What A Day - You’re Gonna Liz Me When I’m Gone

Episode Date: March 6, 2020

Senator Elizabeth Warren exited the presidential race on Thursday following disappointing results in her home state and beyond on Super Tuesday. Now, like princes at a formal ball, both Biden and Sanders are vying for her affection. We reflect on Warren's campaign and discuss what’s coming next. It's been 10 years so that means it's census time: the great big test everyone loves to take comes out next week. We discuss what's different about this year’s census and why it’s important. And in headlines: Perry pregnant, UAW’s “Irishman 2020,” and COVID-19’s impact on the stock market.

It's Friday, March 6th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is What A Day, where we get poke for dinner when Akilah is away on business. That's right. They don't have good taste. So that's what happens when I'm gone. I can still get owned thousands of miles away. On today's show, Elizabeth Warren drops out of the 2020 presidential race. The census is almost upon us and then some headlines. Senator Elizabeth Warren exited the presidential race on Thursday following disappointing results in her home state and beyond on Super Tuesday. In a speech yesterday, she talked about the campaign and her potential next steps outside her home in Massachusetts.

I have no regrets at all. You know, this has been the honor of a lifetime. Ten years ago, I was teaching a few blocks from here and talking about what was broken in America and ideas for how to fix it. And pretty much nobody wanted to hear it. And I've had a chance to get out there and talk with millions of people. And we have ideas now that we talk about that we just weren't talking about even a year ago. A two cent wealth tax and universal child care

that could be real. We could make it happen. And canceling student loan debt for 43 million Americans and raising social security payments. Those are life changing events for people. And we can actually do this. So I'm delighted to have been here and honored to have had this chance. Wow. Gideon, let's go through some of the other news Warren made. You know, she had a lot to say. Yeah, she was very clear eyed for such an obviously difficult

moment, you know, on the front of endorsements, which is a conversation that everybody is kind of having. Warren said that she needed some additional time and space in order to figure out what exactly she wants to do. And she had this really kind of telling assessment of the way the race shook out. She said that at the start of her campaign, she had been told that there were only two lanes for candidates to occupy, a left lane that was filled by Sanders and a moderate one that was led by Biden. And on Thursday, she said, quote, I thought that wasn't right, but evidently that was wrong. And to that end, for some time in the final months of her campaign, Warren was trying to market herself as the quote unquote unity candidate, one who could bridge the left and center, and it just didn't pan out. It didn't result in primary wins. And there are so many reasons why it didn't work. And there are for

any of these candidates who leave the race. But one is something that we've talked about before, this sort of paralyzing fear of so-called electability and a concern from a lot of voters that after 2016, a woman can't defeat Donald Trump. The Warren campaign tried to dispel that as much as they could. But as unfounded as that fear is, it existed and they had to continue to deal with it throughout the campaign. And to that point, you know, Warren also talked a lot on Thursday about sexism and the difficulty of even talking about sexism and gender as a female candidate. And, you know, she was the last remaining viable woman to be running for president. Yeah, that's right. And it's pretty sad that as we lead into International Women's Day that we're talking about president. Yeah, that's right. And it's pretty sad that as we lead

into International Women's Day that we're talking about this. So now it's officially down to Biden and Sanders are the front runners. Both of them would love to have Warren's support. I don't know if they've earned it, but she's reportedly had conversations with both. What did they have to say about her on Thursday? Yeah, so Biden tweeted about Warren saying in part, quote, we needed her voice in this race and we need her continued work in the Senate. Very congratulatory terms from him. Sanders gave some remarks to the press and has also been very congratulatory of Warren. and the reason that her campaign ideas will remain viable for many, many years is she has changed political consciousness in America, which at the end of the day is the most important thing that any candidate could do. What Senator Warren has successfully done is raise the issue of income and wealth inequality

and the idea that we need a wealth tax in America. So we've talked a little bit about Warren's longer history with Biden and Sanders, but there's also more recent history between them too, of course. Warren and Sanders had this kind of progressive allyship through much of the presidential race. But there was a prominent scuffle earlier this year over a report contending that Sanders had privately told her that a woman couldn't win the election. Warren confronted Sanders after a debate about it as well, accusing him of calling her a liar. That was obviously, you know, an important moment at the time. It's a slightly different story for Warren and Biden. They didn't share as much ideologically throughout the campaign.

But most recently, Warren devoted some lines in one of her final campaign speeches to Biden saying, no matter how many Washington insiders tell you to support him, nominating their fellow Washington insider will not meet this moment. So to summarize here, there's a lot of pressure externally on her and Warren may endorse one of the candidates or not endorse at all. We're likely going to see in the days stretching on from here. No matter what she chooses next, Warren often set the policy terms of the 2020 presidential primary rising to the top of the field in 2019 with a seemingly endless set of plans, including a 2% wealth tax and universal child care. That's just to name a

few. Yeah, exactly. This is the legacy of the Warren campaign, right? She also talked about breaking up big tech companies, student loan forgiveness, and a lot more. And then above and beyond the sort of extensive policy suite that was out there, Warren also did something really impressive with fundraising. She and Sanders were the only non-self-funded candidates to not hold high-dollar fundraisers, and they both got to the top of the presidential field. And that allowed Warren to do... We've joked about it before, like the selfie line thing. But seriously, those photos with supporters, which Warren used as an opportunity to connect with people at events, even get ideas from supporters and put them into her policies and have natural earned media off of that. So there's stuff to learn from that whole

experience for other campaigns going forward. And one of the major things that she taught people was you don't need to go behind closed doors and ask for money from rich people in order to be successful. Yeah, that's exactly right. No wine caves, only wind caves, as Amy Klobuchar would say. Her campaign also did not pan out. Yes, exactly. Wind caves only is official WOD policy. Well, we'll keep you updated on Warren's plans and the presidential primary going forward. All right, people, it's 2020. It's a leap year. There is a big election. Peter Rabbit 2, The Runaway, comes to movie theaters, but it's also census time. That's right. It is counting time. The census, which is completed every 10 years, combines America's least favorite things,

math, walking, paperwork, and determines everything from our voting districts to the electoral college to trillions of dollars of federal funding for the whole next decade. And it's all starting next week. You've probably seen headlines or heard stories about issues with the census this year. It was the subject of a Supreme Court case a few months ago. So we thought we'd take some time today to get you up to speed on it. First, let's backtrack to the lawsuit over the census. It had to do with a citizenship question. That's right, Gideon. So the Trump administration wanted to add a question asking people to answer whether each member of their household is a U.S. citizen. And the stated reason they gave for adding this question was that

they wanted better citizenship data so that they could enforce the Voting Rights Act to guarantee that minority citizens weren't having their votes diluted by non-citizens. Sounds altruistic. Yeah, doesn't it just? But voting rights advocates thought that was bullshit. And they, along with immigrant rights advocates, worried this could lead to an inaccurate count because immigrants and their families might be afraid to complete the census. And it wasn't just advocates. You know, former census directors and the Census Bureau itself thought this additional question was a bad idea. Right. So the question got challenged at the Supreme Court.

And then how did they decide on it? Right. So the court ruled the administration's rationale didn't hold water and they nixed that citizenship question. There was also really incriminating evidence that came out just before the court ruled that showed that the same guy who drafted the administration's bogus voting rights rationale had also written a study in 2015 that said that adding a citizenship question to the census would allow Republicans to do more gerrymandering by lowering responses in Democratic areas. Shock, surprise. Ah, what a well-intentioned man. Okay, so we end up with no citizenship question. Guess our work is done here and everything is back to normal. We can go about our...

Yeah, well, before we move on, the damage may have already been done. So the proposed citizenship question was in the news cycle for months, and the decision not to include it was only a blip in the news cycle. So I think it's really important to just reiterate to people everywhere repeatedly that the citizenship question will not be on the census. And the information you provide on the census cannot be subpoenaed by ICE or any government agency, but also a bit of history here. So I spoke with Colin McKay at Count the Nation, which is a project at USC dedicated to raising awareness about the benefits of participating in the census. He pointed out that this year isn benefits of participating in the census, he pointed out that this year isn't the first time the census has been weaponized.

You know, the three-fifths compromise was based on census data, and that is, you know, the claim that black people only count as three-fifths of a person during slavery. Like, that's where that came from. And that was really only enacted to give southern states more congressional seats. Another example, Japanese internment was in many ways made possible because of the government using census information negatively. You know, it's the United States always inventing new and innovative ways to oppress. What else do we need to tell folks about the census, though?

All right. Well, there are a couple new things. This will be the first census that features a question allowing people living in the same household to mark themselves as same-sex partners or spouses. So we'll finally have better representation there. But the census still won't allow people to identify as non-binary or collect information on sexual orientation as advocates have pushed for. And another thing, so this is also the first time the government will be doing an online form and accepting data over the phone, which is good considering the COVID-19 fears and general reluctance we all have

to people knocking on our door. Like, I hate it. Yes, don't ever do it to me or my family. That's right. Well, the Census Bureau is expecting about six out of 10 households that fill out a form on their own to do so online. The paper forms are scheduled to arrive in the mail at some homes by mid-March and for others in April. Got it, got it. Okay, and then what's being done, though, to reach the harder-to-reach communities? Yeah. So the census is the largest peacetime mobilization that the U.S. has, which I was blown away by as I researched. And as far as hard-to-reach communities go, there's a real effort to have people quickly fill out the census or find places to do so, i.e. if you're homeless, a majorly hard to reach community to account for. And, you know,

every time the census data comes in, we undercount the homeless. You can go to a library to fill out census data. And there's also outreach efforts specifically geared to those individuals. Another hard to reach group is, surprise, millennials, because we move a lot, we don't read the mail. So, you know, they're just going to keep sending us stuff wherever we have listed addresses. And this is something shocking that I discovered, but the most undercounted group in America is children under the age of five. You know, they're undercounted by almost 10%. And that means that they're not going to get funding for their entire childhood, you know, five to 15 is just no money in their name in particular. So, you know, that accounts for things like early childhood education, CHIP benefits, adoption funding, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You know, I wish we had more

time to talk through a lot of the nuance of the census, but I cannot stress enough how important it is to fill it out. Over $1.5 trillion in government spending annually is based on the census, and that money goes where people are. So please, please, please fill out the census. I mean, doesn't your community deserve some of that money? Right? Yeah, they do. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer clarified comments he made about two Supreme Court justices. The comments happened earlier this week during a pro-abortion rights rally where Schumer said Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh would, quote, pay the price if they went forward with a decision that could drastically limit access to abortion. Senator Mitch McConnell, President Trump, and Chief Justice John Roberts responded shortly after, condemning what they said were threatening comments by Schumer. Schumer apologized on the Senate floor yesterday, saying he regretted using the words he chose, but that his anger reflected that of women across America. That's right. Speak for all of us, Chuck. The stock market, which I, as a millennial, am obsessed with,

took another big dip yesterday as economic fears about coronavirus continue. The Dow fell 3.6% after rallying big on Wednesday, and the Nasdaq dropped 3.1%. Airline stocks were hit particularly hard because of anxiety around flying. The International Air Transport Association predicts coronavirus could wipe out up to $113 billion in global revenue this year. Earlier this week, the Fed cut interest rates to spur growth, and they're expected to do it again. But experts continue to say that that doesn't address the real economic problems of factories closing, workers being sent home, and people not spending money on anything except hand sanitizer. And this is someone who is coming from someone who was on a plane just today.

So Lysol wipes and hand sanitizer. A government probe of the United Auto Workers Union has led to the arrest of Gary Jones, the group's former president, for working with other UAW officials to embezzle more than $1 million. I can't believe I have an opportunity to reference the Irishman again in the year of our Lord 2020, but the legacy of Mr. Hoffa lives on. The UAW probe has been ongoing since 2017 and has led to 14 arrests, but Jones is the biggest fish so far. He and his co-conspirators spent their money on extremely deep V-neck gold necklace guy purchases, like $13,000 worth of premium cigars and $290,000 in luxury condo stays, golf outings, and amusement parks. Solidarity forever, my friends.

The extent of the corruption could lead the government to pursue a federal takeover, the same kind they implemented over 25 years ago of Hoffa's Teamsters Union. For their part, the UAW strongly denounced Jones' behavior and redoubled their commitment to reforms. Katy Perry is pregnant with both a baby and a new album. She announced her child pregnancy in the traditional way with a four-minute music video that ended with her turning sideways and cradling her baby bump. Very Beyonce. This little kid is already clocking up views, faves, and retweets in utero.

Very motivational. Orlando Bloom is Katy's fiance, so no matter what the baby's gender is, they're gonna be a swashbuckler. Katie and Orlando had planned to get married in Japan this summer, but have postponed due to coronavirus. Understandable. Gets to us all.

And those are the headlines. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe. Leave a review toot on your horn if you're driving a big rig and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just where it says YKK on zippers 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 congrats to the Perry Orlandos. I think that worked. I'm inilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And congrats to the Perry Orlandos. I'm in New York. That worked. I'm in LA. 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 Kshaka.