INTERVIEW - Brian interviews @podsaveamerica's Jon Lovett about Elon Musk, Tesla, and the Democratic Party.
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NewsTranscript
00:00I'm joined now by the co-host of Pod Save America,
00:02Jon Lovett.
00:03Jon, thanks for joining.
00:04All right, good to see you.
00:04Look at us face to face.
00:05That's it.
00:06We redid our studio a little bit.
00:07Yeah, I like it.
00:08And by the way, loving the comments, everybody.
00:09But this is, now we're on your show.
00:12We're on my show,
00:13but I'm sure they're going to send some comments.
00:15Yeah, send comments.
00:16Yeah.
00:16Tell us we look great.
00:17Hi.
00:18Hi.
00:19Okay, so we are now in a moment
00:20where we're watching these Teslas
00:22be set on fire across the country.
00:24Elon has been using this as an opportunity
00:26to present himself as the victim.
00:29What do you make of the fact
00:30that even as this guy is responsible
00:31for overseeing cuts to lifelines
00:34that the American people need,
00:36responsible for cutting USAID
00:40and food programs that impoverished people need
00:42and HIV prevention programs
00:44and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,
00:46which only exists to help people
00:49that are the victims of predatory financial institutions,
00:51that he is going on national television
00:53and yet again presenting himself
00:55as the victim in all of this?
00:56Look, there's nothing more dangerous
00:59than a bully that thinks he's a victim.
01:03Donald Trump is a bully pretending to be a victim.
01:06The modern Republican Party
01:07is a bunch of bullies pretending to be victims.
01:09That's the core of their appeal.
01:11And I think what's dangerous
01:13about what Elon is currently doing
01:15is he's going on television
01:17and saying Democrats are committing these acts.
01:21It was reported that it was one person in Las Vegas.
01:24The reason, and look,
01:26the reason political violence is dangerous,
01:29the reason it is dangerous when protests turn violent,
01:33even if the vast majority of protesters are peaceful,
01:36is because it puts in the hands of a few random actors
01:40the direction of the news, the direction of our politics.
01:43We don't believe in ceding control of our politics
01:46to random people deciding
01:48that they get to tell us what happens in our country.
01:51That is wrong when Elon does it at Doge.
01:54That is wrong when somebody takes a shot at Donald Trump
01:57during the campaign.
01:58That is wrong when people try to take a protest.
02:04I mean, in these cases,
02:05I mean, these are just acts of vandalism
02:06happening all over the country,
02:07but in other cases, when you have protests
02:09where a few actors decide to take it upon themselves
02:12to make those protests destructive
02:14and then cast an entire protest in that light,
02:17I don't agree with that.
02:18I don't think that's a good thing to do.
02:20But this is why democracy is important.
02:23This is why it is important that we have a constitution
02:29in which Congress,
02:31based on the votes of the people that sent them there,
02:34decide how the money is directed,
02:37and then the president executes that money.
02:39Yes, through his appointees, through his administration,
02:43but also through the oversight of Congress
02:44and with the approval of judges,
02:46making sure the law is being followed.
02:51The danger of what we are seeing is if in one arena,
02:56a group of people decides the law doesn't apply to them,
02:58it makes a lot of people feel powerless.
03:00It makes a lot of people feel as though
03:02the rules don't matter anymore.
03:03It makes a lot of people feel as though we don't live
03:05in a country of laws,
03:06that people won't be held accountable,
03:08that democratic accountability will elude us.
03:11And that is not just a recipe for right-wing governments
03:15to dismantle social programs and make life worse.
03:18It is a recipe for chaos in the country at large.
03:21We all collectively benefit from a system
03:25in which people trust that leaders
03:28will be held accountable to the voters
03:30and to the constitutional order
03:33that has made us the envy of the world.
03:35You know, there's been a lot of debate lately
03:37about whether or not we're in a constitutional crisis.
03:40And a lot of legal experts are pointing to the fact that,
03:42okay, we're not technically in a constitutional crisis
03:44until there has been a court order that wasn't followed,
03:48it was appealed up to an appeals court,
03:49it was appealed up to the Supreme Court.
03:51And then if the Supreme Court issues a ruling
03:53that runs counter to what the administration wants to do,
03:56and yet the administration barrels ahead anyway,
03:58that's technically a constitutional crisis.
04:00And then you have, you know,
04:01a broad swath of the rest of the base,
04:04of which I would probably include myself,
04:06where what we're seeing right now is so obviously
04:10counter to everything the constitution says
04:12and so clearly a crisis.
04:15And I'm curious what your thoughts are on this
04:17as this, you know, parsing of words and definitions
04:20kind of plays itself out.
04:21I think it's so fucking stupid.
04:23As you recoil.
04:25I felt this long before.
04:27I feel like the question,
04:28are we in a constitutional crisis,
04:31is the wrong question to be asking.
04:34First of all, I think it's a distinction
04:37without a difference.
04:37It's like, we're in a big crisis.
04:39I think you can just take the word constitutional
04:41and make it mean big.
04:43Are we in a big crisis?
04:44Absolutely.
04:45There's no moment at which Donald,
04:47like first of all,
04:49Donald Trump and the people around him
04:50are smart enough to know
04:52that you don't just on a random day
04:55decide to stop following brazenly
04:58a constitutionally valid order from a judge.
05:03You slowly erode those protections.
05:05Already, we have Donald Trump
05:10deporting people to El Salvador
05:11without so much as a hearing.
05:13A judge says, hold on a second.
05:15The Trump administration says too late.
05:17The plane was already over international waters.
05:20The president of El Salvador says, oopsie.
05:23The secretary of state doesn't defend an American judge,
05:26doesn't offend the American system,
05:27but just simply repost it.
05:28He's on the side of El Salvador's president.
05:32You have other examples of the administration claiming,
05:35oh, we just did it.
05:36You said it in court,
05:37but we didn't see it in writing
05:38or it happened too late.
05:40They're in some cases saying
05:42that they don't have to follow rulings
05:44and other cases saying they are following them,
05:46but it was just too late
05:47and others saying that the judges
05:50have no right to rule on these issues.
05:53There's not gonna be a day, a bright line that we cross.
05:56And we say, now we're in the constitutional crisis.
05:59We are slowly getting into a deeper and deeper crisis
06:02in which the president of the United States,
06:03who is at root instinctively an authoritarian
06:06is slowly and deliberately eroding the guardrails
06:10that protect us from those abuses.
06:12Does that mean we're in a constitutional crisis
06:14or just a big fucking crisis?
06:16I don't know.
06:17I don't care.
06:18And I think that's such a good point
06:20that I think everybody's waiting for the day
06:22that we switch from a democracy into an autocracy,
06:26but it is inherently the fact
06:29that they are normalizing a lot
06:31of what we're seeing right now,
06:32that the Overton window is shifting day by day,
06:35that expressly gets us to the point
06:37where we won't even notice that switch as it's happening.
06:42Like we've seen it even with Elon
06:44has been peppering this idea of impeaching judges
06:46whose rulings don't comport with his political ideology.
06:49And so rather than just abide by the law,
06:53rather than just follow the regular judicial process,
06:55maybe appeal a ruling that you don't like,
06:58he's like, get rid of the judges,
07:00just go right to the root
07:01and just eliminate people who exist in positions of power
07:05that don't redound to my political,
07:07financial or personal benefit.
07:09Here's another part of this.
07:11We're already so far down this road.
07:13What is the rationale that Chuck Schumer gives
07:16for why he decided to vote in favor of a continuing
07:21resolution to keep the government open
07:23when Democrats have the ability to say no
07:26and prevent a bill from being passed without concessions
07:30or causing a government shutdown?
07:32One of the arguments was,
07:34I am worried about what happens if we go into a shutdown
07:37because it won't have an end, there's no off-ramp
07:40and Elon and Trump can continue their rampage
07:43across the federal government,
07:44this extra legal, unconstitutional,
07:47defiance of Congress, ignoring of the law.
07:50As if it's not happening right now.
07:51First of all, as if it's not happening right now,
07:53but second of all, hold on a second.
07:56What you're saying is,
07:58and this is the danger of a backslide into authoritarianism,
08:03this is the danger of what fascism represents.
08:07What fascism loves is if there are places
08:10where institutional rules and procedures
08:13are a counter to their plans, they ignore them,
08:16they defy them.
08:17If there are places where the institutions can help them,
08:20they'll use them, right?
08:21Donald Trump loves to have a big inaugural
08:25where he is held up, where he can march.
08:28He loves being on Air Force One.
08:29He loves the powers of the presidency,
08:31the lawful, real constitutional powers of the presidency.
08:35But if what we're saying already
08:37is that Donald Trump's breaking of the law over here
08:40creates leverage over here when he's following the law,
08:43we are already conceding to the rise of authoritarianism.
08:47We are already saying
08:49that Donald Trump's lawlessness is working.
08:52That to me is the biggest problem, right?
08:53And that, and like, regardless of the debate,
08:55and I think it's a hard debate,
08:57but regardless of that, we are already conceding
09:00that Donald Trump is taking us into authoritarianism
09:02because just by admitting
09:04that Donald Trump's doge lawlessness is leverage,
09:07we are conceding that the authoritarian takeover
09:10is basically kind of unfolding in front of us.
09:13Right, that it's legitimate.
09:14It's happening.
09:15You know, a lot of what we're seeing
09:18is that as he continues to do this,
09:21it's making him and Republicans obviously less popular.
09:25And we're seeing that play out at town halls
09:26across the country.
09:27We're seeing it play out in poll numbers
09:30for Trump and Republican party.
09:31But at the same time,
09:34there aren't Democrats stepping in to fill that void.
09:37I think Democrats largely view this as,
09:39okay, things are moving in the right direction.
09:41But when Democrats are simultaneously not doing anything
09:44to help their own poll numbers,
09:45then we don't take advantage of the rare opportunity
09:48that we have here to kind of exploit his weakness
09:51because we're getting as unpopular.
09:53We're continuing to decline
09:55even as Republicans are continuing to decline.
09:56So how do you think of this
09:58in terms of this moment right now
10:00where we should be taking advantage
10:02of the precipitous decline
10:04in the popularity of this Trump Republican party?
10:07And instead, we're again,
10:09like I think the latest CNN poll showed Democrats
10:12as the least popular they've been since the polling began.
10:17Right, and so what's driving that, right?
10:20Part of it is gonna be the kind of toxic brand
10:26that Democrats have.
10:28That is a little bit the aftermath of the election
10:33in which voters basically,
10:34and this is something that's true around the world,
10:35we're fed up with rising costs.
10:38I think we are all still collectively dealing
10:41with the trauma of the pandemic
10:43and the changes that it accelerated
10:44and incumbents paid a price for that.
10:46Democrats were the incumbents,
10:47we were paying a price for that.
10:49I also think we have a massive credibility issue
10:52with voters.
10:54That is because we got behind a president who was too old
10:59because we didn't have an alternative.
11:00And then when we did have an alternative,
11:02there wasn't enough time to define a new path.
11:06So what does that tell us?
11:08I think one, people wanna see us fight.
11:11I think that's one reason the numbers are so low
11:12is the Democrats are angry.
11:14That's the other reason they're so low.
11:16So we need to fight.
11:18We need to push back against this deeply unpopular agenda.
11:22People did not sign up.
11:24People signed on to attack the rising cost of living.
11:29They did not sign on for dismantling cancer research,
11:32Medicaid, the parks department,
11:34the call centers for people to get help
11:37with their social security.
11:38We need to fight that everywhere.
11:40Elon Musk is not a popular figure.
11:43Unleashing a billionaire to slash social services
11:46and government services is not a popular position.
11:49There's just, that is still reality.
11:52But, and by the way,
11:54just fighting those things might be enough
11:58to bring out the people we need in 2026
12:02to take back the house,
12:05prevent Donald Trump from passing any more of his agenda
12:07through Congress,
12:08if he still gives a fuck about Congress then.
12:10But it still leaves the problem that in the coming years,
12:15we need to figure out how to appeal to more people,
12:17both to win the presidency and to win Senate seats
12:20outside of the progressive and liberal places
12:24and moderate places.
12:25We already are barely hanging on to 47 seats.
12:28Like Democrats in the future,
12:29especially because as states like California
12:32lose population to states like Texas and Florida,
12:36we won't even be able to win the presidency
12:38with the states that gave Joe Biden the White House.
12:42So like Donald Trump goes to New York
12:46and says, we're gonna win New York.
12:47Obviously that's bullshit.
12:49Then you see a big shift in New York towards Donald Trump.
12:52If Donald Trump, this craven,
12:56ignorant, gut instinct politician
13:00has the wherewithal to imagine a future
13:02in which he can win 40 states, why can't we?
13:04Right?
13:05If we're losing to the dumbest motherfuckers on earth,
13:08what does that make us?
13:10Well, you know, I think one point
13:11that was especially potent that you made
13:13was that we need people to fight.
13:14And I think it's been our misguided view
13:17or intraparty battle for so long
13:19that like, which is the right ideology?
13:21Is it gonna be, do you want to have candidates
13:23who are more progressive?
13:24Do you wanna have candidates who are more moderate?
13:26My view on this, I've tried to take a nuanced view on this
13:29is like, you need both, right?
13:30This isn't like rocket science here.
13:32You need people like Jared Golden
13:33who are gonna win in Maine
13:34and you're just not gonna get Bernie Sanders
13:38to win in Jared Golden's district, right?
13:41But at the same time,
13:43I don't necessarily feel like that's on point right now
13:47because what I've seen more and more of
13:50is that people just want,
13:51regardless of their political ideology,
13:53where they land on the spectrum,
13:54people just want Democrats
13:55who are willing to go in there and fight.
13:57And it's been so long.
13:59I mean, even since I've been involved
14:01in digital media for politics,
14:03I've watched as Mitch McConnell,
14:05who I believe will spend the rest of eternity
14:09in the depths of hell
14:11alongside the worst people of humanity
14:13for all that he has wrought onto this country
14:15and the ways that he has dismantled
14:17and fundamentally damaged our democracy.
14:20You won't find a single Democrat who's gonna say,
14:22well, we don't see how effective he's been
14:25and the fact that he can go in there
14:27and he knows how to win
14:28and Democrats just aren't willing to do that.
14:30And the example that I like to use is the parliamentarian
14:33and Democrats will get like a bad ruling
14:36from the parliamentarian and they'll say,
14:37well, the parliamentarian says we can't do that
14:39and so what could we possibly do?
14:41And the Republicans are like,
14:42the parliamentarian says we can't do that
14:44let's get a new fucking parliamentarian
14:45and they've literally just replaced the parliamentarian
14:48and that's a microcosm for the broader fight
14:51and I think that we're just at a point
14:52regardless of political ideology,
14:54regardless of whether you are a Jared Golden Democrat
14:56or an Ilhan Omar Democrat or anywhere in between
14:59that what we are missing in this party
15:01is just some sense of fight, of conviction,
15:04of actually going to the wall
15:06and making sure that what you are in office to do
15:09you're able to accomplish.
15:12Yeah.
15:14I think that was good.
15:15What do you think?
15:16I think that was good.
15:17I mean, I'm just curious where you stand on this
15:19because it for so long has been an issue of,
15:21well, we're not progressive enough
15:23or we're not moderate enough and we have to,
15:25lefties say that we have to go more to the center
15:27and vice versa and I just don't think
15:29that that's where we are right now.
15:31Yes, so I think that there is probably,
15:33I mean, just to take what you said,
15:35like, let's just try this.
15:37There are sort of three axes, right?
15:39There is left, right, and I think that one
15:41is the one where we spend most of our time debating.
15:43Yeah.
15:44But why?
15:45Well, partly because it has been in recent years
15:48the left of the party that's been the most aggressive,
15:50the most competitive, the most adept at social media
15:54and that has, I think, had the most backing
15:56from kind of more engaged online, younger progressives.
16:00Though we now have data from this election
16:02that shows the millennials continue to be
16:06America's progressive generation.
16:07We're the only one that hasn't gotten
16:09more conservative.
16:10That George W. Bush was a vaccine
16:13against right-wing politics and Barack Obama
16:16was the booster shot.
16:17But.
16:19To put it in a way that will push off
16:23every Republican watching.
16:24For sure, but the, like, if you look
16:28at Democratic politics over a longer,
16:32like, let's say the last 30 or 40 years,
16:35who are some of the most successful Democratic politicians?
16:37They have been Bernie Sanders,
16:39they've been Barack Obama, they've been Bill Clinton.
16:42And what did they offer?
16:43They offered an attack on the status quo
16:46and on the establishment.
16:47From Bernie Sanders, it's for the left.
16:49For Bernie Sanders, it's from the left.
16:51For Barack Obama, it's against D.C.
16:53From Bill Clinton, it was from the center, right?
16:57Each of them ran against an establishment
16:59and that's what people were really looking for.
17:01So what does that tell you?
17:02So what are the other two axes?
17:03It's fight, which is what you're talking about,
17:05but it's also reform.
17:08And look, we, like in 2006,
17:12George W. Bush wins handily in 2004,
17:14despite the ongoing chaos in Iraq.
17:17Again, it was supposed to be this big realignment.
17:19Democrats figured out over the next few years
17:21how to fight back and win the House.
17:23And it was, I was there, it was huge.
17:25It was exactly what we needed to put us in a position
17:27to believe we could really win in 2008.
17:30How did we do that?
17:31Well, one, it was just running against the chaos
17:34and extremism of the Bush agenda.
17:37They had the ongoing fiasco in Iraq.
17:40They had an effort to privatize Social Security.
17:43They had a failed effort to pass immigration reform,
17:47which today would be the liberal vote bill, to be honest.
17:50And they had Katrina
17:51and they had a bunch of corruption in Congress.
17:53People like Jack Abamoff,
17:54there was this scandal involving a guy named Mark Foley.
17:58So for most of that campaign, for most of that season,
18:01you're really just running against Republicans.
18:03But in the closing months, there was this agenda.
18:05It was this reform agenda.
18:07It was anti-corruption.
18:08It was campaign finance reform.
18:09It was pro-union.
18:10It was raising the minimum wage.
18:11It was pocketbook issues, like simple policies
18:15that the whole caucus could get behind.
18:17Yes, there were some people that were more progressive.
18:18And yes, there were some people that were more centrist.
18:20By the way, this was back in the day
18:21when there was a Democratic Senator from Nebraska
18:23and there was a Democratic Senator from Montana
18:25that were much more conservative.
18:27That became actually the limiting factor
18:30in Barack Obama's agenda a few years later.
18:32But we were able to build this big coalition
18:34with a clear critique of the Republicans,
18:36plus a simple unifying agenda everybody could get behind.
18:40And I think right now, my question is,
18:43is that the right, in this environment,
18:46is it the right thing to do now
18:47to wait as we would normally do?
18:49You would say, you don't wanna put out an agenda now.
18:51You want it to be there in the fall of next year,
18:53which feels like, fuck,
18:54I can't believe it's only been two months.
18:56Or do we need to start now putting together a vision
18:59for what we're going to do
19:00by listening to what we're hearing from people,
19:02which is they just don't know what Democrats stand for.
19:04Did we pay such a price for having Joe Biden
19:07being completely unable to communicate
19:10what Democrats stand for for basically
19:12the second two years, second half of his administration?
19:14And for Kamala Harris, I think being hamstrung
19:18by having to defend the administration
19:20and being hamstrung by some of the positions
19:21she took in 2020,
19:22leading people to have no fucking idea what she stood for.
19:24Have we paid such a heavy price for the politics of 2024
19:28that we have to now get ahead of that with a clear agenda?
19:32I don't know the answer.
19:34I think Bernie Sanders right now,
19:36I think is incredibly effective in this fight oligarchy tour,
19:40which is mostly geared around the enemies of our democracy,
19:44but does have his progressive politics at its center.
19:46You have people like Chris Murphy and Brian Schatz
19:49and others that are out there
19:50trying to do this in their ways that I think is helpful.
19:53I agree with you that we kind of need them all.
19:55Yeah, I don't have an answer.
19:57Let's finally finish off with this.
20:00I don't know if you've seen the latest Fox News appearance
20:03from Mike Johnson.
20:04I'm gonna put it right up here on the screen.
20:05I would like your initial reaction
20:08to maybe some bronzer being used by Mike Johnson
20:13and other members of the Republican Party.
20:15I have many substantive critiques of Mike Johnson
20:18and the Republican Party,
20:20but I think it's important that we as progressives
20:23always remember that we are not just fighting
20:26for the liberation of queer people and marginalized people,
20:31but we are fighting for Mike Johnson's liberation too.
20:34And if what he feels he needs
20:35is a kind of gender affirming care
20:38kind of to help express his masculine identity,
20:43if what he is trying to do to be his best self
20:45is make these kinds of changes, I support him.
20:48And I want him to know that even though he lives
20:50in a political world of rigid division and expectations
20:55that lead him to have to make these kinds of changes,
20:58we support him however he wants to look,
21:00but just know that in a future
21:03where everyone can be themselves
21:04and we celebrate difference and nuance
21:09in how people express their gender,
21:10maybe he wouldn't feel so much pressure
21:12to look a certain way.
21:13The way I think about it is,
21:15you know when dogs and their owners start to look the same?
21:21That's a really good point.
21:22Well, you know, there is a certain kind
21:25of right-wing aesthetic taking hold.
21:30It is extreme, it is conformist, it is hyper real,
21:37and people get the faces they deserve.
21:41Yeah, that's right.
21:42Love it, thank you for taking the time.
21:43Thank you, good to see you.