What A Day - Dems Debate In Des Moines

Episode Date: January 15, 2020

Last night was the seventh democratic debate featuring the smallest candidate pool yet. Just six candidates took the stage: Biden, Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Steyer. We discuss this somewhat uneventful night, along with the new Tom Steyer sports team that we as Americans are all apparently members of.  And in headlines: Lev’s paper trail, Bond’s new type of Bad Guy, and Boris Johnson's big bell idea.

it's wednesday january 15th i'm akilah hughes i'm gideon resnick and this is what a day aka the spin room to spinners revenge i think he means we're talking about the debate that's it's basically on today's show a debate recap special. Last night, six Democratic candidates took the stage at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, for the seventh Democratic presidential debate. Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Tom Steyer and Amy Klobuchar were all there. It was the final debate before the first primary voting gets underway in Iowa in just three weeks. For two hours, they debated about foreign policy,

health care, child care and who is on America's 327 million person sports team. I got power forward. Well, we're going to get into some key moments and themes of the night. But first, let's talk about what we thought of the debate overall. Gideon, how you feeling? Yeah, I mean, basically going into this, we knew there was a pretty close race in Iowa. That's where the debate was. That's the first contest. The last poll we saw from the Des Moines Register, typically viewed as the best of the bunch, had Sanders in the lead, then Warren, then Buttigieg, then Biden.

So what you think and what a lot of pundits say and a lot of reporters say is that the debates are going to be all about brawls and fighting. And what we ended up with was something that was pretty cordial and technical. And I think part of the reason that that happened is because it's so close in Iowa and because it kind of matters there based on the caucus system, who your second choice candidate is, everybody's a little leery of pissing off supporters of other candidates. And that's why it sort of ended up being a debate that was kind of in the weeds of a lot of things that might be relevant for voters that were in Iowa, but more broadly could have maybe gotten a little lost in the sauce. Yeah, I found it to be very policy heavy because this is, you know, the 9000th debate that we've sat through. I didn't feel like there was any real big new information that came out. And there was

a lot that didn't end up coming up there. You know, Puerto Rico is obviously front of mind for lots of listeners and, you know, myself included. You know, we didn't talk about gun violence, which is a thing that a lot of people care about. And so, you know, I just thought that we kind of, I don't know, I didn't think that it was a thorough enough debate. And there were definitely moments that could have happened that just didn't get brought up. Yeah, the only thing that did feel new were even though a lot of it sort of was kind of introductory in a way that, you know, seven debates in it, it doesn't necessarily always feel like it should be. There was a lot of conversation on foreign policy. But for me personally, when I'm watching this stuff, I'm

having a harder time knowing exactly what it is that people are wanting. Are they just tuning in and learning about these people? Are they deeply knowledgeable about, you know, everybody that's up there? And the other thing that was the sort of remains funny is you have former Vice President Joe Biden still doing pretty well in a lot of these national and early polls. And yet nobody seems to be taking that that seriously or trying to like make an effort to leapfrog him. That's very, that's very true. Well, let's go through a few key moments, starting with the opening of the debate, which focused on Iran and a question about why all of the candidates were prepared to be commander in chief. Yeah. So this is, of course, coming up in

the context of heightened tensions with Iran that basically, you know, kicked into high gear because of President Trump's drone strike on Major General Soleimani. Here's how Senator Sanders responded to this question. In 2002, when the Congress was debating whether or not we go into a war in Iraq, invade Iraq, I got up on the floor of the House and I said that would be a disaster. It would lead to unprecedented levels of chaos in the region. And I not only voted against the war, I helped lead the effort against that war. So a couple of things in this response. This is obviously the case that Sanders wants to make. Go to the voters and say, look, Biden and I, we might be pals, we might be the oldest gents that are up here, have really long records, but there is one major difference between us. And that is from Sanders perspective that he is saying he did not vote to get us into a war in Iraq, and he has been consistent on foreign policy.

And one of the other things he demonstrated in that regard, too, is that just last year, he was able to work with Republicans, namely Senator Mike Lee on a Yemen war powers resolution. And now Lee is supportive of taking similar measures for Iran. So that's kind of the through line that he's arcing here from Iraq to this current moment. And Joe Biden got a similar question along these lines. And here's how he responded. I said 13 years ago it was a mistake to give the president the authority to go to war if in fact he couldn't get inspectors into Iraq to stop what thought to be the attempt to get a nuclear weapon. It was a mistake and I acknowledge that. But right out of the man who also argued against that war, Barack Obama, picked me to be his vice president.

And once we were elected president and vice president, he turned to me and asked me to end that war. So this is obviously something that Biden has had to answer for before. And with Iran in the news, we were one of the major topics of the primary that Barack Obama was in as the as the, you know, anti Iraq War candidate. And now Biden, yet again, having been there is having to contend with it in his third run for the presidency. You know, he wants to point out the fact that that his Iraq War vote was a mistake in hindsight. And Sanders wants to focus on the fact that of the people that were up there, they both had choices in this regard. And Biden made his choice to vote to authorize it. And Sanders made his. Biden then moved on to talking about the Iran

deal and the Obama administration, obviously a major accomplishment for them at the time, and one that Biden and the other Democrats were saying that they needed to reinstate after Trump withdrew the country from it. What were some more of your thoughts on that section, though? I think that that was something you were talking about. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think that it was really wonderful because it's the first time we're seeing all of the Democratic candidates on the debate stage since all of the fallout in Iran. And I think it was great that, you know, regardless of all of the, you know, fallout in Iran. And I think it was great that, you know, regardless of all of those things you just mentioned, they all really did take Trump

to task and, you know, questioned his credibility, his competency when it comes to this. And I think that that's a line that does, you know, sort of break through for the American people is that, you know, we're in a conflict right now that none of us voted, like no one could vote for. He just did it. And I think that that's, you know, a strong statement, you know, for undecided voters or people who might be like, I don't know who I'm voting for, if I'm voting Republican this time. You know, it might be helpful for them to say, oh, well, I do like that none of you are supporting this Iran thing. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. So that was important foreign policy stuff. Let's move on to less important other things that were going on. This highly anticipated moment for no other reason

that our national love of interpersonal drama takes over. This ended up being one of the more talked about moments of the night. Senators Warren and Sanders were asked about the alleged comment that Sanders made during a meeting a year ago regarding a woman's ability, namely Warren in this case, to win the presidency. Sanders answered first. Well, as a matter of fact, I didn't say it. And I don't want to waste a whole lot of time on this because this is what Donald Trump and maybe some of the media want.

Anybody knows me, knows that it's incomprehensible that I would think that a woman could not be president of the United States. Go to YouTube today. There's a video of me 30 years ago talking about how a woman could become president of the United States. In 2015, I deferred, in fact, to Senator Warren. There was a movement to draft Senator Warren to run for president. And you know what? I stayed back. Senator Warren decided not to run, and I did run afterwards. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes. How could anybody in a million years not believe that a woman could become president of the United States?

And let me be very clear. If any of the women on this stage or any of the men on this stage win the nomination, I hope that's not the case. I hope it's me. Yeah, he went on to say that he would support anybody who did win. And after he said that, you know, he didn't make this remark to Senator Warren, the moderator checked again and then insinuated that he did say it and asked Warren to elaborate. So Senator Sanders, Senator Sanders, I do want to be clear here. You're saying that you never told Senator Warren that a woman could not win the election. That is correct. Senator Warren, what did you think when Senator Sanders told you a woman could not win the election? I disagreed.

Bernie is my friend, and I am not here to try to fight with Bernie. But look, this question about whether or not a woman can be president has been raised, and it's time for us to attack it head on. And I think the best way to talk about who can win is by looking at people's winning record. So, can a woman beat Donald Trump? Look at the men on this stage. Collectively, they have lost 10 elections.

The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they've been in are the women, Amy and me. And the only person on this stage who has beaten an incumbent Republican any time in the past 30 years is me. Yeah, for the first time I'm hearing Klobuchar go, yeah. I don't think I heard it when I was watching the debate, but I am just going to say it. It was a really great answer.

So, you know, we watched the debate here at Crooked, and I think everyone was pretty stunned by how effective the answer was and how Warren used it as an opportunity to highlight her particular electability. And while both candidates appeared to want to move past this whole meeting hoopla, it does sort of seem like Senator Warren's team prepped her with a pivot into talking about electability while Sanders decided to just sort of move past it. But what did become an issue was Warren's timeline about having won against a Republican incumbent in the past 30 years. Gideon, would you like to explain?

I guess. Yeah. So Sanders challenged this claim. And on a technicality, Sanders, I think is right. He beat an incumbent Republican in 1990. 1990 was 30 years ago, but that election wasn't in January. So technically, it hasn't been 30 years yet. And oh, my God, why did we spend so much time figuring out the math on this? Also, sometimes in a race, you're not running against a Republican incumbent. It does seem like Warren could have said in the past 25 years if she wanted to be extremely precise and moved on, but she didn't. So this is what we are talking about now. I still am not sure on the timeline or what really happened here.

I don't do math, but honestly, congrats to everyone on their collective previous Ws. I will say, though, the exchange between them on trade was much more interesting and substantive. Yeah. And while I'd hoped we could be done with it after this debate, the media is already focusing on a handshake that almost was and a very short exchange between two senators after the debate. So I guess this is our new normal. Just, you know, petty little shit. Yeah. Got to read body language and be paid to do it. Maybe they didn't shake hands because it's flu season. You know, all I know is that Tom Steyer ended up being near them and having a real Curb Your Enthusiasm reaction to whatever it was he was witnessing. Yeah. Well, I want to take a moment to talk about Tom Steyer since, you know, you said his name. So he was the last candidate to qualify for the debate. He doesn't get talked about a lot by the media or other candidates, but he's still on the stage. And he kept breaking in last night to kind of just agree with all the other candidates, which I think is an interesting choice. It was. Yeah. And I mean, I think I figured it out. Steyer

is the chillest among them because money truly does buy you happiness. Mr. Steyer, give your money to me instead of the television networks airing your ads. Give it to me. Right. Well, would you like to explain what's up with Tom Steyer and what he's actually doing in the race? Yeah, I think we should. So basically, just to clarify here, he's a billionaire businessman. He's running on climate change. He's done a lot of work both for voter registration and climate change in the past. And, you know, namely this huge campaign to get Trump impeached. To answer the sort of lingering question about what the heck is happening with him and how he ended up there. The most recent answer to that question is that there were two polls in Nevada and South Carolina that respectively had him at like 15 and 12. Yeah. And I mean, that was enough to have the

final hurdle, but he was polling fine enough before that those were ones that were like, you know, way higher, could be total outliers. But to give one example of just sort of how his immense personal wealth is helping him compared to the other candidates, according to FiveThirtyEight, who got data from Canter Campaign Media Analysis Group, Steyer ads aired 5,700 times in Nevada-based media markets in December through January. The other Democratic candidates combined have aired six spots in Nevada. Yeah, I mean, don't act like six isn't a number. It's more than zero. Yeah, that means, I mean, if there were five people on the stage or six,

if there were six, that means at least one each. Maybe, maybe less than one for somebody else, but still. For every one time you see the other candidates, you see Tom Steyer like a thousand times, basically, is the math there. It just shows that, you know, with a lot of money, you can still really, really make an impact, especially if you're spending it in places where the other candidates might not be spending it yet. Yeah, that's right.

Well, that's Tom Steyer. Before we go, I want to check in on where we go from here. Do we actually think this debate has changed anything? Is it even possible to say at this point? I think the latter is more likely. I think, you know, really in Iowa, like we've said, it appears to be very close based on what we know so far. You know, a lot of people are in the mix there. But mostly my big takeaway was that I don't think that there was any one thing that people are, the candidates, I mean, are going to have to recover from in the days, you know, no major mistakes or anything. And a lot of the stuff that we as close watchers of all this register is game changers and stuff, you know, might not end up having that long of a lifespan or even register with with voters, you know, as they make their choices. Yeah, that's right. I mean, I just sort of feel like to be so diehard this early or, you know, late, if you think about how long we've been

sitting through this campaign. Late. Yeah. I mean, I think that what we keep seeing in all these debates is that they are all more similar than they are dissimilar. They all want progress. They're liberal. I think all of that's there. They're all tired of Trump. They all want to make up with our allies. And I think that after a certain point, it's hard to pinpoint something that is a big enough difference. Like maybe their timelines are different or how they're planning to fund things are different. But it's really it's just it's all starting to blur. Yeah. They all want to be on Tom Steyer's America team. That's for sure. I'm trying to get drafted.

Yeah. So there were a bunch of other policies that got debated last night. The USMCA trade deal, North Korea, student debt, important stuff. If you want to go deeper about what all went down during this debate, definitely go ahead and check out Pod Save America later today. John, John, Tommy and Dan are going to try to break it all down for you. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the House will vote today to send the articles of impeachment over to the Senate and to name the official impeachment or House managers.

The trial might even kick off right after MLK weekend. So really soon. But if you can't wait until then to get your daily dose of sloppy international wrongdoing, don't worry. Rudy Giuliani's associate Lev Parnas just turned in a lot of new evidence from the work he did on Trump's behalf in Ukraine. These gems include a note tastefully written on a Ritz-Carlton notepad that reminds Parnas to, quote, get Zelensinski to announce that

the Biden case will be investigated. Lev, oh my God, that was like your whole thing. Did you really have to write it down? Like just write it on your hand. There are solutions. Another note read, my name is Lev Parnas. The Houston Astros fired their manager and general manager on Monday after the team was caught sign stealing and fined $5 million by the MLB. The firings continued into Tuesday when the Red Sox fired their manager, Alex Cora, who also worked for the Astros in 2017 and was implicated in the same scheme. Now, sign-stealing is when you decode the hand signals between the pitchers and catchers so you know what's coming next. The Astros used some pretty advanced methods to do it,

including a live camera feed outside the Astros dugout that benched players could convey to players on the mound by banging on trash cans like performers in 90s off-Broadway sensation Stomp. I am not kidding. We at Whataday endorse these firings because when we turn on baseball, we want to see people hit balls and run, not learn codes and read. Okay, I just have to say, when you said banging on a trash can, I thought of Doug. So tweet at me if you thought of Doug.

Hashtag banging on a trash can. Hashtag Doug or stop. All right, well, now here's some Brexit news brought to you by the letter B. Brits bewildered as Boris begs for bread to make a Big Ben bong. Yeah, all right. That makes perfect sense. And I don't need any furtherong. Yeah, all right. That makes perfect sense. And I don't need any further explanation. Yeah, well, here comes one, bitch.

All right. So British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wanted to pause restoration work on Big Ben so the clock tower could ring to mark Britain's exit from the EU. But the plan was abandoned because it was just too expensive. Johnson said the government was, quote, working up a plan so people can bung a bob for a Big Ben bong. But according to a speaker for the House of Commons, the plan would cost, quote, 50,000 pounds a bong. Checks out.

Yeah. Everyone in this story is apparently a Dr. Seuss character. The last word came from a spokesperson for the prime minister who said, quote, the public want Big Ben to bong and the money is raised. And that is great. So to our British Big Ben hive, it's kind of on you now. How bad do you want the bong? Yeah, that's what we're asking to our friends across the pond, not the bong. Folks, this April, James Bond will be facing off against a new kind of bad guy.

Yeah, it's Billie Eilish. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. That was very funny. She is writing the theme song for the new Bond movie, No Time to Die. At 18, Eilish will be the youngest person to record a Bond theme, and she joins legends like Madonna, Paul McCartney, Sheryl Crow, and yes, garbage. So look out, James Bond, because you're about to meet up with a new type of bad guy.

Dude, you just said that. I get it. I don't know if that's true. And those are the headlines. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, give us a rating, get your flu shot before touching us, and tell your friends to listen. By the way, if you're into reading and not just crude stickers on big trucks like me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe.

I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And that's how you bung a bob for a big bin bong. Hello, gov. What A Day is a product of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tun is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein, and our senior producer is Katie Long.

Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.