Pod Save America - “Whine cave.” (Debate recap special!)

Episode Date: December 20, 2019

Jon, Jon, Tommy, and Dan talk about the impeachment of Donald Trump and the final Democratic debate of 2019, hosted by PBS and POLITICO in Los Angeles, California.

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suppression. Head over to crooked.com slash coffee to shop. Limited quantity available, so order yours today before they sell out. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's pod, we have an impeached president and seven candidates on a debate stage vying to replace him, which primarily involved an argument about a wine cave. It's fun to do a live show from a wine cave, which is what we're doing right now.

We are, there's glittering stuff everywhere. I don't know what it was. Chandeliers. Chandeliers, that's what it was. Crystals. So we're going to get into all of it, but first you have all officially raised two million dollars for fair fight through over 50 000 donations over the last few months that is the guys applauding hundreds of people for you because of what you did there will now be voter protection teams on the ground in 20 battleground states across the country to make sure that every voice is heard in 2020 and as we head into the new year we just wanted to make sure all of you understand how much

friends of the pod and friends of all of our crooked media shows accomplished over these last few years so if you go to crooked.com slash impact you'll see a report called is that hope i feel which shows some of the amazing ways you've all contributed since we started this whole thing a couple years ago. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Now get back to work. Lastly, quick scheduling note. Next week, you'll get a holiday mailbag episode from Dan and me. And on January 30th, you'll get a New Year's resolution episode from Tommy, John, and me. And then we will all be back in the new decade for some more pods is it definitely the new decade oh dan we went we did this yesterday it's very frustrating because as dan knows there was no year zero as dan knows really just dan is surely aware thanks for triggering we sorted out this zero thing a couple thousand years ago yeah well okay we are going to mostly

talk about the debate last night but i do want to start with the biggest news of the week and maybe the year on wednesday donald trump became the third president in history to be impeached in fact he holds the record for the most votes ever acquired on an article of impeachment at 230 for abusing his power uh there were 197 no votes I do not think he'll be bragging about that record. Did anyone make the popular vote joke on Twitter? Yeah, three or four dozen blue check marks. You know, I saw this stat and I just was thinking, okay, so more people voted for the impeachment of Trump

than voted for the impeachment of Clinton. There never was an actual vote on the impeachment of Nixon. And I assume when Andrew Johnson was voted to be impeached, there were just fewer members in the House. Right. Thanks, wet blanket. Just saying. I mean, it's like, all right, you beat Clinton. Take the win. I'm just like, obviously, he's more impeachable than Bill Clinton. That was that one was iffy at best. The the the second article, the obstruction of Congress article passed 229 to 198. That's because Jared Golden of Maine Democrat Democrat, decided to vote for abuse of power against

obstructionists. I gotta say, hey, whole boy, way to talk yourself into a bad political strategy, man. I mean, look, in his defense, no candidate has ever gotten in trouble for voting for something before they voted against it. I'm just imagining you go to a town hall and some Trump supporter comes screaming at you like, why did you do this?

And you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I did one article, but the other one, I said no. You only half hate me. I'm not doing it. Now, here's what I did. All right, there was this baby. And so I split it in half. So anyway, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has so far held back on sending the articles to the Senate,

saying she wants to first know the rules of the trial and whether witnesses will be called. Mitch McConnell, who can set those rules with 51 votes, said that he doesn't really care if Pelosi ever sends over the articles. and whether witnesses will be called. Mitch McConnell, who can set those rules with 51 votes, said that he doesn't really care if Pelosi ever sends over the articles. But according to the New York Times, one person who does seem to care is Donald Trump, who wants to be able to brag that he was acquitted by the Senate. That's according to Maggie Haberman's reporting. Dan, what are your thoughts on Pelosi's move here? And what should Democrats be doing in general in these next few weeks to make this trial, I don't know, successful?

I think in the short term, I think it's the right move. There is no incentive to just give this to McConnell and give him all the power to just call a sham trial and end it right there. So you might as well hold it. I think there is a question about over the long term, what leverage do they have? Right? Like, what, what is Mitch McConnell need this for? Like, what, like, when they go into the negotiations, and Schumer and Pelosi are like, we want witnesses, we're not gonna send the impeachment articles, and Mitch McConnell's like, fine, what's for lunch, right? And so, but I think right now, like, there's no point in just sending it to him and taking that off the

table. So we can at least over the next several weeks here have the conversation about how Mitch McConnell, with the help of, I don't know, to pick some senators out of a hat, Cory Gardner, Martha McSally, Susan Collins, are rigging this trial for Trump, right? They're covering up his crimes and not letting the public have a hearing about it. So that's at least a conversation we can have because she held back the articles. Yeah. I mean, John Bolton can go on NPR this morning to complain about Trump's North Korea policy, but he can't testify before the Senate. Give me a break. I'd love to see this folded into a cover up message. I don't know if it'll work. I don't know if it's sustainable. I don't know if a bunch of House members will get squishy, but it would be real depressing to see this go over to the Senate and for McConnell to

just kill it. You know, it's McConnell said something in an interview about this, which is that he expects the vote to be largely partisan. And that largely was doing a lot of work, because if he if he expected his caucus to be fully united, he wouldn't have said largely. And so I think it's really less about McConnell than it is about four vulnerable Republican senators and whether or not this is going to be one of those moments where they demonstrate a tiny bit of conscience or one of those many more frequent moments where they do not. And beyond that, I guess we don't really know right now. It is just less about McConnell and more about people like Mitt Romney, Cory Gardner, Susan Collins and others.

Yeah, I think Kamala Harris laid this out quite well in an op-ed she wrote for The New York Times, which is these senators have to make a decision. Are you going to vote for a trial or are you going to vote for a cover-up? And that's what Democrats should be saying about all these Republicans. And that's what you should be saying, especially about Susan Collins, who has to face voters in 2020 in a purple state. And same thing with Cory Gardner and all the other senators we just mentioned. And look, I do think, like Tommy, like you were just saying, people are, these Republicans are worried about what happens if John Bolton testifies and if Mick Mulvaney testifies before that. There's a reason why they don't want these want want these witnesses to go before the Senate, because even if ultimately they know they have the votes to acquit Donald Trump, which I'm sure they do, even if they lose a few Republican senators.

and senators, John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney getting up there and reminding everyone, because we've been talking about process for so many weeks now since we've moved away from the actual crime itself, reminding everyone that Donald Trump did in fact do this crime, that he did in fact abuse his power. And those are two witnesses who were directly involved and talked directly to Donald Trump about this. I don't think that's going to, they're clearly afraid of that, right? Do you think they're afraid of the politics of it or they're afraid of Trump's reaction to allowing that to happen? Probably both.

I think they're afraid of the revelations. Yeah. I think that he probably told Mulvaney and Bolton to hold the aid back until we do the investigation into Biden. I think it was probably that direct. support for impeachment and Donald Trump's support for impeachment was at its highest and Donald Trump's approval rating was at its lowest as the news was breaking and as as the new revelations came to light, it started tightening up as we got into this whole, you know, and Republicans did a good job of this, just talking about process, process, process and the impeachment trial itself. I think when there are new revelations about wrongdoing, it is bad for Donald Trump.

We have seen that already. And so they clearly want to avoid that. Like if I was in McConnell's shoes, right. And Trump was a reasonable human being, like what you would want is the, the trial that looks the most like a real trial without being one. Right. So that's like, we're going to have some witnesses and we'll let, you know, Fiona Hill, the one who's other people testify, and we'll take Mulvaney because he'll probably lie under oath and not Bolton because he may not like that would be the best thing for the Senate. The Republicans like putting Trump because he cannot allow them to say the obvious thing, which is what Trump did was wrong. But we do not believe it is impeachable, particularly a year out from an election. Like that's the obvious right thing to do, but he won't let him do it. The right thing to do here, I think, would be to allow there to be a

couple of witnesses and then push this thing aside. I do think there's two issues with that. I think one, there's a point at which I think McConnell worries he just loses control of this thing. Like once there's witnesses being called, once there's John Roberts sitting in that seat making decisions, once it feels like a trial, I think things can suddenly become less controllable by him. And the second thing is, if I were Mitch McConnell and I'm looking at this, I'd be going to people like Cory Gardner and Susan Collins and other vulnerable senators and saying, look, there's a very bad vote coming for you. Which vote do you think is worse? Do you want to vote to avoid a real trial and face all the criticism and negative coverage for doing

that? Or do you want to vote no after a damning series of revelations in a trial? And in a purely political calculation, I don't totally know which is a better place for someone like Cory Gardner to be in. Yeah. And Pelosi said this in a press conference. But the one thing that the Democrats have going for them, Schumer and Pelosi, is, you know, that they can say it during the Clinton impeachment. During the last impeachment, there was a hundred to zero vote agreeing on bipartisan rules of a trial. So if Mitch McConnell wants to just make this and, you know, he just wants to, like, ram this through like he does everything else. He at least should or not him, but at least Collins and the rest of them should pay a price for breaking with precedent on this. And, you know, if he just wants to, like, ram this through like he does everything else, he at least should, or not him, but at least Collins and the rest of them should pay a price for breaking with precedent on this. Okay, so basically the upshot of all this is we don't know

when the trial is going to be. It's certainly not now going to be immediately after the break because the articles aren't there. So sometime in January, we just saw news this morning that Pelosi did invite Donald Trump to give the State of the Union on February 4th, which is the day after the Iowa caucuses, which is also very interesting and sort of smart that the entire day of the State of the Union will be taken up by the coverage of who won Iowa and not Trump's State of the Union address, though he'll get some coverage of that on Wednesday. Do you skip it if you're running? Oh, I don't know.

If you're Cory Booker and you have a great finish in Iowa, do you not go right to New Hampshire and you go watch the State of the Union? I think you probably take that red-eye flight to New Hampshire because they offer them now, and you campaign in New Hampshire, then you come home to the State of the Union and then go back that night. You stand up and you yell, you lied! Yeah, because you want to do State of the Union media. Do some sweet, sweet MSNBC hits.

Get that action. Throw to Willie. All right. Throw to Barnacle. Wow. Let's talk about last night. Seven Democratic candidates met right here in Los Angeles for the last presidential debate of 2019, hosted by Politico and PBS.

Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Tom Steyer, and Andrew Yang. So we have some clips of the most notable exchanges between the candidates that we're going to get to. What did you guys think of this debate overall before we get into some of the feistier moments? I'll just say that I think it was one of the best debates I've ever seen amongst Democrats. Ever. And at first, it wasn't clear that that was what was going to happen because there were some odd choices to kind of, uh-oh, there's a difference. Let's go to break. Yeah, that bugs me. Which is very PBS. And I know we're like, I hate this partisan food fight. I hate this political food fight. But it's like, wait, where's my food fight? Wait, I'm hungry. Yeah. Throw some mashed potatoes. But I felt like Elizabeth Warren has had these very strong, solid performances, debate after debate after debate. And this debate felt like everyone kind of met her at her level. I thought each candidate was as strong as they've been in a debate all year. And so it just made for a very kind of like taut and strong set of exchanges throughout the night.

I thought the stakes felt higher because of the fewer number of candidates on stage because every exchange between the candidates where the only thing that really mattered in the immediate context of the election was how the person attacked responded. And here, we won't go through all these exchanges, but the stakes were higher for both of them. And then the two candidates who I think are further out from having a chance, Steyer and Yang, didn't attack anyone. So where there was conflict, the conflict, I felt consequential in a way it has in some of the other debates. Yeah, everybody's pretty good. It was a good debate. It was well moderated. To Levitt's point about the commercial breaks, it wasn't just that we wanted a food fight. They were talking about USMCA. And then all of a sudden, we moved on. We didn't hear what everyone thought. That

wasn't because of a commercial, but we moved on. It was strange. Pete was talking about court reform, and no one really got to respond on that. there were some moments where i was like i wish we dug in on that but thought everyone was good my headline would be pete took some heat klobuchar i thought how to help you work on that one there was no real uh eight seconds ago i wrote it down there was there was no real ground broken against biden which is strange like the only sort of revelatory thing about biden was that he opposed the Afghanistan surge. Or Bernie. Bernie again, too.

So like if you view those two as very strong, no one made progress against them. But, you know, it was a tough night for Pete because a couple of candidates decided to just come for him, including Klobuchar. I was very proud of all of the candidates on that stage. I thought it was a very good debate. I agree with you, Lovett. I think every single candidate upped their game, and you can tell they have become better debaters. They have become better candidates. The messages were sharper. I mean, you would hope that would be the case 45 days out from Iowa, but they really all have improved, I think, to a person. person. And I think they made good, they not only, you know, were good in the exchanges with each other, but they made pretty strong cases for themselves and their candidacies. So I was, I was happy to see it because I think the stakes were also raised a bit because, you know, in voters' minds too, with impeachment happening this week, and also us knowing that,

you know, he's probably going to be acquitted, but it just, it, it sticks in your mind that Donald Trump is out there as the opponent, which I think in some other debates, it's sort of like fallen into the wayside. And there hasn't been much mention of Trump at all. And there were a lot of exchanges that we're going to get into. But at least in those first couple of questions on impeachment, on the economy, on some of the other issues, you start you started hearing these Democrats make a case that they would make on a stage next to Donald Trump, not just about each other, which I thought was somewhat hopeful. The debate ended better than it started because there is no question that is more pointless than why haven't voters agreed with you more? Oh, terrible. Like asking presidential candidates to be sociology pundits is so dumb. But after that, I think it got much better.

presidential candidates to be sociology pundits is so dumb. But after that, I think it got much better. And they delved into some issues around, you know, education for kids with special needs and other things that have not been touched on other debates that I thought was really good. All right. We were more than an hour into the debate when shit started getting real. And Elizabeth Warren called out Pete Buttigieg for hosting a fundraiser with wealthy donors in a Napa Valley wine cave. Let's play the clip. So the mayor just recently hosting a fundraiser with wealthy donors in a Napa Valley wine cave. Let's play the clip. So the mayor just recently had a fundraiser that was held in a wine cave full of crystals and served $900 a bottle wine. Think about who comes to that. He had promised that every fundraiser he would do would be open door, but this one was closed door. We made the decision many years ago that rich people

in smoke-filled rooms would not pick the next president of the United States. Billionaires in wine caves should not pick the next president of the United States. Mr. Mayor, your response. You know, according to Forrest Magazine, I am literally the only person on this stage who's not a millionaire or a billionaire. So if this is important. This is the problem with issuing purity tests

you cannot yourself pass. Security tests you cannot yourself pass. If I pledged never to be in the company of a progressive, democratic donor, I couldn't be up here. Senator, your net worth is 100 times mine. Now supposing that you went home feeling the holiday spirit, I know this isn't likely, but stay with me and decided to go on to Pete for America dot com and give the maximum allowable by law. Two thousand eight hundred dollars. Would that pollute my campaign because it came from a wealthy person? No, I would be glad to have that support. We need the support from everybody who is committed to helping us defeat Donald Trump. Pete brings the heat. Oh, my goodness. Let's start here. Pete check.

Why do we think Warren chose to highlight this particular line of attack in the first place? She was the one who brought this up. She raised this. What was sort of the strategic thinking, do you think, behind this? It's vivid. It's the only thing people are writing about, talking about, going to remember from that exchange. It's not hard to imagine a wine cave full of crystals and nine hundred dollar bottles. And it speaks to the way Pete is running his campaign versus big structural change.

Now, I thought that his response, his response was probably strong, that we don't need to unilaterally disarm. And he's right that there is a bit of hypocrisy if you fundraised from these same individuals in your Senate campaign and then Warren transferred $10 million to her presidential campaign and now is attacking him for doing the same thing. But ironically, Pete there is setting up his own purity test on campaign finance reform, which is kind of the problem

with trying to make progress on these issues. How's he setting up his own period test? Because he's saying, because he is attacking her for not always having been perfect on campaign finance issues by saying, you used to raise money from the same people and donors that I do today. Yeah, I mean, I think it's, she very clearly went into this debate thinking, I've been getting the shit kicked out of me because we've been only talking about public option versus single payer and my varying and evolving positions on Bernie's plan versus my own. The core of my campaign will be based around corruption. This is a place for

me to make a positive argument about myself and a negative argument about Pete around money and influence. I think this was a tactical error on Warren's part. I think, look, I would very much, one of the reasons I would be excited for Warren or Bernie to win the nomination there for the presidency is I think it could fundamentally change the role of money in politics and shift, break Democrats addiction to a small class of billionaires to fund our elections and build a true grassroots fundraising base. I think that is the right direction for the party to go in the long run. I think in this case, I don't think anyone knows what a wine cave is. This is one of the rare examples. Wine cave has

been a Twitter thing for the last two days since these pictures came out. It's been a thing that all of the anti-Pete folks have been tweeting about. And I think this is one of the first times I've seen Warren give in to the demands of online political virality to pick the wine cave. So that's one. Second, she didn't, I think, draw the next line, which is why depending on the type of people who can pay for $900 bottles of wine to fund your campaign has a negative policy consequence for people. Right. Like that. She's done many times before very well and very effectively. Right.

And she did not do it on the stage. And then the third thing she brought up, but that didn't close with that, I think is actually a better argument is she has a policy that she will not make political donors ambassadors. They will all be. And she got that in on like the third. Right. political donors ambassadors. They will all be. And she got that in on like the third. And that is, I think, and Pete has previously, as everyone else in that stage has refused. Well, at least I don't know about Bernie, but everyone else has refused to make that same commitment. That to me is a stronger, more substantive argument, which is that her

government is not going to be staffed by the kind of people who buy access to politicians via a $900 bottle of wine. And so like that, I thought that it just, the hit did not land and Pete was incredibly well prepared for it. And she has a vulnerability there. And we know the press would rather cover Elizabeth Warren's hypocrisy than anything else. Yeah, it's interesting because what Pete was trying to do was say that her purity test was about, oh, you don't want rich people giving money to campaigns. And that's not true, right?

That's not her test. What she said, and she said it later in her retort is, I don't sell access to my time, right? And the reason that she's decided to do grassroots fundraisers and forego these high dollar fundraisers like Bernie has is that the more time you spend with all these rich people, then they're gonna ask for favors later

and you should be spending time calling people who are giving five and ten dollars and meeting people at rallies. And I think that's a really that's a strong argument, you know. But she sort of let Pete make it about, oh, you don't want rich people giving you money. Well, like I'll give you know, you've had rich people giving you money in the past. What do you guys think about Pete's rejoinder about electability, which is to say we shouldn't unilaterally disarm an election this big? I wonder if the pundit class of voters in Iowa in particular will be. I think I think when people are this, I always hated that argument. But I think when people are this worried about beating Donald Trump and all they've heard is how much money Donald Trump

is going to spend, it does probably stick with a few people. It's the truth. I mean, it's the most I think it's most intellectually honest argument. I think Pete's original retort. I think one of the issues that happened in that exchange, this is not Elizabeth Warren mixing it up with like a dope like John Delaney, who doesn't belong on the stage. Pete Buttigieg is an incredibly sophisticated politician. So is Elizabeth Warren. And so these were two incredibly smart, sharp debaters going at each other. And I think one of the reasons it went back and forth so many times is that they had a complicated

argument they were trying to make. They were both making, I think, unfair and not exactly on the level responses to each other. But then when it finally came down to it, I think you saw the core of the actual debate, which is I don't sell access to my time. That corrupts our policies. And it's one of the reasons people don't trust Democrats. And as much as there's some truth to that, we cannot unilaterally disarm. The most important thing is getting all the money we need to beat Donald Trump.

I think the problem for both of them is that they went back and forth. They went back and forth. They went back and forth. And then came Amy Klobuchar with, I think, the moment that- Let's play it. Let's play what Amy Klobuchar did. I did not come here to listen to this argument.

I came here to make a case for progress. And I have never even been to a wine cave. I've been to the wind cave in South Dakota, which I suggest you go to. And so that moment to me, if I were to say like what what was the signal moment of that debate? It was it was the back and forth, back and forth three times between Pete and Warren. And as they did that, they both got smaller and smaller and smaller. And then in comes Amy Klobuchar with a kind of unity message. And, I mean, Amy.

She was prepared for that. She was ready. She came loaded for bear. She did it a few times, yeah. She came ready to rip Pete's limbs from his body and beat him with them. I'm pretty sure she went into the parking lot after the debate and started challenging others to debates, just strangers. She will fight any mayor.

Was he Klobuchar'd by the end? Oh, yeah, he got some cinch. From all that Pete on Pete? Yeah, there was he on Pete, Klobuchar'd. He was Klober'd? Klober'd. Kloberchar'd. Well, you know everyone in the room hates me.

No, I don't. I think Klobercharuchar was so good. I will say, like, whether or not it was a tactical error by Warren, I don't know. But the larger strategy from her I get, and it is actually an electability strategy, right? She has now returned, and Lovett, you mentioned this about she wanted to get away from the Medicare for All debate. She's now returned to her strength, which is talking about corruption. And for the last couple of weeks, she's been talking about the only way we're going to beat the most corrupt president in history is with, you know, the strongest anti-corruption reforms in history. And that's me.

And she's known for that. And that's her strength. she's saying about buddha judges if we want the strongest contrast in the general election between a corrupt president and someone who's not we can't have a person on stage who's selling all their time for money and who's had all these lobbyists and all this kind of stuff and so she wants to draw that contrast so i think that idea in general is a smart strategy from her whether it was smart to do it on that stage and not exactly be prepared for Pete being super prepared, as he always is for these things. She didn't close the loop, right?

There was a way to end it and say, look, you run your campaign however you want. What I believe is the best way we're going to beat Donald Trump is we have to have someone standing on that stage next to him who does not raise money the exact same way Donald Trump does, right? Yeah, there was actually a couple. It's why I think even though it is true, as Tommy famously said, Pete took some heat. While it is true that across the night, a lot of people came for Pete, there were some key moments where right when they were about to land, I think a really hard punch.

They didn't. That happened with Warren in this exchange. That happened with Amy Klobuchar when she was about to basically say, you didn't win in Indiana. You only won in South Bend. But it just, it was like almost like just right about to hit and he just evaded. Same thing happened when he quit. He reminded people he would have nominated Anthony Kennedy to the Supreme Court, again, didn't take a hit. So as much as I actually thought Pete, for the most part, you know, took the onslaught well.

Yeah. And I don't know. I mean warren definitely got her message out that um she's the she's the anti-corruption fighter and and like you were saying tommy this will be known as the wine cave debate so whether people know what wine caves are not by the way the funniest part of this is an aside but our our wonderful governor gavin newsom decided to get himself in there after the debate and say i i was a wine guy i started in a wine cave i never knew of a rags to register when they came when they came for the caves who was left for me yeah that was a weird and the other funny thing is pete's wine cave.com now directs to bernie sanders fundraising page which is very funny um it's not the last of the wine caves i think that i think that is correct

it's just so funny it's the like pete is and every other non-Warren Sanders kid has been raising money in huge mansions and absurdly expensive restaurants for a year now. And it was the wine cave. It's just vivid. I will say as someone who just also hates money in politics, as we all do, I just wonder about a campaign staff, just optics. Do we need the fundraiser in the wine cave? I know. And you can see why this is the thought. You can see why this pisses Pete off so much because he was like, I was the fucking mayor of South Bend.

Do you think it's easy to raise money as a 37 year old gay mayor of South Bend? It is not. What he's done is extraordinary. And they're rightly hammering him for it. It's like, it's like, do you if you're going to give money to Pete, do you need need to be uh fed it in a wine cave now here's another thing um do you need that rich people and just just give the money and obviously not important but i i presume a wine cave is windowless uh isn't there a more airy space with which you can um very damp uh promise ambassadorships to rich people um okay so just kidding i probably didn't promise it directly.

Probably implied. After Warren and Pete went at it, Amy Klobuchar decided to jump in a little bit later by challenging Pete's experience and electability. Here's that clip. When we were in the last debate, Mayor, you basically mocked the hundred years of experience on the stage. And what do I see on this stage? I see Elizabeth's work starting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and helping 29 million people. I see the Vice President's work in getting $2 billion for his cancer moonshot. I see Senator Sanders' work of working to get the Veterans Bill passed across the aisle. And I see what I've done, which is to negotiate three farm bills and be someone that actually had major provisions put in those bills. So while you can dismiss committee hearings, I think this experience works. And I

have not denigrated your experience as a local official. I have been one. I just think you should respect our experience when you look at how you evaluate You actually did denigrate my experience senator and it was before the break and I was gonna let it go because we got bigger fish to fry here, but You know, I don't think we have bigger fish to fry than picking a president of the United States. You're right. And before the break, you seemed to imply that my relationship to the First Amendment was a talking point, as if anyone up here has any more or less commitment to the Constitution than anybody else up here. Let me tell you about my relationship

to the First Amendment. It is part of the Constitution that I raised my right hand and swore to defend with my life. That is my experience and it may not be the same as yours, but it counts, Senator, it counts. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Senator Klobuchar, you have 45 seconds to respond. I certainly respect your military experience. That's not what this is about. This is about choosing a president. And I know my view of this is I know you ran for to be chair of the Democratic National Committee. That's not something that I wanted to do. I want to be president of the United States. And the point is we should have someone heading up this ticket that has actually won and been able to show that they can gather the support that you talk about of moderate Republicans and independents as well as a fired-up Democratic base. And not just

done at once, I have done it three times. I think winning matters. I think a track record of getting things done matters and I also think showing our party that we can actually bring people with us, have a wider tent, have a bigger coalition, and yes, longer coattails, that matters. Thank you, Senator. I got to respond to that. I got to respond to that. Senator, I know that if you just go by vote totals, maybe what goes on in my city seems small to you. If you want to talk about the capacity to win, try putting together a coalition to bring you back to office with 80% of the vote as a gay dude in Mike Pence's Indiana.

Again, I would, Mayor, if you had won in Indiana, that would be one thing. You tried and you lost by 20 points. So, let's start from the beginning here. Why do we think Klobuchar decided that this was going to be her thing to go after Pete like this? Because she went after him a number of times. And so clearly, you know, they practiced this in debate, but it didn't come out of nowhere. I think she thinks that Pete is in her moderate, more electable lane in Iowa. And so she decided to just hammer him. Yeah.

And the best attacks are one that take down your opponent and help you. Right. Her, she is the candidate who is running explicitly on electability. And let's stipulate that how someone ran somewhere in the past tells us very little about how they'll run in the future. No one knows who was electable. Caveats, stipulation, et cetera. But we have that in the record. Dan crossed himself.

Can we submit it to the record? We've said the word electability. We will be canceled. We hate ourselves, yes. Amy Klobuchar has probably the best, most specific electability story to tell. State-based, electorate-based, by far. Not even close. No one up there had won in a purple state statewide. Not Biden, not Warren, not Sanders.

Yeah, no one. None of them except Amy. And she has been running explicitly on that. And I think that has been a very good strategy for her. I actually wish all of the candidates would make their case for why they're the best person to beat Trump. And I think the pundits should stop trying to tell us who's most electable. I think the candidates should talk about it and make their case. And Klobuchar did. And it had the benefit of taking down Pete, who is a bit risen a lot on a particularly specious case of electability that has everything to do with certainly his political talent and his smarts and his temperament on stage. That cannot be denied.

But there's also zero chance that a woman or a non-white person who is the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who lost Indiana by 20 points, would get the benefit of the doubt on that question. You were about to, I think, say something about this. Talk about the lost Indiana by 20 points, because I think one of the issues with sort of Klobuchar's rejoinder there is she didn't quite explain to the audience what she meant there, because a lot of people do not know this piece of information. They do not know that when Pete ran statewide in Indiana, he lost by 20 points. And he ran for treasurer in 2010. He ran against

Murdoch, who was a very, very bad right wing Republican candidate. And I think the part of what we're talking about here is the fact that Pete's case on electability has been largely rhetorical. It's what he did at the Iowa LJ dinner. You know, he basically says, if you want someone on stage, you can basically draw this incredible contrast. And that's a valid case for that's a form of an electability argument saying we want the biggest contract with Donald Trump. He can't go after me for this because I served in the military. He can't go after me in this because I'm from the Midwest. He like laid out a very, I think, strong rhetorical argument for electability. And what Klobuchar is doing is saying that's entirely perspective.

It's not there's no actual evidence in the world. And I think it's extremely dangerous for Pete to be in that territory because then you start to look at the polls and you say, well, where's the coalition? All right. He has this one chunk of the base. But then, you know, the incredibly important part of the base of people of color are just not coming to his side. What's interesting is Biden's electability argument. He's been, I think, his perspective as well. You know, he's this he has this appeal, right, that he's this he's middle class Joe. He appeals to moderates and it's somewhat borne out in polling. But in fact, he also but for being the vice president to Barack Obama has actually never proven this outside of Delaware himself.

His previous only Klobuchar, only Klobuchar. She did this again later when Bernie and Biden were fighting about Medicare for all versus the public option. And she again occupied this sort of like pragmatic, electable Midwestern stance where she said the political fight you're having is not real. The people who are opposed to Medicare for all are new members of Congress is the governor of Kentucky. Like I'm someone who can bring them together. It was it was a theme and it was compelling. I do think I agree with all of that. And I think that klobuchar's electability case and her making it for herself which is not just i won in in minnesota but she's sort of talking about flyover country and that's where i live and she's talking about the midwest a lot

um the one thing she said where she started that clip which was you know last debate first of all whenever you say last debate it's last debate pete you know you attacked us all for 100 years of experience combined. And let me tell you about that experience. Elizabeth created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Joe Biden got $2 billion for cancer research. And so she went around and it did. It was the closest thing in my mind to a debate exchange that we would have had in 2007 between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, debate exchange that we would have had in 2007 between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, where she would talk about all her experience and believe it was a plus, a strength. And for

many voters, it was. And then Obama would say, yes, but you and all the other people who've been in Washington, which was all the other candidates, Biden, Dodd, Richardson, you've all been there for a very long time. And people are pissed off about Washington. And you got the Iraq war wrong. That was the big one. That's what Pete is missing in this argument that right right but i i wondered how effective that is to go back and forth with him on we're all experienced and well and then she keeps calling him a local official which is so funny a lot of belittling i will not i will not stand up here and denigrate a local official and i was like that is withering that sent a chill

down the spine of her staff who have heard similarly withering comments in the past. I was really impressed by the way she made that experience argument. Because one thing that I very much remember from 2007 is just how plodding it was to make that argument. It always felt so defensive. It's like whenever you make fun of DC and somebody responds on Twitter. It's like, well, we have some great restaurants. Usually like someone from OMB. And I actually was like oh wow that was the that was like amy klobuchar in defending experience

and by making it big and saying like crediting all these people there was more felicity in her doing that than i'd ever seen in a defense of washington experience she defended joe biden's experience better than joe biden has in this entire campaign john that joke was such a deep cut it was in 2011 you sent over a draft of the state of the union to someone in omb and they replied with a note that said please stop mocking washington no i had we were barack obama was going on the road after the state of the union and he was in like montana or something and he said boy it's great to be out of washington dc and i got a note from some person at omb that said, you know, some of us live here in Washington, D.C., and we don't appreciate these attacks.

Okay. Okay, guys. I'm sorry. Was that an edit about numbers and budgets? I don't think it was. We're not saying 8th Street doesn't have some nice places to hang. Yeah, right. No, we all lived there for a long time.

We get it. All right. So, Tommy, you briefly mentioned this, but we didn't have our usual opening 45-minute exchange on Medicare for All. But later in the debate, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders and then Amy Klobuchar did get into a disagreement about their respective health care plans. Let's play that clip. It covers everybody. It's realistic. And most importantly, it lets you choose what you want. Here you have 160 million people negotiated their health care plans with their employer, like many of you have. You may or may not like it. If you don't like it, you can move into the public option

that I propose in my plan. But if you like it, you shouldn't have Washington dictating to you, you cannot keep the plan you have. Thank you, Vice President Biden. Senator Sanders, 45 seconds to respond. On the Jones plan, essentially, we retain the status quo. That's not true. No, that is exactly true. Thank you. And by the way, Joe, under your plan, you know, you asked me how we're going to pay for it. Under your plan, I'll tell you how we're paying for right now. The average worker in America, their family makes $60,000 a year. That family is now paying $12,000 a year for health care. 20% of the income of the Medicare for all, that family will be paying $1,200 a year because we're eliminating the profiteering of the drug companies and the insurance companies and ending this

Byzantine and complex administration of thousands of separate health care plans. Senator, my name was going to come to you in 45 seconds. 45 seconds. I'm not interrupted here. All right. I'm going to interrupt now. It costs 30 trillion dollars. Let's get that straight. 30 trillion dollars over 10 years. Some say it costs 20 trillion. Some say it costs $20 trillion. Some say it costs $40. The idea that you're going to be able to save that person making $60,000 a year on Medicare for all is absolutely preposterous. 16% of the American public is on Medicare now, and everybody has a tax taken out of their paycheck now.

Tell me you're going to add 84 percent more and it's not going to be higher taxes. At least before he was honest about it. It's going to increase personal taxes. They're going to be right. We are going to increase personal taxes, but we're eliminating premiums. We're eliminating copayments. We're eliminating deductibles. We're eliminating all out-of-pocket

expenses, and no family in America will spend more than $200 a year on prescription drugs. Okay, Senator Klobuchar, we'd like to hear from you. First time I did this. Okay, that's true. I'll say this. First of all, Bernie, I promise when I am your president, I will get our pharmaceutical bills done. And we have worked together on this time and time again, and I agree with you on that. But where I disagree is I just don't think anyone has a monopoly on bold ideas. I think you can be progressive and practical at the

same time. That is why I favor a public option, which is a nonprofit option to bring the cost down. And yes, it does bring the cost down immediately for 13 million people. And then we'll expand coverage to 12 million people. But here's the political problem. This fight that you guys are having isn't real. Your fight, Bernie, is not with me or with Vice President Biden. It is with all those bunch of those new House members, not everyone by any means, that got elected in that last election in the Democratic Party. It is with the new governor, Democratic governor of Kentucky, that wants to build on Obamacare. And the way I look at it, if you want to bridge,

build, if you want to cross a river over some troubled waters, you build a bridge, you don't blow one up. Extensive. So it's interesting, right? Because we've had this debate many times. That was, I think, one of the sharpest versions of it. I want to just note that Amy Klobuchar took that moment to moderate the debate herself, which was a good move for her. We have a huge health care bill at the end of the year and America pays it. Right now, we pay it through taxes. We pay it through medical bankruptcies.

We pay it through out-of-pocket expenses. We pay it through our companies paying for your private insurance. We pay it for individuals paying in private insurance. And Bernie's point is completely valid, which is if we move to a single-payer system, yes, there'll be more taxes. And on the whole, the costs shift to the government. But on the whole, America ends up spending less on health care. And middle-class families end up spending less on health care by definition because he's designed the system to shift costs up. And so Biden's argument about the cost is, I think, is just sort of fundamentally specious. And it's why I think it was. It's why it's why I think when Amy Klobuchar comes in with the political argument, I think that's the more intellectually honest argument. See, I don't know about that because I do think it's true, but the transition isn't neat and it's

not quick and it's not the same for everyone. And Bernie knows that, which is why he has a four-year transition period. They all have transition periods because the moving from a private health insurance system where we have all the hospital systems, the provider systems, system where, you know, we have all the hospital systems, the provider systems, an insurance industry, and moving that, moving all of that to one government health care plan is quite disruptive over four years. And not every, not every person who is going to be paying more in taxes is going to save the exact same amount in premiums. Most people are.

On average, it averages out. But it is, you know, the costs aren't equal there. The other thing is when Bernie says, oh, it's the status quo. It's not the status quo. Biden's plan is not the status quo. Amy Klobuchar's plan is not the status quo. They are not as generous as Bernie's plan. They are not as expansive as Bernie's plan. Absolutely. But they are certainly not the status quo. They are a vast improvement over what we have right now. Even Joe Biden's public option is more generous and bigger and would cover more people than the public option that people wanted to propose when Barack Obama was trying to pass the Affordable Care Act.

So there's a little bit of that going on. I mean, the point that a little bit of that, like the subtext of what Klobuchar is saying is this is not going to happen. We are having a dumb, unhelpful argument. I'm not saying I agree with that, but she is saying, look at who is in the House right now. Look at our colleagues in the Senate. Even if you, Bernie Sanders,

come around on the filibuster, do you think you're going to get Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema and Chris Coons? Of course not. They've already promised they're not going to do it. They've already promised. Like, look, if I'm a member of Congress and I'm sitting there and you put a Medicare for All bill in front of my desk, I'm going to vote for it. And I'm not going to do it they've already promised you know like look if i'm a member of congress and i'm sitting there you put a medicare for all bill in front of my desk i'm going to vote for it and i'm probably going to tell everyone i can to go vote for it but like

i'm pretty realistic it's not happening like the democratic caucus and we're not just talking about like the joe mansions and the conservatives people we're talking about like middle of the road democrats progressive democrats sherrod brown sherrod brown from ohio absolutely not bernie henders medicare for all bill you can't get Sherrod Brown on that. What are we talking about? I mean, I think Bernie just thinks the original sin of our health care system is that there is a for profit. He's right. And until you get that out, we're not going to have the right system. I think he's absolutely I think that most Bernie fans and Medicare for all advocates would concede that the public option is points on the board.

But what I think frustrates them is before the primary has even really started in terms of voting, Democrats that would opt for a field goal rather than trying for a touchdown. And like that's sort of the fight that's happening. That's the extent in which Bernie has already been phenomenally successful. Yeah. But she has shifted the Overton window so far that most of his colleagues, many of whom are no longer in the race, endorsed his bill, co-signed his bill. And the moderate side is a huge, massive public option. I was saying this when I did the focus group in Arizona and they were all Romney Clinton voters. These are these are 10 people who voted for Mitt Romney.

And at the end of the group, when we're having this Medicare for all public option debate, they all go around to a person, former Republicans as late as 2012. And they're like, we need a public option. That's what we need. We need a public option. I'm like, the left has achieved a huge victory here in moving the Overton window that you have a bunch of former Republicans saying, I really want a public option. That's big. And I don't, I'm not saying that Bernie should stop making his argument. He should keep pushing for it. Of course he should. And if he was elected president, he should push for it. So let's talk more about Joe Biden, who I did think he had a really great debate overall. Earlier in the night when he was asked a very good question about his previous comments that normalcy will return once Trump leaves office. He had this to say. With Trump out of the way, it's not going to change things in a fundamental way. But what it will do is it will mean that we're in a position where he's not going

to be able to intimidate the base. His base is not going to intimidate those half a dozen Republicans we may need and other things. I refuse to accept the notion, as some on this stage do, that we can never, never get to a place where we have cooperation again. If that's the case, we're dead as a country. We need to be able to reach a consensus. And if anyone has reason to be angry with the Republicans and not want to cooperate, it's me.

The way they've attacked me and my son and my family. I have no, no, no love. But the fact is, we have to we have to be able to get things done. And when we can't convince them, we go out and beat them like we did in the 2018 election in red states and in purple states. Can I just say, can you imagine if he had given that answer about cooperating with Republicans from the beginning of the campaign? He would only be winning by 30 points. I agree. You know, him saying that if anyone has a reason to be angry at Republicans,

it's me for what they've done, my family and my son. That was compelling. And then for him to make it about a bigger picture question of what we can get done as a nation was very powerful. I'm sure very popular in polling. And saying, you know, we can try to cooperate, but then when they say no, then we go beat them. Which was, I think that part has been yep from some of his previous comments on this i know i don't necessarily still agree with him that with trump gone suddenly the base isn't going to be

able to intimidate uh the other republicans because fox news will still exist all the right wing uh media folks will still exist and they will get the base going and they will still intimidate the Republicans. But anyway, it was the yeah, but I actually think that's like the closest thing Joe Biden has made for an argument for actually why other than an epiphany, which was nonsense of what could possibly change once Trump is gone. And there is some truth, at least the possibility of there being some truth to the fact that there is some possibility that once Trump is gone, there is some piece of intimidation that is removed marginally from some of the backs of these Republicans that could lead them to behave

with a little bit more integrity. Now, do I know that that's going to happen? No. Does Joe Biden know that's going to happen? Of course not. But at least it was not just a fantasy, just a complete unreal fantasy. Like back in the day when I used to work with him. Right. It's not that. It's the first time he has made a credible case for how he could accomplish his agenda. Right. Like, do I think it's the most likely version of what happens if Biden wins? Probably not. Like, I think there are bigger problems than Trump. But it is it is believable. It is like it is credible. And he's articulated it right. Like Bernie has a theory of a revolution, Warren has big structural change. People have to have an agenda, a theory of how they're going to do things. And this is the first time Biden has done it. And I thought he did it quite well. There was another interesting moment with Biden when he was asked about the Obama administration's Afghanistan policy. Here's a clip. Mr. Biden, the question was about your time in the White House, though. I'm talking about the White House. In that Washington Post report, there's a senior national security official who

said that there was constant pressure from the Obama White House to produce figures showing the troop surge was working, and I'm quoting from the report here, despite hard evidence to the contrary. What do you say to that? Since 2009, go back and look, I was on the opposite side of that with the Pentagon. Only reason I can speak to it now is because it's been published. It's been published thoroughly i'm the guy from the beginning who argued that it was a big big mistake to surge forces to afghanistan period we should not have done it and i argued against it constantly

tommy what'd you think of that um first i agree with him i think we shouldn't have searched troops in afghanistan and it was a mistake. It's true that he was the voice in the Situation Room, often the lone voice, fighting against the Pentagon's proposed troop increase and their broader strategy of coin and nation building and all the things that were used in Iraq pretty well. He didn't think they applied there. So he's right.

It's most interesting that he finally decided right now to break hard from Obama on a policy I think I personally think that if he could have that decision back, he would not have sent thirty three thousand troops or whatever it was. Yeah. Speaking of Obama, our old boss was brought up in another question where the candidates were asked about his recent quote that women are better leaders than men and old men need to get out of the way. Here's how the two women on stage, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, responded. way. Here's how the two women on stage, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, responded. It is not just about numbers. It's about what you get done. And that is my argument. If you look at the poll at the state that knows me best, and that is the state of Minnesota, it showed in the state that Hillary had her slowest margin of victory, it showed that

I beat Donald Trump by 18 points. I beat him with men more than anyone on this stage. So I think what matters in this election is can you bring in those rural and suburban areas, particularly in the Midwest? And number two, what will you do when you get there? And I am someone that has passed over 100 bills with men and women, with Republicans and with Democrats, including changing the sexual harassment laws for the United States Congress, a bill I led so taxpayers are no longer going to have to pay for people that harass other people.

Senator Warren, you would be the oldest president ever inaugurated. I'd like you to weigh in as well. I'd also be the youngest woman ever inaugurated. youngest woman ever inaugurated.. . I believe that President Obama was talking about who has power in America, whose voices get heard.

I believe he's talking about women and people of color and trans people and people whose voices just so often get shoved out. And for me, the best way to understand that is look at how people are running their campaigns in 2020. You know, I made the decision when I decided to run not to do business as usual. And now I'm crowding in on 100,000 selfies. That's 100,000 hugs and handshakes and stories, stories from people who are struggling with student loan debt, stories from people who can't pay their medical bills, stories from people who can't find child care. What do you guys think of

the very different ways that both women on the stage responded to the same question? I like that Elizabeth Warren's basically, I think what Barack Obama meant was my stump speech. But the thing that was striking to me about what Amy Klobuchar said is it was, it made me just think for a second, right now there's this question about whether Minnesota is a swing state. If Amy Klobuchar is the nominee, it's not, right?

There's just this assumption that she'd do well there. And what I was actually thinking while she was giving that answer is, does that, is there any, does her appeal in Minnesota apply in Wisconsin? Like, does she have goodwill there built from years of just being from the neighborhood? And so it's just interesting to me that she took took a question about about women as leaders and turned it into an argument for why she's not just. She was honed in on that electability argument all night long.

The most electable person that she's the best person to win, and that she has these accomplishments. So I don't know. I just thought Amy Klobuchar on the whole in that moment and throughout the debate just had an incredibly strong night. If I were to say my view on what happened in the debate, it was Amy Klobuchar's debate. Anyone else on that? Yeah, I agree with that. And I think Amy Klobuchar had a strategy. And I think it also, it's taking a step back.

It's worth talking about how well she's run her campaign, which is you get in this race and we go back to January, 100 years ago when this thing started. It is probably, you'd be shocked if someone were to tell you that when we get to December, Kirsten Gillibrand will be gone, Beto O'Rourke will be gone, Kamala Harris will be gone, and Amy Klobuchar will still be there. And she has run this campaign where you don't hear a lot about her. And it's seemed very disciplined. And what I think is maybe most notable is she has not given in to the Twitter

game of death and how she does it. She's not out there looking for viral moments or trying to surf whatever's trending to get attention for online donation. And these are the things that the candidates I just mentioned who no longer on the stage are mistakes they made along the way that she has not made. So now here we are 45 days from the Iowa caucus in a state that borders hers and she's in the game. And that's a really impressive thing. Yeah. I mean, I think if she does do well in Iowa, it will be because of sort of a Midwestern cultural affinity that people feel to her. And then hopefully that would apply to Wisconsin. You know, I would be pretty happy if I were her. I bet money's rolling in. She's

about to do a 27 county bus stop in Iowa. And it's nice to go into those things with a head of steam. It's worth noting, though, that Bernie's team just announced that they raised a million dollars online yesterday. So that is a juggernaut that just chugs along. Well, I was just going to say, it's also interesting to note that Elizabeth Warren's answer is the answer that I'm sure excited and inspired most progressives and women and feminists and people who have, you know, done the work of organizing over the last couple of years when she said it's about who has power in the society because that's the argument they're making i think what warren's challenge now is is what tommy just mentioned which is that bernie has not bernie has strengthened if anything and so

she is now caught between a progressive base that has that still really likes bernie and some of her support that's gone down has gone to bern to Bernie Sanders and trying to make the argument that she made against Pete last night because her and Pete are competing for a lot of college educated white liberals who might not be as progressive as some of Bernie supporters. And so she's sort of caught between a couple of candidates right now. And I think that's I think that's going to be her challenge in the next month. Yeah, I think the hard part is that group of voters that surge to Warren and then have surged to Pete are somewhat ideologically agnostic. They're like, we have to win voters. And they're very fickle.

Very fickle. Now, there are other groups who also believe we have to win, like older African-American voters and white working class voters who sort of have made their decisions as of right now. And they've been sticking with it. But it's going to be very interesting to see if Klobuchar rises more, who that affects. Is that going to come out of Biden? Is that going to affect Pete or Warren? Well, she thinks it's Pete. I mean, that's the other thing. There's a reason she decided to make Pete the target and not Warren and not Biden. I think a lot of people have gone up against Biden and watched his numbers remain pretty stable. And that's because she legitimately hates Pete. I think that's part of it. I think that that really does seem to be coming across.

But I think she views Pete's support as soft and gettable for her. And I think also implicit in what she said about being a woman candidate, she made that point about, I do better with men than anyone on this stage. And, you know, this is somebody pointing to the fact that misogyny has prevented the election of a female president, not just in 2016, but in our entire history. And she's saying, I have an argument about that. Andrew Yang also had quite a night. He was his usual funny self.

I think arguably more human moments than a lot of the other candidates on the stage. He's just very real. And there was a really nice moment where he was asked about being the only candidate of color on stage. Let's play the clip. It's both an honor and disappointment

to be the lone candidate of color on the stage tonight. I miss Kamala. I miss Corey, though I think Cory will be back. I grew up the son of immigrants and I had many racial epithets used against me as a kid, but black and Latinos have something much more powerful working against them than words. They have numbers. The average net worth of a black household is only 10% that of a white household. For Latinos it's 12%. If you're a black woman, you're 320% more likely to die from complications in childbirth.

These are the numbers that define race in our country. And the question is why am I the lone candidate of color on this stage? Fewer than 5% of Americans donate to political campaigns. You know what you need to donate to political campaigns? Disposable income. The way we fix it, the way we fix this is we take Martin Luther King's message of a guaranteed minimum income, a freedom dividend of $1,000 a month for all Americans. I guarantee if we had a freedom dividend of $ thousand dollars a month i would not be the only candidate of color on this stage tonight um how'd you guys feel about yang's answer there and just his performance in general i you know i'm more and more in the yang gang every time i see him on the

debate stage i'm charmed i mean first thing i thought was to the people who ask, like, do these debates matter? Look at what Klobuchar did. Look what Andrew Yang did last night. And the answer is absolutely yes. If you maximize your time up there, they do matter. I find Andrew Yang to be great at diagnosing the problem. I find him funny. I find him human.

And then he gets to his solutions. And I just never think that they're actually good ideas. I don't think the freedom dividend is a good idea personally. And, you know, but I'm glad he's up there and talking about it. Very self-aware, you know, at the end, that last question, and he was like, America, I know what you're thinking right now. Why is this guy still up there with all these people? Hilarious. Genuinely hilarious. Yeah, well, you know, I've said this before, and whatever you think about the freedom dividend, I think he gets up there and he says, hey, things really have changed. There are real

stress. I mean, it's part of the Warren. Warren's case is more about concentration of wealth, but he points to technology and other shifts in our society. And he says, look, there are really big changes that have happened that have made people's lives worse. And we need to be creative. And we need to be imaginative about how we think about those problems, whether it's AI or globalization or what have you. And I do think that that willingness to be outside of the kind of consensus democratic policy shop, I think has value. And by the way, I thought when Pete Buttigieg started running as the candidate of generational change, he would have

more of that message and i think he did when he first started he sort of lost it along the way he did in a wine cave somewhere i know he did it you know what though there was one moment that was incredibly refreshing where for the first time maybe in the in all of these debates somebody talked about rent like no one it was just rent like the high cost of rent like the other one other i think sleeper issue that's not talked about enough in any of these debates and it's something that i could see a peep bringing up or a yang bring up is traffic you know and commutes and people being forced to live far from their homes and all of those kinds of i think sometimes we've the debates have been on such big

policy questions that we've sort of been a little bit disconnected from like the basic struggles of people's lives uh only candidate we haven't talked about, Tom Steyer. Tom Steyer and his tie. Any thoughts on Steyer last night? I thought his best moment was when he talked about Trump's immigration policy, it being about stopping non-white people from entering the country as an effort to divide us. I thought that was honest.

I thought it was direct. I thought it was clarifying. You know, I think he also had a moment where he showed he was kind of a rookie debater because he made this kind of soft attack on Pete on climate change he's like I wish you would talk about it more prioritize it more which then gives Pete 45 seconds to just make his stump

speech about climate change and you kind of gave him this gift like he didn't I didn't wasn't moved too strongly either way though yeah I think we just talked about how Yang can be so human. I think one of Steyer's issues is I don't know if it was like how people have prepped him for debate, but he does all these debates. He stares like straight into the camera and he doesn't feel as present as some of the other candidates in the debate or is real. Like he's sort of like reciting his thing and everyone else kind of has their stories and stuff.

I'm going to be harsh and I'm going to say like like i appreciate that tom steyer has supported incredible causes and i appreciate what he did to actually put impeachment uh uh forward pretty early though we took a little too much credit for that last he did take a little too much there's a way in which he kind of feels like a tourist up there like he feels like he bought a ticket and he did so that is part of of it. It's just sort of, especially when everyone's games were so elevated, like Andrew Yang fucking hustled to make it to that debate stage. And so did every other candidate on that stage, including the 37 year old mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

And he bought his spot. And it means he hasn't put himself through the paces. And it comes across when you're against, it's not 10 people, a few of whom are nincompoops. It's, you know, there's no, there's no, it's just a really, really strong field now. And I think his inexperience at being a politician just sort of came through. I think the less harsh thing that I would say is everyone should very rightly be concerned

that you can buy your, a billionaire can buy their spot on a debate stage and Cory Booker and Julian Castro and all those other people cannot get there. Like that is a problem in our political system. But I do appreciate that Steyer, he goes up there and he doesn't attack anyone. It's true. He's decided that he has something he wants to say and he's going to say it. And he had a very tiny little attack on Pete, but not really. He's not like Delaney or these other guys who are going up there trying to chop down these other things. And for a billionaire, former hedge fund guy, he's quite progressive. And I think it is helpful for the larger cause that you have a billionaire defending the wealth tax on national television. That's true.

Any other final thoughts on this debate before we say goodbye? I like having a septuagenarian Jew up on that stage just crushing jokes. Bernie is so funny. I was going to say that he is the funniest person on the stage. He is so charming. Maybe Andrew Yang. He and Andrew Yang are the funniest people on the stage. His little retorts, like when his hand was raised and Biden yelled at him.

And he just said, I was waving to you, Joe. He's got a great happy warrior vibe up there. He's really come alive. Even as he's screaming sometimes at you. He's got a great happy warrior vibe up there. He's really come alive. Even as he's screaming sometimes at you. And honestly, he just feels like his health, like he seems healthier and like kind of more positive.

It just, you see it. Magical stint. He also is almost uncertainly the person on that stage with the best chance of being president as of right now, other than Joe Biden. Yeah. It's so funny though. The conventional wisdom on Bernie is he's kind of a curmudgeon

and he's so effortlessly charming up there. And we all know that the Joe Biden that you'd run into the hallway who would like give you a hug, talk for 15 minutes and call your cousin after. He's like this gentle, kind man. And he seems so fucking edgy.

Everything Warren says somehow pisses him off 10 minutes later. Like even the fact that she does selfie lines, he was mad about. He was definitely better about it, this debate than others. He's just, they've, the one thing I would work on for Biden is the defensiveness, you know, and it's got, it has gotten better, but it's just like, you can't be defensive. And honestly, it came out in hour three, which tells me it's a guy that's just sort of, I'm standing on this fucking stage for two and a half hours.

Yeah. I do wonder on that, like, I think for someone like um pete is obviously the most he's he's super prepared he was ready for that retort with warren he's got all his lines like he's a very good debater you know but some a little more warmth from pete you know we talk about likability and warmth all the time people it's it's a sexist thing it happens to women too much i would say for pete he could he could like loosen up just a little bit there there was a moment where i can't remember exactly which the quote what the question was but there was a moment where he kind of showed some spleen and he got kind of very intense and i think that's his version and i think that's that was the afghanistan yeah i think that was probably

where it was and and uh when he talked about how long he had been back from afghanistan and the war was still going on i thought he had a good moment but yeah overall i agree yeah and i think and i think elizabeth Elizabeth Warren is back on message with her corruption theme, too, and is probably very happy that she got out of the Medicare for All cul-de-sac there. Good foreign policy questions, by the way. Good work, moderators. And Bernie saying you must be pro-Palestinian as well

on a stage like that, that's a big deal. Yeah, for sure. Alright, everyone. That's our last pod for the year. If you don't count the one that we're recording. Yeah, we're the couple recording ones that we're doing too, but the last regular sort of pod that we're all here for. Happy New Year, everyone.

Happy Holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. We're saying it again. So crazy, though. Thank you, Bill O'Reilly, for this legacy. Enjoy your holidays and all your wine case. See you in 2020.

holidays and all your wine case. See you in 2020. Pod Save America is a product of Cricket Media. The senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Somanator,

and Katie Long for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmel Coney, and Yael Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as a video every week.