Pod Save America - “Veepstakes!”

Episode Date: May 4, 2020

The President steps up his efforts to blame China for the coronavirus, the Trump campaign is divided over its re-election message, Joe Biden responds to Tara Reade’s allegations, and the Vice Presidential selection process begins. Then Austan Goolsbee, one of Obama’s top economic advisors, talks to Jon F. about how to dig ourselves out of this crisis.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's pod, my conversation with one of President Obama's top economic advisors, Austin Goolsbee, about how to dig ourselves out of this mess. Before that, we'll talk about how the president is trying to rewrite the history of this pandemic. And we'll dive into the challenges that both the Trump and Biden campaigns are facing with just six months to go until Election Day.

But first, Lovett, how was the show this week? Great, Lovett, or leave it. Just six months to go until Election Day. Woo! But first, Lovett, how was the show this week? Great, Lovett, or leave it. We had Ed Helms, who played a game. We had Olivia Nutsy. Big get, big get. We had Olivia Nutsy, who talked about covering Trump from the briefing room. We played a game with preppers at home. And then I did the monologue on an app called Omegle where you pull random strangers

and then tell them a joke. And the good news is I saw zero penises. I was going to say I think it's called chat roulette. It's like chat roulette with fewer regulations. But the bad news is I didn't see any penises. You know?

Sorry I stepped on that joke the first time. Looks like we got an episode title. Also, if you're looking for a fun break from the news, check out Hall of Shame. Crickets podcast about some of the biggest scandals in sports history in their latest two part episode. Host Rachel and Regina talk about the career of Metta World Peace, the basketball player formerly known as Ron Artest. Wow. I haven't thought about that in a long time. They do the whole Malice at the Palace. It's a great one.

Yeah. Listen and subscribe to Hall of Shame now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. I will say those Hall of Shame episodes pair nicely with the Jordan documentary, which is the only thing I look forward to on a weekly basis now. There you go. There you go. All right. Let's get to the news. As the United States nears 70,000 deaths and well over a million cases of COVID-19, the president could be preparing a national testing and contacts tracing strategy that would allow many of us to safely leave our homes. He is not. Instead, he is working overtime to try to blame his shitty response to the pandemic on China. During a Fox News town hall on Sunday night, Trump echoed

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's assertion that the coronavirus originated in a Wuhan laboratory, saying, quote, I think they made a horrible mistake and they didn't want to admit it. So, Tommy, Pompeo said he's seen enormous evidence that this is true. Last night, the Associated Press got a Department of Homeland Security report that said Chinese leaders, quote, intentionally concealed the severity of the pandemic in order to stock up on medical supplies for themselves. First question, how do we know whether to believe any of these people? Enormous evidence, like a huge box full of, what does that even mean? So I think it helps to just talk about how like the blame China story has evolved over time,

right? So version one was the Tom Cotton version and some others on the far right that suggested that the coronavirus was created by the Chinese as a bioweapon. And I think pretty much every scientist agrees that that is nonsense. They believe that this virus jumped from a bat to a human or a bat to another animal and then to humans. We get a lot of deadly viruses from bats like Ebola and SARS, so it makes sense. That's why labs like the one in Wuhan collect samples from wild bats and they do research on them. They want to find the next coronavirus like COVID. So version two is Pompeo and Trump saying scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were studying COVID. Somehow the virus escapes from the lab. Maybe a technician got it. Maybe there was an improper waste disposal. Who knows? So when it comes to that theory, unfortunately,

it is not an absurd one. In 2015, the U.S. military accidentally shipped live anthrax spores instead of dead ones to other labs for testing. Oops, big mistake. Yeah, big whoops. In 2004, Chinese researchers researching SARS got infected because of their work. And then we also know that the Washington Post reported on leaked State Department cables that warned, I think, 2018 that the Wuhan lab had poor safety standards. It's worth noting that the Trump administration did nothing to address the security concerns that they were capeling back. And so version three of the of the story of the Blaine China story is that China concealed the severity of this virus to stock up on medical supplies themselves before the rest

of us could. Here's the key point. Show us some fucking evidence, right? Because so far we have seen nothing. Trump said it is my opinion that they made a mistake and they tried to cover it up. On ABC, Pompeo said China has a history of infecting the world. What does that mean? He also. Yeah, what the fuck? It's gross. It's a gross thing to say. He also had to admit that the intelligence community hasn't yet concluded that this virus leaked from a lab. And there are

all these reports that the White House is directing the intelligence community to find links between the virus and the lab. And that's dangerous because when you're cherry picking intelligence to suggest, say, Iraq has WMD, you can get to a bad place, right? We should collect all the evidence, then come to a conclusion. So I'm not saying any of this to defend the Chinese government, but if your concern is really like lab safety, and there are a lot of reasons to be concerned, as we just discussed, this would be a good time to increase global cooperation and trust with the Chinese and try to address that underlying concern. But for Trump, this is about raging on China. It's about domestic politics. It's about pretending they're tough on Xi Jinping when we all know that Trump

was saying she had done a great job. So this is just it's spin. And like, I hope the press will say to them, show us the evidence before we parrot your claims, because we just went through this time with Qasem Soleimani, where they said that he this this Iranian general was an imminent threat. He was going to take out U.S. service members on bases in Iraq. And so they assassinated him and then they abandoned that pretext a couple weeks later. So we know that they lie about intelligence all the time. So, Lovett, let's say the virus did start in a Chinese lab and the Chinese did conceal the severity of the outbreak. How does that change Trump's culpability for the US response?

Because, you know, as Tommy just pointed out, Trump received warnings that the Wuhan lab had massive security issues. I think there's like two questions. One, what mistakes did China make around coronavirus, right? Did it accidentally come from a lab? Did they conceal the spread to protect themselves or because they hope they could deal with it

without an international scorn or controversy. And then there's the question of why are they doing this? You know, in the middle of a fire, you don't turn to another firefighter and say, you really fucked up this fire. And I want you to know when this fire is out, I'm coming for you. I'm going to blame you. I'm going to make sure you pay for this fire. Backdraft two. Backdraft two, back to the draft. And so we know why they're doing this. Trump is not doing this because he has concerns about international lab safety. He's not doing this because he wants to make sure that China is held responsible in the long term for their poor practices here.

No, he's doing it because he wants a scapegoat. He needs a scapegoat. And he cares more about protecting his own image in the fighting of this virus than doing what's best to combat this virus right now. Because what Tommy said is true. If there is a problem in lab safety in China, well, that would be something we want to work with them on. That'd be something we want to talk about. What went wrong? What are the best practices we need to implement to make sure something like this doesn't happen again? But that's never what they're talking about. It's about punishment. It's about retribution. It is about having a

talking point. There was a memo that went out last week or the week before last or six months ago. I don't know because time has stopped. But it said that basically a Republican strategist was advising Republicans when it comes to coronavirus, don't defend Trump, blame China. Right. Don't get stuck on defending Trump's bad decisions and bad behavior. Focus on China because they think that's a winning issue. And Trump understands that. Tom Cotton understands that. Mitch McConnell understands that. And so that's why Pompeo understands that. Tom Cotton understands that. Mitch McConnell understands that. And so that's why Pompeo understands that. I mean, it seems like there's a pretty simple middle ground here, which is blame Trump for believing China, because like how many warnings did Donald Trump have from our own intelligence agencies that China was possibly concealing the severity of the outbreak.

Even I think Joe Biden in a debate warned Trump not to listen to the Chinese and everything they were saying about this. You know, also Trump's National Security Council had intelligence in January that predicted the virus would spread throughout the U.S. And they were suggesting keeping people home and shutting down cities in the winter, something Trump refused to do until March. And then he had all kinds of warnings like that. Alex Azar, the Health and Human Services Secretary, said to Trump, this is going to be horrible. This could be a great pandemic. Trump

called him alarmist. So it's like, I mean, he wants to just put the focus on China. And part of this is there's like a parallel track where he's trying to get people to forget that he ignored warning after warning. All Trump says when you ask him, either at these press briefings or in these interviews about this, is he said, oh, I had the travel ban. I put the travel ban in place from China. And he acts like as soon as he put the travel ban in place, everything went swimmingly since then. Right. Yeah. It's a bit like his position is a bit like China is a dangerous menace and they've defeated me. Right. Yeah. I thought, yeah, I thought you were that you were tough on China, that you were strongly tough and toughly strong on China. And listen, like, I don't think any Democrat should go down this

rabbit hole, but like Wuhan is a city in a province in China. And there's a lot of reporting that suggests like to the extent that there was a government cover up early on, it was the local government. And then when the feds came in from Beijing and they saw how badly they were handling it, they cracked down, they kicked the shit out of them, made them apologize. And so, look, if there were a lab accident in Sarasota, Florida, because of some loose regulations from Ron DeSantis, I think we would all be pretty pissed off if the entire country was blamed for it. And there's just there's a better way to manage China if you really think there are huge threats to the to the planet. And there's a better way to

deal with actual lab safety concerns. I also do think like a lot of the sort of foreign policy minded senators, Democratic senators have been asked about this. And I think they've all had pretty reasonable responses, which are there are serious questions to be asked about what happened and China's behavior in the outbreak of this pandemic. But that's not why they're asking the question. And we should remember that they're scapegoating the WHO and they're scapegoating China because they're embarrassed by their own performance. So I do think I do think people are striking the right balance. So Washington Post reported that senior U.S. officials are beginning to explore proposals

for punishing or demanding financial compensation from China for its handling of the pandemic. Tell me, what are the potential consequences of punishing China for hiding or downplaying the severity of this pandemic? I mean, look, a couple of things. Like one, you know, it would be useful to be correct before we start alleging that the Chinese are somehow responsible in some way for creating a world ending pandemic. So on top of that, they own, I think, a trillion dollars of U.S. treasury bonds that if they started dumping those, it could create some challenges for our own economy, for interest rates over here. We have to work with them in any number of places at the G20, at the U.N. to get things done. Like, I don't I don't

think we want to escalate a fight with a country that is potentially going to be the place where covid vaccines are manufactured one day. Like there's a lot of reasons you could see this spinning out in a bad direction. And again, that's not a suggestion that we coddle China or we hide the truth. It's just that this this war of words is stupid and self-defeating. And it's not backed up with an actual strategy where we are going to our allies, whether it's regionally with Japan and South Korea and others, or to Europe, and we're bringing all those groups together as a way to push back on China collectively. We're just pissing off everybody at once and seeing where the chips land. So what is the goal? What is the goal? Like, what are you trying to achieve

by creating punishment around the outbreak of the virus against China? What is your actual agenda? Is it because you're so worried about another pandemic that you're trying to disincentivize bad practices around future diseases? Is that really the goal?

Are you trying to extract concessions on other issues around trade or on intellectual property? Are you trying to just win a political fight at home? What is the goal of having this fight with China right now? And I have seen no one explain what that goal is. No one. I was just going to say, to your point, Lovett, about your analogy about putting out the fire. And you said this, Tommy, China could develop the vaccine very easily. We are also very dependent on China for pharmaceuticals. A lot of medical equipment comes from China, right? Like, as we are battling a global pandemic, we need more global cooperation than ever before, right? And we can wait until after the pandemic's over and try to sort things

out about who caused what and who's at fault and who's responsible. But as we are as we are in a race for a vaccine that could save millions of lives, you probably want to cooperate with everyone else in the world right now. I mean, look, the U.S. like one last thing, just the U.S. under Trump has left a gaping hole for international leadership. China's tried to step into that hole. OK. And instead of and in a moment where China's reputation is faltering, where people are looking to blame China for this virus and China's trying to make up for that by sharing health supplies and trying to prove that they belong sort of as this international leader on a world stage. America has it could either step up and demonstrate it's like its historic role in leading a global effort. But because Trump is unable to do that- Don't think that's going to happen.

The only option is to try to tear China down, to try to make sure China doesn't supplant the United States on the world stage because they don't know how to do what the United States used to do in a crisis like this. Listen, I would just say to Trump, let's start building the gigantic factories we will need to manufacture a vaccine at some point before we start pissing off the countries that have that capability today. That would be my vote. Yeah. Yeah. Good, good, good advice. All right. So we are now less than six months out from Election Day. I want to talk about the challenges that both campaigns are facing. Let's start with the Trump campaign. There was a Washington Post story over the weekend that

the Trump folks are still struggling to find a message now that we're headed towards depression levels of unemployment. And their own internal Republican National Committee polling shows the president trailing Joe Biden in the battleground states 45 to 48 percent. Trump's strategist told the Post that their only shot at winning is driving up Biden's unfavorable numbers. But they're also divided over just how to do that. Tommy, what are they struggling with here? What's the internal debate? The debate is basically, do we use a bazooka or a flamethrower to scorch the earth? I mean, they know like that's their only path to victory is destroying Joe Biden. They want to drive down enthusiasm among Democrats, among young people, among suburban women. And the question is how?

And the Washington Post reported that some people in the campaign, like Brad Parscale, the campaign manager, essentially want to say Joe Biden is senile. And it seems like Donald Trump himself is on board with that strategy because he is calling him Sleepy Joe. He constantly suggests that Biden doesn't write his own statements or tweets. They talk about him hiding, blah, blah, blah. The Washington Post reported that Kellyanne Conway in particular is worried that Trump is already losing ground with seniors and they worry that mocking Biden's age could exacerbate that problem. I would respectfully suggest to Kellyanne that the bigger problem with seniors that they might have is rushing to reopen the economy and thus maybe killing them. I would deal with that first. But, you know, they're also debating the strategy about whether to call Biden soft on China and,

you know, the super PACs and others have put big money behind that. And so we'll see if it will work. It seems like a bit more of a bank shot to me. So whatever they're going to do, it's going to be pretty gross. I mean, just an aside here, there are a lot of folks on the left, including in the progressive media, who were circulating edited videos and just asserting that Joe Biden was in cognitive decline. And I would just congratulate all of them for helping lay the groundwork for these attacks, even though we've still seen no evidence that Joe Biden is in cognitive decline in any way. And reportedly, when he jumped on the phone with Donald Trump, Trump remarked to his own team, huh, that guy didn't seem senile at all. So, you know, great work, everybody. Trump was like, maybe Twitter isn't real life. No, I mean, I think that raising mental fitness in a race against Donald Trump for president is quite a strategy. I would add that as well. No, it's interesting in that piece.

You know, the other debate they're having is, does Trump wait until the convention or not to start going hard negative? Which is funny that like now basically Trump is not going hard negative. I mean, I guess he doesn't spend like every day tweeting about Joe Biden like he did Hillary Clinton. So I guess like more could be to come. They're also trying to debate like what kind of ads to run when. And this week, apparently they're spending a lot of money promoting Trump's response to the pandemic, which most people think is just to sort of please Trump because they don't think that's going to do any good because they don't think that's really going to resonate with people. He has handled this in a really good way. So it is

kind of interesting watching them just sort of like struggle for response. Love it. One Trump advisor told the Post, quote, one of the reasons we won in 2016 is because so many people hated Hillary Clinton. I'm not sure people hate Biden that much. What did you think of that? And how would you compare sort of the 2016 dynamics with 2020? Yeah, it's interesting. First of all, I love Kellyanne Conway, you know, putting on her white gloves and saying, like, I am not comfortable with what some of these ads, what Brad Parscale and these hooligans are trying to do to Joe Biden. I honestly I think it's bad strategy,

but it just makes me uncomfortable. So, yeah, OK, Kellyanne, I do wonder if a little bit was just about saying just sort of sending a red flag to all the outside groups saying destroy Joe Biden. Now we need millions of dollars on the air to destroy Joe Biden. A million dollars praising Trump on the coronavirus up against hundreds of billions of dollars of free media about how bad he's bungled it, I don't think that'll move the needle. It's interesting, the Hillary Biden comparison, because, you know, we've talked about this. the nominee is that in a fractured media environment, it is very difficult for someone to gain the kind of reputation and name ID and kind of deep knowledge that Joe Biden has. He's from before when we made people as famous as Joe Biden. So was Hillary Clinton. The difference between Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton is that Hillary Clinton stepped into this role as Democratic

nominee with 30 years of attacks against her that had really made her kind of a vilified figure. I mean, I think the greatest trick Republicans ever pulled was pretending to like her for the four years she was Secretary of State. So Biden comes in with that inherent advantage, and they're finding it really, really difficult to chip away at that. And I think the pandemic makes their job that much harder because the kind of relentless media coverage Donald Trump relies on to poison the well is just not available to him right now. Brad Parscale in one of these pieces points out himself that Donald Trump is not really attacking Joe Biden from the briefing room. And Donald Trump, without that podium, without that rally podium to kind of start throwing these out there, he's reduced to Twitter. But we've been living with

Donald Trump tweets now for four years, and they just don't carry the punch they once did. Yeah, I mean, I think there's two major differences. One is the candidates, as you point out, and Hillary obviously had 30 years of attacks that she brought to the race. The other big one is the political dynamics of the race. Donald Trump is not the challenger anymore. Donald Trump is the incumbent. As the challenger, Donald Trump is very good at, you know, trying to burn down the barn and talk about everything that politicians in Washington and government are fucking up. Now he is the government in the middle of the worst crisis of our lifetime, and he is fucking up. And it is very like he knows and his team knows that they have to make this this race about Joe Biden. It is very hard to make a race about Joe Biden, about any Democratic challenger at a time where the incumbent is presiding over the worst crisis in our lifetime.

This is going to be hard to make it anything but a referendum. They'll try, but it's hard to do that. This was in The Times piece. I just want to read this because it was such a it's such an obvious moment for Trump. In the phone call last week, for instance, Mr. Trump demanded to know how it was possible that a campaign that had been projecting strength and invincibility for two years was pulling behind a candidate he viewed as extremely weak and at the moment largely invisible. The answer, according to nearly a dozen people, they talked to a dozen people to prove this, lies in the factors both beyond the president's control, such as the economic downturn and the spread of the coronavirus, as well as those in his control, namely his playing down of the coronavirus for several weeks, followed by his own performance in the briefing room.

It's like, so why have your numbers gone down? Why are you in trouble? There's a great depression. There's a massive pandemic and you've mismanaged it. It's not that complicated. The best part of that story was he was so mad at Brad Parscale, his campaign manager, when he showed him bad polling in swing states that he threatened to sue them. He threatened to sue his campaign manager for bad polling. And then the guy had to come back a couple of days later from his mansion in Tampa with new polls that he'd cooked to show everything had improved. And then they patched the shit up.

It's like, of course, no wonder he played down the coronavirus response. The guy can't look at evidence that is bad for him without lashing out. I also do just, I just love the idea that Trump's looking at these polling and his presidency is on the line. There's so many people dead and sick. The country is in crisis. And he's like, I got to get back pay from this Brad Parscale guy. He's not earning that paycheck. I mean, I assume it was the kind of thing where he said I could see like lashing out

in the way that he does. But it's still it's still pretty amazing. Pretty amazing. What are what are some of the warning signs for both candidates in this leaked RNC polling? Because the leak was quite extensive in the in the post story. I mean, look, there is some evidence in the post story that the China attacks could work. They found that I think 51 percent of voters in 17 swing states blame China the most for the coronavirus. Twenty four percent blame Trump so that, you know, you could combine that with trying to call Biden soft on China and maybe put something together. I also think that there's

some clear evidence that people don't know a lot about Biden besides that he was Obama's VP. And, you know, that goes a long way, but you still risk getting defined. Voters also overwhelmingly think that Trump is not your average politician. They think of him as an outsider. Normally, I would think, oh, that's really beneficial for Trump. I wonder if your average politician starts to sound pretty good in the middle of a botched pandemic. You know, also this whole thing where they're trying to suggest that Biden is senile, like 45 percent saw Biden as more weak and confused. 44% saw Trump that way.

So it's basically split. I mean, split along partisan lines. So, you know, maybe a silly line to go. I love that question. I love that question. Like who's more weak and confused? It's a tie. So that's our baseline.

So that's our baseline. I do think like basically the poll from the RNC kind of gives you the contours of the race. And it's pretty simple. Trump is an outsider, better at getting things done, better handling the economy. Voters say Biden better understands average people, more honest, more compassionate, calm and committed to making health care more affordable. So you see it like Biden. And he wins on intelligence and competence, which is something for a strategy based around his mental acuity. Right. Yeah. So you sort of see that. But like in there, you see Biden's strengths and you see Trump's strengths and then you see their weaknesses and you see that that's going to, Trump built the economy and we're going to need him to bring the economy back because their whole idea is you make the coronavirus something that happened to Trump,

not something by his failures Trump did to the country. Yeah, I will just end on reiterating Tommy's point. Like in any other race, the fact that Trump is seen as not your average politician and Biden is seen as a normal, typical politician would be like the biggest flashing red light for me if I was in the Biden campaign. I do think like they're never going to make Joe Biden not your average politician on the Biden campaign. And Trump's always going to be viewed a little bit as an outsider. And so I think what you lean into if you're the Biden campaign is we tried not your average politician for four years, and look where it got us.

Don't you want someone in this moment who is competent, who is intelligent, who is caring, who is honest, that is going to be there and help guide the country through one of its worst periods? And I imagine that they'll probably lean into that to sort of make that contrast between the two candidates work for Joe Biden. All right, let's talk more about Joe Biden's campaign. On Friday, the former vice president addressed the Tara Reid allegations for the first time during an interview on Morning Joe. Mika Brzezinski asked him if he had sexually assaulted Reid and Biden said, quote, No, it is not true. I am saying unequivocally it

never, ever happened. And it didn't. It never happened. He then went on to say, quote, From the very beginning, I've said believing women means taking the woman's claim seriously when she steps forward and then vet it. Look into it. That's true in this case as well. Women have a right to be heard and the press should rigorously investigate claims they make. I'll always uphold that principle, but in the end, in every case, the truth is what matters. And in this case, the truth is the claims are false. Tommy, what'd you think of the interview and the accompanying medium piece that Biden wrote? So look, I mean, the interview, it was painful to watch. I mean, look, similar disclosure to you and Dan offered was painful to watch. I mean, look, similar,

similar disclosure to you and that you and Dan offered last week, I obviously worked for the Obama Biden administration. I donated money to Biden after Bernie dropped out, and it was clear he's going to be the nominee. It was also like pretty critical of the campaign during the primary, not because I thought he was a bad or cruel person. My experience was was the opposite, that he could be a demanding boss. But you heard all these stories about him going out of his way to be kind to people, right? So I mean, that's just a way of saying it's why reading these allegations has been really hard. And you guys probably heard the interview I did with Amanda Marcotte back in early April. And I wanted to talk to her because she had really done a lot of work to vet and report

on these pieces. And I'm glad we got to this next phase where people got to hear from Biden directly on camera, you know, in an extensive interview. My hope is that it's not the last interview and that he asks about the allegations again and continues to address them directly. There were some questions that he wasn't asked that I would have liked to have heard him address because it is a complicated story. I think we're going to talk more about this in a second. I'm a little surprised that the conversation was so focused on this document that may or may not be in various archives, either in the Senate or the University of Delaware,

that Tara Reid filed that actually doesn't mention the assault allegations. So I'm worried that there might be this big reporting process or fight over an archive that may or may not include a document that doesn't actually prove the core allegation. But you know, look, I'm glad he was on camera addressing it. It didn't make it any easier to watch. You know, that was my that was my feeling. Love it. What do you think? So there's there's really there's like, I think, two possibilities here, right?

Either the allegation Tara Reid is alleging is true or the allegation Tara Reid is alleging is false. If the allegation is true, I hope we will see more corroboration from reporting, more journalism, more efforts to sort of find backing for her claim. If the allegation is false, I do not know what Joe Biden should be saying differently than what he said to Mika and Joe. If he believes the allegation is false, if what he is saying is, to the best of his knowledge, unequivocally true, then I think he's saying the right things, right? He is putting it in the context of what he believes about in general, hearing allegations of abuse, hearing women out, making sure those

stories are told. I think he consistently in that conversation said, I'm not going to question Tara Reid's motivations. I'm not going to attack Tara Reid. I'm not going to go after her. I'm going to simply state what I believe to be true in the facts of this case. And, you know, for someone in the position that he's in, I'm not sure what he should be doing differently. There is this question about opening up the records. But, you know, to Tommy's point, we now know, based on the AP and a few other interviews Tara Reid has given over the past couple of months, that it does not seem that even if there is a document, it will allege harassment, let alone assault. Right. She said that there may be a document that references her being uncomfortable and references some kind of retaliation.

Among the things we know, we know that at a certain point, she was in charge of the interns and then she wasn't anymore, right? And then she left the job, right? Like beyond that, it's been very hard to drill down exactly what happened in part because her story has shifted several times throughout this process. That's not to say that her allegation shouldn't be treated seriously. It's not to say that her allegation isn't true. But, you know, I'm looking at this and just thinking, like, how has Biden reacted to this? Is he reacting in a way that I believe

is appropriate if he's going to deny the allegation? And I think I think that they are doing their best with a really, really difficult moral situation and a really difficult political situation. Yeah, you know, I agree with you. Like, I think there's a temptation when, you know, you have an interview with Biden and probably the same thing will happen if Tara Reid does an interview, which she was supposed to do one on Fox reportedly on Sunday. She canceled. She said she's going to do one in the future. There's a tendency, you know, to sort of judge the performance of the interview. But it really does come down to, at least on the Biden front, if the allegations are false, then you're right.

Then Biden said what he needed to say. And I don't know what else he would have done, right? Like Brett Kavanaugh went before the Senate and started screaming and yelling and crying and accusing everyone of a plot against him and his political enemies out to get him and all that bullshit and then stonewalled an investigation every step of the way. Joe Biden denied the allegations, said that women should still be heard. It should come forward. But that allegation should be vetted, pointed to the reporting and then sort of welcomed more investigation and wanted to get all these

records released. So I'm not sure what more you do at that point. We should talk about these records. You know, in his Medium piece, Biden wrote, there's a clear critical part of this story that can be verified. The former staffer said she filed a complaint back in 1993. She does not have a record of this. The papers from my Senate years that I donated to the University of Delaware do not contain personnel files. There's only one place a complaint this kind could be the National Archives. I'm requesting the secretary of the Senate ask the archives to identify any record of the complaint she alleged she filed and make available to the press any such document. So then a number of outlets and individuals, including the New York Times and

Washington Post editorial boards, called on Biden to open his records at the University of Delaware anyway, even though that's not where personnel complaints like that go. And then this morning, the secretary of the Senate wrote back and said they cannot legally disclose any records if they in fact exist. So I don't know where this leaves us. Like it's sort of my view that the Times and Post editorial boards like I don't quite understand calling for opening up records in Delaware where just personnel records wouldn't exist there anyway. And it does seem to me like, you know, a fishing expedition that if a bunch of reporters just looked at all of his Delaware papers, it's just going to be fodder for a whole bunch of things that are 100 percent unrelated to anything that has to do with Tara Reid or any kind of sexual harassment or assault allegations. Yeah, I mean, listen, I spent a lot of time reading and digging into this in preparation

for my interview with Amanda. And, you know, it just drove home how hard it can be to follow this story and how precise you need to be, because really there's two different allegations. There's an allegation of harassment, sexual harassment while working in the office. And in some follow-up interviews, Tara Reid has specifically said, you know, it's more the people around Biden that retaliated to her or created this environment, right? So that's one distinct thing. And then there's the newer allegation of sexual assault. And I think it's holding those two things as distinct is important because there's also a lot of evidence of corroboration of people she told about these incidents at the time of the harassment allegations or the assault allegations.

And I bring that up just because now the New York Times and other editorial pages have started this bigger conversation about an archive that may or may not contain a document that wouldn't prove the assault allegation, even if it were there. And it just feels like... Or maybe the harassment allegation even. Well, I mean, look, yeah, look, that might be, it may not say sexual harassment, but it might describe things that you would, I think, reasonably believe are sexual harassment, right? So I don't want to get wrapped around that axle. But I do think like, it's probably not helpful for those who really want to get to the bottom of what evidence exists where to spark a bigger conversation about an archive that is likely to contain bill introductions and speeches and almost nothing about personnel and that we should probably focus our efforts on digging into other places. But as you know, John, like

now you have people coming out and saying, well, we can't even give over these records if they exist. So it just sets up a challenging, potentially unsatisfying effort to find facts. And maybe that just speaks to the fact that it's very hard to prove or disprove something that may or may not have happened in 1993. Yeah, I do think I think that's right. Look, this is also it's a heated political environment. And one lesson I think of and I I'm not comparing, I just want to be very clear that I'm not comparing this allegation to the substance of these issues, but just the political conversation around them. You look at Benghazi, you look at emails.

And one of the great cudgels that Republicans had through both of those controversies was not a set of facts they were trying to get to, but the accusation that there was some reservoir of information, some key place yet uncovered, some set of facts that are being hidden that they could press for again and again and again for years. We need the truth on by Ghazi. We need the truth about the emails. And it was a sort of an un an unwinnable fight, right? Because Hillary goes before the committee and speaks for 12 hours. That's not good enough. They release a bunch of the emails. That's not good enough. And so what I think that the Republican operatives aided by

editorial boards creating a sort of an unwinnable political problem of the answer is somewhere deep in some archive, I do think is really politically dangerous and worth putting in the context of a campaign against someone, Donald Trump, who has released nothing, given no inch and faces what two dozen credible allegations of harassment and misconduct and abuse women he has launched endless broadsides against for years and years and years. Yeah. And, you know, Tommy, you pointed this out, too. But what makes this difficult is as and it's been difficult for a lot of the reporters who've done a lot of the serious investigation into the story is the fact that there are these two different allegations

and sort of two different stories she's told about these different allegations. two different allegations and sort of two different stories she's told about these different allegations. And it's not simply that for a while she talked about the sexual harassment and then decided to start talking about an alleged assault as well. It's that while she was talking about the sexual harassment part of it, she said things that seemed to contradict the possibility that there was also a sexual assault. The AP reported over the weekend that when they interviewed Tara Reid in April of 2019, and she told them about Biden rubbing her shoulders and playing with her hair, she also said this about Biden, quote, I wasn't scared of him that he was going to take me in a room or anything. It wasn't that kind of vibe. And so it is I think

it's hard for a lot of these reporters who may have interviewed her in 2019 and then now are interviewing her again just to sort of uncover what's going on here, especially since, as has also been reported, she told other people in her life or or other people say she told them throughout her life the story about the assault as well. Right. So there's a lot of different things going on here. Yeah. Look,

just to be clear, like I want to know all of the facts, even if they are incredibly painful and, and, and show the worst to be true. I want to know all of the facts. And I do not in any way criticize Tara Reed for telling her story in the time and place of her choosing. I do not blame her

in any way. What I'm trying to talk about is the fact that as you search through the reporting, you end up having to read between the lines of what the journalist trying to get to the bottom of the facts is saying about corroboration at the time or a conversation with Tara Reid's neighbor or a conversation with Tara Reid's brother. And it just gets very complicated. And, you know, like all of us, I think, are doing the best. Like we're a liberal podcast. We've brought this up several times now because we care about these allegations and figuring out the truth as best we can. And, you know, I want to make sure like my hope is that the media narrative will be focused on digging into the places where those facts can be found and not become a like Lovett said, like an email style fishing expedition that gets hijacked by the Trump campaign to open up a bunch of notes about policy from the 80s that Biden put forward that they then weaponize. Yep, I think that's right.

I'll just say one more thing about this. And without speaking to this specifically, you know, I've watched Ronan report on a huge number of sexual harassment allegations, sexual abuse allegations, rape allegations. He has done it against Democrats. He has done it against Republicans, a bunch of different prominent people. And what I have just learned in observing him over time is it is incredibly difficult, painstaking work that involves an incredible amount of time, which is why there's been real value in the way that he's done this reporting in

taking a story and unpacking it really carefully over time, gathering a huge amount of information, huge amount of corroborating information, all the witnesses he could possibly gather. And then you tell the story from beginning to end in one place so that everyone has, and then fact check it, right? And then everyone has an incredibly strong, consistent basis of fact from which to draw conclusions, think about next steps. And I think one additional way

in which this has been incredibly difficult for people of good faith to process is that the allegation has been meted out through various publications over the course of a long period of time, which introduced inconsistencies, confusions, questions about specific uses of words, timelines, corroboration, witnesses, and all of that means we're having an incredibly important discussion. The stakes are

total in terms of the election. And I think we're doing it from a broad and inconsistent and confused set of facts, which just makes it all the more challenging. It is like Rebecca Tracer's piece on the Tara Reid allegations that you and Dan talked about last week was so good and so well done and so prescient because it was just unbelievably painful over the weekend to see Gretchen Whitmer, who is an assault survivor, have to take a bunch of questions about Tara Reid's allegations and whether she believes Joe Biden and like talk about how it's reopening wounds. And like she doesn't feel like she's being allowed to move on for the conversation. It's just, you know,

it is sad. And and, you know, one of the one of the things a lot of that Rebecca Traster has been talking about that a lot of really smart writers have talked about is how these allegations ultimately fall to women to process, women to deal with, women to explain, women to figure out. And it just speaks to how difficult and complicated and sad a situation this is for people who want to who believe two things that, A, we must defeat Donald Trump and B, we must address these allegations and take them really seriously. Yeah, I agree. All right. The other big development in the Biden campaign last week was the announcement of a vetting committee for potential vice presidential picks, a process that Biden said would be finished by July. The former vice president said they're looking seriously at over a dozen women. And the rumored shortlist is said to include Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar,

Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams and Gretchen Whitmer, among others. We will speculate endlessly about this process from now through July. This conversation will just be the tip of the iceberg. Tommy, let's start by talking about how much we can, and you can separate out sort of substance, governing, and politics. How much does the VP pick matter and sort of in what ways? So starting with governing, I mean, it's not a secret that Joe Biden is older than a lot of presidential candidates, right? Right. Like he is openly ruminated about how maybe he is more of a

transition period to a new generation of politicians. So in that sense, the person who you choose to be your vice president and to govern with you for at least four years is enormously important, far more important than past vice presidential picks, because I don't know that we've ever heard a presidential candidate talk about a one-term pledge like this. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't remember one. So in that sense, it's enormously significant. I also think that a lot of people will look at these picks and try to use them as tea leaves for how Biden may or may not govern. Right. Like if you choose Elizabeth Warren, that is a signal to a lot of progressives that progressive ideas will be heard on a daily basis, maybe hourly basis in the Oval Office, that there will be someone in that Oval Office fighting for them in a way that they really like, then you have some of the more moderate voices and you might hear progressive groups feel like they're a little less enthused, right? Like an Amy Klobuchar is seen as more of a moderate voice who won't necessarily be fighting

for some of the things they care about. Politically, I think it's probably one of the most overthought decisions in the history of politics ever. You know what I mean? Like, I just I can't imagine anyone on this list or not on this list that would win or lose you the presidency. I think there was a poll over the weekend where I think a quarter of voters really care about the VP pick, maybe on the margins. Right. You can win or lose states like if Gretchen Whitmer gets you over the hump in Michigan, that's worth it. That's a big deal. That's an important state that we have to win. Stacey Abrams is able to inspire African-American voters and young voters and turn them out in bigger numbers in 2016. That's a big deal. That'll get you over the hump and maybe win. But I think it's impossible to

predict the future. So like ultimately, Biden's going to have to do what Obama did, which is just talk to a bunch of folks, figure out who he's the most comfortable with and make a choice. And they'll vet those people in advance and they'll try to make sure that there's nothing like politically explosive in their history that hasn't come out yet. And I don't think that it will. But look, you know, I don't I don't really know how you do that relationship or like vibe check with the with the vice presidential candidate over Zoom. That really sucks. I can't believe they have to do that. Yeah. Love it. You got anything to add? It's just so nice to be talking about this. It's just sort of like, oh, it's like from another time.

Like, oh, man, who's the V? Is it going to be? Remember Gephardt on the cover of The Post? Yes. You know, like they put Dick Gephardt. The New York Post said it, that Kerry picks Gephardt. And he did not pick Gephardt. He did not. So, you know, one thing that I was thinking about is basically like, you know, to Tommy's point. Right. It's really just sort of a kind of in terms of how it affects the race. It's sort of a good enough proposition. Right. story for you that you pick someone that might not be up for the job. I mean, all of the people you mentioned are serious national figures. You know, I would say Stacey Abrams is the closest to someone who has a question mark in terms of national politics, but she makes up for any

questions about that with her intelligence, grit and competence, and her ability to kind of run organizations and do smart politics. You know, in terms of Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, I vividly remember being told what Tim Kaine delivers Virginia and with Virginia, Hillary can't lose. So I'm also, I'm always a little bit skeptical of the like state play. That said, what a fun list. What a fun list of women. I do think just from like, you know, there's not a ton of evidence on this, but just from a political science standpoint, like there is not that much evidence that sort of picking someone from a state or a region necessarily helps you all that much in that state or region. Of course, who knows? Like I said, it's a very limited amount of evidence for this. But I do think like what you were saying, Loveit, basically,

this is a pick with there's not a ton of upside, but there's a lot of potential for a downside. So hello, Sarah Palin, mostly. But I think that I think that Biden's age and the fact that we're in the middle of a pandemic and an economic crisis does make governing sort of more of a factor than it usually is. Can this person step into the role of president of the United States? It really is the major decision that Joe Biden will make before November that sort of gives us an indication of where he sees the party going and where he will lead the party, both during his presidency and potentially for his successor. Democratic voters from Data for Progress and CBS. And they show that Elizabeth Warren is the top choice among Democrats by double digit margins, followed by Kamala Harris was second in both polls. And then Stacey Abrams and Amy Klobuchar were roughly tied for third. Now, some of this is possibly due to the fact that Elizabeth Warren of that list is the candidate with the highest name ID of anyone. And that was true in the primary as well. After Biden and Bernie, she was number three in terms of name identification among both Democratic voters and

all voters. But what did you guys think about those polls and how much value is there in polls of only Democrats for a VP pick? Yeah, I mean, look, my reaction was similar to yours in that I assumed it had a lot to do with name ID. I mean, like there is value in the sense that if you can pick a VP that excites the Democratic base and makes them more likely to donate to you, volunteer for you, vote for you, tell their friends, you know, like all the things that we encourage people to do on a daily basis, that's really good. But, you know, like, does it help you win a general election in a significant way? I'm not sure yet. I'm I'm pretty skeptical of all the polling. I get why people do it. It's very fun to pull these things. It's fun to talk about. I would be happy with any

of those candidates. So I'm sort of, you know, agnostic almost. But yeah, it's half the story, right? I just petered out on my answer there. I'm like, yeah, whatever. It's like Joe Biden in the middle of a debate. I was like, Biden in a debate. I'm like, fuck it, pick somebody. I don't care. But it's just that it's half the story, right? Like polling of Democratic enthusiasm tells you, will this person excite people and turn them out? And then you need the other half. Like, how does this person do with the independents? You'll need to build a winning coalition. It's also just to sort of add to what John was saying. It is always the case that when a

presidential nominee chooses a vice president, they're in many ways choosing someone that they believe could be the standard bearer of the party. But it is never more true than right here. This is someone who, based on what Joe Biden is saying, and I think actually he's been really smart and deft about how he has introduced this idea of I'm only going to serve one term because I'm old in a way that has a real kind of optimistic bent to it, right? I'm a transition candidate and I'll transition to a younger generation. He is choosing potentially the Democratic nominee in four years. That's an incredibly big decision,

bigger than most presidents ever deal with, because eight years is a long time, right? You don't know what's going to happen after eight years. But four years, this person, if this person is going to be the nominee in 2024, God, I want to live in that. I want to live in that world. I'm going to knock on things like they're going to have to start campaigning two years into being vice president. So this is somebody who starts off as the presumptive, basically on their way to being the presumptive nominee. Hey, thought experiment. It's 2008. Hillary Clinton wins the primary.

She picks Barack Obama as her VP. She wins the general because financial crisis. Remember that was real bad. Yeah. Wins reelection with Barack Obama as VP. Obama runs against Trump, kicks the shit out of him. We're not here. Now, great for the world.

Now, John, for you specifically, you'd be working directly for John Lovett in that speechwriting office. So it's something you should really think about. Yeah. It's my GQ profile now, bitch. All right. But Tommy, the question is, how long would I have been working for John Lovett

and how long would John Lovett have been working since Hillary would have been impeached on day 10? That's right. Yeah, that's right. And also, by the way, yeah. And and Trump only runs. Trump only runs because of the racial black backlash to having our first black president. So really, you know, it's it's a fun hypothetical.

It's a real slider situation. And I say we jump through until there are dinosaurs. real slider situation. And I say we jump through until there are dinosaurs. I mean, you know, people going through the process and candidates always say this, but I think it is true and it'll be true this time. You know, you should pick the person that you feel most comfortable with, the person who you believe can step into the role of president. And it usually will come down to that, though. We're also facing an election where it's more important than ever before to win, right? Like winning is going to be the huge consideration. So I think what the Biden campaign will obviously do is forget just about these Democratic voter polls, go into these swing

states and start polling Biden and some of these nominees. And just to make sure, like, say Biden likes someone. All right. Make sure, like, say Biden likes someone. All right. Make sure that nominee, that potential VP nominee doesn't lose you any voters, doesn't make things worse. Right. If she doesn't, if it's either makes no difference or it makes a positive difference, then you pick who you like. Right. You pick who you believe in and you pick who's going to be the best president.

I think that's that's pretty clear. But I am sure they will do a ton of polling. You know, it'll be Biden-Warren versus Trump-Pence in Wisconsin, Biden-Harris versus, you know, and they'll go so on and so forth, and they'll do this a lot between now and then. Just having a little moment of fantasy

of imagining Elizabeth Warren debating Mike Pence, and I'm just going to think about that for like an hour, just to have it, just to have it in my heart. Honestly, it's like it's like elizabeth warren debating mike pence i think kamala would do a great job oh stacy abrams destroy him just those imagining those three debating mike pence is um a fun debate to think oh he would he would short out like a west world robot doing the reagan impression it would be incredible okay when we come back i'll have my interview with Austin Goolsbee.

I am now joined by the former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, current professor at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, my good friend, Austin Goolsbee. How's it going, Goolsbee? Yeah, don't you still owe me money? Probably. Seems right. I mean, just to start, just so people know, you and I first started working together on the Obama campaign as the world was falling apart during the financial crisis. You helped me translate economist speak about mortgage-backed

securities and credit default swaps into simple English, which I always appreciated. And in the campaign office, we had this emergency bourbon that we pulled out whenever the economy looked really bad. So my first question is, how much bourbon should we be drinking right now? First question is, how much bourbon should we be drinking right now? Yeah, you know, by our old measure, if the market dropped 5% in a day, we were like, ooh, that's terrible. And if it was 10%, we were like, we should go get drunk. What are we going to do with ourselves? We would have had many bourbon days on this one.

But we got to stop meeting like this, John. It seems like every time we have a conversation, it's getting worse. I mean, how bad do you expect this to get? I mean, it feels like projections are all over the place. Obviously, the administrations are quite sunny, seemingly and possibly so. And other people are talking about depression levels of unemployment, which, you know, we could see fairly soon or we might already be in. What do you think? I think it's going to be terrible in terms of just what the measure conditions are. I think if you look at these unemployment insurance filings, that's the worst.

It's probably the worst five weeks in the history of the American job market, what we've just been through. We've never had anything like that. The most that the unemployment rate has gone up in an entire year was in the depression and is about 8%. The next unemployment numbers that come out, we're likely going to jump something like 12% in a month. So by that measure, it's going to be unbelievable. Worse than anything we saw in 2008, 2009, which was terrifying. Worse probably than any month of the Great Depression. The only thing that we got to hope, and I'm actually somewhat optimistic on this front, is it's not a regular business cycle.

So you're going to see numbers like you've never seen before. But the thing that's terrifying about an unemployment rate of 10% or 12% is that in a normal boom, of 10% or 12% is that in a normal boom, that can come down maybe one to one and a half points per year. So if this is a regular business cycle, we're going to be a decade or more before we're back to anything like what we were before. But I actually don't think that that's true. I mean, if you could just say poof and have a vaccine, I kind of think the economy could go right back to where it was previous to COVID.

And so our only dance now is this dance of how do we keep it to be temporary? How do we not let people get evicted or not be able to put food on their table or have their utilities cut off and all of that type of stuff? Small business have to liquidate. Bearing in mind that we got some sectors like cruise lines or sports stadiums that it's probably going to be a while before they come back. Their shock is maybe not as temporary as the others. So that's the long version to say. I think it's going to be real bad, but it might be able to improve at least somewhat faster than it does before. So the Trump folks keep talking about

a V-shaped economic recovery. A lot of other economists are talking about a U-shaped economic recovery. Can you sort of translate that for us? And where do you fall on that spectrum? economic recovery. Can you sort of translate that for us? And where do you fall on that spectrum? Okay. V-shape is it goes down, it comes right back up. And U-shape, it goes down, and it kind of stumbles around the bottom, and then it comes up. And then the L-shape is like, well, wait a minute, that's not a recovery. And then we're going to argue about Greek letters and Arabic script of what's the shape of the recovery. I think the right way to think about it is if you want to think in income terms or GDP rather than unemployment, the next quarter is likely to be the worst number we have ever had in the history of the data. Might be minus 25 percent, minus 30 percent at an annual rate,

minus 25%, minus 30% at an annual rate, which is unreal. We've never seen anything like that, even for a quarter. And then the next quarter, it might come back, let's say robustly, to plus 10. But look, the thing is, if you go minus 30 and then plus 10- It's not going to feel like plus 10. Yeah. It's like, well, why don't you stop saving me so much money? You know what I mean? I'm like, if we're going to brag about plus 10 and we're still 20 points underwater, it is not going to feel like plus 10. I don't think the unemployment rate is still going to be double digits, 9, 10 percent%, even after that comeback. And that's because the comeback's in percent terms out of the basement. And it's harder to fall to injury from the basement window than it is from

some higher floor. So you wrote a great piece in The New York Times over the weekend about how critical it is for the government to maintain public support during an economic crisis. What worries you most about the path the Trump administration has taken so far? Look, I'd say two. There's one practical worry and there's one worry in spirit that has been with us from the very beginning. And that is, and let's start with that one. That is, is, and let's start with that one. That is, absolutely no one can deny that the president has wanted to say this isn't serious from the beginning. They can try to go back and scramble now and say, oh no, there was a day when he said it was a pandemic, or he said, you know, nobody from that flight should come here. But the fact is, at every juncture, they've wanted less testing, less documentation of the presence of this disease. At every juncture, they've said, how is the economy, how many people are going to die?

How fast is the economy going to come back? The president has consistently been on the side of it's not that serious. You can go back to work. We have 14 cases. It'll soon be zero. People are finding it's no worse than the flu. All of that comes from a place in his mind that wants to minimize it. And look, I understand that. That is kind of the authoritarian playbook. That was the same

mentality that the Chinese had in Wuhan when the thing began. And that's deeply troubling because it undermines and blows up the credibility of the United States government and of the president specifically. You know better than anybody, John, we spent so much time on the words used by the president that when he made a statement, a presidential statement was taken with the highest level of seriousness.

And the best that can be said for the president on his worst days is, well, pay no attention to what he's tweeting and pay no attention to what he's saying. He doesn't really mean it. And I can't understand that world. And it terrifies me because what now let's say we come to the moment where we think it is safe for some groups to start going back out. And the president says on Wednesday, everything is safe. OK, well, the thing is, half the country does not believe

the words of the president. And if he says to on Tuesday, we think it's open, and the following industries can go back to work, people won't go back. And that undermining of credibility is really seriously problematic. The other is on the practical, we just don't have enough tests. Look, there are multiple economies around the world that have now gotten themselves out of lockdown and are recovering. Places like Korea, places like Germany, places like Taiwan, soon to be Australia, New Zealand, a couple others. They did enough testing that the only people that have to go out of commission are the people who have the disease. And if you don't test, you can't get that. You can reopen the doors, but you're just going to get infected again and everybody's going to have to go back in

and lock the doors. So imagine you're back in your old White House job, the fantastic new Democratic president, and let's say there are no political constraints in terms of what could pass Congress. What do you do next in terms of economic relief? And you can also include sort of non-legislative action, too. OK, the first I always say the number one rule of virus economics is the best thing you can do for the economy is slow the rate of spread of that virus. Okay. So I would throw almost unlimited money at the fighting of that war on the virus with a massive ramp up of testing and a massive increase in medical equipment. And I would subsidize, you saw in New York, for example, Governor Cuomo asked retired medical personnel to come back and he got thousands of volunteers.

The federal government should be subsidizing that everywhere. We'll give you a signing bonus. We'll waive all. You won't have any Social Security penalty. You won't pay any payroll tax. If you'll come out of retirement for a short period to help us, we should be trying to expand, in my world, the supply curve of health care. Then on economic relief, once you are doing that to slow the spread of the virus, I think preventing people from getting evicted and having their gas shut off and preventing small business from liquidating from temporary shocks. All of that's super important. It is going to keep costing money because it's not regular stimulus. It's not meant to get us growing. It's just meant to prevent liquidation. And then I think

this area of money to the states, we saw firsthand in 2009 what happens when you have a bad recession and the state coffers get completely depleted is they all have balanced budget rules that force them to raise taxes in the face of the downturn or else cut spending by firing the state workers. And it magnified the downturn in 2009. And it is about to absolutely magnify this downturn if the federal government does not step in to try to prevent that from happening. So I would definitely work on that side too. What do you think about some of these proposals that sort of go maybe beyond the paycheck protection program from some more progressive members that say, like, let's do what they're doing in Europe, in some countries in Europe, and just literally pay companies to make sure that all of their workers are on the payroll and that they just stay on the payroll. Look, it's kind of interesting. I, at heart, I'm a little more sympathetic with that approach than the one we took. We took the approach, let's up the unemployment benefits for people who lose their job. And that's the way we'll

deliver them relief. I'm a little more sympathetic to the idea that you could use the money paid directly to the employers to keep them on the payroll, because I think that way you don't break the employment relationship. And the practical thing of like, well, how are they going to refine their workers when this is over? All of that depends on how long it lasts. So in sympathy to the view that do it through unemployment insurance was number one, unlike Europe, we don't have as well set up a system to be able to do that. Part of that is, well, how many employees do you have? How will we know if you're keeping them on the payroll or you're just taking the money and using it for executive compensation or something?

And two, because we have that system, we could get this out the door more quickly. And that is important. So I am sympathetic with the way we have done it. with the way we have done it. Eventually, we got to decide, like I say, for cruise lines, should the taxpayer be paying billions of dollars to keep cruise lines open? A, they're not even headquartered in the United States. 90 plus percent of their payroll are not Americans.

Should we be paying to keep them open when there's no demand for cruise lines? Questions like that become harder under the European system. The European system is great if this is a short-term thing where everybody goes home, have a furlough, take a nap, come back. They say, oh my God, you have no idea what happened while you were asleep. Please come back to work. Okay. Now that is perfect for what would pay you to keep you on the payroll. If what has to happen is several industries have to mostly shut down and those people need to go find new jobs, then the UI system is, I think, the better way to do it. So, okay. Back in our current political hellscape, what do you think the most important things for the Democrats in Congress to fight for in the next economic relief bill?

What would you fight for and why? I mean, on the strictly economic side, I think this money to the states is going to be critically important. And it's already turned into this red state, blue state football. I think that, like I say, the money will always run out. If it's just relief money, the money will always run out. So we're going to be back to the coffers needing to say, there are a bunch of people who cannot put food on the table. There are a bunch of small businesses that are about to liquidate and this thing is going to snowball. And so I think money for that, for in that style has got to be on the table, but I can't really get away from the,

get the money out there fighting the spread of the virus. I mean, that's the, if we could slow testing, tracing, all that testing, tracing medical equipment, if doing research, if, Testing, tracing, medical equipment. If doing research, if it's true that all of us putting bandanas over our mouths could slow the rate of spread of the virus by 50 percent, that alone might be enough to allow us to get a bunch of people going back to work. Right. And I don't think that it was crazy. Mitt Romney didn't come up with it. There were a lot of Democrats who also had the idea,

but bonus pay for critical workers. I hope they go fight for that. That should, A, it should include medical, but it should also include tons of non-medical. I mean, it's crazy. Delivery folks, food folks. Delivery people. We've got people working at these at these meat processing places that we can't live without them doing that.

And they should get bonuses. So unsurprisingly, McConnell and other Republicans have cited concern over the deficit as a reason to hold up the next coronavirus relief bill. You know, not a big surprise coming from those guys. But to what extent should concerns about the deficit factor into policymaking over the course of this crisis? Zero. Absolutely zero. That is a joke. Look, as I say, the last thing you want Dwight Eisenhower to be thinking in June of 1944 is like, hey, let's take half the boats and mothball them because I didn't have a pay for for the landing on the D-Day beaches. I mean, come on. Revenue neutrality in a war is the last thing that you need. The debt is specifically for spreading out costs like this, which are critical to the survival of the country.

And on top of that, if $2 trillion unpaid for tax cut by George W. Bush, $2 trillion, or maybe a little over $1 trillion, plus $2 trillion unpaid for war, plus a $2 trillion Trump tax cut, all of which happened unpaid for and with no run-up in the interest rate of the United States, did not convince you. Let the market right now convince you. The debt capacity of the U.S. government is vastly in excess of where we are now. The problem of deficits is not that they create a fiscal crisis for the country. It's that ultimately you do have to pay back the money. And so what we will be doing by running debt now is we will have higher taxes or a bigger share of what we spend our government money on in the

future going to interest payments for this debt than we would be comfortable with. But think of World War II. Corrected for inflation, World War II cost over $4 trillion. And the economy was a lot smaller then. And the debt went way up. And the way they paid it back is they raised taxes, especially on high-income people, is they raised taxes, especially on high income people. But they raised taxes post-war and we grew.

And those two things together are what brought the debt to GDP ratio down over time. We should to hear the Republicans saying first that we need we had two trillion dollars to spend on tax cut. No problem. Then we have almost $3 trillion to spend on the CARES Act, $500 billion for big business, leverage $5 trillion through lending at the Fed. We have money for the PPP program that's supposed to go to small business and real estate investment trusts and big companies and friends of the president got the money. PPP program that's supposed to go to small business and real estate investment trusts and big companies and friends of the president got the money. And then when they say, well,

you know what we need to do now is make sure that everyone can eat. And they say, oh, my God, we don't have the money for that. What about the deficit? I mean, who are we kidding? What are they even talking about? Classic, classic. Last question, you talked about sort of a lot of the money that we're, a lot of the policy we're passing now is about relief and not necessarily stimulus. What, as we look ahead towards sort of long-term economic stimulus, what are some of your sort of favorite ideas? Infrastructure, green infrastructure, like what, or do you think it's important? How important do you think it is? Look, I think those are both infrastructure and green infrastructure and health infrastructure. All of that is super important. I don't, in my mind, I don't associate that with immediate term stimulus.

I'm absolutely for big expansion of infrastructure and have been for 20 years. That said, we learned in 2009 when we passed the stimulus that the infrastructure parts, even the most shovel-ready of those projects, take a little longer than the advocates want them to. So the notion that, let's say, six months from now, we're past the peak of the virus, and we're actively wanting to get growth to come back. My favorite outcome is have the federal government pay the states to do sales tax holidays because you only get the tax cut if you spend the money. And then the other, just go down the list from 2009 of what stuff had the highest bang for the buck. There were massive numbers and length of reports, some put out by the Council of Economic Advisors and some by others, going through all the different components of the stimulus, what had high bang for the buck and what didn't. There are a lot of direct government programs

that had very high bang for the buck in terms of stimulus. Austin Goolsbee, thank you so much for coming on Pod Save America it was good talking to you man it's always fun John thanks to Austin for joining us today and I'll see you guys later bye boys

my Zoom co-hosts see you guys bye Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media the executive producer is Michael Martinez our assistant producer is Jordan Waller Bye. Pod Save America is a product of Cricket Media. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.

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