Republicans' Work Till You Die Agenda

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Speaker 2 Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favreau.

Speaker 5 I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

Speaker 2 On today's show, Joe Biden goes on offense during a campaign swing in Wisconsin and Michigan.

Speaker 2 Kamala Harris becomes the first vice president or president to visit an abortion clinic as Republicans start to get nervous about their position on reproductive rights.

Speaker 2 Your favorite third-party spoilers get ready to screw things up again.

Speaker 2 And EPA Administrator Michael Regan stops by the studio to talk to Tommy about clean energy and environmental justice.

Speaker 2 But first, Joe Biden and Donald Trump have now won enough delegates to clinch their party's nominations. And it was quite a week for the presumptive Republican nominee.

Speaker 2 Trump floated Medicare and Social Security cuts that he's now trying to walk back, promised to pardon the January 6th insurrectionists on the first day of his second term, a group that includes convicted felons who violently assaulted police officers.

Speaker 2 And Trump also visited his number one re-election battleground, federal court, to attend a hearing on whether the judge he appointed will dismiss his felony charges in the classified documents case.

Speaker 2 In preparation for the hearing, Trump employed the novel legal strategy of essentially admitting guilt during a Newsmax interview where he said he took the documents, but very legally took them, and said a whole bunch of other crazy shit.

Speaker 2 Let's listen.

Speaker 6 I took them very legally, and I wasn't hiding them. I said, there's no, I don't care, Andrew Jackson or anybody else.

Speaker 6 Nobody has tripped, when you think of the fake things, nobody's been treated like Trump in terms of badly.

Speaker 6 But by the way, they released Hillary Clinton. She hammered her phones.
She used all sorts of acid testing and everything else.

Speaker 6 They call it bleach bit, but it's essentially acid that will destroy everything

Speaker 6 within 10 miles. The Hunter Biden stuff is bad, let's face it.

Speaker 6 And if you believe the laptop from hell, there's a lot of money that's been exchanged, and it's a lot of money and seems like a lot of proof. But I would just say to him,

Speaker 6 what do you say?

Speaker 2 What do you say, Dan? What do you say? Hillary's gone from destroying some emails to packing a chemical weapon.

Speaker 2 Acid? What is going on there? Less grievance, more policy, right?

Speaker 2 How's that for message discipline from the presumptive Republican nominee?

Speaker 5 Look, I'm not sure we need another reminder, but this is a reminder that Donald Trump may not be the highly disciplined political genius that he's being portrayed as in the press.

Speaker 5 Like, he's still a shitty candidate.

Speaker 2 Still a shitty candidate. Still doesn't know how to answer a question.
What the Hunter laptop?

Speaker 2 It really is like he just knows that there are buzzwords he's supposed to to hit. Like the laptop, the laptop's bad.
You know what I'm hearing? That it's bad.

Speaker 2 There's a lot of money and there's a lot of corruption. And, you know, it's just very bad.

Speaker 5 I mean, it's so fascinating because we think of him as like deep into

Speaker 5 like MAGA fan fit conspiracy stuff, but he's not really that deep in it. He even skates the surface of Fox News.

Speaker 5 Like he knows that, like you said, he knows the buzzwords, but he couldn't explain them to you, right? He doesn't even understand the bullshit part of it.

Speaker 5 He just knows, say, laptop a bunch, say bleach bit, and And it's, but he uses the, this is the other reason why he's a bad candidate is he uses language that is requires such to be so far down a rabbit hole to understand what you're talking about that it's just like to an average person that meant not even average person a average political junkie that meant nothing like just absolute nothing laptop bleach bit server email just acid like what are we doing andrew andrew jackson i've been treated very i've been no one's been treated like trump in terms of very badly and Not even Abraham Lincoln.

Speaker 5 Not even Abraham Lincoln. I forgot about that.

Speaker 5 Spoil the alert, but it didn't end great.

Speaker 2 So we talked on Tuesday's episode about Trump floating Medicare and Social Security cuts on Wall Street's favorite cable news network.

Speaker 2 His campaign clearly realized how damaging that was because they got him to walk it back Thursday during a Breitbart interview.

Speaker 2 One prominent Trump supporter who apparently didn't get the memo was Ben Shapiro, whose take on the whole thing is that people should literally work until they die.

Speaker 5 Let's listen.

Speaker 7 No one in the United States should be retiring at 65 years old. Frankly, I think retirement itself is a stupid idea unless you have some sort of health problem.
Everybody that I know who

Speaker 7 is elderly, who has retired, is dead within five years.

Speaker 7 If you talk to people who are elderly and they lose their purpose in life by losing their job and they stop working, things go to hell in a handbasket real quick.

Speaker 2 Look, I get, you take it from us. Being a podcaster, backbreaking work.
But But if Ben wants to, you know, read underwear ads until his heart gives out, like, good on him.

Speaker 2 Other humans may want to spend their golden years with their family, their friends.

Speaker 2 And if you're, if you're not a multi-millionaire like Ben Shapiro is, you're going to need Social Security and Medicare. I personally wish that...

Speaker 2 Donald Trump and all Republicans would just be honest and run on the Ben Shapiro, Paul Ryan, work till you die platform.

Speaker 5 Yeah. And I mean,

Speaker 5 that is their platform 100%.

Speaker 5 It is Mike Johnson's platform. It is the platform of both white guys named John who want to replace Mitch McConnell.
And it will be Donald Trump's platform if he is elected president.

Speaker 5 Like we, this election does come down to, and we can talk about how you message it, but does come down to

Speaker 5 if Donald Trump wins, he probably wins with a Republican House and Republican Senate. And Social Security cuts and Medicare cuts are very much on the table.

Speaker 5 And if Joe Biden wins, then he will stop those cuts from happening. Full stop.
That's all you need to know. Election over, done.

Speaker 2 Are you telling me that when a Republican House and Senate send President Donald Trump a budget with Social Security cuts and Medicare, he isn't going to go through that budget with a fine-toothed comb, making sure that his campaign promise that he made to people about protecting Social Security and Medicare isn't fulfilled because he knows he's never going to have to face voters again.

Speaker 5 Well, here's how I know that that's not going to happen because it's probably going to be his budget.

Speaker 5 Because the last time he was president, he put cuts to Social Security and Medicare in his budget every single year he was president.

Speaker 5 He made that exact same promise to not cut Social Security, Medicare, or even Medicaid, because at one point he confused Medicare and Medicaid 2016.

Speaker 5 Then he tried to cut and eviscerate all three of those programs within like six months of being in the White House. So, no, I do not take it seriously.

Speaker 2 Well, how do you think this is going to go? Because obviously President Biden and the campaign have done a great job over the last couple of days, really hammering Trump on this.

Speaker 2 Biden sort of talked about it when he was in Wisconsin and Michigan during his events.

Speaker 2 Now the Trump campaign walked it back and Trump's going to probably spend the rest of the campaign saying, oh, I'll protect Medicare and Social Security no matter what.

Speaker 2 You think the best strategy here is for Biden and Democrats to just keep hammering him by pointing out what you just did, that it was in his budget for the last four years?

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's in his budget, that all the people of his party agree with him and want to do it. And that is an extension of the extremism that's taken over this Republican Party.

Speaker 5 So a couple of points on this.

Speaker 5 One is something that pollsters found in 2022 was there was always some hesitancy among voters to believe that a politician would actually cut Social Security and Medicare.

Speaker 5 Just that hasn't happened for like almost a century. And so, why would you believe it would happen now?

Speaker 5 But then, after Dobbs, those ads started becoming more effective because once Republican extremists take something away, that this seems everything's on the table if you're going to take constitutional rights away from people.

Speaker 5 And so, that you saw people more open to Social Security and Medicare cuts.

Speaker 5 And while abortion was the topic in the most ads in 2022, not far behind that were cuts to Social Security and Medicare, particularly in Arizona, where Mark Kelly and the Super PAC supporting him ran a ton of ads against Blake Masters on that very issue.

Speaker 5 The second thing that's really important about how you talk about this is the reason Donald Trump and Republicans want to cut Social Security and Medicare is not just that they think people should work till they die and they hate government and they think we have lived in some sort of Darwinian hellscape where only the richest survive.

Speaker 5 It is because they need to pay for another $2 trillion tax cut that they are planning to pass at the end of 2025. The Trump tax cuts expand for Ben Shapiro.
Yes, a huge tax cut for Ben Shapiro.

Speaker 2 And then he can just keep working and not retire.

Speaker 5 So it's not just that they want to cut Social Security and Medicare, something unpopular. They want to cut it to pay for more tax cuts for corporations and the very wealthy.

Speaker 5 And so Donald Trump's going to lie about it. He has this,

Speaker 5 at least in the immediate lease, this impromator of he's a populist, a blue-collar billionaire, and all that. And and that certainly works with this base.

Speaker 5 But we talked about this blueprint poll last week that looked at Donald Trump's vulnerabilities.

Speaker 5 Among working class voters, almost 50% of them cite Donald Trump cutting Social Security and Medicare as a top concern for why they don't want to be president. So people are open to this.

Speaker 5 And you just have to make the case and make sure people hear it. And you're going to face a lot of headwinds since Trump's going to lie about it.

Speaker 5 And the press is skeptical that these things would happen.

Speaker 5 I love what the Biden campaign is doing. They should keep doing more of it for the next eight months.
I think this was a very, very important moment in the campaign.

Speaker 2 And not only is the press skeptical, it's just very hard to get issues like this to break through because all political coverage is personality and culture wars and everything else.

Speaker 2 And, you know, it's not 2012 anymore where all the fights are about the size and role of government.

Speaker 2 And so it's really hard to get coverage on Medicare and Social Security.

Speaker 2 And so as anyone who's listening, as you're volunteering, as you're talking to people in your life, like I realize it doesn't sound like the sexiest topic, especially if you're young, but someday we're going to need Social Security and Medicare too.

Speaker 2 And it is a very persuasive point to make to people that Republicans are going to cut Social Security and Medicare and that Joe Biden and Democrats will protect it.

Speaker 5 Very persuasive. It's really fascinating because I write message box newsletters on a lot of topics and I wrote on the Social Security one.

Speaker 5 And you can almost feel the just the difference in engagement. and an open rate between something on Social Security and something on democracy or abortion.

Speaker 5 And part of the reason, I think this is a, there's a bias in the press that's sort of almost economic, which is when you look at these polls, the things that are of most concern to the more politically engaged, college-educated, upper income scale voters are sort of Democrats particularly is democracy, abortion, those sorts of things, which are incredibly important issues.

Speaker 5 But those are the people who are subscribing to the New York Times or the people who are watching MSNBC and CNN, people who maybe listen to this podcast.

Speaker 5 And it is on the issues for the people who are less politically engaged, this matters a lot. So you need a lot of repetition to get get it in front of those people.

Speaker 2 And yeah, and the upper income thing is, is a real issue there too, because it's people who are not lying awake at night thinking, am I going to have to wait and retire at 75 or 80 because I don't know if I'm going to be able to get Social Security or Medicare?

Speaker 2 I mean, that is a real, it's a real issue.

Speaker 5 Or be physically able to keep working. Yes.
Right.

Speaker 5 Like, yes, we can podcast till we die, and we probably will, but that's different than if you do a job that requires physical labor, whereas you get older, that becomes harder.

Speaker 5 You have, you are older, but you're also taking on any injuries or damage that's been done up to then.

Speaker 5 So like, that is what's so obnoxiously elitist about what Ben Shapiro said, which is just so ironic coming from how the right likes to portray themselves.

Speaker 2 Now, here's an issue that I bet would get some engagement. We know that pardoning insurrectionists ain't all that popular.

Speaker 2 Saw a CBS poll around the anniversary of January 6th this year.

Speaker 2 70% of voters think that people convicted of violently assaulting police officers shouldn't get to skip their prison sentence, though they didn't ask the question like that.

Speaker 2 I bet if you asked it like that, you'd get even higher than 70%.

Speaker 2 Just so people remember, at least 140 police officers were wounded. Rioters had guns, knives, tasers, baseball bats, flagpoles.

Speaker 2 Most of the prosecutions focused on people who committed violent assault around January 6th, not just people, not the peaceful protesters that Republicans talk about, not people who just wandered into the Capitol even, but the people who were violent on January 6th, who caused people harm.

Speaker 2 And now Donald Trump says on the first day of his presidency, he wants to let these people out of prison and pardon them. Imagine ignoring that.

Speaker 2 Like, why would they worry about committing political violence when the guy who just pardoned them for committing political violence is in the White House? Yeah.

Speaker 5 The guy who incited them then pardoned them. So why wouldn't they do it who will incite them again? Like, obviously.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, and I get that there are limits to the democracy argument.
You really have to make it tangible for people.

Speaker 2 I think that Trump wanting to pardon insurrectionists is one of those ways to make it real to people.

Speaker 2 And I think that it, I actually think it could be a real salient issue, but I don't know what you think.

Speaker 5 Yeah, no, 100% agree.

Speaker 5 I think January 6th is a very, very salient issue because a lot of the democracy arguments are very, very valid and important, but they're about the esoteric notion of a functioning political system and norms.

Speaker 5 And this is is about a group of people who violently try to overthrow the government, getting pardons from the person who asked them to violently overthrow the government.

Speaker 5 It is an example of, it reminds people what they like least about Trump. It reminds you of the tremendous, dangerous extremism of him, the chaos.

Speaker 5 And so, yeah, absolutely should be, should be talked about.

Speaker 2 Mark Esper, who was Trump's defense secretary towards the end, who then he ended up firing, he was on MSNBC this week, and he said that like Donald Trump suggested that the military shoot Americans in the streets to him.

Speaker 2 This is a guy who was defense secretary for Donald Trump is now saying, hey, I quit.

Speaker 2 I mean, you know, hey, I wasn't defense secretary anymore, and I just want to tell everyone the president was telling us that the military should shoot Americans in the streets who were protesting.

Speaker 5 What are we doing? You know what? The next defense secretary? More likely to go along with it if Trump wins.

Speaker 2 Well, I was going to say, yeah, not going going to make that mistake twice. All right.
So Trump and Republicans are also trying to figure out how to sneak their national abortion ban past voters.

Speaker 2 Kellyanne Conway was out there this week giving her party advice on how to talk about the issue.

Speaker 2 At a politico event, she said Republicans should ditch their line about Democrats supporting abortion, quote, up until the moment of birth, because...

Speaker 2 Go figure, not a lot of people actually believe that happens because it doesn't happen.

Speaker 2 The National Republican Congressional Committee also put out a memo this week urging Republican candidates, quote, to express empathy for women in order to fix their brand problem.

Speaker 2 But alas, Kellyanne also admitted that Trump is, in fact, considering a national ban.

Speaker 8 You think Trump should come out for a 15-week ban?

Speaker 9 Well, it's a national minimum standard, and it's not a ban. And he has said, I think he's told Sean Hannity a couple weeks ago when they were at the border, he was looking at that.

Speaker 9 He's also said 16 weeks or four months.

Speaker 2 What is she calling it? A national minimum?

Speaker 5 A national minimum standard.

Speaker 2 A national minimum standard.

Speaker 5 Oh, okay. Yeah.
Okay.

Speaker 2 What it means is if you are a state that has banned abortion at six weeks or banned abortion completely, that ban stays.

Speaker 2 But blue states or states that haven't put any restrictions on abortion yet, they would all have to be 15 weeks. So yeah, it's a national ban.
15 weeks in some places, six weeks in others.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 2 Do you think it's possible for Republicans to speak about this in a way that actually helps them deal with this political problem? I'm doubtful, but what do you think?

Speaker 5 No, absolutely not. The problem is not their language.
The problem is the problem, right? It's their position, right? They have

Speaker 5 a Republican-appointed Supreme Court took a constitutional right away from more than half the country.

Speaker 5 And then a bunch of Republican legislators then passed these onerous bills in many cases with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the health or life of the mother. And so that's the problem, right?

Speaker 5 It's not 15 weeks. It's not showing more empathy.
It's not any of that.

Speaker 5 You have adopted an incredibly unpopular position at a time that has caused a massive electoral coalition shifting backlash in this country.

Speaker 5 And so this is where political consultants are totally full of shit, right? There is no language, right?

Speaker 5 You can either be on the right side of the issue and win elections or be on the wrong side of the issue and keep losing them. And that is full stop.
That's the whole deal.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 2 A Republican tried this in a big campaign.

Speaker 2 It was Glenn Young in the legislative elections in Virginia, and he tried to campaign in a 15-week ban, and a bunch of anti-abortion groups called it a roadmap for how to tackle abortion. And he lost.

Speaker 2 They lost. Republicans lost that campaign.
And the reason they lost is because people didn't focus on the number of weeks or when.

Speaker 2 People focused on the idea that politicians were trying to tell women and their doctors what decisions they should make about their health.

Speaker 2 And what they didn't want is for politicians to get in the way of that. And they didn't want the government to step in and say, we get to decide and we get to litigate what you do with your body.

Speaker 2 And the idea that, you know, 15 weeks is going to save them once

Speaker 2 there might have been an argument for that before Dobbs politically, but I think you're right.

Speaker 2 As soon as Dobbs happened and we heard these stories, these horrific stories all around the country, people realized, 15 weeks, 20 weeks, six weeks, whatever, just let me make the decision.

Speaker 2 Conway thinks Republicans should challenge Democrats to lay out the specifics of their own abortion views. I believe she phrased it: show me your exceptions, and I'll show you mine.

Speaker 2 Meaning, like, Republicans are willing, because you know, she wants Trump, and Trump's been saying this to say, Oh, I'm for exceptions: rape, incest, life of the mother.

Speaker 2 And so now she wants Republicans to turn it around to Democrats and say, Okay, what are your exceptions? How do you think Democrats should handle that?

Speaker 5 I'm even confused by her question.

Speaker 5 Like, what is she talking about? Like, I don't, I don't even.

Speaker 2 I don't want Democrats to be like, oh, okay, you don't want 15 weeks. Do you want 24 weeks? Do you want 30 weeks? What are you 22 weeks? How many weeks would you?

Speaker 5 What if we just passed the bills, the Senate, the Women's Health Protection Act that Senate Democrats have pledged to sign, and President Biden have pledged to pass and sign into law if they get enough Democrats to get rid of the filibuster?

Speaker 5 What if we just did that? What if we just returned to the way of life before Dobbs?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't think you fall into that trap because I think

Speaker 2 the principle is that women should get to make decisions about starting a family and when to have a family with their doctor. That's it.

Speaker 2 It is a personal medical decision, and Republicans should stay out of it. The reason the Republicans keep losing on this is because no one believes they're going to stop at 15.

Speaker 2 But, you know, in Alabama, the Supreme Court went after IVF. Some of them are trying to go after contraception.

Speaker 2 It's like, just keep politicians out of people's medical decisions unless the politicians are trying to make decisions that are going to guarantee access to affordable health care.

Speaker 2 That's the only time politicians should be involved in people's health care.

Speaker 5 Politicians should get you into the doctor's office and then they should close the door and leave.

Speaker 5 They should not stay and

Speaker 5 advise you on, not mandate what it is you can and can't do when you're in that room with your doctor.

Speaker 2 So Democrats are, of course, trying to keep abortion in the news.

Speaker 2 Yesterday, Kamala Harris visited an abortion clinic in Minnesota run by Planned Parenthood, something no sitting vice president or president has ever done.

Speaker 2 Here's Harris answering a question about whether Democrats can succeed in restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade.

Speaker 9 Well, Congress will pass that bill when we win back with the House.

Speaker 2 And so

Speaker 2 I am sure of that.

Speaker 9 One of the points that must be made on this issue as we attempt to uplift the real stories and the real consequences of the Dobbs decision is to remind people elections matter.

Speaker 2 What did you think of that move, going to an abortion clinic?

Speaker 5 I loved it. I think it was incredibly smart.
It is, you know, as we know, when abortion is top of mind, it helps Democrats win elections because that is what is at stake, right?

Speaker 5 And we cannot let it, you know, we every day is one day further from Dobbs.

Speaker 5 Every day, Republicans are getting a tiny bit smarter about not saying their real positions on abortion or even just trying to avoid talking about it.

Speaker 5 So it's going to be incumbent upon Democrats to keep it in the news. So talking about it is good.

Speaker 5 And it is a real sign of the White House and the Biden folks thinking creatively about how to get attention for the things they're saying.

Speaker 5 Let's say she just did that at a women's roundtable in Wisconsin or somewhere else. We're not talking about it.
It's not on the news.

Speaker 5 It's in the news locally, which is good, but it's not getting into the national online conversation.

Speaker 5 And so doing things like this, going to places that are controversial, they're going to cause the Republicans to react to it, to create controversy and conflict, means people will hear her message and remind them that Joe Biden and Kamala Kamala Harris and the Democrats are going to fight for reproductive freedom and access to abortion.

Speaker 5 Republicans want to take it away. So I think it was great they did it.
It was bold. It was smart.
And I think it was quite effective.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I also think it shows that Joe Biden and his White House and his campaign and Kamala Harris are not afraid to put abortion front and center by going to an abortion clinic.

Speaker 2 And look, I say this because there's been a few stories about how

Speaker 2 some reproductive rights activists are angry with Biden for saying words like choice and row instead of the word abortion.

Speaker 2 And I guess he didn't say the word abortion in the State of the Union, even though he started the State of the Union by talking about abortion and urging Congress to pass the Women's Health Protection Act.

Speaker 2 And I totally understand the argument that prominent public figures saying the word abortion could help lessen the stigma around getting an abortion, which is a very important thing to do.

Speaker 2 But one thing I would urge everyone to remember is the abortion rights movement didn't win in red states like Kansas and Ohio and Kentucky by speaking only to people who favor no restrictions on abortion.

Speaker 2 They won by persuading people who, some people who are uncomfortable with abortion or even personally opposed, that politicians shouldn't get to make that choice for people.

Speaker 2 And look, now we have an 81-year-old Catholic guy as president who's never been a personal fan of abortion, but opened his State of the Union by promising to stake his political capital on guaranteeing access to abortion nationwide.

Speaker 2 And to do that, he's going to need to convince people who feel the same way he does. And like, that's, that is just democracy.

Speaker 2 That is how we accumulate the power necessary to make sure that we don't just have a president who says the word abortion, but a president who has the ability and the power to actually make abortion legal in every single state of the country.

Speaker 2 And I think that most people who want an abortion would rather that.

Speaker 5 Right. There is zero political downside or risk in saying the word abortion.
It doesn't make your position more radical. It doesn't, everyone knows what you're talking about, right?

Speaker 5 It's like when you run the ads about

Speaker 5 Trump, and then you just don't say his name, or when Republicans try to sub-tweet him back in the day, now they just all

Speaker 5 tweet in support of him.

Speaker 5 Like that, that's dumb.

Speaker 5 A different president, maybe a younger president, maybe President Elizabeth Warren or President Kamala Harris, the pick two people who ran against him, would probably be more comfortable and more bold and aggressive in talking about abortion than Joe Biden is.

Speaker 5 But Joe Biden is our president. What, I mean, I just, you worked on a thousand state of the unions.
We've watched a million of them.

Speaker 5 I just can't tell you how far the party has come that our 81-year-old Catholic president used the first five minutes of his State of the Union to call

Speaker 5 for passing a law to restore Roe. Like that is a gigantic progress.
Would it be better if he felt more comfortable talking about it in Boulder Ways? Great. But he is our president.
He is our nominee.

Speaker 5 And if a Democratic House and Democratic Senate send him a bill, he will happily, proudly sign it. And that is just a gigantic deal.

Speaker 5 And so, is there more work to do to get more politicians to be more comfortable with it? Absolutely. But have we come a huge distance in a short period of time because of Dobbs? Yes.

Speaker 5 And is Joe Biden going to do the right thing here? He absolutely will.

Speaker 2 And again, it's just, it's really not about defending Joe Biden or not.

Speaker 2 If you want to be mad about Joe Biden, but that's fine, you know, but as you are out there persuading voters, know you are going to run into some people who may be personally opposed to abortion, may call undocumented immigrants illegal immigrants, like Joe Biden did in the State of the Union, and then later said he wished to use the word undocumented.

Speaker 2 And the point of campaigning is to meet people where they are, but then not leave them there.

Speaker 2 And so if you stop by like scolding people for it then you're going to turn off the conversation when you instead you could actually persuade them to get to a better place and to like again join this coalition that we're trying to build to stop Donald Trump

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Speaker 2 All right, let's talk about the vice president's running mate, Jacked Up Joe Biden, who's been on offense since the State of the Union.

Speaker 2 This week, he visited two must-win Midwestern states, Wisconsin, where he opened a campaign headquarters in Milwaukee, and Michigan, where he campaigned in the diverse city of Saginaw.

Speaker 2 The president talked about all the infrastructure jobs he's made possible, his plans to lower housing costs, and he hit Trump as a loser who wants to cut your retirement benefits.

Speaker 2 The polls, however, still haven't moved all that much since the State of the Union, though it's only been a week. Trump is still up two points,

Speaker 2 around two points in the polling averages. And the 538 swing state averages show Trump up everywhere, ranging from almost eight points in Georgia to less than a point in Pennsylvania.

Speaker 2 I won't even go through the individual polls. There have been quite a few in the last three days.
Some high-quality, some lower-quality, some national, some swing-state. All bad.

Speaker 5 Mostly bad. Mostly bad, I would say.
They're not all bad.

Speaker 2 Someone's going to say he was up to in the Ipsos poll.

Speaker 2 Anyway, where's the bounce, Dan? You promised us a bounce. You do this show Polar Coaster that everyone can sign up, crooked.com slash friends.
Listen to Dan on Polar Coaster. Where's the bounce?

Speaker 5 Anyone who thought, and I know you didn't think this, this is that an attack on you?

Speaker 2 Because I said it. I said it at the night of the State of the Union.

Speaker 5 I don't remember what I said because I was going to say tired.

Speaker 5 you were doing your best Chuck Todd impersonation right there, but it was like, that's unfair to Chuck. Chuck would not have done that.

Speaker 5 But anywho, anyone who thought that Joe Biden was going to get a significant bounce out of one speech seen by 30 million people should be suspended from talking, writing, tweeting, tooting, threatening, or skeeting about politics for six weeks.

Speaker 5 Like, it's just, it was never going to happen because just think about this, right?

Speaker 5 Joe Biden has 100% name ID. He's been president for almost four years.
He was vice president for eight years. He's with National Scene before that.

Speaker 5 He's in a race against a person who was president four years ago, also has 100% name ID. And it's not just people who know their names.

Speaker 5 The depth of knowledge of these two candidates is unlike anything in any race in modern history.

Speaker 2 Right. So were you saying it's too early to pay attention to the polls then?

Speaker 5 Because no, I'm absolutely not. I'm not saying that at all.

Speaker 2 What I'm saying is two people with 100% name ID who everyone knows.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 The point I'm trying to make is Barack Obama did not get to save the union bounces. That was not a thing that happened then either.

Speaker 2 Just like I said, just in 2009, that was it. And that was because probably he had a pretty high approval rating going into that speech anyway.

Speaker 5 We live in a time of polarization. Most people have made up their minds.
30 million people is a lot of people that watch that speech. It's still a fraction of the electorate.

Speaker 5 And you assume that most of those people who watch it have already made up their mind, right? That's just who, that's who tunes into a speech.

Speaker 5 But the way that campaign operatives think about this is the horse race moves last.

Speaker 5 Approval ratings move second to last. What moves first is the

Speaker 5 polling questions about that are there we call them the underneath questions, right? Character, strength.

Speaker 5 And for Joe Biden, the critical question right now is, do voters think he is too old to do the job?

Speaker 5 And there's evidence in a morning consult poll that voters, the number of voters who thought that Joe Biden was too old to do the job went down after the speech.

Speaker 5 They pulled pre-speech and they pulled post-speech.

Speaker 5 And the bulk of that change happened among Democrats and Biden's 2020 voters, which is exactly how you would expect this race to go, which is Biden is underperforming against Trump right now because he's getting about 85% of people who voted for him in 2020.

Speaker 5 And Trump is getting 97% in the New York Times poll of people who voted for him in 2020.

Speaker 5 And so that's the low-hanging fruit for Biden, are people who have actually pulled the lever for him before, or new voters who agree with him. ideologically on almost every issue, right?

Speaker 5 Abortion, climate change, LGBTQ rights, tax cuts for the wealthy, protecting social security. And those are the people you move first.

Speaker 5 You move them first by showing that this big giant concern that has been hovering over the race for months is not as big a concern as people may have thought.

Speaker 5 So, what we've seen in the polling suggests that things are moving in the right direction for Biden. They're just going to move more slowly than most people want them to move.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I also think a couple of things on polling. It's always tough because polling is a lagging indicator.
And so

Speaker 2 those of us who are very involved in politics and pay close attention,

Speaker 2 we, you know, wait for a couple days and we're like, well, how can someone not have formed an opinion on the state of the union already? Because didn't we just watch it?

Speaker 2 But almost all the time, changes in polling happen like two or three or four weeks later.

Speaker 2 It's just like, because most people like didn't watch the state of the union and didn't really like get into the coverage all that much and just maybe just heard about it later from a friend.

Speaker 2 But I also think what's definitely going to be more effective than just the state of the union, which

Speaker 2 a lot of people didn't watch, is the ad campaign, right? They're just the ad campaign in the swing states.

Speaker 2 And that has really started in earnest, especially as the contrast, the ad we talked about on Tuesday's pod. So lots of time left.
But again, don't forget about the polls. Don't dismiss them either.

Speaker 2 Use them like campaigns do, which is to understand what voters' concerns are and how all of us

Speaker 2 not just the Biden campaign can address those concerns and persuade people to vote for Biden.

Speaker 2 That is the use of polling, not for predictive purposes.

Speaker 2 So no crosstab truthers here.

Speaker 2 What does the message and geography of the first few stops tell you about their strategy? Wisconsin, Michigan, Kamala was in Minnesota.

Speaker 5 And Biden was in Georgia last week, and then you're talking about yesterday.

Speaker 5 Obviously, the campaign is going to be primarily focused on the six battleground states,

Speaker 5 Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin.

Speaker 5 I think one of the sense you're getting both from the issue choices and some of these last few visits is that the primary focus, the most important states, the states he cannot afford to lose, are the three states that make up the so-called blue wall.

Speaker 5 Not really blue wall, thanks to 2016, but Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. And that you're going to see a lot of

Speaker 5 focus there, a lot of time there, a lot of spending there, and a lot of focus on economic issues. And it's notable that that's where he has been delivering this hit on Social Security and Medicare.

Speaker 5 And so I think that's sort of what it says is really the campaign is off and running now like this the starting gun was a state of the union we are now campaigning we're running ads we're going to battleground states is opening campaign headquarters in milwaukee um and doing a lot so we are we are uh off and running for with and only eight months to go

Speaker 5 less of a blue wall more like a blue fence like a mesh fence yeah yeah kind of it's uh it's not really it's like not too sturdy right now it's one of the you know those those invisible electrical fences uh for which i think you're probably not supposed to use for animals and maybe the battery works on the collar we put on Trump.

Speaker 5 Maybe it doesn't. We don't know.

Speaker 2 Yes, it definitely doesn't. All right.
Well, on the same week that Biden and Trump sewed up their nominations, the potential third-party spoilers also made some news.

Speaker 2 No labels announced that they formed a nominating committee to select their candidate, Joe Lieberman. Joe Lieberman, back in our lives.

Speaker 2 He said that they could announce as early as March 21st. That's next week.

Speaker 2 But that they'll still only move forward, he said, if they think they have a real chance to win because they don't want to re-elect Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 Meanwhile, their national co-chair, former North Carolina governor Pat McCory, quit the group to you guessed it, spend more time with his family, lost another one, lost Larry Hogan because he's running for Senate.

Speaker 2 Pat McCrory's gone. They're just losing people left and right there.
Then there's RFK Jr.

Speaker 2 I talked with Jane Costa on Wednesday's pod about

Speaker 2 RFK Jr. floating Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers as his running mate.

Speaker 2 Kennedy later confirmed that he will be announcing his VP pick on March 26th in Oakland, California. Rogers played college football in nearby Berkeley.

Speaker 2 Turns out Rogers also told CNN's Pamela Brown a few years ago that the Sandy Hook massacre was actually carried out by the U.S. government as a false flag operation.
Unfucking real.

Speaker 2 Hours after CNN broke the story, Kennedy was asked about Rogers during a Fox News interview. Here's what he said.

Speaker 12 Aaron Rodgers is battle-tested.

Speaker 12 He's stood up. He's been hammered by the press,

Speaker 12 stood up for things we believe. And I like that part of his character.
He's a critical thinker. And I think we need that at the time, as the rise of AI.

Speaker 12 We need people who understand that you cannot always trust authority just because somebody's in charge.

Speaker 2 When I think of the rise of AI and the dangers of artificial intelligence, I think there's only one person. who can help us through this.
That's Aaron Rodgers.

Speaker 2 Can I get your thoughts on the possibility of a Kennedy Rodgers tickets? Which seems like it...

Speaker 2 I thought it was a parody at first. I didn't believe it.
And now it seems like he's maybe the top of the list.

Speaker 5 The guy has to report to Jets' training camp in four months. Like, I don't understand how this is going to work.
Is he not going to play football?

Speaker 5 Is he going to retire from football to be the VP of Robert Kennedy?

Speaker 2 I mean, do we think it's possible that

Speaker 2 his Achilles injury, the surgery, everything, everything was just, he didn't recover and as well as he thought he would. And he doesn't want to do this other season.
So he's like, you know what?

Speaker 2 I'm just going to use this as a way out.

Speaker 5 I don't think that's the case because he was, I've seen a lot of footage of him throwing footballs.

Speaker 5 They were kind of ridiculously floating the idea he was going to come back for the playoffs, which is a really brave thing to say when the Jets are 6-10 or whatever they were.

Speaker 5 So it's like, I too will play in the playoffs.

Speaker 5 I mean, it's worth remembering that Aaron Rodgers, in the midst of coming off his MVP season as quarterback, spent an entire summer trying to become the host of Jeopardy. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 But that's just like reading questions off a cart, you know, that's not running for president.

Speaker 5 Well, I'm just saying the guy seems to be having a crisis of some kind. He's a deeper meaning in his life.
You think so? I'm getting the sense that football is just not doing it for him.

Speaker 2 It seems like it's been for some time since it was a couple of years ago that he was at the Kentucky Derby with Pam Brown and told her, oh, by the way, Sandy Hook? Yeah, total false flag operation.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And my buddy Alex Jones told me me this.

Speaker 5 Where's his information been?

Speaker 2 I mean, I guess he wasn't. I mean, she probably thought that he, because he's not potentially a vice presidential candidate, maybe.

Speaker 5 I mean, he's been spreading COVID misinformation on podcasts all over the world for years now.

Speaker 2 Now we know. Now we know.

Speaker 5 But I would say just as a political matter,

Speaker 5 this would be great news for Democrats. I think it is doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on fucking weirdos.

Speaker 5 RFK Jr. anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist.

Speaker 5 Yeah. Right.
And also, it just seems fucking ridiculous. And that's the best thing.
By the way,

Speaker 2 a sandy hook truther, not only is it just fucking morally repugnant and like it makes me sick thinking about people saying that, but it's all like most people are going to think that's way fucking crazier than vaccine skepticism or vaccine

Speaker 2 or even full anti-vax, unfortunately. But like

Speaker 2 saying that these, these children, like crisis actors, I mean, the shit that Alex Jones was sued for and lost for like millions and millions of dollars for this, for this, defaming these poor families.

Speaker 2 And, like, what is what the fuck is Aaron Rodgers running around spreading that bullshit for?

Speaker 5 I mean, even if he was Anthony Fauci's intern and a spokesperson for Pfizer, no one thinks that the quarterback of the Jets should be fucking vice president of the United States.

Speaker 5 Like, that is an absurd notion.

Speaker 2 Well, okay. Well, Donald Trump is, you know, he was president for four years.

Speaker 5 Yeah, but at least he pretended to be a businessman for a half century. Like, this is, it is, you remember, I know

Speaker 5 we have to go back deep into our memory holes here, but you remember that Kanye West was on the ballot in 2020?

Speaker 5 I do. There is a level of ridiculousness that voters are not going to abide by.
And I think Aaron Rodgers being on the tickets part of that.

Speaker 5 And if the, if people were like, well, he was the quarterback of the, of the Green Bay Packers and Green Bay's in Wisconsin, and Wisconsin's a swing stay.

Speaker 5 It's like, just this is Aaron Rodgers stealing Wisconsin from Joe Biden is a low on my list of concerns.

Speaker 2 That Fox Fox interview where Kennedy's talking about him, he goes on to say like, and you know, it's important for someone young to be on the ticket because he's only 40.

Speaker 2 And then he also said, and, and I think he's going to help me get America healthy again. I think

Speaker 2 that's why I'm really excited. He's going to help people get healthy again.

Speaker 5 I'm like, why Rodgers

Speaker 5 for Iowa?

Speaker 2 So that's Aaron Rodgers. We'll find out a week from now.
I don't know.

Speaker 5 I honestly cannot wait for what's going to happen because the backup choices are also amazing. It's not like it's Aaron Rodgers and then like a state legislator from Oklahoma.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we haven't even talked about it. Yeah, it could be Jesse Ventura or Mike Rowe, Discovery Channel host.
I have some real, it's interesting people on that list.

Speaker 2 So the no labels thing sounded like news until I realized that it was just basically the announcement of a future announcement. Though then Lieberman did say March 21st, as early as March 21st.

Speaker 2 So what's going on there?

Speaker 2 They've gone from a, they were going to have like a nominating convention in person to a Zoom convention to now it's it's just a small committee picking people they've been turned down by a whole bunch of people like who is left who is left i'm so interested to see who they end up going with here maybe aaron rodgers if he doesn't make the

Speaker 5 jesus christ i mean about that like i don't know i'm trying to think who the

Speaker 5 if aaron rodgers is the rfk jr football player who the no labels football player would be i don't even yeah

Speaker 5 it's a different it's a tremendously online subject is my guess um

Speaker 5 it

Speaker 5 i assume they just want to keep this thing going so that the people at no labels can continue to suck as much money as possible from politically naive billionaires.

Speaker 5 That seems like the most likely case because the idea, Joe Lieberman, ridiculous human being that he is, we're not going to do if we can't win. Read the fucking Constitution.
You can't win.

Speaker 2 You cannot win.

Speaker 5 If you do not get to 270 electoral votes, it goes to the House. How many No Labels party members are currently in the House?

Speaker 5 Like, what do it just, it is an absurdity. I know, I don't know.

Speaker 2 No one has told me what the fucking plan is here.

Speaker 5 I mean, just the amount of absurd PowerPoints presented to people apparently smart enough to make a billion dollars on Wall Street, but not smart enough to understand the most basic, fundamental schoolhouse rocks versions of politics.

Speaker 5 It would just chicken.

Speaker 2 We should tell you something about how much smarts it takes to be rich.

Speaker 5 I guess. Let me tell you.
Is it right-brain thing?

Speaker 2 I don't know, but not sending their best, the wealthy. Not sending their best.

Speaker 2 So would you say that you're more or less worried about no labels than you were a month ago?

Speaker 5 I am less worried. I mean, talk to me on March 21st when they roll out some ticket, but

Speaker 5 Larry Hogan, Kirsten Sinema, like all the names would have been floated to us. Larry Hogan, Kirsten Sinema, Joe Manchin, that was more worrisome than a person we've never heard of doing this.

Speaker 2 Lieutenant Governor Jeff Duncan from Georgia.

Speaker 5 Is that a choice?

Speaker 5 Yeah, they thought that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they floated him and they said he might be interested. He was the lieutenant governor under Kemp.

Speaker 2 I don't know if he's still the lieutenant governor, but he's like anti-Trump, but still pretty conservative anyway.

Speaker 5 I mean,

Speaker 5 yeah, I'm still worried about only because every single place that is a way station for

Speaker 5 Biden voters in 2020 who are unhappy with Joe Biden, who don't want to cross the Rubicon to vote for Trump. Like we need this to be a choice between.

Speaker 5 Either you vote for Joe Biden and Joe Biden's president, you vote for Donald Trump or a third-party candidate and Donald Trump is president.

Speaker 5 And if people have a place, every place there is for a protest vote, makes it easy for Donald Trump to win. So I remain worried.
Maybe a little bit less worried, but still worried.

Speaker 2 Yeah, me too. All right, before we go to break, if you haven't heard, Pod Save America is going back on the road with the Democracy or Else tour.

Speaker 2 Starting in June, we'll be heading all over the country, including to key battleground states like Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and more.

Speaker 2 So come on out and bring your favorite undecided voter or your least favorite undecided voter. Just bring one.
I don't care. Love it or leave it will also be on tour.

Speaker 2 Tickets for 2024 live shows are available today at 10 a.m. local.
Head to crooked.com/slash events to grab yours today. When we come back, Tommy talks to EPA Administrator Michael Regan.

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Speaker 15 Joining us now to talk about President Biden's record on climate change, clean air, clean water, so much more is EPA Administrator Michael Regan. Thank you for being here.

Speaker 8 Hey, it's exciting to be here.

Speaker 15 What do we call you, Administrator?

Speaker 8 I'll answer to anything as long as it's not derogatory.

Speaker 5 Okay. I like that.
I like that very much. I like that a lot.
Okay.

Speaker 15 So one of the issues that our audience cares about the most is climate change.

Speaker 15 Can you just give us like the kind of overview of what the administration has done to combat climate change, what you'd like to accomplish if President Biden gets another four years, and then how the EPA fits into those efforts?

Speaker 8 Yeah, I think I'm really proud of the way the president has tackled climate change.

Speaker 8 And, you know, I think when you look at the historic legislation that's been passed, the president has worked considerably in a bipartisan way to create, you know, billions of dollars to invest in where we see the private sector already going.

Speaker 8 So this is an acceleration opportunity to reduce pollution, but also to create jobs and invest in infrastructure. EPA is at the center of that.

Speaker 8 Our goal is to protect public health and the environment. And so

Speaker 8 traditionally, our agency through regulations look at ways to provide certainty to the private sector in the market so that they can make longer-term investments for the the good of their business model, but also for the good of the planet.

Speaker 8 This time around, the president has given what I like to call us a little bit of walking around money.

Speaker 8 You know, we've got a couple of billion dollars now that we can invest in the industries that we're also regulating. So it's a little bit of a stick and a carrot.

Speaker 8 I think that's emblematic of the president's vision for how government should work, public-private partnerships.

Speaker 8 It's the most aggressive investment in combating the climate crisis in United States history. So I'm excited to be on the team and I'm really excited about EPA's role in the president's vision.

Speaker 8 And hey, I'm looking forward to getting eight years because I think we've done a tremendous amount in the first three years, but we've got a story to tell.

Speaker 8 We've got to ensure that the American people understand that these historic investments that are being made are for the long haul.

Speaker 15 Yeah. So

Speaker 15 the IRA passed about a year and a half ago.

Speaker 15 At the time, analysts predicted that tax credits and investments in the bill in clean tech would cut greenhouse gas emissions to about 40% below the 2005 levels by the year 2030.

Speaker 15 So there's some outside groups that track progress in implementation of the IRA.

Speaker 15 They say that despite some of the headlines out there, the electric vehicle sales are actually on target and doing well, but efforts to get more carbon-free electricity into the electric grid are behind schedule.

Speaker 5 Is that right?

Speaker 15 And if that's the case, how do we fix it? it?

Speaker 8 You know, I think it's about right.

Speaker 8 You know, when you look at the Inflation Reduction Act, it's such a massive piece of legislation. And you're talking about investing billions of dollars into infrastructure projects.

Speaker 8 Some of those projects are on time.

Speaker 8 And some of those projects are requiring a little bit more cooperation between state, local, and federal governments to make that investments. And bureaucracies can take a little longer.

Speaker 15 Permitting stuff. Permitting

Speaker 8 getting uh you know municipalities to find matching funds for some of the federal dollars but also you know some states who want this money to reduce carbon having to deal with their state legislatures who want to turn away money or do things for political reasons solely sounds familiar from the uh obamacare administration yeah exactly turning down free money though uh different topic but same playbook um

Speaker 8 and and listen i i think uh no matter where you live,

Speaker 8 you know, you're seeing your state invest in the future. Newer technologies, newer business models to reduce climate pollution.

Speaker 8 And it's just like we have a climate reduction pollution grant program, CPRG. I get lost on all these acronyms.

Speaker 8 And this is about $4.6 billion where states can draw up their own plan and compete for federal funds to reduce climate change.

Speaker 8 And, you know, you see these legislators and congressional representatives in the other party constantly say climate change is false and fake.

Speaker 8 But you can go to our website right now and you'll see Alabama, Alaska, state plans asking for these dollars to combat the climate crisis.

Speaker 8 And they're doing that because they want the money, because they want the battery manufacturers in their states.

Speaker 8 They want the clean technologies because they know that's how you recruit a younger workforce. So what's playing out through the rhetoric in Washington, D.C.

Speaker 8 isn't actually playing out on the ground. And the president knows that.
He sees right through it. And he pledged from day one that he'd be a president for everybody.

Speaker 8 And I think if you look at some of the historic legislation and where the resources are going, just as many resources are going to red states as they are to blue states.

Speaker 15 First trip I ever went on at the White House was to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

Speaker 15 And the guy who worked for Bob Gates, his press guy, was like, hey, come have lunch with us. So we sat down and he's like, how are you liking the job? And I didn't know what to say.

Speaker 15 And I was like, a lot of acronyms, sir. That was the only thing I could think to say.

Speaker 5 And he started laughing.

Speaker 15 He's like, man, even I don't know what they're talking about half the time, but I'm the boss. So they have to explain them to me when I pause.
We need an acronym reduction act.

Speaker 5 We'll work on that after.

Speaker 15 So a couple months ago, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments over an issue called the Chevron Defense or the Chevron Doctrine.

Speaker 15 Basically, the idea is federal agencies should be allowed to interpret the law to set regulations because they're experts, while Congress and the courts are not.

Speaker 15 I think anyone that has watched Congress or the Supreme Court debate social media, for example, will

Speaker 15 get it. So, a lot of people are worried that if the court overturns Chevron, it could fundamentally undercut the government's ability to regulate stuff, in particular your agency.

Speaker 15 What do you think a scenario where Chevron is overturned would mean for the EPA?

Speaker 8 You know, it's something that we are obviously watching very closely. I think the majority of Americans

Speaker 8 think that Congress got it right.

Speaker 8 They give agencies discretion because agencies are the experts.

Speaker 8 And, you know, some of the court decisions that we're seeing as of late, in my view, restrict agencies from doing what they are. you know, tasked to do.
We have the mission, we have the expertise.

Speaker 8 So when you look at

Speaker 8 the cases like Chevron and others, without me predicting where I think they will land,

Speaker 8 you really put a chill in the market. Because, as the regulator, we've been doing this for since 1970.
Most industry knows where we're going to land in the ballpark,

Speaker 8 and we work hand in hand with our stakeholders, whether it be communities or the industry and the private sector. And so, when you have a court

Speaker 5 like

Speaker 8 what happened with

Speaker 8 a Clean Water Act case, when you have the courts reverse 50 years of precedence,

Speaker 8 that not only hurts the agency's ability to protect water quality or air quality or whatever topic may be, but it also upsets the apple cart for the predictability that we provide for industry.

Speaker 8 So, you know, we're seeing some decisions at the Supreme Court level that obviously we disagree with.

Speaker 8 But at the end of the day, we have to find a way to protect public health, protect the environment, protect water quality, and make sure that every single person in this country has a clean and healthy place to live.

Speaker 15 I mean, I was looking at some of these cases.

Speaker 15 The Supreme Court is considering a request to block the EPA's Good Deighbor Plan, which basically tries to prevent interstate pollution.

Speaker 15 You know, one state dumping a bunch of pollution downstream to another. They've gone after your ability to regulate power plant emissions, to protect wetlands.

Speaker 15 I mean, are the courts becoming the biggest impediment to the mission of the EPA?

Speaker 8 You know, we're having to,

Speaker 8 I'd like to say we're having to measure twice and cut once, meaning we have to spend a lot more time

Speaker 8 just ensuring that our decisions are durable.

Speaker 8 And,

Speaker 8 you know, the interpretations that we used to have for our statutory authority, obviously the courts are taking a different tact. And so we're having to adjust to that.
That's slowing down progress.

Speaker 8 That is also creating uncertainty in the markets because now even industry and those we regulate may agree with some of our decisions and we're both seeing them overturned in the courts.

Speaker 8 We're seeing fewer pesticides been able to hit the markets.

Speaker 8 You know, Waters of the U.S.

Speaker 8 is another Supreme Court decision that has really created some chaos on the ground in terms of local permitting and decisions around clean water.

Speaker 8 West Virginia versus EPA is sort of that decision around power plants that really slowed down where the private sector was already going.

Speaker 8 You know, the interesting thing about the West Virginia versus EPA case is the Supreme Court evaluated a rule that never took effect.

Speaker 8 And so industry was already anticipating that this rule was going to go in a certain direction. So they made massive investments.

Speaker 8 The rule that never took effect, that the Supreme Court took time to evaluate, actually achieved less emission reductions than what happened in reality.

Speaker 8 So we focused on a rule that never took effect that was not as ambitious as what is happening in reality.

Speaker 8 I just think that the courts should really focus on the things that matter and not really play into what seems to be a political temperature. that is guiding some of these decisions.
Yeah.

Speaker 15 Back on climate change for a sec. So cutting methane emissions is key to combating climate change because methane traps in way more heat than carbon dioxide.

Speaker 15 Methane also breaks down faster in the atmosphere. I think it's like 12 years as opposed to centuries for CO2, which just sits up there.

Speaker 15 So, for listeners, long story short, if we cut methane emissions fast, it'll have a big impact.

Speaker 15 Some of those reductions will come from fixing leaky oil and gas infrastructure. Some will come from livestock management, which is where this conversation can get very stupid.

Speaker 15 Here is a quick clip from a guy named Larry Kudlow. He's a financial news commentator and former Trump aide.

Speaker 16 To meet the Biden Green New Deal targets, America has to get this. America has to stop eating meat, stop eating poultry, fish, seafood, eggs, dairy, and animal-based fats.
Okay, you got that?

Speaker 16 No burgers on July 4th. No steaks on the Barbie.
I'm sure middle America is just going to love that. Can you grill those Brussels sprouts?

Speaker 16 So get get ready you can throw back a plant-based beer with your grilled brussels sprouts and wave your american flag call it july 4th green

Speaker 15 setting aside the fact that it sounds like larry kudlow is drinking meat-based beer

Speaker 15 that's weird uh you do hear this nonsense a lot uh can you address the the people who think that joe biden wants to ban hamburgers is that in the cards it's it's just completely ridiculous

Speaker 8 Number one, EPA doesn't have the legal authority to regulate animals in this way from a methane standpoint. So we have no desire to do that.
It's not on the table.

Speaker 8 And, you know,

Speaker 8 society is just a victim of a lot of misinformation.

Speaker 8 When you really look at what President Biden is doing on the issue of methane, what he has done is he's tasked EPA to develop a technology standard that, by the way, the majority of the natural gas industry has signed on to do.

Speaker 8 And we're actually using

Speaker 8 technology ranging from robotic dogs to the Environmental Defense Fund, a national nonprofit, just launched a $100 million satellite into space to monitor methane. They can see the leaks, right?

Speaker 8 They can see the leaks all over the world in real time.

Speaker 8 So the industry said to us, hey, we need a regulation that creates a fair competition for all of us to reduce our methane emissions at the same time because organizations like EDF and

Speaker 8 community groups have more access to information. So give us something that we all can rally around.
And we did that.

Speaker 8 We're leading the world in some of these technology standards.

Speaker 8 We're focused on the realities of leveraging technology standards and new business models to tackle pollution.

Speaker 8 By the way, I think the industry would even agree that if you can detect a leak and plug that leak, you're actually saving product,

Speaker 8 which saves them money.

Speaker 8 That's too rational for Larry to grab on to. He'd much rather focus on cows and other

Speaker 8 things like, I guess you said it best, meat-based beer.

Speaker 5 Maybe he's drinking meat-based beer.

Speaker 15 And everyone in Middle America says steaks on the Barbie. That's very common.
So what's the plan here? Are we giving cows some tums or some sort of an acid?

Speaker 15 Like, is there an actual, is there a fix to methane release from livestock or is it just over time changing habits?

Speaker 8 From my position at EPA,

Speaker 8 because I don't regulate cows for methane reasons and I enjoy a good steak and hamburgers, I just would like for cows to live happy and do what they're doing.

Speaker 5 Okay, do what they're doing.

Speaker 15 Maybe, yeah, don't go out on Friday nights if you feel a little better. So

Speaker 15 the president has talked a lot about replacing lead pipes, including during a State of the Union address.

Speaker 15 There are probably some listeners who are thinking, Tommy, why are you asking about pipe maintenance? I'm already bored. But this is a big deal.

Speaker 15 And I was just wondering if you could give folks kind of the overview of why getting rid of these lead pipes is so important.

Speaker 8 Number one, we know that there is absolutely no acceptable level of lead exposure. It's a scary thing when you think about our children being lead poisoned.

Speaker 8 Not only does it create physical ailments for them, but it impacts cognitive ability and really can undercut what their potential is as individuals in this country.

Speaker 8 And so the president has pledged $15 billion to begin to eradicate all lead service lines in this country. We're also focused on some regulations that would bring that lead exposure down.

Speaker 8 It's important because

Speaker 8 certain populations in this country are disproportionately exposed to lead. And the president has pledged that in all of his pursuits, no no communities would be left behind.

Speaker 8 This is something that we can and must do something about.

Speaker 8 And I just think that most people don't understand or think

Speaker 8 that members of their communities are drinking poison in their water. And that's exactly what has been going on.
And the president has pledged to do away with that.

Speaker 15 And how does that effort to get rid of these lead pipes sort of fit into the broader environmental justice campaign that I know you guys are working on?

Speaker 8 You know, everything that we do at EPA is done through an environmental justice lens.

Speaker 8 The resources that we have, the regulations and policies that we design are designed to help those who are exposed the most first.

Speaker 8 And so when we think about led service lines, obviously the criteria for giving this money to the states really is prioritized for those communities who are disproportionately exposed, which typically are black and brown or low-income communities.

Speaker 8 But, you know, with the Justice 40 initiative, 40%

Speaker 8 of all of the investments that we're making through the bipartisan infrastructure law, Inflation Reduction Act, 40% of those investments must go into and stay in frontline communities.

Speaker 8 Again, I think the president believes that solutions should come from the bottom up.

Speaker 8 And for those who have been at the back of the line, they should get a fair shot in society just like everyone else.

Speaker 15 I was reading a bit about you, and I saw that you sort of got into this field because you grew up hunting and fishing.

Speaker 5 What kind of fish are we talking about here?

Speaker 15 Freshwater, saltwater, fly?

Speaker 8 Freshwater, largemouth bass.

Speaker 5 Largemouth bass.

Speaker 8 A good brim is fun to catch as well.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 15 And I saw you were up in Alaska recently. Yes.
Dealing with the pebble mine issue.

Speaker 15 You actually worked on that back in the day, full disclosure, trying to prevent the pebble mine, this horrible open pit mining operation from going into Bristol Bay, Alaska. Yeah.

Speaker 15 One of the most precious resources the country has. Did you get to fish up there?

Speaker 5 I did.

Speaker 15 Did you spend some time? I spent a little bit of time.

Speaker 8 Did you catch anything?

Speaker 8 Yes. I think there's a picture that proves I caught at least one rainbow trout.

Speaker 5 How big?

Speaker 8 You know, I didn't really come on this show to be embarrassed.

Speaker 5 You didn't go for the big-ass salmon that are supposed to be everywhere?

Speaker 8 I did, but apparently we went to a different fishing spot than they normally take the administrator, you know, and there wasn't that cage where they let the fish out so I could catch them.

Speaker 8 So they had this little puny thing that I caught that maybe was about 14 to 16 inches.

Speaker 15 I just hand it to you.

Speaker 5 Yeah. Hold this up.

Speaker 15 So, I mean, I asked this because it's interesting. I like to fish a lot too.
I grew up fishing with my dad.

Speaker 15 But also, it feels like this is one of those areas where the environmental movement crosses party lines. You know what I mean?

Speaker 15 There's a lot of Republicans who want to preserve lands and wateries for fishing, for hunting, because it's culture, it's part of tradition.

Speaker 15 And I'm just wondering how you think about building the biggest possible coalition for your work and making sure that it feels as inclusive as possible.

Speaker 8 You know, that's just it. I think I grew up hunting and fishing and I also grew up with respiratory challenges that were similar to asthma.

Speaker 8 So when you're out there and you have that asthma attack or that respiratory distress, that means you're not out there with dad or granddad. So you're missing out on the fun.

Speaker 8 I think most people who understand and like sports can understand that if you have a bunch of pollution and you can't participate in sport, then you're missing out.

Speaker 8 I grew up in eastern North Carolina. And so

Speaker 8 in these rural communities, obviously you have a lot of both red and blue homes that, quite frankly, all conversations aren't political.

Speaker 8 They're more so focused on culture and the things that you enjoy. So when I talk about the environmental movement, I try to think about it through that lens.

Speaker 8 protecting natural resources for those who like to hunt and fish, thinking about economic development opportunities for those who think about the financial side.

Speaker 8 But listen, this is a long way from 1960 and tree hugging.

Speaker 8 When you think about today's environmentalist, you really are thinking about the latest and greatest technologies that you can apply to solving these problems.

Speaker 8 You know, growing up in Eastern North Carolina, most of us like cars.

Speaker 8 I think it's really fun to drive an old car, an antique car.

Speaker 8 But if you like speed, and if you've driven a 1967 Chevy with a 454 engine, and then you jump into a Tesla, you know, the torque, the technology, they're not even comparable.

Speaker 8 So there are ways that we can bridge all of these gaps.

Speaker 8 If you like speed, if you like technology, if you like making money, if you like hunting, if you like fishing, these are not blue and red issues. These are just American issues.

Speaker 8 And I try to talk about it in that way and try to visit communities that represent all of the things that you and I are discussing today. Yeah.

Speaker 15 This is a part of the show I like to call dumb questions for smart people. So I hope you'll indulge me.
So you're from North Carolina. Why are Duke players and fans so insufferable?

Speaker 15 I hope you're not a Duke fan. I should have researched that first.

Speaker 8 I think that I have to go home. And a lot of friends are there.
So I would say that Duke fans aren't that bad.

Speaker 5 Come on.

Speaker 15 Come on. Coach K lik scolds the other teams, yells at the fans, berates his players when he loses.
He's retired now.

Speaker 8 Yeah, but see, you asked me a question about the players, and now you're talking about the behavior of the coaches.

Speaker 5 True, true, true.

Speaker 8 You know, I think I can agree with you on that.

Speaker 5 Who do you root for it?

Speaker 8 I graduated from A ⁇ T State University, so I am a proud Aggie.

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 8 And as you know, being and spending some time in North Carolina and getting into the ACC politics is a dangerous thing.

Speaker 5 I know, I know. Yeah, you got to steer clear of those of those folks.

Speaker 15 Any relation to Ronald Reagan?

Speaker 8 You know,

Speaker 8 this is painful for me to say, but growing up in middle school, I was really teased about being the illegitimate child of Ronald Reagan.

Speaker 8 So, you know, you're bringing back a little bit of PTSD. Come on, man.
I'm really not appreciative of this right now.

Speaker 5 There goes my Nippo baby question.

Speaker 15 Do you know where Kate Middleton is? Can the EPA help with that?

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 8 Wow. You know, I was just talking to my wife about that the other night.
I came home and was really frustrated about

Speaker 8 working through

Speaker 8 a very technical rule.

Speaker 8 And she said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you know, right now I'm on a chain and we're trying to figure out what Kate Milton is.

Speaker 8 I was thinking we are living two different lives by now.

Speaker 5 Your marriage sounds a lot like my marriage.

Speaker 15 Which invasive species do you hate the most?

Speaker 15 Ash Borer, zebra mussel, Eric Trump?

Speaker 5 What are we looking at?

Speaker 15 What do we have our eye on these days?

Speaker 8 See.

Speaker 5 See?

Speaker 15 Invasive. Do you guys handle invasive species or is that somebody else?

Speaker 8 We dibble and dab a little bit, but we share that with the Department of Interior.

Speaker 15 Gotcha. Okay.
Ram Emmanuel used to get very mad about the Asian carp. That was sort of my experience with this.
They apparently jump out of the water, they hit people in boats and shit.

Speaker 15 It's a problem.

Speaker 8 I've seen those videos.

Speaker 15 Last question. And if this is in your bag, tell me.

Speaker 5 Recycling. Yes.

Speaker 2 We all do it.

Speaker 15 It's important. Also, we judge others who don't do it.
I don't know what really gets recycled, though.

Speaker 15 If I'm getting a bunch of takeout and I'm putting the little plastic containers in the special bin, is that like Penang stained plastic getting reused?

Speaker 5 Or is this like for show? How does this all work?

Speaker 8 Listen, first of all, let me say this.

Speaker 8 I think I've traveled to about 38, 39 states in 13 countries.

Speaker 8 When you talk about climate change, young people get excited. When you talk about plastics and recycling, it seems like the intensity of the excitement is about the same.

Speaker 8 So recycling, all jokes aside, has become a really big focus for EPA. My son is 10.

Speaker 8 And, you know, when it comes to recycling materials, he is all on it. So I have been looking into this question you pose, which is, what are we really recycling and is it going to the right places?

Speaker 8 And I would say that the answer is it is increasingly getting better because

Speaker 8 this country is starting to really understand how to monetize it.

Speaker 8 And I think that once you introduce the ability to monetize and we now have a market of young people and others who are demanding tighter standards, we're starting to see more interest in that area.

Speaker 5 But so glass is good, right?

Speaker 15 Like glass. Put it in the recycling bin, it's going somewhere, it'll get used.

Speaker 15 I just worry about the plastic because it feels like it's all just winding up in like literally the middle of the Pacific Ocean, like going in circles and just

Speaker 15 getting necessarily reused. But there's this industry that's telling us that these things are getting recycled.
I feel like they're not sometimes.

Speaker 5 Well, they haven't been traditionally.

Speaker 8 I think we're starting to see markets emerge where companies want the recycle products.

Speaker 8 I was just in Ghana recently and just looking at a bunch of entrepreneurs there that are really into electronic recycling.

Speaker 8 And the things that they are refurbishing and the way they're reusing older technology technology is just amazing.

Speaker 8 And so, you know, I was a little bit skeptical like you are, but my eyes have been open as I've been traveling the world and seeing not only how big of a problem it is, but how interested so many people are in it.

Speaker 8 And young people definitely are interested in recycling.

Speaker 15 When you meet with skeptical Republicans, maybe they question

Speaker 15 whether the government regulates too much. Maybe they question, you know, whether climate change is man-made in the role of the EPA.
Do you ever just tell them, I work at an agency that Nixon created?

Speaker 15 Does that like impact people? Do they realize that this was actually a creation of a Republican president?

Speaker 8 Yeah, I think most of them have forgotten that.

Speaker 8 And most have forgotten that when you look at the Clean Air Act

Speaker 8 and the revisions to the act,

Speaker 8 that was done during Republican administrations as well.

Speaker 8 I don't know where we got off track.

Speaker 8 Clean air and clean water should not be a partisan thing.

Speaker 8 And I think that as we move forward and as I move forward, I try to meet people where they are. I'll be honest with you, most Republicans behind closed doors don't challenge me on climate science.

Speaker 8 The performative aspects when the lights and cameras are on is much different than the serious discussions that we're having behind closed doors.

Speaker 15 That was Larry Kudlow drinking meat beer.

Speaker 5 Who's listening to that stuff, man?

Speaker 15 I don't know.

Speaker 5 For God's sake, God help that man.

Speaker 15 Administrator Regan, thank you so much for coming and doing the show.

Speaker 8 Hey, thank you for having me. It's been fun.

Speaker 2 Thanks to Michael Regan for joining us today. Everyone, have a great weekend, and we'll talk to you next week.

Speaker 5 Bye, everyone.

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Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.

Speaker 2 Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari. Kira Woakim is our senior producer.
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Speaker 2 Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant.
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