The Daily Beast Podcast - Ilhan Omar Breaks Down Congress’ ‘High School’ Cliques

Episode Date: February 8, 2022

In this episode of The New Abnormal, Rep. Ilhan Omar breaks down the toxic ‘high school’ cliques in Congress, defends progressives, and explains why she’s so disappointed in President Joe Biden. Plus, Jared Bernstein, Economic Policy Advisor for the Biden Administration, breaks down how the Biden admin is trying to fix inflation and makes an admission about student loan forgiveness. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Zhang Fast, no relationship to Kim Jong-un. I'm a left-wing pundant and a writer at the Atlantic Invo. And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart, conversations with the wisest and funniest and funniest people in science and media and politics that help make what's happening today clearer. Our world has been turned upside down, and on the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and how we'll hopefully get ourselves out of it. What a fun show we have today. Representative Ilan Omar will join us to talk about her experiencing Congress lately and a host of legislative issues. Then we'll be joined by one of President Biden's chief economic advisors, Jared Bernstein, and he's going to talk to us about the jobs report and how we should see the economy. But first, let's have some fun.

Andy Levy. Molly Jongfest. We are going to have legitimate political discourse today. So get ready because I have bears credit. Oh, wait. Let me get my gun. Over the weekend in Florida, Ronda, Ronda, Romney McDaniels, decided that the January 6th insurrection was legitimate political discourse.

And who could argue with that? I think what's interesting about her legitimate political discourse phrasing was that right afterwards, the New York Times, ran a piece about this because it's very newsworthy, and she took the header and said, this is fake news. And she was infuriated because I guess the idea is that they sort of hopes that they could call it legitimate political discourse and then everyone would forget. And you really see why it's so important to have a fulsome media, because if this had not got uncovered, they would be able to whitewash this, which is what they want.

And you know it went badly for Rhonda because she then had to release... Rana, Rana. No, no, it's Rhonda. She had to release talking points. And whenever, you know, if you have to do sets of talking points, things are always going a little off the rails. Well, no, because she said that people had asked her for talking points as she was just providing them, you know, as requested. And we know that that's true because everything she says is true, except for her name. Yeah, she never lies.

Yeah. Yes. That's one of her great qualities is that she never lies. Yeah. She puts family first, which is why she changed her name. Yes, yes. I mean, and we should point out that this was done in the context of censoring Liz Cheney and Adam Kinsinger for being part of the January 6th committee. So they have just gone full insurrection.

And, you know, you never go full insurrection. But they have gone there now. And people were pointing out that right around. January 6th, if you look at Rana's tweets, they were very much anti the violence and anti what was going on. And here we are a year later, and everything is opposite land. You know, we're now in bizarre a world, where everything that Republicans said on the day of January 6th, they are now saying the exact opposite of that. And the violence that was pretty loudly and pretty consistently sort of denounced by Republicans is now, They're now embracing it.

And of course, they're acting like they never denounced it. And it's unbelievable how far they've fallen in the last year. Like if anyone thought that, you know, with Trump out, things, there might be some sort of return to a semblance of sanity. Boy, that was wrong because it's just gone completely the other way. It's just, they've just gone more bat shit in the last year. And it's nuts. It is interesting to me.

There have been many opportunities during this time. to, you know, denounce this authoritarian shift to the right that is part of Trumpism. And at every time, every point, Republicans have sort of kidnapped themselves and held themselves hostage. And it's sort of a fascinating phenomenon. Like, they're cowards, but they're cowards like three-dimensional coward. Like, they're so cowardly. They're even more cowardly than we thought they were. What I think is interesting was that the hero of the resistance this weekend was one Mike Pence, who is also a disgusting coward, but who did say that he was not going to overturn the election and that Trump cannot just throw out all the votes he doesn't like.

Now, I want to couch this with saying there is reporting that Mike Pence had to talk to the dumbest vice president we as a country have ever had, Dan Quentin. And Dan Quail somehow convinced Mike Pence. We've covered this on the podcast, but you just want to point out how fucking stupid this is. And how these people are all, besides being criminals, really morons. I mean, if you want to talk about how much stupor it's going to get, the same way some of the resistance people made Bullard Kobe heroes. I'm waiting for don't hang Mike Pence. I want to hang with Mike Pence shirts. Oh, yeah.

Right. Yeah. This is a totally fascinating phenomenon. Trump is now saying that hang Mike Pence was just a figure of speech, right? And the gallows were just sort of like one of those things. Yeah, it was a figure of gallows. Right. Well, you've heard the argument.

People have said, well, they weren't even real gallows. Right. Right. It wasn't full size or whatever. So, yeah. Right. Like, you couldn't really hang someone on that. Right.

There's very strict regulations on gallows. Come on guys. I've read the OSHA requirements to the proper gallows. So that is kind of spectacularly stupid. I'm excited, though, because I think we're all going to die. But yeah, no. So it really is, we're said the good news is that we're seeing, you know, Rhonda, Rona McDaniels, Romney is going to have to go to war with Mike Pence. and two less pleasant people, I cannot imagine. Yeah, it is. And look, we've been saying this about Pence for a while. I mean, I remember I said, I don't know, a couple months ago or whatever, that he's wrong about literally everything else.

But on that one day, he did the right thing and possibly saved democracy. I mean, that might be going a little too far, but it might not be. Like, he really was the last bulwark on that day, and he did what he was supposed to do. Yeah, obviously that doesn't make him a resistance hero, or at least it should, shouldn't, but you can never tell with the hashtag resistance people who they're going to glom on to. Well, woke teenage son sent me a text that was welcome to the resistance, Mike Pence. So I think he was being ironic, but it's not good. My children's book, Mike Pence saves democracy like the Mueller children's book.

Guys, I'll tell you this, when Mike Pence is protesting Planned Parenthood's next time, but I'd love to see what he looks like in a pussy hat. So we discover again that Trump ripped up stuff. How is this even a story? I mean, I know it's a story because it's more Trump criming, but like he ripped up stuff. We know he ripped up stuff. We saw, I mean, we've seen reporting about this the entire presidency,

but he ripped up stuff. And now the National Archives doesn't have it or has to tape it back together. Right. And he moved a lot of stuff to Mar-a-Lago, which is what the National Archives had to go down there and get it. I was actually wondering, do you think Trump, charge them full price for their rooms if they had to stay there and deal with it. I think they probably stayed at the Ramada. Probably, yeah.

I don't know. You guys are forgetting. They probably want to catch one of his DJ sets. Yeah. All right. So, Jesse is really excited and wants us to talk about one of the more stupid phenomena in this stupid, stupid week of stupid crap, which was that Donald J. Trump has, you know, one of the things he does is he is like a Nick City dancer for bar mitzvahs and weddings at Mar-Larago.

And if you book your wedding or bar mitzvah at Mar-Lago, he will come out and he'll give a little speech. You can applaud him and he'll do a few sets. DJ, TJ, DJ. Maya, you know, last episode when you said that you might consider having your children's bar mitzvahe, my father texted me immediately to ask to be my date. Wow. I think the fact that Trump is going to DJ is a far more important story than the fact that he has a bunch of boxes down at Marlago in violation of the Presidential Records Act. We should definitely move on to the DJ stuff.

Look, he has the initials for it. I don't see what the problem is. And he literally is DJ Trump. So let him spin some vinyl. If he can, I want to see him cut. I want to see him scratch. I want to see him fade tracks into each other. I want to see him do everything that a good DJ can do.

And my gut is that the response from the guests will be that they have never, you know, many people will be saying that it was the best DJ set they ever saw. Many people are saying it. I much rather have the guy DJing than precedent. Well, that's the thing. Like, let him go DJ. Like, that's what everybody would get upset when he was golfing. And I was like, let him golf.

Like, get him the fuck away from the White House and look him on a golf course where he can't do anything stupid except cheat at golf, which we all know he does. just briefly going back to this, because again, I understand the DJ story is more important, but just briefly going back to this, taking the boxes down there. We would obviously be remiss if there wasn't a whole lock her up chant that used to go on in 2016 regarding someone's incorrect improper use of email. And I'm sorry, I'm not defending Hillary on this because I think what she did was wrong too. But it's just unbelievable. and that he is doing, I mean, arguably doing stuff that is far worse than that.

And nobody seems to really care. And it's just there are such bigger things that he's done that this little stuff, it's so easy to just say, he took some boxes to Mar-a-Lago. But it's like if any other president had done this, you know, and you'd be like, what the hell, man, you can't do that. Like this is, and here we're just like, oh, yeah, okay, Trump did that. well, you know, on the scale of, you know, trying to get his vice president hung or hanged, sorry, you know, whatever, this sort of pales in comparison. But I do think we should take a little step back

and say, this stuff is really bad too. Like, we do have a presidential records act for a reason. Like, this stuff is supposed to be there for, you know, historical reasons and so that people can go through and see what exactly happened. And he's just taking it with him because to him, it's mob rule. Like, the White House was not the president. people's house for him. The White House was his house and anything in it belongs to him. Yeah, that was the thing I was thinking about was that I don't think he thinks that he works for anyone but himself. Even though he's a taxpayer salary, which theoretically he said he was donating, he believes those papers are his and not that the presidency belongs to the people. So I do think that's sort of interesting.

Yeah. I got an alternate theory. I'd love to hear what you two think about. So he was famous for being a job creator by ripping up these papers. They had to get people hired to put them back together for these archives. But how do you think he distinguishes what he brought to Mar-a-Lago? Do you think this was like when he was talking about, like, sicking alligators on immigrants? He wants to look back on it later. Like, what do you think he wanted to bring back? So I don't know. The Washington Post article mentioned that he took a bunch of correspondence between him and Molly's uncle Kim Jong-un. And... Yeah, that would make sense. We're cousins. I actually think It's a really good question.

Like, what did he take that he was like, oh, I'm going to want to look at this letter? Because I don't see him as the kind of guy who, like, reminisces a lot and goes back through, you know, personal stuff. And, you know, you sort of have to have a brain to do stuff like that. And I just don't see, I don't see his brain working in quite that way. So it is interesting to think what he took. I mean, I'm guessing it's not anything. Like, I'm sure the stuff he ripped up was the bad stuff. and I'm thinking the stuff he took with him was like the love letters, as he described them, from Kim Jong-un.

Right. Probably the stuff he took was stuff he could sell. Oh, that's actually a really good point. I should have thought of that. Well, well done. I think you got it. Yep. Yeah. He's a total scumbag. So today, our mayor, perhaps you've heard of him, Adams did a cooking display for the media because he, that's what the mayor does, whatever the mayor does. And during the cooking display, he said that some people, that food is like a drug, all right, well, it's a little iffy, but, you know, as someone who did a lot of drugs and eats a lot of food, okay, maybe. And then he said it's, he would not be able to tell the difference between someone hooked on heroin and someone hooked on cheese. Well, for one thing, their weight would be very different. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

For one thing, heroin is heroin, and cheese is cheese. This guy is just, the rest of the country, for the listeners who are not in New York, be grateful that he is not your mayor. I feel like he's been mayor for three years already. Can he just not go inside Gracie Mansion or to his home in New Jersey and just be quiet for a couple of days? Like, just leave us alone? It's so interesting because we all hated de Blasio so much. I'm ready for the Miss Me at Toblasio bumper stickers. That's all I'm saying, y'all.

There is no world in which that's never, ever, ever, ever. Like, the closest we'll ever get to that was it was Groundhog's Day. And people posted the meme of Toblasio saying, I was bad with Groundhogs. Like, that is probably his peak moment as a legislator. 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 and 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. 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.thedailybeast.com. That's new abnormal. dot the dailybeast.com. Representative Ilhan Omar represents Minnesota's fifth congressional district and sits on the committee for civil law and data practices policy, as well as the higher education and career readiness policy and finance committees and the state government finance committee. Welcome to the new abnormal. Representative Ilhan Omar. Thank you for having me.

Very excited to have you. So you are right about not signing the BBB. You were right about not voting for infrastructure. Can you talk to us about that decision? Because that must have been a tough decision. Right before the vote came, I actually had a town hall where I reiterated my promise to not vote on the infrastructure piece of it unless the human infrastructure, the PPP was also moving. And, you know, I like to keep my promises to my constituents. And so it was a really not a hard vote for me as it might have been for other people. You were right.

I mean, that must feel weirdly kind of both vindicating and also awful. I think most of us would have liked to not have been right right now for some of our colleagues who thought that there was a path for the build back better bill outside of having the two pieces of legislation move together. are, you know, coming up to us and saying, you know, like, we left up. And in some ways, that's gratifying because at the time of discussion, we were told that we were naive and that we should be more trusting. And, you know, to build trust, you have to give trust. And I think now people are realizing that the people that they thought they could trust are not worthy of their trust. So this gets me to another thing that I've actually written a lot about and it's something I deeply believe in and I know that there's a lot of feeling on the side of progressives about this,

which is stock trading. There is a push now to ban stock, ban members of Congress and their spouses and close, you know, I don't know exactly what the language is from trading stocks. Where are you on that? I think it's an excellent idea. You know, obviously many of the people who are pushing to stop the members and their spouses because there's two pieces of legislation, right? One, it just stops the member and there's another one initiated by a senator from Georgia that would ultimately stop both the member and their spouse. And I think that initiative actually is much better. And many of the people who are initiating it, you know, sit on committees where they do get

information. And so they're a little bit more alarmed and can see the connections. I obviously don't serve on any committee where, you know, someone like me would have information. So I don't know if all members are made equal in this process. I do think as a regulating body, it is an ethical in many ways for us to be participating and profiting from an entity that we regulate. And I don't know. I just feel like public service should not allow for you to leave richer than when you entered. It just, that's my perspective.

I just listened to this Chris Hayes interview on his podcast where you talked about growing up and your experience. I had cousins who grew up in Lebanon. So I have, I mean, they were, they didn't have to stay in a refugee camp, but they had that same, you know, some nights they thought they were going to die. And I was curious, like, how that has kind of informed your life now. In what way? Like, as you see, now you're in America. you're in the government, you're seeing these crises around the world continuing. You have on the ground experience with these crises in a way that most people in the Senate and the Congress do not.

Do you, I mean, how are you, like, how does that affect your life day to die? It has a tremendous impact in my analysis, you know, on foreign policy and domestic policy. as someone who, unlike many of my colleagues, have experienced the devastation of civil war, of, you know, poverty, who has been a recipient of humanitarian aid and has a deep understanding of the generosity of countries like the United States and what the actual strengths that are attached to that generosity mean for people who are in the situation. I was in as a kid in a refugee camp or living in a country that is engulfed in war.

You know, there are people who might understand conflict who served in the military who are now in Congress, but they don't have, you know, the lens that those who are victims of war do like myself. That makes me have a lot more connections and empathy to the people who are caught up in the crossfire of our foreign policy and the foreign policy and domestic policies of some of these countries that we are trying to assist. You've been working on something which is about Islamophobia. Can you talk about that because I feel like that's such a big, big, big problem right now

and so normalized by the geopolitic? Yeah, I mean, we've had our share of Islamophobia and, Islamophobia-oriented policies anti-Muslim hate might have ramped up. I think the years following the terrorist attack of 9-11, it was still, even before that, very much the fabric of American society through Hollywood and other spaces. Muslims were always betrayed as, you know, foreign invaders that are prone to violence, that, you know, everybody should fear and not want to have anything to do with and civilized people. And I think that has resulted obviously in, you know, attacks on mosques, attacks on Muslim individuals, specifically on Muslim women because

they're visibly more Muslim than their male counterparts. What my legislation foreshunds, focuses on is actually addressing it internationally. So it's to create an envoy with the State Department that that would monitor it internationally. And hopefully that would inform not just our foreign policy and the policies of other countries, but would have an impact on us domestically as well. There was a report last summer that came out from the United Nations Council that said, the UN Council that said Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred has reached a pandemic level. And, you know, that's because of what happened in Burma with the genocide of the Rohingyas, what's happening in India to Muslim minorities in India and what's happening

to the Uyghurs in China. But there's also other parts of the world where Muslim minorities are subjected to cruel policies that fly under the radar. And it's really important for us to initiate this sort of innovative way of addressing, you know, hate that has now led to genocide in a country around the world. And Canada actually has picked up our initiative. They're creating their own envoy. And so I do hope that it gets passed in the Senate and the president does sign it.

Can we talk about the conflict in Yemen because that is a humongous deal? Yeah, please. Let's talk about that. Why? Why is this not getting, I mean, I understand, but how are they not doing more there? Yeah, I mean, one thing, Molly, and you probably know this more than I do, is that, you know, we don't have a lot of space here in the United States to sustain a conversation about a tragedy that is taking place in a foreign part of world to us, right?

You know, the tragedy in Yemen is something that is personally important to me. So I talk about it quite a lot. And there, you know, there is somewhat a bipartisan, although more progressive. led effort to end that conflict. I mean, it led to a humanitarian crisis. Millions of Yemenis have been displaced are on the brick of starvation. Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have died in the last eight years, that conflict has just amplified. And, you know, this is one of the poorest countries in the Middle East, if not one of the poorest countries in the world, is also the most populated country in the Middle East. You know, the fact that the Saudi-led coalition is being armed and

supported by the United States is something that the people of the United States should care about, and it's something the world needs to pay attention to. For us here, it's our tax dollars that are going to support this devastating war that we don't actually have a part to play in. And I think most people need to understand that there are, you know, children, babies being starved to death with our help. Let's shift our focus to student debt. Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, I am the author of the student debt cancellation legislation in Congress and have been leading a resolution with Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, and Ayanna Presley to have the president cancel $50,000 of student debt.

And we've also continued to pressure him on keeping at least the promise of canceling $10,000. He said he was waiting for a memo. We know that the memo is available. and we've been asking him to release because we actually believe that it does say he has the authority to cancel student debt. And we're not asking for a lot. I mean, to ask, you know, the president to keep his promise

is really not anything that people should be alarmed by or think it's strange. It's shocking that there is all of this work that we have to do with this administration just to make them keep their promises, not to go back to the Yemen situation, but a promise he made was to hold Saudi Arabia and its coalition accountable

and to end the support for this tragic war. And he continues to support and has even increased support for Saudi Arabia and the Emirates and for the coalition. So it is really disturbing. It's interesting because there is this tension between younger members who are like, why can't government just do what they say they're going to do? And the older members who are like, uh-huh, you think government is going to do what you ask it.

You know what I mean? Like, it feels like there's a sort of tension there that I haven't ever felt before writing about politics. Yeah, I mean, government does what special interest asks it to do. So it's not like that government isn't capable of doing what they are asked to do. somehow can't do what the people want. Not every single person can write $50,000, you know, checks to the people who represent them. You would think, you know, if we are to be a government of the people for the people, you would at least expect that they do what the people want. I'm trying not to curse right now.

You know, this is a very curse-friendly environment. I'm just saying there were so many times during the last year plus where progressives went and supported centaurus and then somehow they're being blamed for centress sort of not doing well, if that makes any sense. Have you noticed that phenomenon? Yes. And it is really disturbing and like very diluted way that, you know, the media sort of covers this. We are, I would say, the adults in the room were the ones who are at the table trying to negotiate. And, you know, we're oftentimes willing to give a little. The obstructionists have been conservative Democrats.

It's not progressive Democrats. And when we take a stand, you know, we are told that we are destroying the president's agenda. We don't understand that not everybody's constituencies like ours. But when they obstruct, it's like, yeah, this is somehow oddly the best thing for the country, even though their constituents are saying this is like not what we signed up for. And so it doesn't matter, you know, how low the approval ratings of someone like cinema gets with Democrats, like 8% or something in her state. You know, we're somehow out of sync with what Democratic constituents want, even though, you know, the Democrats we represent support us and support the agenda that we've put forward. Yeah, it seems like an insane narrative and you hear it again and again and again.

It's like an upside down thing. You feel like you're in like a twilight zone. 95% of the time, it doesn't make any sense. And it also feels like if you have a party that's struggling with messaging and you have a branch that messages well to people that's popular, wouldn't you want to fully explore that? Yeah, only if you actually want to do right by people. My last question is what is it like right now in Congress? It's like every other day. I know what it's like for me to go to CPAC.

and it's very horrible. Is it okay because there are enough people who are normal that it offsets it or is it just very hard? I don't know what like normal would be considered. That's true. You know, in the context of what, you know, normal human beings consider normal working place, I think it's probably one of the most toxic environments

I've ever been in. It's like high school. It's very click-driven, you know, everybody sort of talks to and with their core group or whatever. And, you know, those who want to, like, screw the American people hang around together. And those who want to help the American people are huddled in their own quarters. Those who, you know, don't think the Constitution can evolve.

Right. Are in, I don't know, they're hanging out on the roof or something. You know, there's like the real crazies who don't recognize that it actually took an amendment to the Constitution for them to serve Congress. And then there's like the rest of us. So it's a fascinating place. But yeah, I mean, I don't know what a normal Congress is. I think those served maybe 30, 40 years would have a better answer. I mean, just to take you back a little, like we got sworn in doing a shutdown, like starting.

impeachment. We were looking at a war with Iran. There was kids at the border. I mean, it's, it's been an insane time to serve in Congress. And we, you know, started our second term on our third day. There was an insurrection. Half of us don't know what the, you know, other half of Congress actually looks like because we've been wearing a mask for the last two years. For many of us, You know, we might look back at this someday and say, oh, that was normal and things might just get worse than this. Some of us are hoping, you know, that we can look back at this and say those were the crazy days. Like, this is what it feels like to actually serve in one of the highest bodies in our country. And remember, you know, it's a place that should hold high regard for every person that's there.

Thank you so much. This was so great. I really appreciate you taking the time. Thank you. Oh, of course. Thank you for having me. Jared Bernstein is a former economic advisor to Vice President Biden and now presently one of the chief economic advisor members for President Biden. Welcome to the new abnormal, Jared Bernstein. Thanks so much for inviting me. I'm very happy to be here. Well, we're very excited to have you. And the first thing I want to talk to you about is the jobs report. We had an entire week of news that was like, the jobs report is going to be back. the jobs report is going to suck.

Why did, why was there so much negative buildup to that jobs report? Well, first of all, let us remember the sage words of the great economist, Dr. Yogi Berra, who said predictions are hard, especially about the future. While I jest, it is really, really challenging to forecast, I mean, even in normal times, but when we've got the kind of uncertainty upon the land generated by the pandemic in general, on Omocrine in particular, it makes things a lot trickier. The way the Bureau of Labor Statistics collects the data, if you're absent from work and unpaid, you're not counted as being on payrolls. And we thought there'd be a lot of that. And in fact, there was a lot of that. There was a record

number of 8 million from work some part of that period. But the fact is, and here I got to give some credit to the American Rescue Plan checks in pockets, yes, but shots in arms. The fact that when we got here, less than 1% of the adult population was vaccinated, that's now around 75. That helped to build up the resiliency of the labor force to this kind of pressure. And I think that's one reason why even while people were definitely struggling with Omicron in January, let's not lose sight of that. The labor market managed to power through. We have a lot of smart people who listen to this podcast and a lot who know about finance. but I'm curious to know what these numbers really mean.

Yes, obviously the jobs day is a very big deal. I mean, I was thinking the other day, I've been tracking job days for, you know, 25 years. And I think one of the only ones I ever missed was when I was in China. So, but for all that emphasis, we at the Council of Economic Advisors never overfocus on one month of jobs report. So when I say these numbers, I think in order to understand both the. tightness of the job market and the impact of the president's policies, particularly rescue plan, you have to look at the trend. So over the president's first year in office, record number of jobs were gained, 6.6 million. Over the past three months, employment's been growing at a rate of

540,000 per month. You said a lot of listeners followed these numbers. They know that that's a breakneck pace. Unemployment fell faster last year than any year on record. But it needed to because it was coming from a humongous. I mean, we had had this crash from COVID. So it wasn't like normal economy. Yeah, no, that's that's a good point. But here's here's the nuance there, though, Molly, which is that, you know, after every recession, you could argue we need to get back quickly. And in fact, in the prior few recoveries, we haven't. We've had what's been called a jobless recovery. It's more kind of a swoosh or a U shape, less of a V shape. But in this recovery, if you look at the payroll employment, much more of a V-shaped recovery. Now, we're not done. We have still some ground to cover,

but that V is very important to the topic you raised. Some of that is learning the lesson from 2008. Hugely, hugely important. I worked for Vice President Biden at the time when we did the American Recovery Act, and this was a very important and helpful piece of legislation. It kind of faded too soon, given the harm that the financial crisis had done to the economy. This time, the president insisted that we hit back hard and make sure that families and businesses could get to the other side of this crisis. And I think the record is very strong in that regard. So does the Bureau of Labor Statistics work for the Trump administration? I'm kidding.

But I mean this because they keep having to revise up for the last couple months. And I want to talk to you about that. I don't want to offend any of my other sub-agencies, but it's one of the greatest and most integrity-driven agency out there. The thing is that they are dealing with a unique challenge that we haven't seen in this country for literally 100 years, which is a global pandemic. And what do they do? They take surveys. Well, when you take surveys and people are home because they're sick or they're taking care of their kids and they're dealing with COVID and Delta and Omicron, it's just very hard to get the numbers exactly right the first time. So what they do to their credit is they go back and check and check and recheck. And yes, the revisions have been consistently positive. In fact, the revisions for the past couple of months added another 700,000 jobs to the Biden jobs record. So we think that's obviously really important and worth celebrating. But don't they then rob you of a positive news cycle that you might otherwise have?

You know, I think it's one of the reasons why we, and it's not just the council. Any economic spokesperson for this administration has heightened this uncertainty challenge. And that's why we always take averages. So we look over the past year, 6.6 million jobs over the past year, 540,000 on average per month over the past three months. That's the right way to deal with the noisy bips and bops in the monthly data. But you do see, right, that a lot of these jobs numbers were much lower than they ultimately came up to me. Correct.

And I'd like to know, I'd like to turn the tables and ask you a question. Given that forecasters have just consistently missed, it's interesting to me that in a couple of weeks, people are going to be saying, what's your forecast for the February? There's a kind of insistence that we try to nail down these expectations with our forecast. And I think people need to realize that the confidence intervals around these forecasts are really wide right now. Yeah, for sure. And it's a problem with polls too, right? We love polls, even though they consistently have been very wrong, you know, in different ways, and especially recently because people don't have home phones. So I think the key thing is, yeah, you're right.

But I think the key thing, even with these confidence intervals, even with these positive revisions, I mean, not even with, but in part because of these parts, you one can't lose sight of just the facts of the case. I've been watching labor market dimension for, you know, 30 plus years. I don't think I've ever seen a tighter labor market than this one with. more job openings with faster declining unemployment with now 6.6 million jobs, record number of jobs. GDP growth, which you haven't gotten to yet, grew at an almost 40-year clip in 2021. So again, I have, there's lots of evidence that there's a lot of factors that go into that recipe. But it is absolutely clear to me that President Biden's legislation, especially the rescue plan, have its fingerprints all over those results.

So let's talk about GDP. What does this mean for people? who are just normal people. Just talk us through this. Yeah, it's an important question because we get very excited about GDP, but nobody really eats GDP or pays the rent directly with GDP. And in fact, I think the key here is to combine the two parts of the discussion we've been having so far,

fast GDP growth and a tight labor market because it is through the tight job market that workers, particularly those in the bottom half of the pay scale, will have the bargaining power, the leverage they need to claim their fair share of GDP growth. President Biden, ever since I worked with him when a youth, Vice President has always said GDP growth alone is not enough. It's necessary but not sufficient. In order to reach all corners, communities that have been left behind, lower wage workers, essential workers who typically don't get remunerated well enough, we have to have the kind of tight job mark we have. And we're seeing

that on the wage side with some very impressive wage gains, some of which are beating inflation for workers in the bottom half of pay scale. Okay, so now we have to talk about inflation. Fox News's favorite topic, but also something that's affecting a lot of people. And in fact, I was looking over that speech that Biden gave where he talked about hamburgers going way up. Again, that is not necessarily inflation as much as it is an antitrust meat conglomerate trying to, you know. But let's talk about inflation. Where are we and what do you see that's positive? Well, we're in a situation here where we have really quite elevated inflation as the president continues to emphasize anytime he talks about it. It is not something he or we shy away from

at all because he realizes putting any news or media outlets aside, he realizes what a challenge, what a stressor this is to family budget. So the question is, what are we? we doing about it? Well, we've already had good conversations about this very important economic backdrop to this inflation. I mean, we've got fast GDP growth. We've got a tight job market, and that makes a real difference for people to meet their expenses, their family budgets. But of course, it's not enough. We're trying to do everything we can to unsnarl supply chains, to increase competition, particularly in sectors like the one you just mentioned, meatpacking, where for conglomerates control 85% of the market to make longer-term commitments and investments

in areas of computer chips with the competes or the USICA Act out there, which will provide deep investment capital for domestic production of semiconductors, critical to the car industry. And in fact, we're seeing results from all of these initiatives so far. Then there's a set of legislation designed to bring down costs, the cost of prescription drugs, the cost of child care, elder care, healthcare, healthcare premiums, education. All of those are essential parts of our agenda. So I have bad news.

I am one of the few people who's actually interested in the chips. So that's good news. We have to talk about the chips now. Well, it's bad news for our listeners, but good news for you. I saw that auto is ticking up, that the squeeze with cars might possibly be coming to an end, right? So that will be huge. Can you explain to our listeners what? that would mean, and then I want to talk about the chips.

Yeah, I think there is a potential, maybe. I'm an economist. I'm going to hedge a lot of when I don't, it takes a lot to convince me of a new trend. In January, the buildup of auto inventories had an upside surprise, and that was, that was great to see. And in fact, in the fourth quarter inventory buildup was very strong. Imports and exports were very strong. All of that suggests some potential unsnarling of global supply.

chains. And again, I would argue that our fingerprints are partly there as well, particularly our work to reduce the dwelling of container times in the ports, 24 and 7, the trucking agenda, things I can go into. On the chip side, one of the encouraging things, and the president schlepped out to Ohio in order to see this in person, you've got Intel building a $20 billion chip plant in Ohio, working as quickly as they can to get that domestic production online. And then you have this act that got 68 votes in the Senate. You know, I ask you, Molly, what gets 68 votes in the Senate these days? Post officers.

Right. And this was embedded in that something around a $50 billion investment commitment in domestic chip production. Now that moved over to the House where I believe it's called the Competes Act. But the president wants to see that on his desk as soon as possible. where he will very happily sign it. So Intel is building a semiconductor factory in Ohio. This is happening. It's getting a lot of support from the Biden administration.

The reason that it's being built is because we are completely dependent on Taiwan for almost all our chips. And China is planning nefarious things at all times against Taiwan. And we never, in America, ever did the kind of infrastructure for semiconductors because they're very expensive. And so finally now the Biden administration is pushing for that. Is that right? It is right. I mean, I think there's a history in American production of invented here and make it there. Because most of the progress on semiconductor engineering comes from our labs.

And this is something that President Biden has long been against and has, when he was vice president, we worked a great deal on boosting American manufacturing, and now that he's present, we're doing the same thing. It involves onshoreing. It involves, not, it's not by the way. It doesn't involve shutting down globalization or ignoring the fact that one way to increase the supply of goods and services is through trade. So that's very important. But when it comes to essential goods with a very narrow supply chain portfolio, the president, it couldn't be clear that that is a very bad economic strategy. And by the way, if you go back in history and look at some of the thinking around this, you'll hear George Washington and Alexander Hamilton say exactly the same thing.

It's kind of interesting. Obviously, our country was very nascent and embryonic back then. But they were talking about the importance of building up domestic manufacturing in a way that made sense back then. Well, there's a way it makes sense now. And it's something that the Biden administration is working on. I want to get to student dead, a lot of the base. You know, Republicans have this insane base. Democrats have this normal base.

The base wants you to forgive student debt. It strikes me, and again, I'm not an economist, nor do I play one on TV, but it strikes me that there's an opportunity here to juice the economy in a positive way, as opposed to juicing the economy, you know, in the way that the Trump administration juice the economy. Where are you on this? And do you think there's a possibility that the Biden administration will. come around to even forgiving $10,000 worth of student debt? Well, when it comes to the $10,000 forgiveness, ever since the campaign, President Biden

has been consistent. He wants to do that legislatively. And I know there are lots of arguments about that strategy, but that's something he's been consistent on. But there's a lot of other things happening kind of under the hood, many of which have already been reported out. For example, student debt moratoria have been not just ongoing, but have been extended, such as they're still in place, it began very much as a relation to the health crisis,

and that continues. But there's also many different types of debt forgiveness that we've been working on public service debt forgiveness. Some of this has been announced. Some folks have benefited from these programs, income-based repayment programs. It's a multifaceted piece of work. But I think at core, when it gets to the significant amounts of debt forgiveness, the president just consistently said that he wants to do that legislatively, and that's his call. Just from your economic viewpoint, it would choose the economy in a positive why. Yeah, I think that what it would do would relieve people of a debt burden that can be particularly taxing for folks who maybe didn't finish their college education or for people

whose loans are disproportionate to their income. So it has the potential create kind of an economic freedom from a burden that can be like a real animal around your kind of economic life. That said, there are a lot of people with a lot of student debt who invested in occupations that have very high earnings, and they'll be able to pay their debt back based on their earnings. We're less worried about them. Many folks and disproportionately people, persons of color often face kind of problems I was talking about a second ago. This was so interesting.

I hope you will come back. Thank you, Jared Bernstein. My pleasure. I'm happy to come back. What's crazier than QAnon, more outlandish than Pizza Gate, and scarier than a Mexican getaway with Ted Cruz? The answer is what the American right wing has planned next. Be one of the first to listen to Fever Dreams, the new podcast from The Daily Beast,

tracking the conspiracy slingers, orange acolytes, and straight-up grifters pushing to retake power. Every Wednesday hosts Swin Subisang and Will Summer, checking in on the movement of the radical right, Head to the DailyBeast.com slash podcasts or your favorite podcast player to catch the first episode and get subscribed. That's Fever Dreams, which you can subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Andy, who is your fuck that guy?

My fuck that guy is someone you may have heard of. It's a guy named Andrew Cuomo. Tell me more. Well, he was the governor of the great state of New York, and he resigned a little while ago because he couldn't stop touching women. And also some people died in nursing homes who probably shouldn't have, but we don't need to go into that now. So he was investigated by a bunch of people, but the biggest one, I guess, would be by the New York State Attorney General Tish James. Her office has so far determined, you know, the report came out that there were 11 different women who credibly accused Cuomo of basically violating a bunch of federal and state harassment laws by the way he acted towards them.

So he ended up resigning. And now in a new interview, he says he feels vindicated. He feels vindicated, Molly. I don't understand. What is he basing this vindication on? He's basing it on the fact that there were a bunch of independent, there were a bunch of other investigations and all of them declined to press charges. But all of them, so that's what he's basing it on.

But every one of those investigations basically said, yeah, it would be hard. to prove, but we believe that we believe the women. So it's not like he was suddenly came out of this smelling fresh and clean. But he had this quote in this interview and he said, you know, I've had the time and space to get a little philosophical about this. Too many people do run for office because it's about them. It's about their ego, their need. Apparently, he doesn't own a mirror, which is hard to believe for someone as narcissistic as him, because he literally just described himself. And the fact that he doesn't get that is just unbelievable. I mean, there is no bigger example of someone who ran for office and who wants to hold public office for their own ego.

Cuomo is, in a lot of ways, he is centrist Trump. There's a very similar personality going on there. And for him to sit there and say, first of all, to say he's been vindicated, which he absolutely 100% has not, I regret to inform him. But then to say that, oh, these other people run for office because of ego, but not me. And I just cannot with this guy. And he needs to, he's another one. Just go away and just stop talking. Go somewhere.

Go on vacation. Go spend time with your family. You don't need to be in the public eye. But of course, his ego won't let him stay out of the public eye. But for those and many other reasons, fuck that guy. You know, I'm always impressed when mediocre white guys are involved. raged at the idea that women or people of color might have the same opportunities that they get. Always fascinating.

It really is. It's also four months. They usually tell you to disappear for like nine months to a year. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Like, what the fuck? Don't get high on your own spy. My fuck that guy is one of Anka Trump.

I know her. Yeah. Perhaps you've heard of her. presidential daughter and special advisor because of her long history of work in politics and also, yes, whatever. She gets my ire today because, I don't know if she gets my ire. I would like to see her testify. I think that the January 6th committee has a real opportunity here. She was there.

She saw what happened. She was the one who everyone had come back and forth into her father's, office to try to level with him. She was known as the, you know, like the daddy whisperer. And so she's going to know a lot of stuff. And look, I mean, she's a Trump. So likely scenarios that she'll lie. But, you know, make her lie, right? Make her do it. Right. The thing I'm so struck by is that it feels like a lot of people in the DOJ are a little bit scared of trying, of getting, you know, holding these Trump's accountable. And I, I, I, don't understand why.

Yeah, it's a little disturbing, and I know we keep getting told as you talked about. Trust Merrick Garland. Trust Merrick Garland. And, you know, be patient. And it's like, not so much anymore. Well, also, like, we trusted Robert Mueller. Remember that? Yeah, it didn't go so well.

Yeah. We trusted him. 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 will 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,

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