June 21, 2024 • 59 mins
Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor, co-hosts of Pod Save America and founders of Crooked Media, remember when politics felt hopeful. Their latest venture, after working for Obama, starting Crooked Media, and launching a slew of great ventures and podcasts, is a user's guide to American government: Democracy or Else: How to Save America in 10 Easy Steps. They are some of the most informed, level-headed, and hilarious political voices around, and their book is the antidote to feeling stressed out, beat down, and powerless over politics. You certainly don’t have to be a political junky to appreciate that!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What if there were a way to reduce cancer desks
by half in the next twenty five years. This is
the future Exact Sciences works toward every single day because
they believe it's possible. Exact Sciences is a dedicated team
of cancer fighters united by a purpose to help eradicate
cancer by preventing it, detecting it earlier, and guiding personalized treatment.
(00:26):
Visit exact sciences dot com to learn more. Hi everyone,
I'm Kittie Kuric and this is next question. So everyone,
Our guests today used to have an office just three
(00:47):
doors down from the Oval One. Pretty cool, right. You
may know them from their hilarious Sharpest Attack political podcast
pod Save America, Jon Favreau and Tommy Veeter. Apparently their
other co host, John Lovett, is somewhere taping the next
season of Survivor What Anyway. John and Tommy worked for
(01:09):
the Obama administration. John was a speech writer and Tommy
shape press coverage of national security issues. Then they started
their own company, Crooked Media, after the election of one
Donald J. Trump. Now they've got a whole slew of
podcasts and are busy trying to keep up with the
increasingly insane world of American politics. I've loved talking to
(01:32):
these guys about everything, including their notebook called Democracy or Else,
how to Save America in ten easy steps for people
who are feeling powerless and quite frankly, scared to death.
They hope this will be a kind of self help
book for getting involved and actually doing something. We talked
(01:53):
about so many things, and honestly, when our conversation was over,
I still had so many questions I wanted to ask them,
but we only had an hour, so I did the
best I could. We talked about their book, of course,
but also the upcoming debate pre election, jitters, Joe Biden's
decision to run for reelection, and Donald Trump's recent conviction.
(02:15):
You don't have to be a political junkie to enjoy
these two. So here's my conversation with Jon Favreau and
Tommy veter. Hi, guys, the first question I have for
you is, how are you feeling about the election? Slash
state of the world? A hopeless, be hopeful, see a
(02:38):
combination of the two, Which is it?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I mean, I guess I would have to say see,
though I'm never really hopeless, I'm more terrified than hopeless,
So I definitely feel anxious about the election, anxious about
the state of the world and politics, think about it
all the time. I think this is going to be
an extremely c election, even if you put the polls aside.
(03:03):
Last election was extremely close, right, Joe Biden only won
by about forty thousand votes across three states, and the
politics has become not just nastier people used to say
that like ten years ago, just way more extreme and
potentially you know, we saw we saw violence on January sixth.
So I do think that as a country, we're in
(03:23):
a we're in a really bad place politically, and it
makes the stakes of these elections so much higher. And
you know that's when they're when they're decided on a
razor's edge. That makes it a makes it a tough time.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Very anxiety producing. How about you, Tommy, It is.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Very anxiety producing. I think, you know, I think we're
a fifty to fifty country and I am very anxious
about the possibility of Trump winning again. I think, you know,
on some level, the fact that it's even close is
you know, shocking and upsetting given what we saw in
January sixth. I do think though, you know, you said
the country and the state of the world. When I
(04:01):
look around the world, I see far eye parties doing
better in places like Germany, in France and other parts
of Europe, in part because countries are dealing with some
of the same challenges around migration and inflation and broader
economic issues that we are. So there is a bit
of a bad trend in the US right now. In
(04:22):
some parts of the world, that trend is not universal,
Like I think we're about to see the Tory Party
the Conservatives in England get romped and the Labor Party
will likely win those elections on July fourth, So it's
a bit of a mixed bag. But yeah, I mean,
you know, I'm just sort of always anxious as basically
what the answer is.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
You touched on why populism is on the rise worldwide,
and obviously I think you're right, it's fueled by immigration, inflation,
But what else is driving it? What else is driving
this pretty dramatic turn to the right in many of.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
These I think another factor is the way the media
environment has changed as well. And I think, you know,
the days just here in the United States, right the
days of most people getting their news from a couple
different sources allowed everyone to have some semblance of a
(05:20):
shared reality and also allowed our elected officials to communicate
with wide swaths of the electorate. And so, you know,
when a president, president had the bully pulpit, and the
bully pulpit was always an advantage. And now I think
the bully pulpit just doesn't reach all that many people.
And if you're a campaign and you're trying to communicate
(05:43):
with your voters, trying to figure out where they are,
how they're getting their news, what the best way to
reach them is is incredibly difficult. And a lot of
people are getting their news from places where they're either
consuming misinformation or they're just consuming sort of a type
of content that makes them cynical and distrustful of institutions.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
And it makes them more deeply entrenched in their point
of view. As a friend of mine says, people are
getting affirmation instead of information, so it just makes them
dig in even more.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Yes, yeah, yeah, I also think, you know, the classic
populism is kind of we the in group are getting
screwed by this out group, so therefore we're going to
harm the out group. And also we're going to expand
social services for the people who are part of the
in group, and I think that's a pretty effective recipe.
But we're also seeing in places like Argentina. They recently
elected a guy named Javier Mile and he would show
(06:38):
us so imagine in your mind what a stunt double
for a Wolverine movie looks like, and it's this guy.
And he would show up to campaign events with a
literal chainsaw and say this is what I'm going to
do to the system. And I think what he represents
is he calls himself an anarcho capitalist. He is basically
trying to get Argentina's an inflation problem under control by
slashing the government in half. And what he represents, though,
(07:00):
is a brand of politics that says the system is broken,
it is irreparably damaged, it is screwing you, so let's
burn it down. And I think that's the other piece
of populism you're seeing.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Also. I remember in twenty twelve when we were working
on a couple of speeches for President Obama ahead of
his reelection against Mitt Romney, and we did this big
speech on inequality, economic inequality, and Obama had decided that
he wanted to sort of define the election around this yawning,
(07:31):
growing gap between the rich and everyone else. And one
of the arguments he made in the speech, and I
hadn't really thought about it until then, is he said,
you know, economic inequality makes democracy so much harder because
if people feel like the system is not working for them,
that the government is not working for them, not fighting
(07:53):
for them, that it's only taking care of the rich
and the powerful, like they're not going to have faith
in the system. And that was twenty twelve. And if you've,
if we've seen everything that's happened over the last decade
or so, you know that that has only has only
gotten more extreme.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
I talked about that when I did Bill Maher's podcast
and got absolutely eviscerated by the right because I said
that income at equality fuels a lot of class resentment,
and that you know, all these uber rich people are
getting richer and richer, and then you have other people
who don't have four hundred dollars to pay in the
(08:31):
event of an emergency. That creates a lot of class resentment,
anti elitism and anti intellectualism, just sort of anti everything, honestly,
And I said that, you know, it's a terrible feeling,
corrosive feeling to feel jealous and resentful. I have felt
that before. I remember being in my twenties and seeing
(08:52):
people in my neighborhood in Atlanta driving around in nice cars,
and I lived in a one bedroom apartment, and I
really thought, I'm never going to be able to afford
a nice home and a nice car. And the way
that made you feel it was just like it was
resentment slash anger and anyway, the right wing media said,
(09:13):
I said Trump voters were jealous and anti intellectual, and
actually I was trying to be empathetic with people who
felt like the system wasn't working for them, who had
been left out of the American dream, who were in
these hollowed out American cities where you know, the industrial
(09:34):
aspect of where they lived was could put so anyway.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Well, in the entire project of the right under Donald
Trump has been to seize on that resentment that you're
describing and tried to direct it away from you know,
wealthy corporations and CEOs and towards sort of the cultural
elite and the political elite.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
And I guess that's why they were all kind of
target me when I tried to make that point.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Right, yeah, yeah, And look, it's an old playbook, right,
like Nixon did this back in the early seventies, but
I think it has I think the differences today. Also,
you know you were talking about having that feeling when
you were in your neighborhood. Well, now social media has
made it so that like wealth and power and status
is in everyone's face all the time. And so I
(10:23):
think it's easier to gin up that kind of resentment
in this media environment with social media than it was
even you know, years ago.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
It's so confusing because right, I mean we've watched over
the last couple of weeks, You've seen this sort of
pr effort by Elon Musk to get shareholders at Tesla
to vote in favor of giving him I think it
was a forty six billion dollar pay package, and he
was rallying people behind this. I'm thinking to myself, like,
why does it Why are people supporting this?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Right?
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Because you're right, I think I heard this morning, I
can't remember the source that savings rates were at historic
lows for Americans. So people are actually you know, really
challenging unge by inflation, and so Republicans, I think are
very good at identifying the problem the unfair trade deals,
the way they've harmed people talking about income inequality, people
like Trump of Demagoguna A.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Jd.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Vance is good at talking about a Republican from Ohio,
but the solutions they put forward make things worse. For example,
the twenty seventeen Republican tax cut cut Big Pharma's taxes
by more than forty percent. So from twenty fourteen to
twenty sixteen, the industry paid an effective tax rate of
nineteen point six percent on average. In twenty nineteen to
twenty twenty, it paid just eleven point six percent. That's
(11:33):
what the Trump agenda gets you, a huge tax cut
for big pharma. This was data according to Ron Wyden's
Senate Finance Committee.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
But why is there such a disconnect? Why do people think,
I mean, gosh, this is what's left a lot of
people scratching their heads ever since twenty sixteen. Why do
people think that Donald Trump is going to make their
lives better? It is confounding to me.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, what I have come to think is is for
a lot of voters, they don't think that either party
or any politician is going to necessarily make their lives better,
and so what they see in Donald Trump is someone
who is just going to smash the system. And that
makes them feel good, right, because it like, well, at
(12:18):
least he's gonna at least he's my guy. He's going
to like fight for me where he can. And I
don't necessarily expect him to help me. But you know,
he's also, as Tommy was saying, he's very good at
blaming others. Right. And so if Donald Trump tells you, well,
you know, you would you'd be making more and you
we'd have more jobs. If we just got rid of
(12:38):
all these undocumented immigrants, then your life would be better.
If we just cleaned up the crime and we got
tough and let the police get tough on crime in
these cities, your life would be better. And you know,
unlike even Mitt Romney or the Republicans of yesteryear, Donald
Trump doesn't talk a lot about giving huge tax cuts
to corporations, giving huge tax cuts to the wealthy. It's
(13:00):
not publicly, not publicly, right, No, that's all in their
agenda fundraisers. Yeah, but they have you know, Trump has
taught most of the Republican Party to sort of hide
the economic agenda that is not very popular with most
people in this country, and to really lean on sort
of the cultural resentment, the racial resentment, the xenophobia that
does unfortunately work with a lot of you know, working
(13:23):
class and middle class people of all races. By the way,
in this country.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
I wanted to talk to you about the media environment
just because things have changed so dramatically since when I
got into TV news, and now it is so fragmented,
so fractured, and so partisan, right, a lot of it.
But one of the things you point out in your
new book called Democracy or Else, and we're going to
(13:49):
talk about the other things in your book in a moment,
is that the good old days weren't that good actually,
when you had sort of three white males on an
evening use cast telling the same story basically the same way,
that kept a lot of diverse voices from having a platform.
It was all sort of through that patriarchal lens, honestly,
(14:13):
because all the leadership in these newsrooms, because I worked
in them, were male and white men. And so while
we had a certain understanding and I think a communal
agreement of what was a fact and what wasn't, there
were some drawbacks to that system. But gosh, you guys,
(14:34):
I feel like it's having said all that better than
what we have today.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Yeah, and there was also the period I think it
was before what nineteen eighty seven, when the Fairness Doctrine
was in effect, which basically said, if you're going to
talk about anti abortion the position, you know, the pro
life position, you also had to talk about pro choice.
And I think when Reagan got rid of the Fairness Doctrine,
it ushered in people like Rush Limbaugh who demonstrate that
(15:01):
partisan you know, conservative radio was not only an incredibly
powerful political tool, but it was incredibly profitable. And then
we saw Fox News and quickly it was kind of
the wild Blube West. So I think you're exactly right that,
you know, the old days. Sometimes we look back at
the old days with sort of this halcyon glare. Yeah,
(15:22):
I hear you too fondly. But you know, I think
you're right that it was better than the kind of
wild wild West that they're seeing at the moment where,
you know, for the Biden campaign, you know, they have
to deal with basically every single day there's some you know,
deceptively edited video of Joe Biden going viral on a platform.
But you know, on top of that, it's not just
(15:44):
random users on Twitter pushing the stuff around. It's like
the New York Post taking a video released by the
RNCs research shop, further editing it to make it look
even worse and then posting it on their own. So
it's it's incredibly it's brutal out there.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I mean it is brutal.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
The promise of like the technological advancements that gave us
the Internet and social media and even you know, more
television stations, right, it's like more choice was good. More voices,
especially a diversity of voices really important, really good. Completely
eliminating all gatekeepers and having so many different sources of
(16:22):
news that we don't have no more shared sense of reality,
or the idea that any single person who has a
Twitter account, like their opinion now on something is going
to be, you know, just as valid as anyone else's opinion, right,
Like we've just that the pendulum has swung too far.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
And also John, I think this anti expertise. You know,
there was a book written about that I think of
maybe three or four years ago, that people no longer
respect experts, which honestly, I don't understand that why someone
would dismiss someone who studied something, understood something, understood the
(17:04):
intricacies of the issue every which way, and yet they're
not respected. I don't get that.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah. Well, the other thing is a lot of people
then fancy themselves experts who aren't really experts. And so
back to your point about sort of, you know, affirming
your own beliefs, right, So you can now always find
a quote unquote expert to affirm a belief that you
have about something, even if that person is not really
an expert in that area, because their Twitter bio says whatever,
(17:36):
pretends that there's some they have a doctorate in something,
and suddenly they're going on and on about you know,
COVID and virology and you're like, well, you've never actually
studied that, but you're calling yourself a doctor in Twitter.
And so it's hard for people, I think, to figure
out who the real experts are and who they can trust.
And that's a that's I mean, as we saw during
the pandemic, that's a real problem.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
And it's also it's a problem that seems sort of
unique to political discourse or at least news discussions generally.
I mean, like people will listen to Robert F. Kennedy's
junior or Aaron Rodgers the quarterback for the New York Jets.
Talk about vaccines, but imagine if you walked into a
room you're about to get surgery, and there's Aaron Rodgers
scrubbing in, like, I don't know that I'm going I'm
(18:18):
not going through with that, right, I think most people
are walking out. So it's a bizarre thing that we
just sort of everyone should have a voice, And I
think that's wonderful. But you're right that all voices shouldn't
be weighted equally, right.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I always say the great thing about social media is
everyone has a voice. The worst thing about social media
is that everyone has for us good? Right? Yeah, after
this break democracy or else? The new book from Tommy
and the Two Johns, why did they write it? I'll
ask them? What if there were a way to reduce
(18:55):
cancer deaths by half in the next twenty five years.
What if it were the future our children, our loved ones,
our world could actually wake up to? This is the
future Exact Sciences works toward every day because they believe
it's possible. Exact Sciences is a dedicated team of cancer
fighters united by a purpose to help eradicate cancer by
(19:19):
preventing it, detecting it, earlier and guiding personalized treatment. They
bring together the best in visionary thinking and scientific rigor
to create tests, including COLI GUARD and Achotype DX that
inspire life changing action. Visit Exactsciences dot com to learn more.
(19:46):
We're back with Tommy Veeter and Jon Favreau. Let's talk
about your book and then I want to ask you
about some other current affairs issues right now. But why
did you guys write this democh Receive or Else book?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, I mean for anyone who's worried about the country,
wants to get involved in this election and hopefully future elections,
but doesn't know where to begin or how to be
most useful. We wrote this to basically say it's easier
than you think, and it doesn't have to be terrifying.
It can actually be a lot of fun. And really
it's the same thing that let us to start pod
(20:23):
Save America way back when in twenty seventeen in Crooket
Media is after Donald Trump won. You know, we had
so many people saying to us, like, what do we do?
This is bad, I don't know how to get involved,
or I haven't really paid attention to politics before this,
and I want to help, but I don't know how.
And you know, over the years of doing this podcast
(20:46):
and hosting pot Save America and then sort of starting
Vote Save America, which is sort of our organizing arm
where we help people get involved in politics and just
building crooked media, you know, we've learned a lot about
what it takes to get involved in politics, how useful
it is to be involved in politics, not just from
our own experiences before this, as you know, white House
(21:06):
staffers and campaign staffers, but just from talking to so
many smart people through pods of America. So this book
was our attempt to like put all of those lessons
on paper, both from us and from a lot of
the really smart people we've talked to over the years.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
And also one of the benefits of getting a little
older is we realize now how lucky we were to
get to work for Barack Obama on that campaign in
that moment, because politics then it felt hopeful, it's felt inspiring,
it felt historic, right we were working for the first
black man to become president in this country. In the
last eight years has been such a slug. It's so
(21:41):
terrible every day and scary, and people are anxious, and
we wanted to remind folks that you know what, Like,
first of all, politics doesn't not have to be zero sum.
You can do a little bit or you can do
a lot.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
It's up to you.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
But it all matters. But also it can be fun,
it can be hopeful. The book is very funny. There's
incredibly stupid illustrations.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
And yeah, they're funny illustration, right, And I think you're right,
it's kind of It is a funny book, but about
a very serious topic. And I just I just wonder
you guys, are you preaching to the choir? With all
due respect, I mean, I love Pots of America, I
love crooked media. I think what you all have built
(22:17):
is just extraordinary. And yet who is your audience for
this book?
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, I mean, look, we are preaching to our choir,
but what we're preaching to them is like the only
way to really get out of this mess, the only
way to have democracy function is to actually go out
there and persuade people and how and go change minds.
Because we know a lot of people who are going
(22:44):
to buy this book are already liberals or Democrats, or
at least just people who don't want Donald Trump to
be president. But I do think people are always looking
for shortcuts. And you know, I think in the first
chapter we talk about sort of like how tough our
democratic system is to change, and in many ways it
(23:04):
was built that way, and so you know, we'll have
people say to us, can't we just get rid of
the Senate because the Senate's not fair? Or can't we
just get rid of the electoral college and we want
it to you know, in that chapter, show people how
difficult it is to change the system and where it's
easier to make progress and where it's more difficult to
make progress. But what it all comes down to is
(23:25):
there is no changing the system unless we win elections.
And there is no winning elections unless we all go
out there and have conversations with people who do not
agree with us, who aren't sure if they're going to
vote or who they're going to vote for, and we
have to change their minds. And changing their minds is
not you know what you see happening on social media
(23:46):
every day. It's not. Politics is not about just congratulating
ourselves about how right we are. Politics is about like
meeting other people where they are and sort of trying
to bring them along by changing their minds. They're at
least doing our best to change their minds.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
It's hard. I mean, I want to talk about the
persuadables because I think there is this wide swath of
the American electorate who aren't on the extremes. I'm sure
you read Jonathan Height's article on The Atlantic about why
the last ten years have been uniquely stupid, And it's
really about the loudest voices that are dominating social media
that I think give people a complete misrepresentation of the
(24:26):
way people are feeling about a whole variety of issues.
But I was with somebody I did a breast cancer
walk and a very nice woman was walking and she said,
you know, I think we probably disagree politically, but I
really appreciate your cancer advocacy work. And I said, thank
you so much. And I'm curious, you know why you
(24:49):
feel strongly about supporting you know who you're supporting. I
try to kind of keep it friendly and nice, And
I said, because you know, it's it really upsets me
that people insist the election was rigged. And sixty two
you guys can correct me if I'm wrong. Sixty two
courts have dismissed cases that have alleged that and if
(25:12):
there was real evidence beyond sort of the typical, you know,
screw ups that happened that don't necessarily affect the outcome.
Don't you think our judicial system would have dealt with that?
And she said, I saw videos of women stuffing ballot boxes,
and I said, I don't think those were necessarily accurate. Well,
(25:34):
I don't really trust the judicial system, and you know,
so where do you go from there? It's very hard,
But I think that individual was in a group that
would not be considered part of the persuadables, right.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think we're the Democratic side
of this debate has a harder job because we believe
in institutions, while Republicans are able to so distrust in
those institutions and it helps their argument that, for example,
the twenty twenty election was stolen. So there's a really long,
difficult challenge ahead of all of us of restoring people's
(26:10):
faith in politics, for storing people's faith in institutions, and
part of that is going to be delivering on the
big challenges that people are pissed about. And so, you know,
the Affordable Care Act did an enormous amount of good.
Forty million people have healthcare because of it, but costs
are still way too high, you know, and it didn't
help everybody. So it's just it's a long game. But
you know, the other thing I think we've learned over
(26:32):
many years in politics, Katie, is that voters are really weird.
When you talk to voters, they do not line up
on traditional lines that you hear about in the press.
I watched there was a vote, remember the uncommitted vote
in Michigan, where in their Democratic primary you had a
bunch of people voting uncommitted instead of for Joe Biden
to protest as God's vote. I watched a focus group
(26:54):
of I think eight or ten Democrats who voted uncommitted,
and one of the people in this focus group said
she voted on admitted because Joe Biden hadn't done enough
to help Israel. And I thought to myself, huh, you
did not get the assignment this is. But you know, voters,
they're weird. The quirky opinions and different things drive them.
And you can be poisoned by bad information, but you know,
(27:14):
have good intentions.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Well, And to that point, I think if you're sitting
down with someone and you were trying to convince them.
You don't start by bringing up the twenty twenty election
and trying to argue them out of their belief that
it was stolen. F I don't know necessarily that that
would get you that far, but you could say, Okay,
what do you care about? What are you worried about
right now? What issues are top of mind for you?
And you know, we I think we have a story
(27:37):
in the book about this organizer in Pennsylvania. Her name
was Angela Aldus and she was in Westmoreland County in Pennsylvania.
It's very conservative and she's very liberal. And this was
in twenty eighteen and she started knocking on doors and
it was a lot of Trump voters and one of
the one woman opened the door and she was a
(27:58):
Trump voter too, And it's stead of trying to like
yell at her about politics, she was like, well, what
are you worried about? You know, what do you what
do you care about? And she's like, well, I'm really
upset about the high cost of my prescriptions. And Angela
was like, well, you know, I have I have MS
and like I've had that worry too, And they both
start talking about the drug companies and prescriptions stuff like that,
(28:20):
and they started coming to this understanding about how, like
politicians need to do a better job of making sure
that healthcare is cheaper and more people have access to it.
And the Trump supporter might not have known necessarily that
that was a more liberal democratic position, but they had
this good conversation about it, and that moved her closer
(28:41):
to the direction that Angela wanted to go in, and
like did she.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Yeah, you're right. I mean, that was a really stupid
way for me to broach the topic. But we were
also on a three point two mile walk and I
didn't have that much shop.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Well, look, when someone brings it up to you, it's
not like you can be like, eh, like you're gonna
You're gonna end up talking about it, you know, But.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
I think you're right. Tell me what you're worried about,
tell me what issue you care about, and how you're
feeling about your situation. I think you're right. That's a
much better way. And you know, one of the things
you all point out in your book is that we're
not as polarized as we think we are. You have
some statistics in the book, and I think they bear repeating.
(29:22):
In nineteen ninety six, twenty seven percent of people supported
gay marriage. In twenty twenty three, seventy one percent fifty
nine percent of post the overturning of Roe Vweight eighty
A pose a federal abortion ban. A Fox News poll
found that eighty percent of people favor background checks on
gun purchases, making twenty one the minimum age to purchase
(29:45):
a gun. Yes, And I remember I did a documentary
on gun violence and reducing gun violence, and I think
was seventy four percent of NRA members favor stricter gun laws.
So why is it so hard to address these issues
and to bring people who are in the middle the
you know, center left or center right, and form a
(30:08):
coalition of these people.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
I mean, I think at the moment, the challenge on
gun rights, for example, or gun control is you know
of the numbers you just read which shows overwhelming majorities
in this country want more sensible gun control policies in place,
and then we have a Supreme Court that just voted
against a very limited effort by Donald Trump to ban
(30:32):
a tool that turns semi automatic rifles into machine guns,
bump stocks, you know what I mean? And so the
disconnect between what people want and what our judges or
elected officials are willing to let happen is just yawning.
And so what that does is it makes people on
the left whur fighting for sensible gun laws. They feel
demoralized and depressed and they stop trying. And you have
(30:55):
you know, people on the right or are you insulated
from the Republicans are insulated from these policies. So, I
mean this is part of the broader challenge that Democrats face,
which is we are not delivering on the things people
care about in large part in this case because of
the Republicans, and Republicans are able to harness that cynicism
(31:16):
to keep voters at home.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah, I mean, I remember in the Obama administration when
we tried to pass background checks and the two senators
that ended up coming up with a compromise on background
checks were Joe Manchin but no One's idea of a
liberal and Pat Toomey, conservative senator from Pennsylvania. And they
come up with this compromise on background checks, and the
(31:40):
Republicans in Congress still voted down, they still blocked it.
And I remember Obama at the time thinking like if
we can't we can't pass this. After the tragedies and
the mass shootings that we have seen, and that was
back then, and we can't pass a common sense, extremely
popular proposal that is and put forth by a conservative
(32:01):
Republican senator and a very conservative Democrat from West Virginia. Like,
I don't know how we're going to get this done.
But a lot of voters aren't paying attention to everything
that happens in Washington and all the machinations. So for
people who really want something done on guns, what do
they think? They think? Oh, Washington failed again and both
parties couldn't figure it out, even though it was a
bipersonal compromise, right, both parties couldn't figure it out, and
(32:24):
Obama couldn't get it done. And so it's I'm not
going to vote on that issue because no one's going
to get it done.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
You voters and polls today who blame Joe Biden for
Rovers's Wade being overturned, right, right? Yeah, A lot of
folks just aren't aren't paying attention. They don't really know
what's happening. They just know they're pissed at the outcome.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Gosh, I mean, there's a couple of things that come
to mind with that I mean, why are people so
ignorant about some of this stuff? Is it because we
no longer teach civics? Is it because the information they're
getting is so twisted and manipulated and full of falsehoods
(33:01):
that people don't know which way is up and what
is real?
Speaker 2 (33:06):
I mean, I think it's a couple things, and I
think it's sort of a vicious cycle that it reinforces itself,
which is people are busy. They it's not everyone's job
to pay close attention to politics. People are not political
junkies like we are, and they're working very hard at
their jobs to raise their families, and so they don't
(33:27):
have a lot of time to pay attention. And then
when they do pay attention, when they do tune into politics,
what do they see on television? Well, they see people
yelling at each other, they see talking heads going back before,
they see like a bunch of polling, They see misinformation
on social media. They don't know who to believe, and
so they're like, I don't know, I'm out, like I
(33:47):
don't need to pay attention to this. I don't know
what to believe anymore. It all seems like noise to me.
So I'm just gonna live my life and that's that.
So I do think that's why people I don't think
it's necessary that people like are willfully ignorant, and I
think people, you know, that's that's one of the challenges, right,
You can voters. You hear a lot of people in
politics how voters are stupid or they should know that
(34:10):
Trump is bad, or like, you know what people are.
It's it's not it's everyone's job to fulfill the obligations
of citizenship, but it's not everyone's job to like sort
through just the reams of information out there and news
sources and figure out what's true and what's not.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
So how do you fix it?
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Yeah? I mean, look, I think that one thing you're
going to see in this election is and when you
talk to organizers and campaign staffers like it. There's a
there's a big emphasis now on something called relational organizing,
where you are not just calling strangers and knocking on
strangers doors, but you're really reaching out to all the
(34:50):
people in your social network and trying to persuade them,
or people in your neighborhood. People you get to know
and then you have these conversations and this is not
deep canvassing where the conversations we were just talking about,
where you don't just show up at someone's door with
a script given to you by a campaign. You kind
of have like a fifteen to twenty minute conversation about
what do you care about, what issues are on your mind.
(35:12):
And because voters don't have as much trust in institutions,
whether they be campaigns, the media, government, they do have
trust in the people that they know, and so those
people that the people that they know end up being
the most trusted and persuasive messengers or people that you
can have a conversation with that you can see face
(35:33):
to face. So I do think one side effect of
the media environment becoming so fractured and polarized is that
people are going back to these face to face conversations
with people in their local community. And I do think
that's where, like, if we're going to fix politics, it
has to start there.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Up next, how will President Biden fair in the upcoming
debate with Donald Trump? Have some thoughts. If you want
to get smarter every morning with a breakdown of the
news and fascinating takes on health and wellness and pop culture,
sign up for our daily newsletter, Wake Up call by
(36:15):
going to Katiecuric dot com. Back to my conversation with
Jon Favreau and Tommy Veeter.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
I mean, I think John's right on like the big
picture need I mean, just to slice it a little narrower,
like you know, you asked about sort of why you
know people are not well informed or why they're turned
off by politics, and you know, it's often the case
that people tune in to a campaign at big moments,
like a debate, and let's just be honest, like those
big moments have gotten terrible. I was reading a report
(36:49):
today by a group of researchers at Princeton that analyzed
all the debates from two thousand and four until today.
God bless those Bomore Passwards who had to watch all
these They found the cross talk of debates just candid's
yelling over each other. It jumped from one instance in
the first Bush versus Carry debate in two thousand and
four to seventy six instances in the first Biden versus
(37:10):
Trump debate in twenty twenty. If you don't care about
politics and you're turning on that debate brying like, oh
who am I going to vote for? And that disaster
is what you see. You're turning the channel, You're going
to ESPN, and you're like, I'm not voting.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
It's so true. It's such a shit show. Which brings
me to the upcoming debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
Are you terrified? Are you anxious about that? I know
they are going to turn off the mics, They're going
to set in to motion certain things that will hopefully
keep it more civil. But what do you guys think?
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Are completely terrified?
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Completely terrified? Yeah, and listen, we went to you.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
I don't know how you can. I don't know how
you wouldn't be It's a big deal.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
What does that say about the Democratic presidential candidate? If
you're so terrified?
Speaker 3 (37:58):
I mean, listen, we just saw president and had an
event out here in Los Angeles, and he had just
made two trips to Europe in the last like, you know,
in less than a week, and candidly, he looked exhausted,
and it was a little bit dispiriting to walk out
of there and be like, oh boy, you know, like
there's not a lot of pep in his step. He
wasn't sort of there wasn't a clear message coming out
(38:18):
of that event, and I was a fundraiser, like it's fine.
You know, the people weren't there to be persuaded. They
were there because they gave money. But he needs to
be on his game, and he needs a moment's debate
like he had at the State of the Union where
he came out feisty and was going back and forth
with Republicans and making a point. And so he needs
to be sharpen on his game in that sense. And
then from a messaging perspective, Joe Biden needs to be
(38:42):
painting a picture of what he would do with four
more years and explaining to people that he understands that
he got a lot done, but there's still he understands
that they're so frustrated, and he hears them, and this
is how he's going to work on it. And this
is why Donald Trump would not actually help the things
that they're worried about, because this is a man who
only cares about himself, his rich friends, his donors, and
keeping his ass at a prison.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
John.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
I think Joe Biden is a good, decent human being.
I think he's been a great president. I don't think
he's ever been an excellent communicator, and I think that
as he's aged. Like, I think his mental acuity is sharp,
you know, and I've known that from like just personal
experiences with them and following him, but I think it
has I think the one thing that age has done
(39:26):
is it sort of softened his voice. Right, He's shuffling
a little more because of his he's got some back issues.
And yeah, like you can sit there and argue with
the media about showing this clip or that clip, and
but like this is how he's going to come off
to people. And like Tommy said, there are these moments
where he has appeared very energetic and feisty and he
(39:49):
needs to needs to show that at the debate. But also,
like I think the more important thing for all of
us is, like Joe Biden has made the decision that
Joe Biden is running again. Right, that was Joe Biden's decision,
And you know that's where we are and for the rest.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
But I can I interrupt your ask where you disappointed
that he wanted to run again and that he at
eighty one when he said during the campaign in twenty
twenty he was going to be the bridge to a
new generation of leadership with Corey Booker, Kamala Harrison Gretchen
Whitmer at his side that the bridge was eight years
(40:29):
instead of four.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Yeah, it turned out to be a longer bridge.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Turned out to be the Bay bridget.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
I have really I've tried to put myself in Joe
biden shoes making that decision, And I do think that
he looked around at the rest of the field, He
looked around at the other possible candidates and said to himself, like,
I think I am better positioned to beat Donald Trump
because I did once before than any of these other
(40:56):
politicians who have not been tested nationally and have not
been under the tough spotlight of a national campaign. And
if I step aside and say, okay, let's have an
open primary now, and one of these people wins the
primary and then loses to Donald Trump, and I think
that I could have done a better job, Like I
(41:17):
think it's a it was a tough call, Like it
would have been a tough call for me.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Conversely, though, what if he loses to Donald Trump and
there goes his legacy?
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Yep, you know, and I think he is I'm sure
he has weighed that as well, you know. And it's
it's just where I've ended up is that's all his decision,
and the rest of us need to figure out how
to tell voters that, yes, he appears older, and maybe
he's not the best communicator, but he's been a damn
good president. He has fought really hard for regular Americans
(41:49):
and not just the wealthy or people who are extremely
loyal to him like Donald Trump, and Donald Trump is
a is a threat to the country, is a threat
to democracy for about just democrats, threat to our ability
to make decisions about who governs us. And so, whatever
your qualms about Joe Biden, whatever your disappointments, whatever you know,
(42:13):
we cannot go down the road of another Trump presidency
because it will be much more extreme and worse than
the first.
Speaker 3 (42:19):
I also think just you know, every president in history
has had a gigantic ego. All of them do yeah
to the point where they they not only it's not
enough to be president, they compete with each other to
see who is the greatest president. I think every president
thinks that to be a great president you need two terms.
So there's clearly, you know, a lot of ego involved,
and you know it could turn out to be a
(42:41):
profoundly damaging decision the way you described if you know
somehow this ushers in a second Trump agenda. I on
a personal level, I'm incredibly frustrated that we are constantly
having to talk about the age of our democratic nominee
in this campaign. It's the last thing I think I
want to be talking about. The flip side of that, though,
is he's got an incredible record to run on, and
(43:02):
we shall just be honest that an open primary ahead
of this campaign would have been a messy disaster. It
just always is every primary process. There's lots of infighting,
the party gets driven left on a bunch of issues.
You never know what's going to come of it. So
like either path would have had a lot of challenges
to it. Instead of John's point, it's like, here we are,
(43:23):
we got to just forge ahead and wine.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Why hasn't the Biden administration been more effective at communicating
his accomplishments. It doesn't seem as if and is this
part of the messy media landscape playing into this, But
it doesn't seem as if people understand or appreciate what
the Biden administration has done, nor do they really understand
(43:50):
why he wants to be president and what he hopes
to accomplish in the next four years. I'd read stuff
all the time, and I have to say, I don't
have a clear understanding of either of those things.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
I think they've spent too much time worrying about selling
or defending their accomplishments. Like I think we could have
told them, haven't gone through the Obama administration experience that
it's it's just tough, like passing the Chips Act. This
enormous investor investment in semiconductor development in the US, so
we're not dependent on Taiwan in case they're invaded by China.
(44:24):
Enormous accomplishment, a huge deal, but let's be honest, it's
sort of an esoteric conversation. It's also a one day story,
like congrats you pass the bill. Six months later, a
year later you can talk about, you know, opening a
new factory in some swing state and how it's going
to create jobs. So they're doing their best to kind of,
you know, continue to press the case in this story.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Over time, dots right to voter, connect.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
The dots for people. But day to day, you know,
if I'm you know, a single parent, and I go
to the gas station and it costs me twenty five
bucks more to fill up my tank every single time.
Do I care about you know, semiconductor manufacturing now, or.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Or do you care when someone at the White House
is like, oh, I know you're annoyed about the about
your gas, but did you know that gas prices have
just fallen four months in a row? Right, So Joe Biden? Right,
So it's like, there's this weird you know you I
do think it's important to talk about what he's accomplished.
And you can see this in focus groups too. For
an episode of The Wilderness I was doing, I was
talking to some folks who are doing a lot of
(45:22):
focus groups with undecided black voters, and it turns out
and a lot of those focus groups, when you do
talk about what Joe Biden has done and accomplished, they're like, Oh,
I didn't realize that. That's that's good to know, right,
that's a good piece of information. But it's a you know,
politics forever has been like what have you done for
me lately? And how have you improved my life? And
(45:42):
you know, right now people are worry about the cost
of living. The biggest cost of living is where you live,
whether it's mortgage or rent. That's very high. It is
very hard Joe Biden has not like it's hard to
do something about that on the national level. Right, it's
housing is an issue that's like local, state, federal. I
think he has a planned now to give like a
big tax credit for people who are buying new homes,
(46:04):
but also like you know, the interest rates are beyond
his control. Is to like wait to see what the
Fed does.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
What about some of those kitchen table issues you guys,
you know, like the price of you know, a thing
a yogurt. I mean, it's insane when you go to
the grocery store, or the price of gas or rent.
Did they not talk about that soon enough? It felt
like they were crowing about the economy while so many
people were hurting. Would you have advised them to say, hey,
(46:33):
they're you know, at least talk about it, empathize with people,
feel their pain like Bill Clinton did and kind of
get the issue front and center. I feel like they
didn't embrace it soon enough. Is that fair?
Speaker 2 (46:47):
I think it's fair. Look, we're speaking from experience here,
Like we went through this as well, right, like like
Barack Obama in twenty ten and we got smoked in
the midterms and twenty ten, I remember, yeah, and that
was one of the main criticisms. And again it was
this constant tension in our White House, like Barack Obama
just passed the Recovery Act, He's doing all this stuff.
(47:09):
People don't know about it. We got to talk about
it more. And then I always remember acts Rout was
always in our head when we were writing speeches, being like,
you've got to feel sympathy for people who are still struggling.
We've got to make sure that we lead with that.
And look, I think that the Biden campaign has now
made that turn, which I think is important. Their inflation
report came out the other week and it showed inflation
(47:30):
was down. Instead of just like boasting about it, their
statement was, we realized that prices are still too high,
and Joe Biden is going to fight to keep costs
down with this, and the Republicans are not, like Donald
Trump's plan is going to make inflation skyrocket and prices
are going to end up being higher if Donald Trump wins.
So I do think in the debate you'll see I
(47:50):
hope Biden try to focus people more on the choice
between what Trump would do for cost of living and
what he would do for cost of living. If you
give them another four years.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
Yeah, it's also you're always fighting the last battle in
these jobs. And you know, it's a lot most people
believe that our recovery during the Obama administration from the
financial crisis would have been faster and stronger if we
had had done a larger stimulus bill. So the Biden
team shows after this once in a lifetime, you know, pandemic,
(48:21):
to run back on me a little hot, to try
to put forward a bigger stimulus, and that clearly led
to some inflation. Now at the end of the day,
we have recovered from the pandemic better than any country
in the world, and inflation is coming down faster. But
it's just really hard to sell to people. Hey, you
know what, it could have been a lot worse, Like
that's just it never Manterfectual's tough.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Yeah, real quickly. I could talk to you guys all days,
but I promise I am not going to. I wanted
to ask you about the conviction that we recently saw
on thirty four counts in New York and juxtaposed that
with Hunter Biden's conviction. Obviously we know they're very different
and cases, and yet they're being manipulated, And I'm curious
(49:05):
how you think both of those will play out in
addition to these other cases that seem as if they're
not going to happen for quite a while, and maybe
not until after the election, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
Yeah, I mean, I think that the Trump conviction will
be a data point for voters who are making up
their minds. And you know, you've already seen a little
movement in the poll on this, and then you know,
they plenty of interviews. I think the New York Times
went back and did a great they had previously done
a poll, they went back to the respondents, asked them
about it. They had some good interviews, and you know,
(49:36):
you hear some people say, like, you know what, I
was undecided before. I just can't be. I can't be
voting for a convicted felon. I can't do it. So
you will have some of those people. You'll have a
lot of people who are like, either, I wasn't going
to vote for Donald Trump ever before this conviction, and
so I'm not going to now either. And then you
have other people who are like, I like Donald Trump.
I think it was bullshit, bullshit, and I'm not going
(49:58):
to change my mind. Right, So I think it has
an effect on the margins, but of course this is
a race that's going to be decided on the margins,
and so you know, it could have an impact. I
don't think that the Hunter Biden verdict will have an impact,
not necessarily because of the charges in the trial itself,
but because I do think voters understand that he's not
running for president. Joe Biden is, and there is no
(50:19):
connection to Joe Biden. And so look, I think I
think if Joe Biden loses the election, it's going to
be more because some of these other issues we talked about,
people's concerns about cost of living and is he taking
enough action and all the stuff that usually hurts incumbent presidents.
But I don't think it will be the Hunter thing.
Speaker 3 (50:37):
The most hopeful data I've heard about Trump's conviction was
I forget which pol it was, but it found that
one in five independent voters said it was less likely
to make them vote for Donald Trump, and that the
conviction mattered a lot to their decision. So for the
you know, the persuadable universe out there is a lot
smaller than we want it to be. But it did
seem like a significant number of independent voters actually did
(51:01):
care and that this would inform their vote.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
Yeah, so let's wrap things up where we kind of started,
which is your book that you have displayed prominently Democracy
or Else, which is really a call to arms for
people who care about democracy and want to make sure
(51:25):
that it continues in this country. If you had to summarize,
obviously the first thing people should do is buy your book,
But if you had to summarize some of the key
points that you all outline in this what would they be, John,
why don't you start? And then Tommy you can add?
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Yeah. I mean I think that getting involved in politics
does not have to be as confusing or scary or
pointless as it may seem, and that there are a
ton of different ways to get involved, and sort of
the way we laid out all the chapters is it
can be as simple as getting informed so you know
who you're voting for and what you're voting on. And
(52:07):
then if you feel like you want to do more
than that, you can donate. Then you can volunteer, Then
you could be an organizer, You could get a job
in politics, which is what we did, and it was
very fulfilling you could hopefully run for office yourself, and
so there's a whole bunch of different ways to get involved.
And the more you're involved in politics, even when you lose,
(52:28):
it still feels like you're having more of an impact
when you're out there talking to people, persuading people working
in your community, paying attention than just watching this whole
thing unfold on your screen, because that's when you're most
likely to feel helpless, when you're just a spectator. And
when you actually get into the ring and get involved,
(52:50):
even when you lose and you will have setbacks and
you'll have disappointments, you're still going to feel this sense
of agency that you have some control over what's happened
with this country. And it's a lot of fun and
you get to meet people who you know are going
to end up being your best friends for life.
Speaker 3 (53:07):
I think in the book, we sort of walk you
through a ladder of engagement from the easiest things to do,
like just get better news. So I think I think
the book ends with our reader being a disgraced one
term residence. Right, yes, yes, so we'll kind of well
baby step you up to the top. But I mean,
I think the one thing I want. John made a
great plug for the book, so I'm not even gonna
do it. I just want folks to know getting involved
(53:28):
in politics doesn't mean fighting it out out over Donald
Trump versus Joe Biden. It could mean going to a
community meeting in your town and changing the way schools
are run, or you know, like getting involved locally, and
that's where you can have just an enormous impact. I mean,
if you decide to work full time on a state
Senate campaign, you can do so much good and change
(53:49):
the way that race goes just by being there, just
by donating ten bucks and just by being a part
of it. So it will be fun, it will be rewarding.
It really does matter.
Speaker 1 (53:58):
I wanted to knock on doors in Pennsylvania just to
encourage people to vote, because even though in twenty twenty
what sixty seven percent of people eligible voters did vote,
it's still sort of a sad number, and it's usually
much much lower than that. Why can't we make election
Day a national holiday?
Speaker 3 (54:18):
We should?
Speaker 2 (54:18):
Yeah, we should, we should. That would help. I mean,
there's a whole there's there's a whole bunch of steps
we can take to make voting easier for more people.
And you know, some states have already done it, Like
there are states now that are sending everyone a ballot, right,
which is which is great.
Speaker 3 (54:35):
We vote by mail in California, comes to your house.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
Yeah, it out. It's very easy there. So I do
think there's things we can do to make voting easier.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
And look, do you think some of those things though,
to make voting easier result in more skepticism about the
fairness of elections? You know, it always seems to be, yeah,
a challenge, kind of a push pull there.
Speaker 3 (54:56):
Yeah, I mean, you're right that it did in twenty twenty.
I don't think it did before that. I mean, Republicans
were huge fans of vote by mail, especially in Florida
where Donald Trump lived and voted by mail by the way,
for a very long time. And then suddenly when Democrats
tried to make it easier for people to vote, because
you know, they didn't want to die in a pandemic,
(55:16):
they demogogue did and it's become this big, big fight.
But I think you're seeing all these reports now that
Republicans are asking Trump to walk back some of his
criticism of vote by mail and early voting because they
want their voters to do it too well.
Speaker 2 (55:30):
And also, if the polls are to be believed, this
time around, some of the low propensity voters, with the
voters who don't turn out in every election, Trump is
doing a lot better with than Biden. And so if
you have a very high turnout election, it might actually
be better for Trump than it is for Biden. And
usually that's been flipped. The Democrats always wanted a high turnout,
(55:51):
Republicans did not. But look, if you believe in democracy,
then you want to expand the right to vote and
make sure everyone's voting, and even if it means that
your side might not do as well. So who knows,
maybe if the Republicans suddenly find out that more people
voting helps them, they'll sign on to some of these
some of these reforms that actually make it easier to
(56:12):
vote for people.
Speaker 1 (56:13):
If you were betting men, who would you say is
going to win in November?
Speaker 2 (56:18):
Guys, Sean, I gotta say, Biden, I gotta say. But
it's honestly, it's like it's the closest thing to fifty
fifty that there is. And like I said, that's just
forget about all the polls. It's the same two guys
that ran last time and it was for They were
forty thousand votes apart last time, so it's a it's
a coin toss.
Speaker 3 (56:37):
Tommy, Yeah, I mean, I think I just saw the
five point thirty eight does kind of a national average,
and I think it's currently Biden's forty point six percent
and Trump's at forty point four percent, so the polls
are as close to tide as they could be. And
then RFK Junior's got nine percent, so I don't know.
I'm going to bet on Biden because I have to
be with my heart and not my head. But it's
(56:58):
it's fifty fifty.
Speaker 1 (57:00):
Well, Jon Favreau and Tommy Veeder. The book is called
Democracy or Else. How to Save America in ten Easy Steps.
I thought I said baby steps too.
Speaker 2 (57:11):
That too.
Speaker 1 (57:12):
From the hosts of Pod Save America. You guys, thank
you so much. As I said, I could talk to
you for hours about all this stuff, and hopefully we
can talk again either on your podcast or mine.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
Please same here. It's always a pleasure to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (57:26):
Katie, thank you, thanks for listening. Everyone. If you have
a question for me, a subject you want us to cover,
or you want to share your thoughts about how you
navigate this crazy world reach out. You can leave a
short message at six oh nine five point two five
(57:48):
to five oh five, or you can send me a
DM on Instagram. I would love to hear from you.
Next Question is a production of iHeartMedia and Katie Couric Media.
The executive are Me, Katikuric and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising
producer is Ryan Martz, and our producers are Adriana Fazzio
(58:08):
and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller composed our theme music. For
more information about today's episode, or to sign up for
my newsletter wake Up Call, go to the description in
the podcast app, or visit us at Katiecuric dot com.
You can also find me on Instagram and all my
social media channels. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
(58:31):
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. What if there were a way to reduce
cancer deaths by half in the next twenty five years.
What if it were the future our children, our loved ones,
our world could actually wake up to. This is the
(58:53):
future Exact Sciences works toward every day because they believe
it's possible. Exact Scienceiences is a dedicated team of cancer
fighters united by a purpose to help eradicate cancer by
preventing it, detecting it earlier, and guiding personalized treatment. They
bring together the best in visionary thinking and scientific rigor
(59:16):
to create tests, including COLIGUARD and Achotype DX that inspire
life changing action. Visit exactsciences dot com to learn more.
What if there were a way to reduce cancer desks
by half in the next twenty five years. This is
the future Exact Sciences works toward every single day because
they believe it's possible. Exact Sciences is a dedicated team
of cancer fighters united by a purpose to help eradicate
cancer by preventing it, detecting it earlier, and guiding personalized treatment.
(00:26):
Visit exact sciences dot com to learn more. Hi everyone,
I'm Kittie Kuric and this is next question. So everyone,
Our guests today used to have an office just three
(00:47):
doors down from the Oval One. Pretty cool, right. You
may know them from their hilarious Sharpest Attack political podcast
pod Save America, Jon Favreau and Tommy Veeter. Apparently their
other co host, John Lovett, is somewhere taping the next
season of Survivor What Anyway. John and Tommy worked for
(01:09):
the Obama administration. John was a speech writer and Tommy
shape press coverage of national security issues. Then they started
their own company, Crooked Media, after the election of one
Donald J. Trump. Now they've got a whole slew of
podcasts and are busy trying to keep up with the
increasingly insane world of American politics. I've loved talking to
(01:32):
these guys about everything, including their notebook called Democracy or Else,
how to Save America in ten easy steps for people
who are feeling powerless and quite frankly, scared to death.
They hope this will be a kind of self help
book for getting involved and actually doing something. We talked
(01:53):
about so many things, and honestly, when our conversation was over,
I still had so many questions I wanted to ask them,
but we only had an hour, so I did the
best I could. We talked about their book, of course,
but also the upcoming debate pre election, jitters, Joe Biden's
decision to run for reelection, and Donald Trump's recent conviction.
(02:15):
You don't have to be a political junkie to enjoy
these two. So here's my conversation with Jon Favreau and
Tommy veter. Hi, guys, the first question I have for
you is, how are you feeling about the election? Slash
state of the world? A hopeless, be hopeful, see a
(02:38):
combination of the two, Which is it?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I mean, I guess I would have to say see,
though I'm never really hopeless, I'm more terrified than hopeless,
So I definitely feel anxious about the election, anxious about
the state of the world and politics, think about it
all the time. I think this is going to be
an extremely c election, even if you put the polls aside.
(03:03):
Last election was extremely close, right, Joe Biden only won
by about forty thousand votes across three states, and the
politics has become not just nastier people used to say
that like ten years ago, just way more extreme and
potentially you know, we saw we saw violence on January sixth.
So I do think that as a country, we're in
(03:23):
a we're in a really bad place politically, and it
makes the stakes of these elections so much higher. And
you know that's when they're when they're decided on a
razor's edge. That makes it a makes it a tough time.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Very anxiety producing. How about you, Tommy, It is.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Very anxiety producing. I think, you know, I think we're
a fifty to fifty country and I am very anxious
about the possibility of Trump winning again. I think, you know,
on some level, the fact that it's even close is
you know, shocking and upsetting given what we saw in
January sixth. I do think though, you know, you said
the country and the state of the world. When I
(04:01):
look around the world, I see far eye parties doing
better in places like Germany, in France and other parts
of Europe, in part because countries are dealing with some
of the same challenges around migration and inflation and broader
economic issues that we are. So there is a bit
of a bad trend in the US right now. In
(04:22):
some parts of the world, that trend is not universal,
Like I think we're about to see the Tory Party
the Conservatives in England get romped and the Labor Party
will likely win those elections on July fourth, So it's
a bit of a mixed bag. But yeah, I mean,
you know, I'm just sort of always anxious as basically
what the answer is.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
You touched on why populism is on the rise worldwide,
and obviously I think you're right, it's fueled by immigration, inflation,
But what else is driving it? What else is driving
this pretty dramatic turn to the right in many of.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
These I think another factor is the way the media
environment has changed as well. And I think, you know,
the days just here in the United States, right the
days of most people getting their news from a couple
different sources allowed everyone to have some semblance of a
(05:20):
shared reality and also allowed our elected officials to communicate
with wide swaths of the electorate. And so, you know,
when a president, president had the bully pulpit, and the
bully pulpit was always an advantage. And now I think
the bully pulpit just doesn't reach all that many people.
And if you're a campaign and you're trying to communicate
(05:43):
with your voters, trying to figure out where they are,
how they're getting their news, what the best way to
reach them is is incredibly difficult. And a lot of
people are getting their news from places where they're either
consuming misinformation or they're just consuming sort of a type
of content that makes them cynical and distrustful of institutions.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
And it makes them more deeply entrenched in their point
of view. As a friend of mine says, people are
getting affirmation instead of information, so it just makes them
dig in even more.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Yes, yeah, yeah, I also think, you know, the classic
populism is kind of we the in group are getting
screwed by this out group, so therefore we're going to
harm the out group. And also we're going to expand
social services for the people who are part of the
in group, and I think that's a pretty effective recipe.
But we're also seeing in places like Argentina. They recently
elected a guy named Javier Mile and he would show
(06:38):
us so imagine in your mind what a stunt double
for a Wolverine movie looks like, and it's this guy.
And he would show up to campaign events with a
literal chainsaw and say this is what I'm going to
do to the system. And I think what he represents
is he calls himself an anarcho capitalist. He is basically
trying to get Argentina's an inflation problem under control by
slashing the government in half. And what he represents, though,
(07:00):
is a brand of politics that says the system is broken,
it is irreparably damaged, it is screwing you, so let's
burn it down. And I think that's the other piece
of populism you're seeing.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Also. I remember in twenty twelve when we were working
on a couple of speeches for President Obama ahead of
his reelection against Mitt Romney, and we did this big
speech on inequality, economic inequality, and Obama had decided that
he wanted to sort of define the election around this yawning,
(07:31):
growing gap between the rich and everyone else. And one
of the arguments he made in the speech, and I
hadn't really thought about it until then, is he said,
you know, economic inequality makes democracy so much harder because
if people feel like the system is not working for them,
that the government is not working for them, not fighting
(07:53):
for them, that it's only taking care of the rich
and the powerful, like they're not going to have faith
in the system. And that was twenty twelve. And if you've,
if we've seen everything that's happened over the last decade
or so, you know that that has only has only
gotten more extreme.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
I talked about that when I did Bill Maher's podcast
and got absolutely eviscerated by the right because I said
that income at equality fuels a lot of class resentment,
and that you know, all these uber rich people are
getting richer and richer, and then you have other people
who don't have four hundred dollars to pay in the
(08:31):
event of an emergency. That creates a lot of class resentment,
anti elitism and anti intellectualism, just sort of anti everything, honestly,
And I said that, you know, it's a terrible feeling,
corrosive feeling to feel jealous and resentful. I have felt
that before. I remember being in my twenties and seeing
(08:52):
people in my neighborhood in Atlanta driving around in nice cars,
and I lived in a one bedroom apartment, and I
really thought, I'm never going to be able to afford
a nice home and a nice car. And the way
that made you feel it was just like it was
resentment slash anger and anyway, the right wing media said,
(09:13):
I said Trump voters were jealous and anti intellectual, and
actually I was trying to be empathetic with people who
felt like the system wasn't working for them, who had
been left out of the American dream, who were in
these hollowed out American cities where you know, the industrial
(09:34):
aspect of where they lived was could put so anyway.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Well, in the entire project of the right under Donald
Trump has been to seize on that resentment that you're
describing and tried to direct it away from you know,
wealthy corporations and CEOs and towards sort of the cultural
elite and the political elite.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
And I guess that's why they were all kind of
target me when I tried to make that point.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Right, yeah, yeah, And look, it's an old playbook, right,
like Nixon did this back in the early seventies, but
I think it has I think the differences today. Also,
you know you were talking about having that feeling when
you were in your neighborhood. Well, now social media has
made it so that like wealth and power and status
is in everyone's face all the time. And so I
(10:23):
think it's easier to gin up that kind of resentment
in this media environment with social media than it was
even you know, years ago.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
It's so confusing because right, I mean we've watched over
the last couple of weeks, You've seen this sort of
pr effort by Elon Musk to get shareholders at Tesla
to vote in favor of giving him I think it
was a forty six billion dollar pay package, and he
was rallying people behind this. I'm thinking to myself, like,
why does it Why are people supporting this?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Right?
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Because you're right, I think I heard this morning, I
can't remember the source that savings rates were at historic
lows for Americans. So people are actually you know, really
challenging unge by inflation, and so Republicans, I think are
very good at identifying the problem the unfair trade deals,
the way they've harmed people talking about income inequality, people
like Trump of Demagoguna A.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Jd.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Vance is good at talking about a Republican from Ohio,
but the solutions they put forward make things worse. For example,
the twenty seventeen Republican tax cut cut Big Pharma's taxes
by more than forty percent. So from twenty fourteen to
twenty sixteen, the industry paid an effective tax rate of
nineteen point six percent on average. In twenty nineteen to
twenty twenty, it paid just eleven point six percent. That's
(11:33):
what the Trump agenda gets you, a huge tax cut
for big pharma. This was data according to Ron Wyden's
Senate Finance Committee.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
But why is there such a disconnect? Why do people think,
I mean, gosh, this is what's left a lot of
people scratching their heads ever since twenty sixteen. Why do
people think that Donald Trump is going to make their
lives better? It is confounding to me.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, what I have come to think is is for
a lot of voters, they don't think that either party
or any politician is going to necessarily make their lives better,
and so what they see in Donald Trump is someone
who is just going to smash the system. And that
makes them feel good, right, because it like, well, at
(12:18):
least he's gonna at least he's my guy. He's going
to like fight for me where he can. And I
don't necessarily expect him to help me. But you know,
he's also, as Tommy was saying, he's very good at
blaming others. Right. And so if Donald Trump tells you, well,
you know, you would you'd be making more and you
we'd have more jobs. If we just got rid of
(12:38):
all these undocumented immigrants, then your life would be better.
If we just cleaned up the crime and we got
tough and let the police get tough on crime in
these cities, your life would be better. And you know,
unlike even Mitt Romney or the Republicans of yesteryear, Donald
Trump doesn't talk a lot about giving huge tax cuts
to corporations, giving huge tax cuts to the wealthy. It's
(13:00):
not publicly, not publicly, right, No, that's all in their
agenda fundraisers. Yeah, but they have you know, Trump has
taught most of the Republican Party to sort of hide
the economic agenda that is not very popular with most
people in this country, and to really lean on sort
of the cultural resentment, the racial resentment, the xenophobia that
does unfortunately work with a lot of you know, working
(13:23):
class and middle class people of all races. By the way,
in this country.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
I wanted to talk to you about the media environment
just because things have changed so dramatically since when I
got into TV news, and now it is so fragmented,
so fractured, and so partisan, right, a lot of it.
But one of the things you point out in your
new book called Democracy or Else, and we're going to
(13:49):
talk about the other things in your book in a moment,
is that the good old days weren't that good actually,
when you had sort of three white males on an
evening use cast telling the same story basically the same way,
that kept a lot of diverse voices from having a platform.
It was all sort of through that patriarchal lens, honestly,
(14:13):
because all the leadership in these newsrooms, because I worked
in them, were male and white men. And so while
we had a certain understanding and I think a communal
agreement of what was a fact and what wasn't, there
were some drawbacks to that system. But gosh, you guys,
(14:34):
I feel like it's having said all that better than
what we have today.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Yeah, and there was also the period I think it
was before what nineteen eighty seven, when the Fairness Doctrine
was in effect, which basically said, if you're going to
talk about anti abortion the position, you know, the pro
life position, you also had to talk about pro choice.
And I think when Reagan got rid of the Fairness Doctrine,
it ushered in people like Rush Limbaugh who demonstrate that
(15:01):
partisan you know, conservative radio was not only an incredibly
powerful political tool, but it was incredibly profitable. And then
we saw Fox News and quickly it was kind of
the wild Blube West. So I think you're exactly right that,
you know, the old days. Sometimes we look back at
the old days with sort of this halcyon glare. Yeah,
(15:22):
I hear you too fondly. But you know, I think
you're right that it was better than the kind of
wild wild West that they're seeing at the moment where,
you know, for the Biden campaign, you know, they have
to deal with basically every single day there's some you know,
deceptively edited video of Joe Biden going viral on a platform.
But you know, on top of that, it's not just
(15:44):
random users on Twitter pushing the stuff around. It's like
the New York Post taking a video released by the
RNCs research shop, further editing it to make it look
even worse and then posting it on their own. So
it's it's incredibly it's brutal out there.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I mean it is brutal.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
The promise of like the technological advancements that gave us
the Internet and social media and even you know, more
television stations, right, it's like more choice was good. More voices,
especially a diversity of voices really important, really good. Completely
eliminating all gatekeepers and having so many different sources of
(16:22):
news that we don't have no more shared sense of reality,
or the idea that any single person who has a
Twitter account, like their opinion now on something is going
to be, you know, just as valid as anyone else's opinion, right,
Like we've just that the pendulum has swung too far.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
And also John, I think this anti expertise. You know,
there was a book written about that I think of
maybe three or four years ago, that people no longer
respect experts, which honestly, I don't understand that why someone
would dismiss someone who studied something, understood something, understood the
(17:04):
intricacies of the issue every which way, and yet they're
not respected. I don't get that.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah. Well, the other thing is a lot of people
then fancy themselves experts who aren't really experts. And so
back to your point about sort of, you know, affirming
your own beliefs, right, So you can now always find
a quote unquote expert to affirm a belief that you
have about something, even if that person is not really
an expert in that area, because their Twitter bio says whatever,
(17:36):
pretends that there's some they have a doctorate in something,
and suddenly they're going on and on about you know,
COVID and virology and you're like, well, you've never actually
studied that, but you're calling yourself a doctor in Twitter.
And so it's hard for people, I think, to figure
out who the real experts are and who they can trust.
And that's a that's I mean, as we saw during
the pandemic, that's a real problem.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
And it's also it's a problem that seems sort of
unique to political discourse or at least news discussions generally.
I mean, like people will listen to Robert F. Kennedy's
junior or Aaron Rodgers the quarterback for the New York Jets.
Talk about vaccines, but imagine if you walked into a
room you're about to get surgery, and there's Aaron Rodgers
scrubbing in, like, I don't know that I'm going I'm
(18:18):
not going through with that, right, I think most people
are walking out. So it's a bizarre thing that we
just sort of everyone should have a voice, And I
think that's wonderful. But you're right that all voices shouldn't
be weighted equally, right.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I always say the great thing about social media is
everyone has a voice. The worst thing about social media
is that everyone has for us good? Right? Yeah, after
this break democracy or else? The new book from Tommy
and the Two Johns, why did they write it? I'll
ask them? What if there were a way to reduce
(18:55):
cancer deaths by half in the next twenty five years.
What if it were the future our children, our loved ones,
our world could actually wake up to? This is the
future Exact Sciences works toward every day because they believe
it's possible. Exact Sciences is a dedicated team of cancer
fighters united by a purpose to help eradicate cancer by
(19:19):
preventing it, detecting it, earlier and guiding personalized treatment. They
bring together the best in visionary thinking and scientific rigor
to create tests, including COLI GUARD and Achotype DX that
inspire life changing action. Visit Exactsciences dot com to learn more.
(19:46):
We're back with Tommy Veeter and Jon Favreau. Let's talk
about your book and then I want to ask you
about some other current affairs issues right now. But why
did you guys write this democh Receive or Else book?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, I mean for anyone who's worried about the country,
wants to get involved in this election and hopefully future elections,
but doesn't know where to begin or how to be
most useful. We wrote this to basically say it's easier
than you think, and it doesn't have to be terrifying.
It can actually be a lot of fun. And really
it's the same thing that let us to start pod
(20:23):
Save America way back when in twenty seventeen in Crooket
Media is after Donald Trump won. You know, we had
so many people saying to us, like, what do we do?
This is bad, I don't know how to get involved,
or I haven't really paid attention to politics before this,
and I want to help, but I don't know how.
And you know, over the years of doing this podcast
(20:46):
and hosting pot Save America and then sort of starting
Vote Save America, which is sort of our organizing arm
where we help people get involved in politics and just
building crooked media, you know, we've learned a lot about
what it takes to get involved in politics, how useful
it is to be involved in politics, not just from
our own experiences before this, as you know, white House
(21:06):
staffers and campaign staffers, but just from talking to so
many smart people through pods of America. So this book
was our attempt to like put all of those lessons
on paper, both from us and from a lot of
the really smart people we've talked to over the years.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
And also one of the benefits of getting a little
older is we realize now how lucky we were to
get to work for Barack Obama on that campaign in
that moment, because politics then it felt hopeful, it's felt inspiring,
it felt historic, right we were working for the first
black man to become president in this country. In the
last eight years has been such a slug. It's so
(21:41):
terrible every day and scary, and people are anxious, and
we wanted to remind folks that you know what, Like,
first of all, politics doesn't not have to be zero sum.
You can do a little bit or you can do
a lot.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
It's up to you.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
But it all matters. But also it can be fun,
it can be hopeful. The book is very funny. There's
incredibly stupid illustrations.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
And yeah, they're funny illustration, right, And I think you're right,
it's kind of It is a funny book, but about
a very serious topic. And I just I just wonder
you guys, are you preaching to the choir? With all
due respect, I mean, I love Pots of America, I
love crooked media. I think what you all have built
(22:17):
is just extraordinary. And yet who is your audience for
this book?
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, I mean, look, we are preaching to our choir,
but what we're preaching to them is like the only
way to really get out of this mess, the only
way to have democracy function is to actually go out
there and persuade people and how and go change minds.
Because we know a lot of people who are going
(22:44):
to buy this book are already liberals or Democrats, or
at least just people who don't want Donald Trump to
be president. But I do think people are always looking
for shortcuts. And you know, I think in the first
chapter we talk about sort of like how tough our
democratic system is to change, and in many ways it
(23:04):
was built that way, and so you know, we'll have
people say to us, can't we just get rid of
the Senate because the Senate's not fair? Or can't we
just get rid of the electoral college and we want
it to you know, in that chapter, show people how
difficult it is to change the system and where it's
easier to make progress and where it's more difficult to
make progress. But what it all comes down to is
(23:25):
there is no changing the system unless we win elections.
And there is no winning elections unless we all go
out there and have conversations with people who do not
agree with us, who aren't sure if they're going to
vote or who they're going to vote for, and we
have to change their minds. And changing their minds is
not you know what you see happening on social media
(23:46):
every day. It's not. Politics is not about just congratulating
ourselves about how right we are. Politics is about like
meeting other people where they are and sort of trying
to bring them along by changing their minds. They're at
least doing our best to change their minds.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
It's hard. I mean, I want to talk about the
persuadables because I think there is this wide swath of
the American electorate who aren't on the extremes. I'm sure
you read Jonathan Height's article on The Atlantic about why
the last ten years have been uniquely stupid, And it's
really about the loudest voices that are dominating social media
that I think give people a complete misrepresentation of the
(24:26):
way people are feeling about a whole variety of issues.
But I was with somebody I did a breast cancer
walk and a very nice woman was walking and she said,
you know, I think we probably disagree politically, but I
really appreciate your cancer advocacy work. And I said, thank
you so much. And I'm curious, you know why you
(24:49):
feel strongly about supporting you know who you're supporting. I
try to kind of keep it friendly and nice, And
I said, because you know, it's it really upsets me
that people insist the election was rigged. And sixty two
you guys can correct me if I'm wrong. Sixty two
courts have dismissed cases that have alleged that and if
(25:12):
there was real evidence beyond sort of the typical, you know,
screw ups that happened that don't necessarily affect the outcome.
Don't you think our judicial system would have dealt with that?
And she said, I saw videos of women stuffing ballot boxes,
and I said, I don't think those were necessarily accurate. Well,
(25:34):
I don't really trust the judicial system, and you know,
so where do you go from there? It's very hard,
But I think that individual was in a group that
would not be considered part of the persuadables, right.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think we're the Democratic side
of this debate has a harder job because we believe
in institutions, while Republicans are able to so distrust in
those institutions and it helps their argument that, for example,
the twenty twenty election was stolen. So there's a really long,
difficult challenge ahead of all of us of restoring people's
(26:10):
faith in politics, for storing people's faith in institutions, and
part of that is going to be delivering on the
big challenges that people are pissed about. And so, you know,
the Affordable Care Act did an enormous amount of good.
Forty million people have healthcare because of it, but costs
are still way too high, you know, and it didn't
help everybody. So it's just it's a long game. But
you know, the other thing I think we've learned over
(26:32):
many years in politics, Katie, is that voters are really weird.
When you talk to voters, they do not line up
on traditional lines that you hear about in the press.
I watched there was a vote, remember the uncommitted vote
in Michigan, where in their Democratic primary you had a
bunch of people voting uncommitted instead of for Joe Biden
to protest as God's vote. I watched a focus group
(26:54):
of I think eight or ten Democrats who voted uncommitted,
and one of the people in this focus group said
she voted on admitted because Joe Biden hadn't done enough
to help Israel. And I thought to myself, huh, you
did not get the assignment this is. But you know, voters,
they're weird. The quirky opinions and different things drive them.
And you can be poisoned by bad information, but you know,
(27:14):
have good intentions.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Well, And to that point, I think if you're sitting
down with someone and you were trying to convince them.
You don't start by bringing up the twenty twenty election
and trying to argue them out of their belief that
it was stolen. F I don't know necessarily that that
would get you that far, but you could say, Okay,
what do you care about? What are you worried about
right now? What issues are top of mind for you?
And you know, we I think we have a story
(27:37):
in the book about this organizer in Pennsylvania. Her name
was Angela Aldus and she was in Westmoreland County in Pennsylvania.
It's very conservative and she's very liberal. And this was
in twenty eighteen and she started knocking on doors and
it was a lot of Trump voters and one of
the one woman opened the door and she was a
(27:58):
Trump voter too, And it's stead of trying to like
yell at her about politics, she was like, well, what
are you worried about? You know, what do you what
do you care about? And she's like, well, I'm really
upset about the high cost of my prescriptions. And Angela
was like, well, you know, I have I have MS
and like I've had that worry too, And they both
start talking about the drug companies and prescriptions stuff like that,
(28:20):
and they started coming to this understanding about how, like
politicians need to do a better job of making sure
that healthcare is cheaper and more people have access to it.
And the Trump supporter might not have known necessarily that
that was a more liberal democratic position, but they had
this good conversation about it, and that moved her closer
(28:41):
to the direction that Angela wanted to go in, and
like did she.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Yeah, you're right. I mean, that was a really stupid
way for me to broach the topic. But we were
also on a three point two mile walk and I
didn't have that much shop.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Well, look, when someone brings it up to you, it's
not like you can be like, eh, like you're gonna
You're gonna end up talking about it, you know, But.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
I think you're right. Tell me what you're worried about,
tell me what issue you care about, and how you're
feeling about your situation. I think you're right. That's a
much better way. And you know, one of the things
you all point out in your book is that we're
not as polarized as we think we are. You have
some statistics in the book, and I think they bear repeating.
(29:22):
In nineteen ninety six, twenty seven percent of people supported
gay marriage. In twenty twenty three, seventy one percent fifty
nine percent of post the overturning of Roe Vweight eighty
A pose a federal abortion ban. A Fox News poll
found that eighty percent of people favor background checks on
gun purchases, making twenty one the minimum age to purchase
(29:45):
a gun. Yes, And I remember I did a documentary
on gun violence and reducing gun violence, and I think
was seventy four percent of NRA members favor stricter gun laws.
So why is it so hard to address these issues
and to bring people who are in the middle the
you know, center left or center right, and form a
(30:08):
coalition of these people.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
I mean, I think at the moment, the challenge on
gun rights, for example, or gun control is you know
of the numbers you just read which shows overwhelming majorities
in this country want more sensible gun control policies in place,
and then we have a Supreme Court that just voted
against a very limited effort by Donald Trump to ban
(30:32):
a tool that turns semi automatic rifles into machine guns,
bump stocks, you know what I mean? And so the
disconnect between what people want and what our judges or
elected officials are willing to let happen is just yawning.
And so what that does is it makes people on
the left whur fighting for sensible gun laws. They feel
demoralized and depressed and they stop trying. And you have
(30:55):
you know, people on the right or are you insulated
from the Republicans are insulated from these policies. So, I
mean this is part of the broader challenge that Democrats face,
which is we are not delivering on the things people
care about in large part in this case because of
the Republicans, and Republicans are able to harness that cynicism
(31:16):
to keep voters at home.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah, I mean, I remember in the Obama administration when
we tried to pass background checks and the two senators
that ended up coming up with a compromise on background
checks were Joe Manchin but no One's idea of a
liberal and Pat Toomey, conservative senator from Pennsylvania. And they
come up with this compromise on background checks, and the
(31:40):
Republicans in Congress still voted down, they still blocked it.
And I remember Obama at the time thinking like if
we can't we can't pass this. After the tragedies and
the mass shootings that we have seen, and that was
back then, and we can't pass a common sense, extremely
popular proposal that is and put forth by a conservative
(32:01):
Republican senator and a very conservative Democrat from West Virginia. Like,
I don't know how we're going to get this done.
But a lot of voters aren't paying attention to everything
that happens in Washington and all the machinations. So for
people who really want something done on guns, what do
they think? They think? Oh, Washington failed again and both
parties couldn't figure it out, even though it was a
bipersonal compromise, right, both parties couldn't figure it out, and
(32:24):
Obama couldn't get it done. And so it's I'm not
going to vote on that issue because no one's going
to get it done.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
You voters and polls today who blame Joe Biden for
Rovers's Wade being overturned, right, right? Yeah, A lot of
folks just aren't aren't paying attention. They don't really know
what's happening. They just know they're pissed at the outcome.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Gosh, I mean, there's a couple of things that come
to mind with that I mean, why are people so
ignorant about some of this stuff? Is it because we
no longer teach civics? Is it because the information they're
getting is so twisted and manipulated and full of falsehoods
(33:01):
that people don't know which way is up and what
is real?
Speaker 2 (33:06):
I mean, I think it's a couple things, and I
think it's sort of a vicious cycle that it reinforces itself,
which is people are busy. They it's not everyone's job
to pay close attention to politics. People are not political
junkies like we are, and they're working very hard at
their jobs to raise their families, and so they don't
(33:27):
have a lot of time to pay attention. And then
when they do pay attention, when they do tune into politics,
what do they see on television? Well, they see people
yelling at each other, they see talking heads going back before,
they see like a bunch of polling, They see misinformation
on social media. They don't know who to believe, and
so they're like, I don't know, I'm out, like I
(33:47):
don't need to pay attention to this. I don't know
what to believe anymore. It all seems like noise to me.
So I'm just gonna live my life and that's that.
So I do think that's why people I don't think
it's necessary that people like are willfully ignorant, and I
think people, you know, that's that's one of the challenges, right,
You can voters. You hear a lot of people in
politics how voters are stupid or they should know that
(34:10):
Trump is bad, or like, you know what people are.
It's it's not it's everyone's job to fulfill the obligations
of citizenship, but it's not everyone's job to like sort
through just the reams of information out there and news
sources and figure out what's true and what's not.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
So how do you fix it?
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Yeah? I mean, look, I think that one thing you're
going to see in this election is and when you
talk to organizers and campaign staffers like it. There's a
there's a big emphasis now on something called relational organizing,
where you are not just calling strangers and knocking on
strangers doors, but you're really reaching out to all the
(34:50):
people in your social network and trying to persuade them,
or people in your neighborhood. People you get to know
and then you have these conversations and this is not
deep canvassing where the conversations we were just talking about,
where you don't just show up at someone's door with
a script given to you by a campaign. You kind
of have like a fifteen to twenty minute conversation about
what do you care about, what issues are on your mind.
(35:12):
And because voters don't have as much trust in institutions,
whether they be campaigns, the media, government, they do have
trust in the people that they know, and so those
people that the people that they know end up being
the most trusted and persuasive messengers or people that you
can have a conversation with that you can see face
(35:33):
to face. So I do think one side effect of
the media environment becoming so fractured and polarized is that
people are going back to these face to face conversations
with people in their local community. And I do think
that's where, like, if we're going to fix politics, it
has to start there.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Up next, how will President Biden fair in the upcoming
debate with Donald Trump? Have some thoughts. If you want
to get smarter every morning with a breakdown of the
news and fascinating takes on health and wellness and pop culture,
sign up for our daily newsletter, Wake Up call by
(36:15):
going to Katiecuric dot com. Back to my conversation with
Jon Favreau and Tommy Veeter.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
I mean, I think John's right on like the big
picture need I mean, just to slice it a little narrower,
like you know, you asked about sort of why you
know people are not well informed or why they're turned
off by politics, and you know, it's often the case
that people tune in to a campaign at big moments,
like a debate, and let's just be honest, like those
big moments have gotten terrible. I was reading a report
(36:49):
today by a group of researchers at Princeton that analyzed
all the debates from two thousand and four until today.
God bless those Bomore Passwards who had to watch all
these They found the cross talk of debates just candid's
yelling over each other. It jumped from one instance in
the first Bush versus Carry debate in two thousand and
four to seventy six instances in the first Biden versus
(37:10):
Trump debate in twenty twenty. If you don't care about
politics and you're turning on that debate brying like, oh
who am I going to vote for? And that disaster
is what you see. You're turning the channel, You're going
to ESPN, and you're like, I'm not voting.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
It's so true. It's such a shit show. Which brings
me to the upcoming debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
Are you terrified? Are you anxious about that? I know
they are going to turn off the mics, They're going
to set in to motion certain things that will hopefully
keep it more civil. But what do you guys think?
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Are completely terrified?
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Completely terrified? Yeah, and listen, we went to you.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
I don't know how you can. I don't know how
you wouldn't be It's a big deal.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
What does that say about the Democratic presidential candidate? If
you're so terrified?
Speaker 3 (37:58):
I mean, listen, we just saw president and had an
event out here in Los Angeles, and he had just
made two trips to Europe in the last like, you know,
in less than a week, and candidly, he looked exhausted,
and it was a little bit dispiriting to walk out
of there and be like, oh boy, you know, like
there's not a lot of pep in his step. He
wasn't sort of there wasn't a clear message coming out
(38:18):
of that event, and I was a fundraiser, like it's fine.
You know, the people weren't there to be persuaded. They
were there because they gave money. But he needs to
be on his game, and he needs a moment's debate
like he had at the State of the Union where
he came out feisty and was going back and forth
with Republicans and making a point. And so he needs
to be sharpen on his game in that sense. And
then from a messaging perspective, Joe Biden needs to be
(38:42):
painting a picture of what he would do with four
more years and explaining to people that he understands that
he got a lot done, but there's still he understands
that they're so frustrated, and he hears them, and this
is how he's going to work on it. And this
is why Donald Trump would not actually help the things
that they're worried about, because this is a man who
only cares about himself, his rich friends, his donors, and
keeping his ass at a prison.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
John.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
I think Joe Biden is a good, decent human being.
I think he's been a great president. I don't think
he's ever been an excellent communicator, and I think that
as he's aged. Like, I think his mental acuity is sharp,
you know, and I've known that from like just personal
experiences with them and following him, but I think it
has I think the one thing that age has done
(39:26):
is it sort of softened his voice. Right, He's shuffling
a little more because of his he's got some back issues.
And yeah, like you can sit there and argue with
the media about showing this clip or that clip, and
but like this is how he's going to come off
to people. And like Tommy said, there are these moments
where he has appeared very energetic and feisty and he
(39:49):
needs to needs to show that at the debate. But also,
like I think the more important thing for all of
us is, like Joe Biden has made the decision that
Joe Biden is running again. Right, that was Joe Biden's decision,
And you know that's where we are and for the rest.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
But I can I interrupt your ask where you disappointed
that he wanted to run again and that he at
eighty one when he said during the campaign in twenty
twenty he was going to be the bridge to a
new generation of leadership with Corey Booker, Kamala Harrison Gretchen
Whitmer at his side that the bridge was eight years
(40:29):
instead of four.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Yeah, it turned out to be a longer bridge.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Turned out to be the Bay bridget.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
I have really I've tried to put myself in Joe
biden shoes making that decision, And I do think that
he looked around at the rest of the field, He
looked around at the other possible candidates and said to himself, like,
I think I am better positioned to beat Donald Trump
because I did once before than any of these other
(40:56):
politicians who have not been tested nationally and have not
been under the tough spotlight of a national campaign. And
if I step aside and say, okay, let's have an
open primary now, and one of these people wins the
primary and then loses to Donald Trump, and I think
that I could have done a better job, Like I
(41:17):
think it's a it was a tough call, Like it
would have been a tough call for me.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Conversely, though, what if he loses to Donald Trump and
there goes his legacy?
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Yep, you know, and I think he is I'm sure
he has weighed that as well, you know. And it's
it's just where I've ended up is that's all his decision,
and the rest of us need to figure out how
to tell voters that, yes, he appears older, and maybe
he's not the best communicator, but he's been a damn
good president. He has fought really hard for regular Americans
(41:49):
and not just the wealthy or people who are extremely
loyal to him like Donald Trump, and Donald Trump is
a is a threat to the country, is a threat
to democracy for about just democrats, threat to our ability
to make decisions about who governs us. And so, whatever
your qualms about Joe Biden, whatever your disappointments, whatever you know,
(42:13):
we cannot go down the road of another Trump presidency
because it will be much more extreme and worse than
the first.
Speaker 3 (42:19):
I also think just you know, every president in history
has had a gigantic ego. All of them do yeah
to the point where they they not only it's not
enough to be president, they compete with each other to
see who is the greatest president. I think every president
thinks that to be a great president you need two terms.
So there's clearly, you know, a lot of ego involved,
and you know it could turn out to be a
(42:41):
profoundly damaging decision the way you described if you know
somehow this ushers in a second Trump agenda. I on
a personal level, I'm incredibly frustrated that we are constantly
having to talk about the age of our democratic nominee
in this campaign. It's the last thing I think I
want to be talking about. The flip side of that, though,
is he's got an incredible record to run on, and
(43:02):
we shall just be honest that an open primary ahead
of this campaign would have been a messy disaster. It
just always is every primary process. There's lots of infighting,
the party gets driven left on a bunch of issues.
You never know what's going to come of it. So
like either path would have had a lot of challenges
to it. Instead of John's point, it's like, here we are,
(43:23):
we got to just forge ahead and wine.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Why hasn't the Biden administration been more effective at communicating
his accomplishments. It doesn't seem as if and is this
part of the messy media landscape playing into this, But
it doesn't seem as if people understand or appreciate what
the Biden administration has done, nor do they really understand
(43:50):
why he wants to be president and what he hopes
to accomplish in the next four years. I'd read stuff
all the time, and I have to say, I don't
have a clear understanding of either of those things.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
I think they've spent too much time worrying about selling
or defending their accomplishments. Like I think we could have
told them, haven't gone through the Obama administration experience that
it's it's just tough, like passing the Chips Act. This
enormous investor investment in semiconductor development in the US, so
we're not dependent on Taiwan in case they're invaded by China.
(44:24):
Enormous accomplishment, a huge deal, but let's be honest, it's
sort of an esoteric conversation. It's also a one day story,
like congrats you pass the bill. Six months later, a
year later you can talk about, you know, opening a
new factory in some swing state and how it's going
to create jobs. So they're doing their best to kind of,
you know, continue to press the case in this story.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Over time, dots right to voter, connect.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
The dots for people. But day to day, you know,
if I'm you know, a single parent, and I go
to the gas station and it costs me twenty five
bucks more to fill up my tank every single time.
Do I care about you know, semiconductor manufacturing now, or.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Or do you care when someone at the White House
is like, oh, I know you're annoyed about the about
your gas, but did you know that gas prices have
just fallen four months in a row? Right, So Joe Biden? Right,
So it's like, there's this weird you know you I
do think it's important to talk about what he's accomplished.
And you can see this in focus groups too. For
an episode of The Wilderness I was doing, I was
talking to some folks who are doing a lot of
(45:22):
focus groups with undecided black voters, and it turns out
and a lot of those focus groups, when you do
talk about what Joe Biden has done and accomplished, they're like, Oh,
I didn't realize that. That's that's good to know, right,
that's a good piece of information. But it's a you know,
politics forever has been like what have you done for
me lately? And how have you improved my life? And
(45:42):
you know, right now people are worry about the cost
of living. The biggest cost of living is where you live,
whether it's mortgage or rent. That's very high. It is
very hard Joe Biden has not like it's hard to
do something about that on the national level. Right, it's
housing is an issue that's like local, state, federal. I
think he has a planned now to give like a
big tax credit for people who are buying new homes,
(46:04):
but also like you know, the interest rates are beyond
his control. Is to like wait to see what the
Fed does.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
What about some of those kitchen table issues you guys,
you know, like the price of you know, a thing
a yogurt. I mean, it's insane when you go to
the grocery store, or the price of gas or rent.
Did they not talk about that soon enough? It felt
like they were crowing about the economy while so many
people were hurting. Would you have advised them to say, hey,
(46:33):
they're you know, at least talk about it, empathize with people,
feel their pain like Bill Clinton did and kind of
get the issue front and center. I feel like they
didn't embrace it soon enough. Is that fair?
Speaker 2 (46:47):
I think it's fair. Look, we're speaking from experience here,
Like we went through this as well, right, like like
Barack Obama in twenty ten and we got smoked in
the midterms and twenty ten, I remember, yeah, and that
was one of the main criticisms. And again it was
this constant tension in our White House, like Barack Obama
just passed the Recovery Act, He's doing all this stuff.
(47:09):
People don't know about it. We got to talk about
it more. And then I always remember acts Rout was
always in our head when we were writing speeches, being like,
you've got to feel sympathy for people who are still struggling.
We've got to make sure that we lead with that.
And look, I think that the Biden campaign has now
made that turn, which I think is important. Their inflation
report came out the other week and it showed inflation
(47:30):
was down. Instead of just like boasting about it, their
statement was, we realized that prices are still too high,
and Joe Biden is going to fight to keep costs
down with this, and the Republicans are not, like Donald
Trump's plan is going to make inflation skyrocket and prices
are going to end up being higher if Donald Trump wins.
So I do think in the debate you'll see I
(47:50):
hope Biden try to focus people more on the choice
between what Trump would do for cost of living and
what he would do for cost of living. If you
give them another four years.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
Yeah, it's also you're always fighting the last battle in
these jobs. And you know, it's a lot most people
believe that our recovery during the Obama administration from the
financial crisis would have been faster and stronger if we
had had done a larger stimulus bill. So the Biden
team shows after this once in a lifetime, you know, pandemic,
(48:21):
to run back on me a little hot, to try
to put forward a bigger stimulus, and that clearly led
to some inflation. Now at the end of the day,
we have recovered from the pandemic better than any country
in the world, and inflation is coming down faster. But
it's just really hard to sell to people. Hey, you
know what, it could have been a lot worse, Like
that's just it never Manterfectual's tough.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Yeah, real quickly. I could talk to you guys all days,
but I promise I am not going to. I wanted
to ask you about the conviction that we recently saw
on thirty four counts in New York and juxtaposed that
with Hunter Biden's conviction. Obviously we know they're very different
and cases, and yet they're being manipulated, And I'm curious
(49:05):
how you think both of those will play out in
addition to these other cases that seem as if they're
not going to happen for quite a while, and maybe
not until after the election, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
Yeah, I mean, I think that the Trump conviction will
be a data point for voters who are making up
their minds. And you know, you've already seen a little
movement in the poll on this, and then you know,
they plenty of interviews. I think the New York Times
went back and did a great they had previously done
a poll, they went back to the respondents, asked them
about it. They had some good interviews, and you know,
(49:36):
you hear some people say, like, you know what, I
was undecided before. I just can't be. I can't be
voting for a convicted felon. I can't do it. So
you will have some of those people. You'll have a
lot of people who are like, either, I wasn't going
to vote for Donald Trump ever before this conviction, and
so I'm not going to now either. And then you
have other people who are like, I like Donald Trump.
I think it was bullshit, bullshit, and I'm not going
(49:58):
to change my mind. Right, So I think it has
an effect on the margins, but of course this is
a race that's going to be decided on the margins,
and so you know, it could have an impact. I
don't think that the Hunter Biden verdict will have an impact,
not necessarily because of the charges in the trial itself,
but because I do think voters understand that he's not
running for president. Joe Biden is, and there is no
(50:19):
connection to Joe Biden. And so look, I think I
think if Joe Biden loses the election, it's going to
be more because some of these other issues we talked about,
people's concerns about cost of living and is he taking
enough action and all the stuff that usually hurts incumbent presidents.
But I don't think it will be the Hunter thing.
Speaker 3 (50:37):
The most hopeful data I've heard about Trump's conviction was
I forget which pol it was, but it found that
one in five independent voters said it was less likely
to make them vote for Donald Trump, and that the
conviction mattered a lot to their decision. So for the
you know, the persuadable universe out there is a lot
smaller than we want it to be. But it did
seem like a significant number of independent voters actually did
(51:01):
care and that this would inform their vote.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
Yeah, so let's wrap things up where we kind of started,
which is your book that you have displayed prominently Democracy
or Else, which is really a call to arms for
people who care about democracy and want to make sure
(51:25):
that it continues in this country. If you had to summarize,
obviously the first thing people should do is buy your book,
But if you had to summarize some of the key
points that you all outline in this what would they be, John,
why don't you start? And then Tommy you can add?
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Yeah. I mean I think that getting involved in politics
does not have to be as confusing or scary or
pointless as it may seem, and that there are a
ton of different ways to get involved, and sort of
the way we laid out all the chapters is it
can be as simple as getting informed so you know
who you're voting for and what you're voting on. And
(52:07):
then if you feel like you want to do more
than that, you can donate. Then you can volunteer, Then
you could be an organizer, You could get a job
in politics, which is what we did, and it was
very fulfilling you could hopefully run for office yourself, and
so there's a whole bunch of different ways to get involved.
And the more you're involved in politics, even when you lose,
(52:28):
it still feels like you're having more of an impact
when you're out there talking to people, persuading people working
in your community, paying attention than just watching this whole
thing unfold on your screen, because that's when you're most
likely to feel helpless, when you're just a spectator. And
when you actually get into the ring and get involved,
(52:50):
even when you lose and you will have setbacks and
you'll have disappointments, you're still going to feel this sense
of agency that you have some control over what's happened
with this country. And it's a lot of fun and
you get to meet people who you know are going
to end up being your best friends for life.
Speaker 3 (53:07):
I think in the book, we sort of walk you
through a ladder of engagement from the easiest things to do,
like just get better news. So I think I think
the book ends with our reader being a disgraced one
term residence. Right, yes, yes, so we'll kind of well
baby step you up to the top. But I mean,
I think the one thing I want. John made a
great plug for the book, so I'm not even gonna
do it. I just want folks to know getting involved
(53:28):
in politics doesn't mean fighting it out out over Donald
Trump versus Joe Biden. It could mean going to a
community meeting in your town and changing the way schools
are run, or you know, like getting involved locally, and
that's where you can have just an enormous impact. I mean,
if you decide to work full time on a state
Senate campaign, you can do so much good and change
(53:49):
the way that race goes just by being there, just
by donating ten bucks and just by being a part
of it. So it will be fun, it will be rewarding.
It really does matter.
Speaker 1 (53:58):
I wanted to knock on doors in Pennsylvania just to
encourage people to vote, because even though in twenty twenty
what sixty seven percent of people eligible voters did vote,
it's still sort of a sad number, and it's usually
much much lower than that. Why can't we make election
Day a national holiday?
Speaker 3 (54:18):
We should?
Speaker 2 (54:18):
Yeah, we should, we should. That would help. I mean,
there's a whole there's there's a whole bunch of steps
we can take to make voting easier for more people.
And you know, some states have already done it, Like
there are states now that are sending everyone a ballot, right,
which is which is great.
Speaker 3 (54:35):
We vote by mail in California, comes to your house.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
Yeah, it out. It's very easy there. So I do
think there's things we can do to make voting easier.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
And look, do you think some of those things though,
to make voting easier result in more skepticism about the
fairness of elections? You know, it always seems to be, yeah,
a challenge, kind of a push pull there.
Speaker 3 (54:56):
Yeah, I mean, you're right that it did in twenty twenty.
I don't think it did before that. I mean, Republicans
were huge fans of vote by mail, especially in Florida
where Donald Trump lived and voted by mail by the way,
for a very long time. And then suddenly when Democrats
tried to make it easier for people to vote, because
you know, they didn't want to die in a pandemic,
(55:16):
they demogogue did and it's become this big, big fight.
But I think you're seeing all these reports now that
Republicans are asking Trump to walk back some of his
criticism of vote by mail and early voting because they
want their voters to do it too well.
Speaker 2 (55:30):
And also, if the polls are to be believed, this
time around, some of the low propensity voters, with the
voters who don't turn out in every election, Trump is
doing a lot better with than Biden. And so if
you have a very high turnout election, it might actually
be better for Trump than it is for Biden. And
usually that's been flipped. The Democrats always wanted a high turnout,
(55:51):
Republicans did not. But look, if you believe in democracy,
then you want to expand the right to vote and
make sure everyone's voting, and even if it means that
your side might not do as well. So who knows,
maybe if the Republicans suddenly find out that more people
voting helps them, they'll sign on to some of these
some of these reforms that actually make it easier to
(56:12):
vote for people.
Speaker 1 (56:13):
If you were betting men, who would you say is
going to win in November?
Speaker 2 (56:18):
Guys, Sean, I gotta say, Biden, I gotta say. But
it's honestly, it's like it's the closest thing to fifty
fifty that there is. And like I said, that's just
forget about all the polls. It's the same two guys
that ran last time and it was for They were
forty thousand votes apart last time, so it's a it's
a coin toss.
Speaker 3 (56:37):
Tommy, Yeah, I mean, I think I just saw the
five point thirty eight does kind of a national average,
and I think it's currently Biden's forty point six percent
and Trump's at forty point four percent, so the polls
are as close to tide as they could be. And
then RFK Junior's got nine percent, so I don't know.
I'm going to bet on Biden because I have to
be with my heart and not my head. But it's
(56:58):
it's fifty fifty.
Speaker 1 (57:00):
Well, Jon Favreau and Tommy Veeder. The book is called
Democracy or Else. How to Save America in ten Easy Steps.
I thought I said baby steps too.
Speaker 2 (57:11):
That too.
Speaker 1 (57:12):
From the hosts of Pod Save America. You guys, thank
you so much. As I said, I could talk to
you for hours about all this stuff, and hopefully we
can talk again either on your podcast or mine.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
Please same here. It's always a pleasure to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (57:26):
Katie, thank you, thanks for listening. Everyone. If you have
a question for me, a subject you want us to cover,
or you want to share your thoughts about how you
navigate this crazy world reach out. You can leave a
short message at six oh nine five point two five
(57:48):
to five oh five, or you can send me a
DM on Instagram. I would love to hear from you.
Next Question is a production of iHeartMedia and Katie Couric Media.
The executive are Me, Katikuric and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising
producer is Ryan Martz, and our producers are Adriana Fazzio
(58:08):
and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller composed our theme music. For
more information about today's episode, or to sign up for
my newsletter wake Up Call, go to the description in
the podcast app, or visit us at Katiecuric dot com.
You can also find me on Instagram and all my
social media channels. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
(58:31):
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. What if there were a way to reduce
cancer deaths by half in the next twenty five years.
What if it were the future our children, our loved ones,
our world could actually wake up to. This is the
(58:53):
future Exact Sciences works toward every day because they believe
it's possible. Exact Scienceiences is a dedicated team of cancer
fighters united by a purpose to help eradicate cancer by
preventing it, detecting it earlier, and guiding personalized treatment. They
bring together the best in visionary thinking and scientific rigor
(59:16):
to create tests, including COLIGUARD and Achotype DX that inspire
life changing action. Visit exactsciences dot com to learn more.
Host
Katie Couric
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.