The NPR Politics Podcast - NPR Politics Live From Atlanta: The Road To 2020

Episode Date: March 9, 2019

This is a special episode, recorded in front of a live audience at the Buckhead Theatre in Atlanta on Friday, March 9th. The cast breaks down everything you need to know about who's running for president, and how Trump is going to respond to them. This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, Congressional correspondent Scott Detrow, White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe, and political editor Domenico Montanaro. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey, I'm Dan from Smyrna. Hi, I'm Alejandra. I'm from Atlanta. Hey, this is Brittany from Decatur, Georgia. Hey, I'm Alex from Atlanta. Hey, this is Ryan from Decatur, Georgia. This podcast was recorded at... This podcast was recorded at... This podcast was recorded at...

815! 815, Friday, March 8th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Okay, here's the show. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast, live from Atlanta. The field of Democratic candidates running for president is coming into focus, and President Trump is honing his own re-election message. It's the road to 2020. And there have already been a few surprising twists and turns.

I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress. I'm Aisha Roscoe. I also cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. Guys, we are here in Atlanta at the Buckhead Theater, and we are not alone. I didn't know if that was like some deep statement of like our place in the universe.

We are not alone. There is intelligent life out there. Well, at least Scott thinks there is. We've argued this before. Tam and Scott are very sci-fi-y, so. All right, NPR is partnering with GPB and WABE for our latest live show and we want to say a huge

thanks to them for supporting us. A huge thanks to all of you for supporting them. For a long while there, it seemed like every week we were talking about a very long list of names of people who had jumped into the race for president. And by our count, it is now up to 14 people who are running for president. But this week was notable because of all the people who announced they were not going to run. And I am now going to try to list them,

and we'll see if I can make it. Michael Bloomberg, Sherrod Brown, Eric Holder, Jeff Merkley, and Hillary Clinton for like the 150th time. Are you sure? Yeah, isn't she still kind of like, well, I said no, but maybe not no? So I interviewed her about her book. In the woods.

In the woods, walking in the woods. I looked her in the eyes. She said she wasn't running for president. I believed her then. Seems like you were right to. Perhaps I was. But so Scott, you are intensely following all of these candidates. I don't know how you keep up with it all.

Was there anything about this week's announcements that surprised you? I mean, that Jeff Merkley announcement just blew my mind. Everyone was waiting for that. He's the senator from Oregon? No offense to Jeff Merkley, who's a very serious senator, but this is how intense it's gotten, that when you are a senator

who says you're not running for president, you put a four-minute video out to say it, and it's like, okay. Do you think they put the video out and they were like, no, forget it. I was honestly surprised by Sherrod Brown's decision that he's not running. He had been doing a lot of campaigning.

He seemed to really enjoy being on the campaign trail. His wife, Connie Schultz, Pulitzer Prize winner and really cool all-around political spouse was with him. She also seemed to enjoy the process. I mean, you either embrace it or shrink from it. And he seemed to embrace campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire and focusing on this message of the dignity of work. The fact that he's a Democrat who can win statewide in Ohio seemed to give him some appeal. So it was surprising to me that he decided not to run. I do think, however, that Cory Booker said a couple weeks ago that he just thinks going forward, he doesn't ever see a

scenario where the Democratic ticket isn't balanced by race and gender. You know, the era of two white dudes on the Democratic side he thinks to be over. And I think that Sherrod Brown, especially if somebody like Kamala Harris was the nominee, I feel like every. And I think that Sherrod Brown, especially if somebody like Kamala Harris was the nominee, I feel like every Democrat you talk to says Sherrod Brown would be the perfect vice presidential pick over and over, over again. So maybe the calculation is, hey, if I'm in the competition already, why campaign and raise money for a year? Just live my life for a year, then get back in the picture. I mean, I'm not sure, but it was surprising for me that Brown decided not to do it. But is it a risk, though, with him, like you said, in Ohio, this clear state that is always fought over?

If he did run and didn't end up winning, or if he went as vice president, you might not have a Democrat take that seat. Like, is that a risk to that? I mean, that's part of it. Is it more important for him to be in the Senate? I mean, you can look at the fact that best case scenario for Democrats, if they run the table in the Senate race, they have a majority of like one or two seats at most. If he were to leave the Senate in one way or another for a new job, a Republican governor appoints a Republican,

and that Democratic majority might be gone. Well, Scott and I did a story a little while ago, a couple months ago actually. It feels like two years ago. It was like in January, right? Yeah. Time. How running for president is just such a grind.

It is really complicated and it just takes so much out of you and so much out of your family in particular. And every indiscretion you've ever had and everyone's got some would be exposed in a presidential run. And for a lot of people, that's prohibitive.

And that's why I actually thought the Brown situation was interesting because his wife seemed like she was really into the campaign. And I thought that's like a big sign for him to be able to cross that threshold psychologically. The thing that stood out to me this week about people not running is what that might mean

for people who still haven't announced that they've run. And in particular, I'm talking about Joe Biden, right? He's still the sort of donkey in the room. He's the donkey. I guess that's... That joke number one in the room. The donkey. I guess that's... Bad joke number one of the night. I think someone just booed you. I think it might have been me.

Anyway, so, you know, he's somebody who, when you still look at all the polling, is the person who everyone recognizes that name. And there's a reason for it. I mean, he's, you know, the only person in the field who was on the last two winning Democratic tickets. And that's a big deal. And there's a big slice of the Democratic Party that would like to restore some order to a Democratic order that they see as having gone off the rails. And the safest way to do that is with somebody who's already done it and has lots of experience.

Of course, there's lots of downsides or potential vulnerabilities he has. But I do wonder what this week meant and if he's out there making calls to folks. And, you know, I mean, we're still waiting on, for example, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe. And if he'll get in, he has lots of ties to Clinton world and to Biden world.

And I know that one of the considerations for him is whether Biden will get in or not. So we're still waiting on Joe Biden. We're also waiting on someone else. Who starts with a B. And I will preface this by saying I am from Durham, North Carolina. And so there's certain words that don't just roll off my tongue and certain names. And so this name, Beto O'Rourke, I struggle with. I just, it's not, it's kind of hard.

I was practicing backstage. She really was. She was like Beto O'Rourke. Just think of a lion. O'Rourke. But he's somebody that everyone's waiting on to see is he going to get in. Now

what he has that Biden doesn't have is he's young. He's a fresh face. He's a lifestyle brand. Lifestyle brand. He gets a little emo. He gets social media. He's a lifestyle brand. Lifestyle brand. He gets a little emo. He gets social media. He is a different, he gives a different vibe.

In Delaware, Biden is kind of a lifestyle brand. I will just say. And the Amtrak corridor. A top advisor to one of the other Democratic candidates said to me, you know, I'm pretty sure,

I knew right after the Senate race that Beto O'Rourke was either gonna run for president or start a podcast. Two very fine choices. Maybe like... I don't know if we want the competition. One other thing that I think is worth talking when we talk about the people who didn't run,

Michael Bloomberg. I was not surprised that he didn't run. We had heard that when he was signing people up to his campaign, he was actually only giving them contracts through March, and then it would be a new contract if he did decide to run. So he seemed very skeptical. He seems to feel like he doesn't have a place in the modern Democratic Party, which is ironic given the fact that the two issues that he's most passionate about and willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars are gun control and climate change two things that pretty progressive but there's a whole lot of other areas including a comfort and and uh support for the corporate world

and new york city policing tactics from his time as mayor that put him out of step but he really he flipped some house races spending money on gun control stuff last time around. And he's going to spend $500 million or more on the race. And he's going to spend even more money on a new climate change effort. What struck me about Bloomberg's announcement that he wasn't going to run is that he kind of just straight up said, I don't think I'll win the primary. Like, I just don't think that I can win that. He said, I think I can beat President Trump in general election, but I just don't think I could get the nomination. There are like 14 people and how many others in

the wings who also think that they can beat President Trump. I mean, the irony also in Bloomberg not running, I felt like was after him sort of shaming Howard Schultz for considering an independent bid by saying, well, if you want to run, run in the Democratic primary. And then he gave the exact reason for not running in the Democratic primary that Howard Schultz did. But anyway, they are cleared now. And I think that what this campaign kind of comes down to in a lot of ways is, you know, I did this for alliteration, but pugilism versus pragmatism.

And, you know, pugilist fighters, you know, people who are seen as, there's this strain, there's this tension within the Democratic Party, younger versus older generation Democrats who feel like the Democratic Party, people who are in Congress haven't been fighting for the things that are important in the country enough with a loud enough sense of urgency. And that's sort of taken up by the pugilist strain. And then there's the pragmatist. And you think of the pugilist, you think about first and foremost someone like Elizabeth Warren, who herself has basically uses the word fighter over and over again. I'm a fighter, I'm a fighter, I'm fighting for you.

It just reminds me of the SNL skit about her where she said, I'm kind of like if NPR's Terry Gross hosted WWE. And so other pugilists would be like Bernie Sanders. Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris.

Yep, I made a list. That's why I have my phone up here. He's just texting. He's bored. Yeah, I'm tweeting right now. No, Warren, Sanders, Harris, maybe Gillibrand you'd put in that round. And then there's sort of these people

who kind of straddle both, right? I mean, with Booker, who's all about, what is his thing? Radical love. Well, he does talk about that. No, I mean... What is it actually called? He used a few... A revival of civic grace in this country, he talks about.

He talks about bringing back radical empathy and love. Oh, radical empathy. But I gotta say, it's actually a message that when he's in a small room campaigning, I've seen early state voters really be energized by it. So Scott, you've been out. This is a really large field. You haven't seen every single candidate. But in terms of the candidates that you've seen out campaigning, like who has the big crowds?

Who has the energy? Who is having an easy time answering the questions? Who is having an easy time answering the questions? Who's having a harder time answering the questions? How are things shaking out so far? I will say, maybe one clue that Sherrod Brown was having second thoughts was when you're among these six declared Senate members running for office, you have to answer any question that comes at you in the hallway in the Senate. And he was bristling, like, why are you asking me that? What do you want?

It's like, well, you're running for president. That's why I'm asking you questions. He did not like that. Was that your Bernie impression? No, that was your impression. The Bernie impression will come out later. Scott, we should explain that when you cover Congress, members of Congress go in to vote and as reporters,

we can just stand in the hallways, stalking them, not technically, but we can just stand in the hallways with our microphones and interview them. There are no gatekeepers. You just walk right up to members of Congress. It is this. Well,

hold on. You do go through metal detectors and you have IDs and you have a badge and all of that. But then there's no like PR person that says, well, you can't talk to my boss. You just walk right up and all of that. But then there's no PR person that says, well, you can't talk to my boss. You just walk right up and talk to them. But getting back to the question you asked, I think it's interesting to see how people are carving their own lanes right now. I think in terms of the media attention and in terms of the crowds showing up,

Kamala Harris is ahead of everybody. Well, Bernie Sanders is in the race now, and he's getting big crowds as well. But I covered her kickoff rally in Oakland, and 22,000 people showed up. I mean, that was really impressive to see. Elizabeth Warren is carving out a lane of really setting the policy agenda for the entire primary field.

She did it again today with this really big post saying, here's how I would regulate big tech. Basically calling them monopolies, saying that she would regulate companies like Facebook and Amazon and Google as kind of utilities and really setting a pace there that other candidates are going to have to match or explain why they're not going to match.

She did that with saying, I'm not going to meet with big donors. She said, I'm not going to accept Super super PAC money. She has a childcare plan, childcare for all plan. Though the fascinating thing about her is she has not come out with a big blockbuster fundraising number like some of the other candidates have. You know, they had a bunch of candidates were like in 24 hours, I raised $10 million or $10 million. I mean, one of her issues, obviously, is I think that there's some holdover from Hillary Clinton in 2016 in the sense that Hillary Clinton was never able to get beyond the email scandal in a way that dismissed it and moved on. And I think some Democrats are, from what I've been hearing, are a little having some PTSD about Pocahontas and the idea that she can't quite get beyond her Native American DNA test and all of that,

and it continues to be an issue. I mean, I don't know if it's something people talk about on the campaign trail as much, but it's one of the things that from when I talk to Democrats, they sort of seem like they have some pause because they want a candidate to be able to move on. And Domenico, when you say Pocahontas, you are referring to President Trump's nickname for her. He often says, as I sometimes refer to her, or as people sometimes refer to her as Pocahontas or Focahontas. That was a Trump thing. And even with, I mean, so you have, Warren has that kind of baggage, but even Kamala Harris has the baggage of when she was a prosecutor.

There are a lot of people that have very real concerns about some of the things that she did, and they don't feel like she has a real explanation. She was very aggressive in her drug prosecutions. She went after parents for a truancy of, like, elementary school kids and was kind of against at some points releasing some nonviolent offenders. And so this is a very big deal when it comes to criminal justice reform and how we are going to move forward as a country. And some people feel like Harris just hasn't answered those questions. She's addressed it, but that she hasn't really answered those questions. That is such an interesting shift in democratic politics as a whole.

Absolutely. Because I covered California for a few years. I covered her when she was attorney general. And the problem she had running for attorney general when she was San Francisco DA was are you tough enough on crime because you're this outlier of being this progressive prosecutor.

How do we know you're taking crime seriously? So that's the battle she was fighting then. And then within less than a decade. It has totally flipped. Because this idea of being tough on crime is now people are looking at it and saying, what have we gotten from these drug wars? What have we gotten from having this huge, massive prison population? Is it time for us to rethink that? And you have even conservatives in, you know, people in the White

House, conservatives in Congress, rethinking that. And so if you are a liberal politician, you are going to have to go much further to the left on that. And that's the same issue that Joe Biden obviously is going to deal with when it comes to the crime bill, his dealing with the Anita Hill hearings and Clarence Thomas hearings, where you view some of this stuff through a 2019 lens versus what was going on in the 1990s and how Democrats were being sort of raked over the coals as being soft on crime, soft on immigrants coming into the country illegally. You go back and listen to Bill Clinton's 1995 State of the Union address, for example, and it sounds like Donald Trump when it comes to talking about immigrants in the country illegally, but only really doing

that to be able to try to get comprehensive immigration reform passed. So they wanted to sound tough, give lots for border security, and then be able to actually get something that was a more moderate plan that wasn't far right. So, you know, that's part of what the calculation was. And think about guns and how that issue has changed. I mean, you could have pro-gun Democrats running for office. You almost had to be in the 90s to say that you were going to protect the Second Amendment strongly. And now that has completely shifted the other direction after the spate of school shootings that have happened over the last decade. All right, we are going to take a quick break. And when we get back, we'll look at President Trump's campaign and how this

mini bus full of Democrats is responding to him. It came out of the blue one night when she was sleeping, a searing pain that jumped from one part of Devin's body to another. Why is this happening? Why is this happening to me? This week on Invisibilia, the surprising story of how pain spread through a culture, our culture. And we're back. And let's talk about the man all the other candidates are competing to take on, President Trump, who has really been running for reelection almost the entire time he has been in office. Yes. Yes. Literally, he filed early on. Yeah. And he loves rallies. So he started even early on, like a few weeks into his presidency, and it would seem like he was complaining.

You would hear him talk to staff, and they're like, he really wants to get back on the road. And people, like his staff, would say, just wait a little while. But he just loves rallies. You forgot about the transition rallies that preceded the president rallies. Yeah. And there was an event last weekend, the Conservative Political Action Conference. The president, he went, the Conservative Political Action Conference.

The president, he went to the Conservative Political Action Conference, which is, it is just like red hat country. Well, now. Well, right, it wasn't always. He didn't even show up in 2016 because CPAC really didn't want him there. The conservative movement was not Donald Trump's people. And that was the most remarkable thing for me,

as someone who's covered like 13 CPACs now, that seeing how it's shifted and changed with the personality of whoever the top Republican is, and now it's completely Donald Trump's people. And it's really fascinating to see how that shift has taken place. So he gave a speech there. And the day before, I was talking to somebody at the White House. I was like, so what's up with this?

What's the timing? Is he going to make any news? And she was like, yeah, it's going to be like half an hour in and out. No news. Are you serious? I am serious. That is unbelievable. So who wants to say what actually happened?

Domenico, you watched the whole thing, but you were... Okay, so President Trump spoke for two hours and two minutes. Which was a record. A record for him, I think the longest presidential speech in history. That's what some people have speculated it might be. We don't know in the oldie times from the transcripts. It's hard to tell. It wasn't in in the oldie times from the transcripts. It's hard to tell. Older than the Gettysburg Address,

we know that. Listen, the olden times, it was cold out there, man. Somebody like died because of an inauguration speech in the cold. And it was shorter. Measure it to William Henry Harrison's speech because he went a couple hours

and then he died too easily. So, you know, most of them... It was indoors though, so no chance of pneumonia for the president. i'll just put this way like i had to be on a weekend edition sunday and we were taping a segment on saturday and the idea was let's give it some time so that you know we'll wait till trump's speech is over maybe we'll use a couple pieces of tape from what he said to incorporate it into the into the uh what we call a two-way, um, into the interview. And so I said, okay, fine. So my kids and I, we went out to breakfast, Trump started speaking. All right. And I sort of kept in a half an year on it, like

on Twitter. And, uh, one of our editors was texting me things that he was saying. And, you know, so we finish up breakfast and then like, I'm apartment currently and so i took my kids to like see like new potential apartments and the the leasing agent like forgot the key to one and like we went up this is a long story much like the president's speech we that's the reason for that and you know we go and we're like i'm like he's still talking i'm like really like the apartment? Okay. The kids love the first apartment. The second one, my six-year-old vetoed and was like,

you can't even tell where the TV's going to go. Like, no. So she was like, no, we'll take the first one. So, all right. So we're still going. We see the amenities, all this stuff. How's the gym? The gym is great.

There's actually like a glass thing on the other side where the kids can play and Wi-Fi and all. It's great. So the point is, long story on purpose, we get home. I set up my, like, you know, my Ethernet cord to, like, do the two-way, review what they want to ask me.

I finish the interview. I get done with it, put everything away. He's still talking. Long story long. I mean, he was still talking. I just couldn't believe that. He talked a long time. He talked a long time.

So, Tam, you and I are focusing on the re-election side of this race. Within that long speech and within shorter speeches as well from him, from Vice President Pence, from others, a re-election message is coming together. What would you say the core of it is? So, I think there are two things. One is I am Donald Trump. I came into office. I did the things I said I was going to do. And in that respect, there's the tax cut, there's some foreign policy stuff,

he is turning the world upside down when it comes to trade deals, and he moved the embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. He has this sort of long list of things where people told him he shouldn't do it, and he did it because he promised he would. That's one half. Well, and then there's the wall, which isn't really being built yet, but he says it is almost done. Another part of his argument is the economy, the strength of the economy, record low unemployment, record low African-American unemployment and Latino unemployment. He talks a lot about the economy, the strength of the economy, record low unemployment, record low African-American unemployment and Latino unemployment. He talks a lot about the economy. And the other thing is,

oh my God, the other guys are so scary, is the message. And he's talking about the Green New Deal. He's talking about socialism, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot about socialism. It's the, you know, you're not voting between President Trump and nobody. You're voting between President Trump and what he is building up to be an incredibly scary field of potential Democratic candidates. So Aisha, this like the Democrats are scary socialism message seems specifically tailored for a lot of the congressional districts surrounding where we are right now where you saw a big defection of republicans who are still republican but they don't like donald trump so it seems to be like yeah they're worse i think it's trying to as always keep people within the fold, not lose or not have Republicans stay home, or for him, worse,

go vote for Democrats because they dislike him so much. So saying, look, these Democrats, they're really radical. They're really out there. What I do wonder is, and what I think is really interesting about this is President Trump, it's not like he was elected on this very moderate message, right? And so this, he talked about a lot of things when he was running for office, like the wall and all these other things, and Mexico was going to pay for it and all these things, he was going to do the trade deals. And they sounded really kind of outlandish and people thought, people will never go for that that's this is not what people like but because they were exposed to those ideas over and over again it turned out there was definitely an audience for that and so you do wonder if he runs the risk by spotlighting oh they want to

give everyone health care oh they want to give to pay for everyone's education. There are people out there who may not like socialism, but they may like those policies that may sound good to them. So you almost wonder, does by exposing them in that way, does he kind of run the risk of running up against someone who kind of does what he did and says those things, policies that people may like that may sound outrageous now, but people may be drawn to it. So I think this gets to the other question that you have. So you have what President Trump is running on. How are Democrats responding to that?

How are Democrats, are they able to define themselves or is he defining them? So a couple things on this, right? When President Trump talks about socialism and talks about the Green New Deal and Medicare for All and those things as being socialist policies, you know, there's a reason he's doing that. And that's because he's a historically unpopular president and he needs to be able to pull down whoever the Democratic nominee is to lower their favorability ratings and their ceiling so that they're on a somewhat level playing field with him when we did our

NPR PBS NewsHour Marist polling like how I said that we found that 57% of people said they would definitely not vote for President Trump in 2020. That's amazing, because you can't obviously win when 57% of people vote against you. Although, even the Electoral College probably, that would be tough. But I will say 54% of people didn't vote for President Trump in 2016. So that's something to keep in mind. He won 46% of the vote. And so he needs to incrementally pull folks down to either stay home and not vote for Democrats or bring over some of those, you know, moderate Republicans in places like Cobb and Gwinnett County to be able to say, okay, let's, you know, these Democrats are just too far left. They're too far for what I want. And, you know, I don't like Trump, but like,

I'm, I just, I can't have the country go in that direction. So Democrats are actually feeling pretty comfortable about this right now from the ones that I talked to, uh, consistent different campaigns, different big Democrat groups. They feel like the top message that voters care about. This was the case in the midterms as well. and if you listen to our podcast, you heard us talk about this 600 times. The number one issue voters care about is health care, health care costs going up, health care inequality. Number two issue is the economy. Even as the economy big picture is doing well, there's a lot of voter concern about a widening

income gap and income inequality. So Democrats feel like, okay, if you're going to spotlight the fact that we want to do these really aggressive health care plans and redistribute income, cool, because that's what we're running on. And we've seen that with the Green New Deal issue. By and large, you look at election after election, Republicans are able to use climate change really well to their advantage because they turn it into, you know, so-and-so wants to make your gas prices go up, your energy prices go up. So Mitch McConnell said, oh, this Green New Deal is great. We're going to have a vote on it in the Senate to force the Democratic presidential candidates to vote yes or no. And the Democrats are saying like,

okay, let's talk about climate change. That's fine. I will say I'm really excited for the 2020 election because of how new and different it really is. You know, American politics is not static. And I think when you're in where we are in our time, you know, you see what you've seen before and you think everything stays the same. But American history tells us that political parties, alliances, they have changed over time. And whether it was the Federalists to the Whigs to how Democrats in the

South changed over to become more Republican based on culture. We are in a fundamental American political crack-up right now and a shift. So to watch what's happening where Democrats are having this reaction to President Trump to say, you need a big, bold vision for what to do with the kind of country you want, they're going to have to make the case for what socialism means, whether it's socialism or an expansion of a social safety net, which is really what they're talking about, and why you see such a difference between how young people view the word socialism

versus how you see people over 30 years old. And I'll just make one point about this that I've said before, but if you're 29 years old, which is how old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is, 29 was born in 1989, actually, that was the year that the Berlin Wall fell, and two years before the Iron Curtain fell. For them, these are not Cold War kids, right? This is, the word socialism is not synonymous with communism. It's just the thing that Republicans used to say about

Obamacare. But I wonder, we're talking about President Trump. One thing that he can do is he can kind of suck up all the oxygen out of the room. He can throw all sorts of stuff out there, you know, and there's so many things that he can say. He's throwing out nicknames. He's throwing out this and that. What some people will say is you talk about the CPAC speech, is there anyone in the Democratic Party with a big enough personality, with a big enough persona to compete with kind of the juggernaut that is President Trump? I'm talking about as a persona, as someone who just thrives on attention. Like raw dynamism. Yes. Right. Like how do you compete with that? And like probably at least a third of the

CPAC speech was sort of Trumpian insult comedy. You know, he he does this variety show. It's the Trump variety show. One of his former advisers told me that that's what they thought of. Yeah, the Trump variety show. They actually called it that. So and I guess this is a question for you, Scott, but have the Democrats figured out how they intend to deal with the Trump insult comedy or the nicknames? Yeah, mostly ignore it. I think early on you saw this divide of Democrats who talked about Trump and Democrats who didn't. I think that divide has kind of gone away. And a lot of Democrats do acknowledge him either, you know, Kamala Harris will often not talk about him by name, like he's like Voldemort or something. But they do talk about him, but they usually talk about it early on in the speech and then move on and talk about

themselves or talk about him in the context of big picture, like the crux of Kamala Harris's announcement speech was, America's better than this. This is not the America we recognize. And she's clearly talking about the insults and all of that stuff, but she's not sitting there going, she's not reacting to it and making it all about, look, Donald Trump did this, like the 2016 campaign was at times. So I think they're figuring it out. And to your point, you know, I think at the moment, I would say maybe not. But there's a year-long primary that's about to begin. These candidates are going to spend way more time campaigning than they ever have before.

They're going to get way more attention than before. And I think some will rise and some will fall. And there might be someone who figures out their stride and kind of rises to that moment. They're getting their repetitions in right now. They're out there in these small halls and fish fries, or I guess the fish fries start in a few months. Those come later. Those do come later.

But they're out there getting their reps in. They're getting their practice. They're figuring out how to talk to voters. They're refining their message. And maybe they're finding their dynamism. Maybe, yeah. All right. It is now time.

The most fun part of the show. Can't Let It Go. We all share something we just can't stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. Domenico. Okay. Okay. You sound surprised by this.

Like, what? No, I'm not. You know, it's sad, right? Like, I can't let go this week of the death of Luke Perry, who for, and not because I liked Luke Perry, can I just tell you, I think as a, or I should say, not that I didn't like, not because I liked Dylan. I actually could not stand Dylan.

Were you kind of jealous of Dylan or you felt like competition with him? You felt like there was some competition there? I may have identified more with Brandon on 90210. For me, Dylan was everything I never would be, right? Like, he was the bad boy. I was not going to be the bad boy. Like, I went to class. I mean, what did Dylan ever do?

He just, like, stood around the courtyard with, like, sunglasses on and a white T-shirt. I'm like, and, you know, Brandon's, like, running the school newspaper. He's, like, trying to do the right things. And, like, Kelly still wants to date Dylan. I'm like, this is ridiculous right so there's a little bit of bitterness there i see it's still about listen you can get me outraged about almost anything so this is true i can see that are you sure can't you let go of? So what I can't let go of this week is, and this is related to 2020.

So there is a candidate running for office who we haven't talked about today, but Andrew Yang. He is kind of this tech guy. He's running for office. I detect two people clapping. Well, he's kind of an outsider, but he's running on universal basic income. Basically, everyone would get $1,000 a month as a universal basic income.

I'm sure he can explain it more, but what I was interested in this week. We should actually, Danielle Kurtz-Laban has done a really long explainer on the idea of universal income and some sort of guaranteed job, kind of picking up steam partially because of him, but yeah. Yes, and people are into it, and he may end up on the debate stages if he can meet certain criteria, and it looks like he is going to meet some of that, but one thing that he did tweet out this week that I was interested in is that he tweeted out to bring the country together he would give everyone an HBO Go password so we could all watch Game of Thrones and I thought that is what I mean that's awesome number one now he didn't explain whether

he was going to tweet out his passcode, his password, or whatever, and then we would all use that one. Use the same one, right, like we all do? I think that might be illegal. Someone said that was illegal. That's not illegal. That's not illegal? Have you been stealing other people's HBO? I finally started paying for myself like two years ago.

I felt so adult. Speaking of my 1990s clique, this is like the Napster debate all over again. You can use it. Look it up. Look it up. Or whether he would give everyone a password. He would just do a whole bunch of accounts because he's rich or something.

But I love Game of Thrones. I can't wait for this next season. I want to know what's going to... I'm kind of sad because I don't want it to end. So I'm like, oh, I messed up about it. I'm kind of like, I have emotions about it. But that's what I cannot let go of this week. I thought it was pretty awesome.

I'm still on season three of The Wire. I'll get you Game of Thrones next century. That was like four epic HBO shows ago. Come on. We got to let that go. Scott, what can't you let go of? Can I just... Domenico and I have been living a buddy comedy this week,

and I'd like to briefly talk about it. We were traveling together. Speaking of bromances. Couple things. First of all, Domenico has a broken wheel on his suitcase, and we walk through the entire Atlanta airport with this loud And it's a big airport.

Scott was not happy about it. I was not happy. The rideshare lift Uber pickup is really far in the airport. God, it's like what is going on? But just a we have a lot of shared traits and we have a lot of different traits but we're

at the airport. we were leaving DC we were at Reagan National heading here to Atlanta and we're standing there and suddenly Jared Kushner is like right in front of us and I go I'm super subtle I'm like fuck fuck fuck he goes what oh

wait a second huh gets up stands up no bleep goes, wait a second, huh, gets up, stands up. No bleep. Are we journalists or are we not? Yeah, it's a great picture. I've got to admit, it was a great picture. Domenico's journalistic instincts and framing skills, I cannot let go.

We all get lucky sometimes, you know. It's a great picture. But the best part of this, though, isott tweeted it out and without saying like what the like who the person was and again just like me taking the picture i posted it in the replies so tam uh what about you so the thing i cannot let go of is yesterday in the House, they were debating a piece of legislation about voting rights and voting security. And Mark Pocan from Wisconsin, the Democrat, was running the floor for the Democrats. And he was making a point about something, I'm not sure what,

when this most incredible exchange broke out on the House floor. The Federal Register asked for a comment on this. 77,000 people did comment. Only four wanted to keep this provision. Everyone else wanted to change this. Out of 77,000, that's probably about the percent of people who think Nickelback is their favorite band in this country. It's pretty low. And I think if you look at Nickelback's your favorite band, I apologize to the gentleman. Why would you criticize one of the greatest bands of the 90s?

Wow. All right. One more reason why there's a difference between Democrats and Republicans clearly found on the floor of Congress today. But I would argue. I enjoy debating back and forth, and it's always good to have some good humor on the floor of the House. And, yes, I actually do have a Nickelback song on my running playlist that I listen to on a regular basis and was ridiculed by that when I posted my playlist one time. And I know some in this chamber, even up at the dais,

are still laughing about that yeah so uh that was uh congressman Rodney Davis from Illinois uh defending a very unpopular opinion um only the most important issues are debated on the floor of the United States House and can I say I don't know I don't know Nickelback, I don't know Nickelback, and I don't know their songs. Oh, you do. I do. You do. You just don't want to. I don't want to. I'm going to have to go out and Google this.

I don't know Nickelback. Don't. Don't. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Don't tell me not to do it. Are there any Nickelback fans in the room? Don't be ashamed. See? Yes.

And that is the show for tonight. Thank you, Atlanta. We absolutely loved coming here. Thank you to our partners, WABE and GPB. You can support this podcast by supporting them, your local public radio station. And we couldn't have done it without Ali Prescott, Jessica Goldstein, Andrew Hayden, Cy Sykes, and the NPR events team.

The visuals behind us are from Rene Klar. The show and the podcast are produced by Barton Girdwood and Barbara Sprunt. The show tonight was engineered by Andy Huther. Our editors are Beth Donovan, Shirley Henry, and Mathani Mathuri. And most of all, thanks to the audience tonight and to everyone listening. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House.

I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I also cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. And thank you, Atlanta, for being with us for the NPR Politics Podcast.