The Daily Beast Podcast - Biden Was Asked to Refinance His House After Iowa Fail

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, I'm Molly Jongfast, and welcome to The Daily Beast, The New Abnormal. I'm a left-wing pundit and an editor at large at the Daily Beast. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. Our world has been turned upside down. On the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and figure out how we get ourselves out of it. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon,

Starting point is 00:00:33 and I'm here to make sure everything doesn't go too far off the rails. While we have fun discussions about our world gone mad, and while I take that duty seriously, ourselves, not so much. On today's episode, we're going to have Colorado's Secretary of State, Jenna Griswold, talk to us about how their state is a model for voting rights and how HB1 incorporates some of their model and why this is important to the legislation. As well, we have NBC's John Allen, who's going to talk to us about his new book, Lucky, which details the Biden campaign and some of the behind-the-scenes aspect of it, as well as how it's affecting him getting legislation through Congress right now.

Starting point is 00:01:09 But first, we have Eric Topal, who's coming back to the show. He's a cardiologist, scientist, and author, and the founder and director of the Scripps Research Transitional Institute. But what we have him here for is he's one of the best explainers about what's going on with vaccines and COVID right now. So he's going to tell us all about that now. Hi, Eric Topol. Hello there, Molly. One of our favorite guests, one of our go-toes when it comes to deadly pandemics. Welcome.

Starting point is 00:01:37 Where do you think we are right now? Well, it's a really interesting spot because we have what I see, one major hurdle to get over, and then we should be clear sailing. The big issue is this UK variant, the so-called B-1. 117, which we're due to see crop up in a major way in Florida, California, Texas. So it won't be across the whole country. But this is the one that's of grave concern because it can spread so easily. And it's more virulent.

Starting point is 00:02:11 That is, it can induce more serious illness. The other variants have issues, but this is the one of principal concern. Once we get through that, and maybe it won't be as bad as has been seen in many other. countries. Then with the vaccinations moving forward and the progress for otherwise making, we should be in really good shape. So you're not worried about this South African variant. Yeah. So the South African variant as well as Brazil. And then what looks like is emerging as a New York variant, they share the same feature of this immune evasion. But what's good about that is they don't seem to be nearly as infectious as the B-117. So they're not going to spread.

Starting point is 00:02:54 Eventually, B117 is going to be the dominant strain, and it's going to outrun these others. So the vaccines still work in those other immune evasion variants. They don't work quite as well. But their main liability is for people to have reinfection if they've already had COVID, which obviously is bad. The issue there is, if it wasn't for the B117 strain, the kind of super spreader strain, that these immune, Evasion ones, South Africa is the worst of those, would be more of a concern. But, you know, we've seen two vaccines that work quite well against the South African variant, the J&J and the Novavax. So, you know, they're not nearly as concerning as the UK variant. But we just don't have enough

Starting point is 00:03:42 evidence on the Pfizer and Moderna and how they do with the South African strain. Yeah, we don't have, they haven't been tested. But based on what we know from the other vaccines, There's going to be a drop off for South Africa variant. It has, but it's not going to, you know, knock it out. The vaccines will still work pretty well. I mean, we saw evidence, you know, with J&J over 60%, Novavac, 60%. Yeah. And against severe infections or hospitalizations and deaths, you know, really quite impressive.

Starting point is 00:04:14 So these variants, particularly South Africa, which has the most immune evasion of the three, which is. And it's also the most fatal, right? Well, you know, that's really interesting. If you look at South Africa as the kind of laboratory where they had this enormous surge due to this variant, their variant there, they've emerged really well now. They're back to baseline and they didn't have any vaccination. So it shows you how, you know, just the usual mitigation things that we do, which as you well know, Texas and Mississippi and other states are now abandoning. But those things work really well. And so, you know, you can you can really reduce. the impact if we just stick with the things that we know work. So, but explain to me how this UK variant, does it, is it mitigated by these traditional virus mitigation or not as much because of its element of contagiousness? Yes, that's the key. It is mitigated, but what we've seen, even during lockdowns in the UK, Ireland, Israel, Portugal, and now we're seeing it in Eastern Europe, it's starting to crop up

Starting point is 00:05:21 in France and Italy. even with lockdowns because it's so infectious, more so than, of course, the strain we've been dealing with throughout the pandemic, that's the problem. Mitigation works, but it's more of a challenge than what we previously had to deal with. Are there best practices for the UK variant that we could do here? Right, right. No, there are for sure. I mean, it's certainly the mask story. You know, That's why for weeks, there's been discussions, as you well know, about masking up more, whether it's double mask or more high quality mask. You know, just not letting our guard down on that. More distancing, you know, not to let down because of this pandemic fatigue.

Starting point is 00:06:06 I've been really trying to push the FDA for the rapid home test because that would help us a lot. But they're still really slow and sluggish to get those out and the companies have not gotten them. What's happening with that? Yeah, you know, I talked with the person who runs that at FDA this past week. And he told me that it's really not they want to do this. They want to get them out. But the companies are not bringing them the kind of data that's needed to give them the emergency authorization. So, you know, the companies say it's the FDA.

Starting point is 00:06:36 The FDA says the company, but it's a hug. But if we had, though, that would really help us a lot because we'd identify people who didn't have symptoms but were infectious. Does it feel to you like we never really got the testing and tracing down? We sure didn't. You know, the testing was the biggest fiasco of our entire U.S. experience because of those two months where we didn't have tests and it was spreading like wildfire. So we never got the testing right because we're such a big country, such a large population. We need to get the home tests to get our arms around this. Now, what's really important, what you're bringing up, is that once we get containment of this virus, when it's low level out there, which it will be, you know, by the summer, no matter what happens with this UK variant, we'll get through it. But that's when the testing and tracing and isolation will be even more important because, you know, you can't really do contact tracing when you have overwhelming number of cases. But when you have it contained, that's when you can break the chains, you know, get people isolated. And that's what I hope.

Starting point is 00:07:43 now that we have that infrastructure in this country, we can actually put it to use. What do you think is going to happen now with this vaccine rollout? Well, you know, it has three sparkling days last week when it was, you know, up to almost two and a half million, which is fantastic. If we can keep building on that, you know, then we drop down a bit. At least we had the first week where we average over two million. That's pretty good. You know, a lot of people have been beating up the vaccine program but not moving fast enough, not like Israel or, you know, a couple of countries, or the U.K., which has gone twice as fast. People haven't taken the second shot in the U.K., right?

Starting point is 00:08:25 Right. That's the difference. They can go much faster since they're not giving the second doses right now. We've actually been pushing for that in the U.S. to get ready for this variant that we're going to be hit with. The U.K. variant, but there isn't receptivity at the White House yet or with Tony Fauci. think that just for a month to go with the one dose, you know, and then get these, all these people, get their second dose a little bit delayed would be really advantageous. But we haven't had much success in pushing for that. I'm very curious about that because that was one of the main things

Starting point is 00:09:00 I've been hearing people talk about all this week is that they don't understand why we're not using the UK's methodology for this. What do you think is the obstruction there? Well, when the UK first made that decision, you know, they were in throes of that variant spreading. So, badly and the toll on, you know, hospitalizations and deaths. And the data were not really strong. But since that occurred in January, you know, much more data has come out to support that if you delay the second dose from the current three or four weeks to, let's say, 10 or 12 weeks, it's no problem. In fact, it might even be a bit better. So, you know, I think it's the new data that, especially since we are facing this threat. And let's hope that this doesn't wind up being as bad as

Starting point is 00:09:43 it has been seen in these other countries. But if we don't gear up, you know, one thing, Molly, I've learned and just is that plan for the worst in this pandemic, you'll never regret it, right? And if we just did that, it would be smart. So Biden said on Tuesday, I think, or at some point this week, he said, we're going to now have enough vaccine for every adult in America by the end of May. Right. which is very good.

Starting point is 00:10:13 The vaccine supply is obviously not the same as the vaccine in people. And so that's where we need to do better is the latter category. We're getting better, but we have to do far more shots. And we also have to face the issue that even if you have enough vaccine, we haven't done much to try to deal with the anti-vaccine, the hesitancy, no less the underrepresented and the people who are just, you know, fearful and hard to reach. I mean, is there a plan for that? I've been hearing about that, but I sure haven't seen anything. Have you?

Starting point is 00:10:49 No, I have not. Can you talk for a minute about Trump's decision to cover up the fact that he was vaccinated? Yeah, I think that's really a travesty. And the reason I say that is we have politicization of the vaccines. We have a remarkable gap between the Democrats and Republicans as to their interest in getting a vaccine. We're only about half of Republicans want to get a vaccine. You know, this is a serious issue because had Trump been proud of having received a vaccine, he could have helped sway a lot of the people who follow him and, you know, this kind of cult of his people. So the fact that he didn't, he hid this.

Starting point is 00:11:35 January, it's really a shame because it was a really great opportunity to help bring more people along. So what you would like to see from this White House is them using the MRNAs as a one-shot for now? You know, we have this localized right now, this variant, where we have, it's pretty pronounced rise in California, Florida, and Texas. So if the White House wasn't willing to just go countrywide with the one-shot plan right now, I would just put. to the states where we know the variant is cooking. And that would be a smart way as a compromise, since they're very reluctant to switch from the protocol for the whole country.

Starting point is 00:12:16 But, you know, this is going to be a patchwork thing. We're going to see it in certain states first, and then we'll see it throughout the country. So that would be a good plan, but we, you know, many others like Mike Ulsterholm and Zeke Emanuel and I, and so many others have been lobbying, but we haven't gotten any receptivity so far. You know, it's so interesting to me, why isn't this UK variant in New York? I'm just curious.

Starting point is 00:12:41 Oh, it is. It's a much lower level than it is in those three states. But it's there. It's in every state right now. But, you know, in the country, overall, it's about 11 or 12%. It doesn't do any real, you won't see it until it gets over 50%. And even then there's a little delay. So it doubles every 10 days. So it'll be in New York. you know, late April, May is when you'll see it there in a significant way now. But the vaccines protect against it. Yeah, the vaccines work. And then, you know, New York was really hit hard, you know, in the first wave. So it may not be as bad there as in other parts of the country. You know, it's going to be different if there's natural immunity from prior infections, plus vaccines, that blunts the hit.

Starting point is 00:13:28 Now, one good thing about this wave that we're going to see, I hope, is that because of the vaccinations, you know, approaching, well, almost 50% in people over age 65, the highest risk group and 20% overall, we won't see hopefully the hospitalizations and the fatalities like we've seen previously. And that's obviously, you know, tremendous advance. Can we have a hot girl summer? I think the summer is going to be, you know, a great one. Unless there's some new thing that comes up that we don't know about right now. But the vaccinations will have got. in very good shape. We don't take enough stock in the fact that

Starting point is 00:14:08 about 100 million people in the U.S. have had COVID, whether they know it or not. Holy moly. You know, we're going to be between the vaccinations and the natural infections, you know, we're going to be in very good shape. And I think, you know, some point in the summer we're going to say, we got this. You know, there's still going to be

Starting point is 00:14:26 cases out there. We're still going to need to work on that containment, but it's going to be altogether different from what it has been. And when do you think kids are going to be able to start getting vaccinated? Well, you know, I wish they had been studied in the earlier trials because they are certainly part of the story, an important part. They are now, as you know, in the new trials. You know, hopefully in the months ahead, that will start. They obviously are also important because, you know, they have a potential to be the vectors.

Starting point is 00:14:58 Rarely they can be the ones who get long COVID too. So we have to get to the kids, especially older kids. They're the ones that are more simulate the transmission ability of adults and also, you know, potentially getting sick like adults. It seems like under 12 is a different story or under eight. The little kids seem to do much better with the whole thing. That's right. They're less susceptible to the infections in getting sick. I mean, there's certainly rare cases.

Starting point is 00:15:29 Right. But you're right. Absolutely, Molly. So last night I went with my partner for her to get her shot. And so I was standing outside with a lot of people and hearing what they were talking about. And so many of these people wanted a vaccine shop. They really didn't want the J&J. They wanted the Moderna, not the Pfizer, or vice versa.

Starting point is 00:15:48 Do you have any advice and insight on how people should see that? Yeah, it's a great question, Jesse. I mean, I think when the Moderna and Pfizer came out, it set the bar really high with this 95% efficacy. I mean, it's one of the greatest, if not the greatest triumphs in, you know, science and medical research of all time. Now, when the other vaccines have come out, like J&J, there was a drop down in efficacy. And that's for, you know, mild to moderate infections, not the ones that require hospitalizations. So the J&J vaccine does offer good protection, not, you know, not quite as good. And, of course, the advantage there of being a single shot. We don't know about its duration for any

Starting point is 00:16:29 of these vaccines, you know, do they protect for a year, multiple years, six months, you know, these are some unknowns. But, you know, the J&J vaccine is good. I don't think it's as potent. So for high-risk people, if they have a choice, you know, the efficacy is going to be hard to beat for FISA-Moderna. But, you know, J&J is solid. And, you know, a lot of people, like my wife, had vaccine phobia. And for her, you know, the one shot would have been a, better way for her to handle it. She ultimately got two, but, you know, that's another bonus is that you can just get it done with one.

Starting point is 00:17:08 And it's the only vaccine program so far that has validation with, with one shot. So there's some really good features about that side of it. Thank you so much. We love having you. Hopefully next time we have you, it'll be like. Jonathan Allen is the co-author of the new book, Lucky, how Joe Biden barely won the presidency.

Starting point is 00:17:30 And today he's going to talk to us about that and how it's affecting what we're going through in Congress right now. Hi, John Allen. Hi, Molly Jongfest. Welcome back to the new abnormal again. I feel like I never left. That's right. I'm always living in the new abnormal. That's certainly true.

Starting point is 00:17:48 The book that you and Amy Parns have written is called Lucky. And it's about horse racing. No, it's about Joe Biden's. Talk to us a little bit about the book. Sure. For those of the listeners who were familiar with our previous books, you know, this is like those in that we're retelling the story of the 2020 election, but instead of you just seeing what's out front, we take you behind the scenes, very detailed reporting on what was going on inside the Biden campaign,

Starting point is 00:18:19 the Trump campaign, the Sanders campaign, the Harris campaign, the Warren campaign, you name it. I mean, obviously there were, you know, more than two dozen Democratic candidates. We have, you know, new stuff on what Barack Obama was thinking and doing during the Democratic primary. Hillary Clinton's two times where she thought about jumping into the race, Mike Bloomberg. And so we do that. And the idea is that you kind of are able to go through the ups and downs of the campaign again, but with a different perspective and maybe more information about it. What was Barack Obama doing during the primaries?

Starting point is 00:18:52 One of our sources said he flirted a lot. Not in an Andrew Cuomo kind of way, but, But in terms of the other candidates. Oh, interesting. Meaning, you know, he interviewed all, you know, basically met with all of them or all of those who wanted to meet with them. But there was a time where he was very high on Beto O'Rourke, and you saw a lot of Obama people moving into the Beto O'Rourke world. And then, you know, when Elizabeth Warren started to rise up, we've got this great scene in the book where, you know, Barack Obama's meeting at this place, Eves, a sort of New York boutique eatery with. black corporate leaders, people who are donors to his foundation, guys, he's known for a long time.

Starting point is 00:19:32 And he says, I'm going to take a few questions, which is a little bit unusual for an event like this. Usually he's just kind of glad handing and got a vodka in his hand and chatting people up. But he says he's going to take questions. And somebody from the audience says, you know, tell us what you think about Warren and Buttigieg and Biden. And he basically gives a 90% sermon about how Elizabeth Warren should be acceptable to these black business leaders and that the alternative is terrible. And the idea is kind of to soften up these guys for Warren a little bit in the event that she's the nominee. And then he moves on to Pete Buttigieg and he says, Buttigieg has major challenges that he sees. Buttigieg is 38, but he looks like he's 30, Obama says.

Starting point is 00:20:14 He's the mayor of a small town. And then Obama says he's gay and he's short. And if you remember at the time, you know, Buttigieg was having terrible trap time trying to get traction in the black community. And here Barack Obama is in front of these black business leaders talking about Pete's challenges and particularly his orientation. And then Obama kind of wraps up and one of the people in the audience says, hey, you forgot Biden. Yeah. Oh, wow.

Starting point is 00:20:39 But ultimately Obama was able to play the role of trying to help bring the party together behind Biden once Biden, one South Carolina. And you see him making calls to Amy Klobuchar, making calls to Pete Buttigieg. You see his national finance guy, Rufus Gifford, send out an email to all of the members of Obama's national finance team from his campaign. I think it's about 800 people. And now is the time to get in behind Biden, start giving. And that's between South Carolina and Super Tuesday, that three-day stretch where Biden caught fire and essentially wrapped up the democratic nomination.

Starting point is 00:21:10 What do you think happened as someone who wrote the absolutely worst piece about Biden during the primary season myself at absolutely the worst time? in absolutely the worst place, Washington Post editorial. But Molly, I love you because you are the person who will come back and say, I was wrong. Yeah, I was wrong. But I've spent much of the week talking about being wrong about Cuomo, but I would like to take a minute to talk about being wrong about Biden. What happened when he lost those two primaries where, I mean, I understand why he won South Carolina,

Starting point is 00:21:47 which was that he had this incredible relationship with Representative Clyburn, who really delivered for him. But I'm just curious to know, and then just everything fell into place? Basically. I mean, I've never seen anything like it in politics, but there was all this concern about Biden. I mean, he was always the, you know,

Starting point is 00:22:06 from a national polling perspective, pretty much always the frontrunner, but he was a very weak frontrunner, and that only about a third of the Democratic Party was signed on. What was helpful for Biden was that he had the parts that were signed on were moderate whites and African Americans.

Starting point is 00:22:20 and that combination is pretty powerful within the Democratic Party. And it's almost impossible to get both of those wings. And Democratic nominees are usually the people who are able to get both of those wings. And so, you know, he had that strength going into the process. But then he gets into Iowa, and he's just kind of terrible in Iowa. I mean, I saw him on the stump there. He was lackluster, and there weren't many people at his events. And, you know, Iowa's not built for somebody with that coalition.

Starting point is 00:22:47 The Iowa Democratic caucus going electorate is, you know, liberal and white, not the moderate whites that Biden had or the African Americans for the most part that Biden had. And so it's really a state that's poorly designed for him. And on top of that, he really, really struggled on the trail. I mean, there just wasn't much energy there to the point that we report in the book that John Kerry, who was there as a surrogate for him, was actually in Biden's hotel, like 100 feet from his own, from Biden's top advisor. on the phone with somebody talking about what it would take for John Kerry to get in the race to try to stop Bernie Sanders. I seem to remember you overhearing this. That's right. I was sitting next to John Kerry at the time. I reported some of it at the time, but the parts that didn't make it into the report at the time end up in the books.

Starting point is 00:23:35 There's a little bit more texture on that in the book than folks remember the original story. You know, Iowa was kind of wild. You know, we go into depth in the book about how the Iowa, the major Iowa poll, the Des Moines Register poll, got spiked. Somebody had called one of Pete Buttigieg's volunteers, you know, to poll them, not knowing that it was a volunteer, but to poll them and left Buttigieg's name off the list of candidates. And so Buttigieg's team is able to, like, use that to get CNN to not put the poll out. And we go into the sort of machinations of that in the book. And that helps Biden, ultimately, because Biden was going to come in fourth in that poll in a very distant fourth. And so he didn't

Starting point is 00:24:14 have to deal with the, you know, 48 hours of being a fourth place finisher before actually being a fourth place finisher. And then the Iowa caucus app failed. Anybody that was watching the time remember frustration of trying to figure out who won Iowa. And like, nobody has any information. You know, we sort of go into that. And ultimately, Biden's able to get out of Iowa without the political obituary writers writing as obituary, you know, political obituary. And gets into New Hampshire. He's still out of money. His aides come to. them and say, you might want to consider refinancing your house to put money into the campaign. Yikes. Why would anyone do that? It's not the most unheard of thing for a candidate to do it.

Starting point is 00:24:54 A presidential candidate doesn't do that. And the subtext of going to him to tell him that is that it might be time to just wrap up the campaign. To Joe Biden's everlasting credit, he believed in himself. He sometimes can have a little bit of a self-delusional optimism. And I think some of the people around him thought that was what was going on. But he was optimistic. and determined, and he kept telling, he had to even tell his wife, just hang on until South Carolina, you know, this is going to turn around. So, I mean, it's really an incredible story. I know people, like I said, people remember the basic contours of it, but Joe Biden got a ton of breaks to make it to South Carolina. It gets this endorsement from Clyburn that is not just an endorsement,

Starting point is 00:25:35 but like a heartfelt emotional endorsement that wasn't even certain, you know, a couple days before. And we go into the sort of negotiations and discussions between Biden and Clyburn over that. And Clyburn wanted Biden to say that he was going to make an African-American woman a Supreme Court justice. And Biden wasn't saying it on the debate stage. And then Clyburn rushes back during a commercial break in the South Carolina debate to tell Biden, you know, you better not leave this stage without making that promise. And all that happens before Clyburn's endorsement comes out. So, you know, there's a lot of places where, you know, Biden is tiptoeing on the high wire. it almost falls off. Then, of course, you get to the general election and COVID hits, and Biden is

Starting point is 00:26:16 taken off the trail, and he is able to be scripted. He's, you know, for his entire career, been undisciplined, and reporters love him because he'll talk, but he's undisciplined. And now his campaign has the ability to control his message and choose when he talks and how he talks and who he talks to. And he's able to make those discretionary decisions along with his advisors. And meanwhile, Trump is on the stage at the White House telling people to inject disinfectant. to combat COVID. This storyline is just unimaginable, right? Unless, you know, except that it happened.

Starting point is 00:26:49 You know, you should go through all of that. And then, you know, we go deep into what's going on in the general election and the tension within Biden's camp over what he should do about the protests of racial justice. There were people on his campaign who advised him to apologize for the crime bill, to say, defund the police. And he was very resistant to that. You know, I think ultimately that was helpful for him in winning the. the election and certainly a stand that he kind of took against the pressures of his party

Starting point is 00:27:15 to move more toward where the activists were. And then election night, you know, the Biden team believed that it was going to be closer than the polls suggested, and they were shocked at how close it actually was in the end. So even with their more bearish projections, they really, they really didn't think they were going to get to a place where it ended up. And a lot of people have missed this or kind of ignored it because Biden won the popular vote by, so much in the electoral college margin was the same as Trump's, but it would have taken only 43,000 votes for Trump over Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin to have a second term. And that is a much smaller margin than the 77,000 votes that it would have taken Hillary Clinton to flip

Starting point is 00:27:59 those three blue wall states in 2016. So for all the Democrats who thought, you know, she narrowly lost, and I'm, you know, an objective observer who thinks, that she narrowly lost, the Trump narrow loss was actually closer. I am so glad that Trump did not get re-election. Let me tell you, that is so scary. You talk about how lucky he was, but that makes me really scared. Because right now, it seems to a lot of us, like the tide is turning against him already. I kind of couldn't believe how many barely politically active people were mad at what's happening in the House and the Senate right now in regards

Starting point is 00:28:41 to COVID relief and the minimum wage. I want to see what your analysis would be about, you know, is this incompetence? Is it just luck that he got here? What's going on here? Well, I think what's going on is that we still have an incredibly narrowly divided country and the power in each party is imbalanced toward the people that have money and power. And so what happens is a lot of the things that the public wants that are at odds with what donors want and what, you know, sort of elites want, get sort of short shrift. You know, for Biden to

Starting point is 00:29:16 try to get things done in Congress, you know, he didn't have coat tails, right? I mean, not, he didn't have significant, you know, the Senate flipped to the Democratic side with those two victories in Georgia subsequent to the presidential election, but it's a 50-50 Senate. And the House, the Democrats lost ground, and they have 51 percent of the seats there. You know, the folks who, who wanted to see a big sort of populist, you know, more progressive revolution are running into the math. Certainly the Republicans are not supportive of increasing the minimum wage to $15. But also Joe Manchin is not supportive of that. And also Christian Sinema is not supportive of that. And, you know, the election left us as a country, you know, more divided or more evenly divided than we were before in terms of the House and the Senate.

Starting point is 00:30:04 So it's a real challenge for Biden. And he promised that he was going to unify the country. and that promise has sort of shifted from, I can work with Republican senators to, I'm going to get things done that Democrats and some Republicans in the country want, and hopefully that will force some of the Republicans into my camp. So do you think that's going to work? I don't expect that it will. I don't think there's any evidence of it so far. You know, the minimum wage is highly popular. Gun control measures are highly popular. We are not seeing a lot of movement there, either from the Republicans or, you know, even in the case of president, Biden, like, I mean, he knew that when he put minimum wage into, or when the Senate put minimum wage into his reconciliation bill that the likelihood was that the parliamentarian was going to say it was out of order, that it didn't meet their muster. He was in the Senate for six terms. I mean,

Starting point is 00:30:53 this was not a surprise to him. Like, if you were Joe Biden right now, what would you do? Well, if I were Joe Biden right now, I'd be pretty happy to have a home in the White House residence. You know, I can't give advice to presidents, but I do think that. I do think that. there are things that he can work on that have that patina bipartisanship that might get him a little bit of momentum. You know, one of the things that senators always want is the ability to go home and say that they got something done for their constituents. And so sometimes you have to lean a little more heavily toward feathering the nests of the, you know, the Republicans that might be brought across the aisle and, you know, in the Democratic case, you know, feathering the nest of

Starting point is 00:31:32 Joe Manchin a little more. I mean, those people are going to have a lot of leverage. And if you don't, respond to their leverage a little bit. If you don't give them something, they will oppose you. But your marks are back. Your marks are coming back. That's right. And so there's an opportunity to do it. Will you explain what earmarks are to everybody? Sure. The sort of most basic way that I could put it is an earmarks when a member of Congress chooses where a certain pot of money is going to go in their own state or district. So if you want a bridge built in your district, you can basically within an appropriations bill within a spending bill, have a line that says, you know, the bridge is going to be built in, say, Charlestown, West Virginia, or on the Upper East Side of Manhattan from, you know,

Starting point is 00:32:17 from 89th Street to 73rd Street or whatever. You know, I don't know. That would be a bridge over some very tall buildings. But, you know, it could be a bridge. It can be a museum. It can be any sort of institution. And, you know, the Democrats have been going back and forth over whether they should exclude earmarks that essentially benefit companies and make it only for sort of, nonprofits, but it appears that earmarks are going to come back. Will that get Biden some power? Yes. More directly, it'll give power to Schumer and to Pelosi to offer things to lawmakers in bills to try to get their votes for those bills. Without earmarks, there's very

Starting point is 00:32:52 little leverage for the party leaders to go to somebody who wants to vote no on something and say, hey, look, I can get something in this bill that'll make you, that you can go home and tell your constituents you got for them. With earmarks, they have the ability to do that, And of course, that can be deployed by the president through the congressional leadership. You know, the other thing is the administration, even without earmarked money, has the ability to, in some pots of money, to distribute in ways that are helpful for a particular senator or congressman. Do you think it's weird that we've gone from, like, crazy, insane president who tweets and does no legislation to what will the parliamentarian accept, according to the bird rule? Yeah, it's definitely a very different Washington. It is reverted toward, you know, you talk about the new abnormal, and there's still much abnormal behavior in politics. So you'll have plenty of stuff to talk about for a long time, you know, whether it's Mojorie Taylor Green or, you know, people thinking that somehow you're going to stop the president from being president on March 4th. Or Ronnie Jackson. Or Ronnie Jackson alleged to be popping pills.

Starting point is 00:34:03 and driving on the job as White House doctor. I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of good material for you out there. But in Washington, the sort of focus on, like, the rules of the Senate and how government is supposed to work and the institutions operate, you know, that's pretty old school after the Trump era. And frankly, it's old school compared to, you know, what we had been seeing, which was a huge trend in executive power and partisan identification with the president in power.

Starting point is 00:34:31 And one of the things Biden, you know, promised explicitly and implicitly to do was to strengthen the institutions of Washington and to work with Congress instead of against it. And so I think you're seeing some of that. Perhaps you've heard that cancel culture has come for Dr. Seuss. Why are Republicans reading Dr. Seuss on the floor of Congress? It's hard to know. I do know that right now, you know, most of the top selling books on Amazon are Dr. Seuss books. There's been a huge run on them. But what is the goal? Like, I saw that, and then I saw Jim Jordan, everyone's favorite intellectual and crime-ignorer, saying that he's going to do, they're going to hold hearings on cancel culture. It's very odd to me to hear a self-described conservative Republican suggest that the federal government should be regulating culture from Washington on anything other than abortion. Right. I mean, it's like, you can't even define what the Republican Party is anymore. There's no, like, sort of intellectual rigor to what's going on in Washington. I think that's intellectual rigors. I'm not sure there was intellectual rigor before, but yes, I agree.

Starting point is 00:35:35 And look, I mean, I like Dr. Seuss books, and if there are Dr. Seuss books that need to have new pictures in them or that maybe ought not be, you know, the thing that you're reading to your kid, then fine. Like, that that's great. But the idea that Washington should be telling a private company that it can't decide what it wants to do with its books is absurd. Nobody thinks that's a good idea if they're being intellectually honest, right? There's nobody who's for forcing the publication of material. You know, right? Like, it just doesn't make sense on any ideological level. And it's just, it's sort of this grievance culture that has arisen.

Starting point is 00:36:17 And the idea that Congress would be used to do that is just anathema to, you know, 200 plus years of experience in this country. There's a lot of controversial text out there. I mean, I thought about this recently because I'm reading Tom Sawyer to my kids. And I love Mark Twain. And so we talk about each chapter after each chapter. We talk about the context. We talk about the morality.

Starting point is 00:36:37 And when I read Huck Finn to them, it's going to be that much more difficult to try to navigate that. But the books are so good. And Twain's point ultimately was that the racists in that small town, I think it's St. Petersburg, Missouri, fictional town, are really the worst people. Do you think there's a chance that Murkowski and Collins and maybe not mid, but does sort of squishier Republicans come around for stuff? Yes, I think that there are things on which Biden will be able to get votes from moderate Republicans, sort of independent thinking of Republicans. You know, the converse is some of these bills are going to be incredibly difficult for them to vote against. I mean, think about voting against the COVID relief bill. which is very popular. That's a ready-made, you know, an entire campaign's worth of ads for an opponent.

Starting point is 00:37:29 Marker Rubio is going to vote against this COVID relief bill, and he's going to have a Democratic opponent next time. There's several that are thinking about getting in, including Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy from Florida. And they're going to be able to pummel him on trying to stop Floridians from getting vaccines to stop fools from getting money. You know, I mean, it's just, you know, I think that's a very difficult vote to defend on. anything other than, you know, an extremely partisan philosophical standpoint, right? And usually voters just aren't quite where the members are in terms of being extremists on ideology. A lot of Biden's cabinet appointments actually got pretty good bipartisan support. One of the things Biden, and we, you know, we talk about in this book, but Biden has relationships with members of the United States Senate.

Starting point is 00:38:19 they're not the same folks he served with when he left in 2008 entirely, but a lot of them are the same folks that he served with. And a lot of them are people who have said in the past that a president should have his nominees. And so, you know, I think Biden is in a position where he's been able to nominate a pretty broad spectrum of Democrats in terms of ideology, in terms of diversity and, you know, racial, ethnic and gender. And for the most part, what they've gotten through. I mean, you know, basically Nero Tandon for OMB director was the big holdup. And, you know, she spent a lot of time personally torching

Starting point is 00:38:59 members of the United States Senate in both parties on Twitter. And while that is not the same as what Donald Trump did, somebody who did what Donald Trump did would not be conformable by the United States Senate. So do you think there's no chance that I'm going to get a Senate confirmed position? Really, that's what I want to know. So, Molly, I think you've got this all wrong in a way, which is you're assuming that the Senate continues to be as it is. Right.

Starting point is 00:39:26 I mean, I think in a world where there's 60 Democratic Senate seats or 57 Democratic Senate seats, Molly Jong-Fest could be secretary of whatever the hell Molly Jong-Fass wants to be secretary of. Which is nothing. Oh, there are some really good jobs in the administration. I would like a Senate of shit posters. Wouldn't you like to do the ambassador of the UN? Yes, I would like that. I mean, that's a great job for you. You don't even have to move. Yeah, no, I'm in, man. You got it. Also, I'd like to be, yes, I'll do that for sure.

Starting point is 00:39:55 I think the transportation secretary sounds like a really good gig, too. Trains. Well, you get to walk around handing out checks. In that way, it's really not a bad gig at all, especially if you're interested in future politics. Although, I had thought myself that the best job for Buttigieg would have been Agriculture Secretary because you get to hand out a lot of checks to people in rural. rural parts of the country. Oh, yeah. Rural whites, rural Hispanics, and rural African Americans.

Starting point is 00:40:22 And if you're going to try to win the South Carolina primary someday, that's not a bad place to have been. Oh, that's interesting. All right. Thank you so much, John Allen. And by the book, the book is called Lucky. That's it. Thanks.

Starting point is 00:40:35 Thank you, Molly John Fas. Hey, folks. If you haven't heard, every single week we do a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast membership program. Sometimes we interview senators like Corey Booker or the folks who explain what's happening behind the scenes in media, like Jim Acosta or Soladadad O'Brien. Sometimes we just have fun to talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner, and sometimes we just have friends around to analyze what's happening in the news.

Starting point is 00:41:00 You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a beast inside member where you'll support the beast fearless journalism, as well as getting full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member, head to New Abnormal.com. That's new abnormal.com. Thedailybeast.com. Jenna Griswold is Colorado's Secretary of State, which means she oversees the elections there, and there's one of the best models in America for how to get an election done where as many people vote as possible. And she's going to talk to us about how that affects the upcoming voter rights legislation coming through Congress soon. So talk to me about what's going on in Colorado with voting rights. We are considered the safest state and most accessible state in the nation in which to cast a ballot.

Starting point is 00:41:45 And, you know, all through 2020 with the pandemic and also the president trying to undermine access and confidence in elections, what we did is added access. And we ended up having record turnout. And I'm hopeful that all Americans will have the same type of access as Coloradoans to make their voices heard. So explain to me what that means added access. So in 2019, when I became Secretary of State, I ran and worked with the legislature to pass the largest democracy reform. in the nation at the state level. So we increased drop boxes, we increased voting centers, and guaranteed for the first time ever that both a voting center or a drop box would be on public universities and tribal lands. And then when the pandemic hit, we continued that work.

Starting point is 00:42:31 So we added even more drop boxes, increasing the total by 55% in just a two-year span. Explain to me, with the drop boxes, you put them out how many days before the election? So when early voting starts, the drop boxes have to be opened. So that's several weeks before the election. We have in Colorado, vote by mail for all, early voting, same day voter registration, online voter registration so people can have their voice heard in our elections. And then what did you do on the tribal lands? So when I became Secretary of State, I started to work with tribal leadership. First in 2019, we guaranteed that all tribal voters have access right on the tribe. So we guaranteed a polling location and a drop box. We also put safeguards into the law to make sure that a person with a tribal ID or a person who doesn't have their address recognized by the U.S. Postal Service could still vote and vote their mail. ballot. If you live on indigenous lands, we don't have a conventional address, how do you still get recognized to vote? So you register just like anybody else, but the real question is, how do you receive your mail ballot? And that was the issue. The U.S. Postal Service doesn't recognize your home as having an address that they deliver to. How do you receive a mail ballot? So how do you?

Starting point is 00:43:54 Yeah. So in 2019, we worked with the tribes to make sure that if you don't have an address recognized by the Postal Service, your mail ballot can be sent straight to tribal headquarters. So you could pick it up, or you can go vote in person because we also guaranteed a voting center right on tribal lands to increase access for Native American voters on tribal lands. Does that not happen in other tribal lands? You know, I will say that voter suppression is often systemic racism. It's really sad that, for example, the 12-hour long lines we see in Georgia predominantly affect black voters. And with Native Americans living on tribal lands, they didn't even have their right to vote in federal elections recognized in Colorado until 1970. So we do see native people suppressed, whether it's rejection of IDs or not enough access or not knowing their rights

Starting point is 00:44:49 all across the country. And what we're trying to do in Colorado is the opposite of that. We want folks living on tribal lands who are U.S. citizens eligible to vote to know their rights and have the access set to make their voices heard in our elections. Yes. So talk to me about what's coming up with HR1 and how is Colorado's voting model works within that. So I truly believe every American deserves the same type of access as Coloradoans. So that means vote by mail for all where you're, you registered a vote and your mail ballot, same day voter registration, early voting and Apple access to drop boxes and voting center. near all voters. And that's why I'm really excited to support HR1, because it would adopt many

Starting point is 00:45:36 of the pieces of the Colorado voting model and increase access across the country, giving all Americans the same type of access. I also think it's 2021. It's time to modernize our elections, but another feature of HR1 is the anti-corruption provisions. Will you explain that to us? HR1 is really about unreging the system and putting power in the hands of American voters. And that means making sure that voters choose their elected officials. And you need to have access to be able to do that. That means making sure that politicians don't choose their voters. The voters choose the politician. And what can happen is politicians can say, I don't like these voters, so I'm going to suppress them. Or I don't like these voters. I'm going to

Starting point is 00:46:21 gerrymander them out of our district. So HR1 stops voter suppression. It fights against political gerrymandering, but it also fights against dark money. And I think that's really the third wheel of all of this is besides voter suppression and gerrymandering, our elections are flooded by corporate and dark money. And all that money, all that communication drowns out the voice of everyday people. You know, I'm really excited about HR1. A lot of the things in the bill, we do in Colorado. And I think it's the recipe to making sure that Americans decide our future, but that also are government works so that it can pass things to safeguard our climate to combat COVID-19, to make sure that health care is affordable. So I'm really optimistic and a big supporter of HR1.

Starting point is 00:47:11 Do you think you can get any Republicans to sign on on this? I will say that when I ran campaign finance reform and lobbyist reform in Colorado, we did have bipartisan support. In terms of whether in the Senate, a Republican will join, I'm not sure. But I think if they don't, it's evidence more of how politicized everything is now than a reflection of the legislation. Because this legislation isn't about helping one party over the other. It's about helping Americans, helping Americans have more access to vote, putting power back in the hands of Americans and taking it out of corporations and special interests who have so much louder of say than people who grew up like me. So I sure hope that they will support the bill, but this is something we need, we just need as a nation.

Starting point is 00:48:04 After 2020, we need to fortify our democracy. And we do that at the state level, but also need Congress to act. So Colorado has also been at the forefront of marijuana legislation. You guys have really seen your state transformed by being early to legalizing it. I know that's coming up on the national scale as well in the Biden agenda. What could you tell people about why that's important to support? Well, Jesse, I'll share with you that my grandma had epilepsy. And there's so many people, including kids with epilepsy, across the country,

Starting point is 00:48:40 who would benefit from legalization, the mix of CBD and THC. But besides that, just that, I do think the choice to legalize is a state's rights issue, and people should be able to make those choices. So I think Colorado has had a really good experience in setting, up and regulating the legalization of marijuana. And related to our prior conversation about voting rights, criminalizing marijuana has led to many people, many people of color also, being imprisoned and stripped of their voting rights. So I think it's really exciting for the nation. I support legalization and Colorado shows how you can set up a really good system to

Starting point is 00:49:22 regulate legalized marijuana. Thank you so much for coming on. You were just great. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Hello, Jesse Cannon. Hi, Molly Jongfast. Who is going to be the object of your fuck that guy today? The object of fuckery? There was fuckery.

Starting point is 00:49:40 So my villain of today is a man who you may have heard of. His name is Ron Johnson. Ron Johnson, who I think he's been fuck that guy for me before. Even if I can't fact check it, I'm going to just make a wager that that's been happening. After the Senate opens debate on the COVID relief bill, Ron Johnson forces the Senate clerk to read the 628 page bill. It could take anywhere from 8 to 10 hours.

Starting point is 00:50:14 Before it started, Ron said he actually felt bad for the Senate clerk, but not bad enough to not do it. Apparently, he's sitting there smugly watching this be done without a mask on and it has his feet up. I'm not surprised. What I take Salison is he's really making a really easy time for the people who are going to be cutting ads against him in his upcoming set of campaign. In two years! Well, my fuck that guy is also an old favorite.

Starting point is 00:50:42 It's one of our favorite governors, Ron Death Santas. And I kind of like pronouncing that way because it really does bring to my, like, the picture of Ron in a Santa suit, just bringing out the death to his citizens of his state. What did Ron do this time? He says Florida's open to party hungry travelers, and he welcomes the partiers to his state now, and we're so close to being done. Yeah, I feel like he's having a little contest with Governor Abbott from Texas. Because yesterday Governor Abbott was like, no more COVID restrictions. We're good. They vaccinated 7% of Texas, mind you.

Starting point is 00:51:20 So I feel like DeSantis is like, I will not be top. I will be the worst GOP governor. Yeah, I feel like this is him being emboldened after that straw poll at CPAC that he's got to just play into the operational defiant disorder and just really, really try to make sure that he shows the libs and owns the libs by killing his citizens. And what I think is just so reprehensible is the thing of like, your top order job is to keep your citizens safe. Yet he's like, hmm, safety of my citizens. Not as important as me making sure I own the libs and get the nomination. For the president, if Trump doesn't make it into the race. Yeah, DeSantis is definitely going to, I think he will reoccur in this segment.

Starting point is 00:52:05 Yeah, but I also do encourage you mind. Let's try to get this pronunciation done. Death Santas. Death Santas. What's a good imagery there? With the pronunciations. Fuck that guy, Ron Edition. That's right.

Starting point is 00:52:22 On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from The Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics and science. We'll help us understand what's happening to our country and the world. We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you again on the next episode. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at thedailybeast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast.

Starting point is 00:53:09 subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the dailybeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.

The Daily Beast Podcast - Biden Was Asked to Refinance His House After Iowa Fail

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.