deals. And so everybody gets more of a chance. I just, you know, the way they, you know, Mark Zuckerberg, if you noticed last week, discussed the integration of WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook more closely, more tightly, which is his effort to sort of stave off this idea

that they could be, you know, separated in any way. And so they're building these platforms based on the fact that they integrate with each other and they share information and share data. It's very hard to imagine how hard it is, would be to do it, and how hard it would be to get any law passed in order to do it. And so that's the difficulty of doing it.

And so I think probably what she proposed is not going to happen. But what was interesting about her proposal was the idea that you designate certain companies larger and perhaps not subject to these immunity deals that they got many years ago in order to grow and let the little companies have more of a break. And I like that idea quite a bit. Yeah. So that's interesting. You think it's not just the political will to get something like this passed, but by Zuckerberg and some of these folks integrating the platforms more closely, it actually becomes, like, technically difficult to break them up? Is that what you're saying? No, I just think it's just, it's a really hard thing to do once things are put together. I mean, you can take anything apart, I guess, but they could, it could spend years in courts and, you know, legal fees and lawyers and everything else. You know, it just can go on and on and on. And so it's not, you know, one of the ways that I think a lot of this stuff can be

gotten to is the antitrust. And if you notice, just recently, Luna Kahn was put on a subcommittee on antitrust. That committee, Klobuchar is on antitrust. I think antitrust will be a very interesting way to go at this. And that's the way a lot of these issues have been, over the

many years, have been dealt with. And one of the things that's interesting is how do you change the idea of antitrust, which is something I talked a lot with Commissioner Vestager. Right now in Europe, it's competition is the rule. And here in this country, it's harm to consumers. And you can't really say these companies are harmful to consumers because, look, Amazon delivers those. Google gives you map results.

You know, soving consumer harm is really difficult, and so we might have to change the conception of antitrust going forward. And there's some big thinkers like Lena Kahn and others that are trying to maybe change the way we think about what antitrust is. Yeah, I thought

that was fascinating, because I interviewed Lena Kahn for this podcast they did, The Wilderness, about the Democratic Party. And she was talking about that conception that for so long, antitrust has been based on, you know, do these sort of big monopolies hurt consumers? And for companies like Amazon, yeah, stuff like that, like you would have to sort of change the conception. But how do you change that conception? What would be the argument against some of these monopolies if not for, you know, they're harming consumers? Well, they harm rivals, they harm competition. And I think absolutely the area is that, you know,

the way I look at it is essentially Google, Amazon, and Facebook are like three semi-trailers running down a three-lane highway, and nobody could get by them. And, you know, if you look at some of the statistics, startup creation is at its, I think, 30-year low, with some number like that, where there's not a lot of startups that can get around these companies. They either get bought by them, like, I mean, Vestager was talking about the idea, like, you have DeepMinds in Europe,

which was a great company, gets sucked up by Google. The Israeli companies get sucked up by Google. The good U.S. companies get sucked up by Facebook. And so the question is, should we allow these companies to buy more stuff? That's one thing. Should they be not allowed to buy anything else, essentially? Or should we figure out a way to make startups more, give them more advantages so that they don't get pushed down by these large companies, which is what's happening right now. So Warren's proposal doesn't directly take on privacy issues.

You know, she says that by breaking up Facebook, you know, the company would feel pressure from Instagram and WhatsApp to improve user experience and protect privacy. What steps, if any, do you think the government can or should take to regulate these companies in a way that would actually focus on privacy, better protect people's privacy, or do you think this is... Something called a privacy bill, a national privacy bill. They have in Europe, and it's GDPR and other, there's many others going on in Europe. They're much more stringent, and a lot of people feel they're too stringent. Some of them like the right to be put on. It really couldn't happen in

this country for a number of reasons, including the First Amendment. And then there's the California privacy bill, which is coming into place in 2020. And that was considered the strongest one, although some people think it doesn't have enough teeth. And so a national privacy bill, which we don't have, is something that should happen. I've talked to Representative Pelosi about this. I've talked to a number of senators. And there's a lot of appetite for creating a national privacy bill. And Senator Klobuchar also talked about this. And so that's what does a privacy bill look like? What is a privacy bill that doesn't advantage the big players? Because one of the things is, if it makes it too stringent, the only people that can afford to follow the rules of these privacy bills are giant companies

with their legions of lawyers. And so it pushes down startup innovation. And maybe you could have something to be more clever in how you figure out how to protect small companies and not allow the big ones to take this massive amounts of information and abuse them the way they've been doing. Another thing is just allowing 72 hours after a hack is knowing that you've been hacked. There's not even that law, essentially. And so things like that, there's all kinds of low-hanging fruit, but a national privacy bill really should be on the agenda for whoever wins the next election or who's thinking about it. And it's moving, probably it'll start in the House and then move to the Senate. There's a bunch of senators that are interested in the topic.

What did you make of your interview with Senator Klobuchar? How does she differ from Warren on some of these issues? And what other proposals did she have by way of regulating the tech industry? She's different. As you know, she's more centrist. She's more measured. I'd like to investigate as you know, she's more centrist. I mean, it's just so obvious. She's more measured. I'd like to investigate this before I make a decision about these companies.

I'd like to see, you know, that kind of stuff. And she's a prosecutor background, so she's going to do that. She's going to have that inclination. So she's not coming up with the big, bold ideas, I think, compared to Warren. I mean, that's pretty obvious. But she's much more considered. That said, she had a couple of things that she talked about. One was the idea that if they share data,

if these big companies share data, that they get taxed on this. And so that there's a taxing scheme for the way they use data. Other people think you should pay people for their data to be used, but hers was that as they use this data, it gets taxed at different points as they take advantage of it. And that was somewhat interesting. She had also, three days before, which nobody paid attention to, had called for a renewal of the FTC investigation of Google that had sort of gone nowhere in this country, that got a lot of traction in Europe, but went nowhere in this country. And so she called for that to be renewed.

And I think she's relying on the idea that you take the money that you tax these companies with and you put it into the FTC and other investigative organizations to look at these companies and to better regulate them. And so that was her idea, was that you take the money from taxing, make these agencies that are supposed to watch and watch out these companies much more robust. And that was the way she wanted to approach it. That's interesting. Which is smart. You know, she's a very canny legislator and gets a lot of stuff done.

So it seemed more, it may be duller, but it definitely is something that seems more doable. What do you make in general about the deterioration of the relationship between Democrats and Silicon Valley? and everything else. And she's not, you know, completely hostile the way Warren is. You know, Warren's coming in with the billionaires taxing and this and that, so she's not her favorite. And when she came to our code conference, I can tell you, they did not like her message in any way many years ago.

But I think it's just growing. I mean, I think people are still smarting from the 2000s. They're still angry about the 2016 election. One big tech executive said they're just still angry at us over that. And I said, it's a good thing to stay angry about. So I think that's part of it. And then on the Republican side, it is a little bipartisan. The Republicans are continuing to push the narrative that these companies are biased against them and against conservatives, which is a ridiculous thing.

But that's their feeling, is they don't trust big tech. They think it's run by a bunch of liberals, when in fact it's not. It's run by a lot of libertarians, for sure. But they're in that camp. So it's interesting the pressures on tech. Neither side likes them too much, I think. I was going to say, how much concern or worry is there among tech CEOs, tech leadership, about the political pressure and the political wind shifting? Because Republicans are suspicious for their reasons, Democrats are suspicious for their reasons. Do you get a sense that they're feeling the political heat? I think they are.

I think that, you know, they've kind of sat out. They were very behind Barack Obama, right? But they kind of sat out Hillary Clinton. They didn't, some did, a few different tech people did, but it wasn't an overwhelming rush to give Hillary Clinton money in her election. I think they're definitely aware that they've got to keep their heads down. Now, some of these companies are still doing really well, right? They're still, Facebook stock has been up recently.

You know, I think they're aware regulation is coming, and they're doing their best to hire as many lobbyists as possible. The biggest spending line growth in most of these companies are lobbyists. They've learned from the Microsoft example, which essentially ignored Washington, and then to its detriment, that they're not going to do that and they're going to buy the town like everybody else. And, you know, that's really the case. These companies aren't changing the world. They're not doing anything else.

They're just businesses in it to make money, and they're going to do anything they can to protect what they got. And so they'll be doing the block and tackling of figuring out who to lobby and who to get on their side. Senator Schumer's pretty pro-tech in a lot of ways. I think it's probably one of their friends and a bunch of others. But it's going to be a tough vote for them in terms of, especially if there's any other big hack or if there's something found out around the election

or if there's another data breach or whatever, another Cambridge Analytica kind of thing. So they have to be careful about how they roll out all these different technologies going forward. Which of the candidates are you most eager to talk to next, and who do you find interesting in the field right now? Oh, all of them, I think. You know, I've done an interview with Kamala Harris before. I'd like to talk to her again. I've talked to Cordia.

I've talked to a lot of them before, which is interesting. I've never talked to Beto or AOC. I think probably those two people would be great interviews because, you know, Beto hasn't really done a lot around tech, but Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez certainly has talked about this issue, and she was very prominent in pushing Amazon out of New York, and I'd love to talk about that. She's got a lot of thoughts about the morality of technology. That is really, I found very interesting and is voicing concerns of young people like herself about what technology does to our society. So she'd certainly be a really interesting person to talk to.

And I'd like to talk to Donald Trump, obviously. He wouldn't talk about, I'd love to talk about his tech use and how he looks at the tech industry. He's been very hostile to tech in a lot of ways, most especially Jeff Bezos. What's the most burning question you have for Donald Trump? What would you ask him if you

sat down with him? I want to know the mechanics of his tweeting. I really like his deal. I can't think of these things. I mean, I know he's got that weird little guy that tweets for him, Dan Favino, but I just would love to understand how he thinks about reaching out to people directly. And I'd like to know what he thinks about the Russians. And there's so many questions asked about whether he's got the Russians' use of technology.

I'd like a direct answer from him rather than just him screaming, no collusion. I'd like to understand really more about that. And I certainly would like to, you know, he's got a guy who's a tech guy running his campaign. And so, you know, that's what they're doing from targeting and stuff like that in this next election cycle. I think they've probably got a massive machine all focused on targeting, targeting voters and trying because they've got to get a small group of people to really vote if they want to win, because they've certainly alienated lots of people, and maybe they can keep them from voting and get their base out. They're going to

use a lot of technology to do so. Last question. You are, you know, of all journalists that I know, so good at getting a lot of these tech CEOs to get off their talking points, to draw them out. Everyone should go listen to your last interview with Mark Zuckerberg from months ago, which is just outstanding. How do you as an interviewer sort of approach, like what's your strategy when you sit down with some of these folks knowing that they have been coached, they have their consultants, they're told to stay on their talking points? Like how do you draw them out like that? Well, one advantage is I've known them for longer than you have, right? So I've known them before they were billionaires.

So I said, like, sort of on to them, like I knew what they were like before they became this. And so I have a good awareness of maybe some other weaknesses that you might not have, and so that helps me. And I don't mean weaknesses. It's more like I know them, and so when they start to spew the crap i'm like what huh like what did you just say and one of the things i think reporters tend to do a lot at that

they i don't mean as an adult reporters but they're very docile like they don't want to be disliked or or they're too difficult right or they're too like obnoxious and so you can either go one of two ways and so they they kind of around, a lot of them go around a question like, so Mark, some people think that in the election there may have been some issues by Facebook and there were some issues in Myanmar. You know what I mean? It goes on and on. And I just am like, how do you feel about people dying in Myanmar because of things you invented?

Like I go right to the question. Yeah. And I don't think that's a particular skill. It's just like I cut through the meandering question and go right to it. Or what do you think about this? Why did you do this? And I think it unnerves them because I don't come around sideways and I'm not particularly, I'm not impolite, but I'm certainly not polite.

It's a mix, but it's a place between them that I think works well. And I know, and I often know more than them that I think works well. And I know, and I often know more than them about other companies, right? And so I talk to everybody and they only talk to their little group, their little bubble group, whether it's Facebook or Google or wherever. And so when they say something, I can counter it probably better. I'm not smarter than them for sure. I'm not, I'm not even close to as smart as all these people are, but, are, but I just have a lot more information, I think. Well, you do a pretty outstanding job,

and that is some great advice for aspiring reporters and journalists. Cara, thank you for joining us. Me and John love it. That's how we do it. Yeah, you and John love it. Yeah, that's great. You can knock him off his game. Cara, thanks for joining us today. Appreciate it as always. We'll talk to you soon. Alright, thanks a lot. Bye. Thanks to Kara Swisher for joining us today. We'll talk

to you later. I'll tell you something, John. Can you use a South by South rest? Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Have a great week, everyone. Bye.