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All Podcasts The Path to a New Beginning – Calling the Race (with Jessica Yellin)

The Path to a New Beginning – Calling the Race (with Jessica Yellin)

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Description

Andy is joined by Jessica Yellin to break down where we are on the precipice of history. They walk you through what’s yet to be counted, what may end up in court, what Trump may do next, and what Biden should do next. And not to be lost: what this all means for COVID-19. Brew another pot of coffee – this may take a while.

Keep up with Andy on Twitter @ASlavitt and Instagram @andyslavitt.

Follow Jessica Yellin on Twitter and Instagram @JessicaYellin.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Andy Slavitt, James Carville, Jessica Yellin

James Carville  00:00

Look, I hope that we would know earlier than we did. I think we’re going to be just fine. I’m very optimistic. I’ve been talking to clients all night. People are rerunning the numbers, and we just have to hang in there, and we’re gonna win this little thing. I promise you could you just, you know, stay up tonight. Watch them returns, and we’re doing a good job. Of course, I wish we would just pop it open to some J. Shrum Champagne right now, but I don’t mind putting it on ice. I can. I can wait. I’ve waited too long. I waited four years for this. I can wait another four days.

Andy Slavitt

Welcome IN THE BUBBLE. This is Andy Slavitt. Welcome to our election edition. That voice you heard if you didn’t recognize it, it was James Carville. That’s my James Carville, New Orleans accent, thank you very much. Talking about the election. And I think his main message, is be calm, be patient. But you want to know what’s going on. And I think if nothing else IN THE BUBBLE is helping you figure out what’s going on. Man. I’m thinking about that. Our title of our podcast IN THE BUBBLE. Wow, what bubbles we live in? Wow, what bubbles we live in? We were there was a lot of people I think, who were surprised by a lot of what we saw we had an election with a record turnout. And both candidates had more votes than any candidate in history have had before them.

Andy Slavitt

Huge turnout for both sides. Both sides really had a quite a showing. And it’s just so interesting to me that I think there are Democrats today who feel very taken by surprise and who feel like there is something that is not getting clicked clicking on the other side. And maybe that they don’t know the country so well. We’ll talk about that with my co-host this episode Jessica Yellin but the first thing that Jessica and I are gonna do is we’re gonna break it down for you. So you have all the facts. I’ve been getting emails and texts with questions all day long. I’ve been telling everybody; I’m going to answer them on this podcast. This is a place in history for us. This is part of 2020 this is what we’re going to be dealing with. And I think if you’re done listening to Jessica and I go through it all, hopefully you’ll know more and feel a little bit calmer. And just hang in there guys.

Andy Slavitt  02:38

I’m delighted to have as my co-host for this episode, the great Jessica Yellin. Jessica is the founder of NEWS NOT NOISE, which you could get to on at @jessicayellin on Instagram, which you should do. And she was the former White House correspondent for CNN for a long time. Thanks for co-hosting with me, Jessica.

Jessica Yellin 

My gosh, thanks for having me. I’m such a super fan of yours.

Andy Slavitt

Oh, that’s so nice. Well, we are going to educate people on what we know about the election. Quite a night, quite a year.

Jessica Yellin 

I mean, what a way for 2020 to maximize its 2020-ness.

Andy Slavitt 

Exactly. Exactly. I have just I have this theory that 2020 is our ultimate test. I don’t know if you believe in depending on whatever you believe in someone is someone is testing us. Let’s start with the very basics. Do you still need 270 electoral votes to win the presidency?

Jessica Yellin

I love that. Yes. Let’s start with facts. You do, yes.

Andy Slavitt

You do, okay, because last night was confusing. All right. That’s great to hear. Let’s start with the presidential race. You’ve been keeping very close tabs on it. Maybe you can tell us where things stand right now middle the afternoon.

Jessica Yellin

So right now, it looks like Biden is winning Wisconsin, probably by the time this airs it, it will have been declared a Biden state. And then later on the day, we’re looking at Michigan probably coming in with more numbers that will make it clear that Michigan is probably going to Biden as well. That’s the expectation based on where the outstanding ballots remain and where the count stands. So Wisconsin and Michigan Biden that relieves Nevada and Pennsylvania. Also Georgia, but let’s put that aside for a minute. If Biden wins either of Nevada or Pennsylvania, he gets over 270. Right now, projections are that he will win both Nevada and Pennsylvania and he will get over 270. If he also happens to eke out a win in Georgia. That would be a you know, a remarkable because it’s a red state and that would sort of be bonus. But right now, where the ballots are extending it looks like Biden is on track to get the 270 and then one would think become the next president. There’s just some potential for hiccups in that interim period.

Andy Slavitt  04:58

Okay, well, we’ll get to those hiccups. But let’s just to clarify, maybe it’s easier to describe, because there’s really only one way for it to happen how Trump remains president, which, if which states, does Trump need to win in order to remain president of the states that are outstanding?

Jessica Yellin

He needs to get, you know, Pennsylvania and Nevada.

Andy Slavitt

So if Trump wins Pennsylvania, and Nevada and Georgia, then even if Biden wins, Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin, what’s that? What does that scenario spell?

Jessica Yellin

It’s not enough.

Andy Slavitt 

It’s not enough for Biden.

Jessica Yellin 

It’s not enough for Biden, Biden needs Michigan and Wisconsin plus one more of the big ones. And he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t make it all the way.

Andy Slavitt 

Okay. And he has, you’re assuming he has Arizona? Is that correct?

Jessica Yellin 

Yes.

Andy Slavitt 

Okay. So as we sit here now, Arizona is probably in the Biden camp. Although it’s not officially called everywhere, North Carolina, is likely in the Trump camp.

Jessica Yellin  06:02

Correct.

Andy Slavitt

And what’s outstanding, let’s just we’ll review it’s Nevada, which is probable for Biden, Georgia. And then the three northern states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

Jessica Yellin 

Correct.

Andy Slavitt 

And if we assume maybe what the way I think about it, tell me if this is incorrect, if we assume Nevada, comes in for Biden, then he needs to win two of the other four states. And for Trump to win, he needs to win three of those other four states.

Jessica Yellin 

Yeah. Okay. That’s another way. Yes. And if I can just add, you could also look at the demographics of where Biden is winning, and understand that it makes it, you know, very plausible that he will also win in Pennsylvania. If he wins Wisconsin and Michigan, it is hard to see how you wouldn’t win Pennsylvania anyway. So democrats are really looking at a week in which by the end of the week, he will have won Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Nevada.

Andy Slavitt 

Okay, so if you were if you had a choice of being either Biden or Trump right now, you’d be Biden, or should you prefer to be Biden, he’s in a better he’s in a better situation. And you, I think people might know this, but you explain what happened in terms of the vote count order, and why they are why it does look like things started one direction, came back in another direction, and how that works with the mail votes and all those things.

Jessica Yellin 

Yeah, it’s a seesaw with last year, because there are so many mail-in ballots and early votes that get counted in their own batches, separate from the same day votes. The early and mailing ballots skew Democrat, the same day votes in many states, skew Republican. And so when you get you get the states reporting up totals in batches, so they’ll report a huge batch of same day votes, and all of a sudden, this looks super Trumpy, and then a huge batch of mail and votes that looks super bidany. And so you go back and forth, and back and forth. And it’s thrown like sort of media habits all out of whack, because the media is used to carefully announcing the results in each county, and they can evaluate a county by its registration if leans D liens are they know. But all that is gone when you’re counting, you know, 10s and 10s of thousands of mailing ballots altogether that aren’t marked clearly by where they’re coming from. It’s made the media projections that much more complicated.

Andy Slavitt 

And so when all is said and done, is it How will Biden’s popular vote and the electoral vote when look compared to where we were in 2016? Will it be closer than that election? Do you think it will be? Will this go down in history as putting aside the moment when it’s potentially a pretty safe victory? Or do you think it will be kind of 2016, where you had a number of very close states and pretty close on the popular vote side?

Jessica Yellin 

It’s pretty close. I mean, the difference is you would have a popular vote winner who also gets to the White House for democracy, right? But you know, it’s hard to separate all that out from the expectations game. And the fact that Democrats expected or, you know, had hoped for a large margin of victory that would have repudiated Trumpism and led Biden into a different kind of future. And we are not looking at that future and out will be the conversation going forward.

Andy Slavitt

That is an interesting point. So we’re not counting chickens in this contest yet. But your point, is it a good one under any circumstances. We have a much more divided country that I think Biden supporters hope for, and that they certainly have governing implications. And it certainly had implications for the Senate, which we’ll go over. But before we get there, let’s talk about something you brought up, which is how and when these things get declared and how you see both legal challenges and recounts going. Can you give us a general sense of when these things firm up how the challenges will work?

Jessica Yellin

Yes, some of this is unknowable. But what we do know is that by the end of this week, we should have clear numbers from all the states we’ve talked about. And even before the end of the week, we will see from I expect Biden to come out and quite clearly signal you know, he’s winning the race to the podium, and being very, you know, fleet footed in establishing that he expects to win. And anything else would, you know, raise eyebrows. So, on the politics that’s over there, the Trump team has made clear that they’re going to file a challenge in Wisconsin, they’d like a recount there. It’s not a state triggered recount. But you can ask apparently, you can ask from the outside for recounts, and you just have to pay for them. It’s my understanding. There’s also they’ve signaled a challenge in Michigan as well. And so what I think we’re going to see is just a slew of legal battles take starting all local and state level, I mean, the important thing to establish is, the president says he’s going to go to the Supreme Court and sort of ask them to stop the count. That’s not a thing. There’s no mechanism for the President to do that. But you’re going to see these challenges rising up on the state level. And what I can’t tell you is whether their cases, will find friendly judges, you know, that President Trump may have appointed or an avenue somewhere to advance, these stuffs will get appealed up. And I don’t know how long that’ll last and what kind of effect that will have on our perception of the state of play here, or who really is the winner?

Andy Slavitt  11:32

Yeah. It’s good question. So let’s try to parse this a little bit. So there’s sort of recounts, and things that are, you know, challenges that quite honestly, any candidate might do in the similar situation, right? I mean, if it’s very close, there’s no reason why requesting a recount is improper. And their votes will be counted. And they’ll be counted as they will. And I suppose we should all just be comfortable that the right answer emerges there. But if I were separating that out that from a legal challenge, which says, Hey, you shouldn’t count certain votes, or you should throw out certain votes or things like that, that those feel to be like two different pieces of the puzzle.

Jessica Yellin  12:12

Well, let me just establish a baseline so people understand scale. In the States, most state law says an automatic statewide recount is triggered when the difference in the margin of victory is point two 5% or point 5%. It is miniscule. It is below 1%. difference, right? Or if the number of ballots that have been thrown out and rejected is greater than the margin of victory. I think we’re seeing Trump challenges in instances where that’s not even close to the situation, right, where it’s sort of a gratuitous challenge. And I think what we’re starting to see is that they’re going to ask to throw out ballots in certain cases and count in ballots in other cases, so that their holistic position is only count where we’ve won. And, you know, that’s a hard position to maintain politically. And then for the reasons I described earlier, it might be hard to argue on the merits. I’ll tell you, the democratic lawyers are very, you know, firm and absolute this morning that there is no case they’re going to be fine. You just don’t know as it starts to progress what emerges in the court?

Andy Slavitt 

Sure. So it’s your I think what you said it makes perfect sense to me now, which is, if you get rulings on the merits, then this doesn’t feel like that concerning for Biden side. But if you get political judges, or you know, something happens, it goes haywire. You know, that’s, that’s certainly a possibility.

Andy Slavitt  13:45

And now for something we like to call advertising.

Andy Slavitt

What have you observed so far about the court cases because you’ve done a great job watching them and looking for patterns?

Jessica Yellin  14:04

So the one thing we know so far, what got its way up to the Supreme Court prior to election day. The court’s rulings revealed a pattern which is that the Supreme Court and every case said we defer to state level decision makers. The US Constitution is super clear that each state has the right and control over how the vote is established in their state. And the court consistently sent it back to the state. So for example, in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, State level bodies decided that they would accept absentee ballots or late ballots slightly beyond election day. But in Wisconsin State level decision makers said no, no more ballots after election day. And the Supreme Court in each case upheld what those state level decisions were. They don’t want federal courts intervening to say what a state should do.

But that was before Justice Barrett joined the Court and conservatives on the court, in their writing have indicated that they see another way to make these decisions and that only state legislatures should decide what the policy is. So for example, let me give you a little example, if my county board of elections says I can vote through curbside voting, but my state doesn’t do that, overall, the legislature didn’t set that just my county board of elections, the way the conservative justices have ruled suggests that they could say if the legislature didn’t approve that, that could possibly be thrown out, because that was a county level decision, not at legislature level decision. And that doesn’t hold. So if they find challenges that are in that kind of zone, and they bring it to the court, we don’t know how Barrett would rule on that. And if that could change the outcome.

Andy Slavitt

Right, now Pennsylvania has a Republican legislature, is that correct? and Wisconsin as well,

Jessica Yellin

I think they all do.

Andy Slavitt

and Michigan as well.

Jessica Yellin

Yeah.

Andy Slavitt

So interestingly, three Democratic governors, three Republican legislators. So if things went back to the legislature, then it is really a by definition, a political decision, correct?

Jessica Yellin  16:13

Yeah.

Andy Slavitt

That clear what happens, but it’s clear, it’s a political decision.

Jessica Yellin

It wouldn’t be a political decision. It would be the politics of legislature; the court would say they’re right. I will say, you know, I asked somebody who argued before the court all the time and is really knowledgeable on this, can the legislature passed a law after the election that could affect these matters? And he said that we don’t know how the court would find on that which astonished me, how can you after the fact make a decision? I don’t know. I mean, we’re in LaLa Land. That is crazy,

Andy Slavitt

Right. And we can assume that both of these sides have scenario planned all these things out.

Jessica Yellin

There are doomsday scenarios there. Now, I will tell you that on the politics, the democrats are very emphatic like this is going to be done this week, it will be clear, they don’t want to entertain that conversation, because then that becomes, you know, an open-ended quagmire.

Andy Slavitt

Right. But it may not be up to them, might not be ever gonna have to. So that it would stand to reason that if there’s one state that hangs in the balance, that there’s one tipping point state, that becomes concerning, if there are multiple tipping point states, then that becomes there’s, as you say, there’s more than once if there’s if it takes three states to overturn their judgments, that becomes better for Biden.

Jessica Yellin

Exactly. And it also depends on the margins in those states, you know, if it just be is evident that it’s impossible, like even the thrown-out ballots won’t difference, then this really dies quickly, this litigation avenue,

Andy Slavitt

right. So margin, a number of states will matter. I guess let’s put that we’ll start, we’ll start with the number one, you need  270 electoral votes, secondly, or 269 plus thousand people love to correct that. secondly, While Biden has an edge, there are a few states that are still coming in. And if he wins most of those states under a multiple different combination, then he’s in the lead. The next thing you said those will be the places that are closed will be challenged for recounts. There’ll be lawsuits. And the basically the margin of victory, as you just said, and the number of states are the things that are going to make the election safer or less safe.

Jessica Yellin  18:33

Excellent summary. This is why I love listening to you. Yes.

Andy Slavitt

Well, no, you’ve just you’ve just informed us all greatly. I don’t think every I don’t think anybody is yet ready to get off the edge of their seat. But, for people who are fully supporting Biden, it’s a better picture. Of course, we all think about how quickly that Justice was rushed. Amy Coney Barrett was rushed through the process, and at the time, seemed very, very important to Trump and McConnell. And it may in fact be.

Jessica Yellin

I will also add that I was a local reporter in Tampa, in the year 2000, in Florida, stationed in Tallahassee, and I saw how that rolled out. And so, you know, a lot of..

Andy Slavitt

What’s different. So what’s different? What’s the same?

Jessica Yellin

I mean, you know, what we learned, the important thing to remember from 2001 of the important things is that the Supreme Court tried not to take that case. The Supreme Court didn’t want to be the deciding factor in that election. And they actually the Florida Supreme Court issued a decision that was appealed to the High Court, and the High Court sent it back basically and said, We just want you to clarify this one thing you said, Would you just clarify this, and then it’s going to be done. And the Florida Supreme Court didn’t clarify, they didn’t respond to the high court’s request. And at that point, you know, the court decided that they had to issue a decision. Now, you know, people perceive that differently.

Andy Slavitt  20:05

Important subtlety.

Jessica Yellin

What it suggests is they don’t want to be the arbiter. And they also, you know, took a lot of heat for doing it. And it hurt the court and politicize the court. And I think there will be, at least from Justice Roberts real resistance to that. And if there’s a way that they can keep, you know, kicking this down to lower courts, if Roberts has his way, that would be my expectation. We again, don’t know the new math.

Andy Slavitt 

Interesting. And we know a little bit about how the local courts have ruled, by the way, while we were just talking, the APA did officially declare Wisconsin for Biden.

Jessica Yellin 

So now it’s Michigan plus Nevada or Pennsylvania for a Biden win, or Georgia.

Andy Slavitt 

Right. So he’s got to win. Now. He’s got to win two out of Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Georgia. Right.

Jessica Yellin 

And North Carolina hasn’t been called. But nobody’s at this point. We don’t have to be Biden. So that’s not mentioning it.

Andy Slavitt 

Yeah, I was on the phone with those folks today. And they agree it looks like it’s that didn’t turn out well. Speaking of North Carolina, what do you make of the Senate and how the Democrats sit in the Senate?

Jessica Yellin 

So this is another area where expectations and analysis were off. You know, the expectation this year is that the votes in the Senate would be a referendum on President Trump, and that Republican senators would lose badly if they’re tied to President Trump. And what we’ve seen is that in a number of states, the Senate, the Republican Senators have outperformed President Trump. And then there have been some outright surprises. For example, in Maine, we’re pulling an expectation showed that Susan Collins was toast. And just before you and I started recording, Sarah Gideon conceded to Collins and Collins remains in the Senate in one state after another, there have been a number of you know, some surprises in North Carolina, for example, I think Democrats worse, you know, they were hoping to unseat Lindsey Graham in South Carolina that might have been a fool’s errand given that that’s such a red state, you know, are they helping to get those votes? But it really does look like this is going to be a Republican, narrow margin Republican Senate going forward.

Andy Slavitt  22:15

So there’s two run offs in Georgia coming up. If the democrats win them both, can they? And Biden’s president? Is that enough for them to have the majority?

Jessica Yellin 

I think possibly I have to actually; I need to look at the math. I don’t think we think OSS off is going to run off. I think we think that it’s likely to be a Perdue at this point. But in the hypothetical, you know, a lot of things would have to break for Democrats right now in a way that I don’t think anyone expects them to. I think there’s six outstanding at the moment.

Andy Slavitt

Right. So I’m assuming that there’s the two pickups are Arizona, with Kelly, and Colorado with Hickenlooper and that last is Jones in Alabama. So that’s a net one. They didn’t pick up Iowa. They didn’t pick up Maine. They didn’t pick up North Carolina, although I don’t think that’s official, but I think that’s that seems to be what’s going to happen.

Jessica Yellin

Or Kansas or Texas or Alabama. Did you already say Alaska? That’s not going

Andy Slavitt

Yeah, nothing else.

Jessica Yellin

Michigan as soon as we started recording was still a dead heat. They could lose.

Andy Slavitt

No kidding.

Jessica Yellin

But it seems also again, those ballots are not counted. and when those come in Peters will be safe.

Andy Slavitt

Good. Peters, could pull it out. But even if they won the two Georgia seats, somehow, then they would have picked up three. And it was 53-47 was it?

Jessica Yellin

They needed net four or net three with Kamala Harris breaking the tie.

Andy Slavitt

Right. So they could still it’s still technically possible.

Jessica Yellin

You’re right, they could eke it out. And we would have such a dramatic future where Kamala Harris would have to come in and break every tie.

Andy Slavitt

Well, and the other thing that happens there, as you know, and I know from experience is every senator gets a little too much power. Because any senator, when you have it when you have a two-vote margin, there’s some safety in numbers. But if you’re Joe Manchin and you’re saying you’re representing a very conservative state, your vote matters so much that you start taking the say, you know, you don’t have a safe vote. And so it becomes very hard to govern. Interestingly, if 50/50 it’s not all bad. I mean, it requires more dialogue and more, more bipartisanship to get stuff done. And some people would say, that’s a good thing. But, you know, there is if we’re looking at a world and we’re gonna talk about the ACA in a minute, where you can pass your agenda, even at 50 with a Kamala Harris, tiebreaker. It’s not so straightforward.

Jessica Yellin

I mean, the positive version of your point is it does force more consensus and they will have to work on deals. So you know that could be the upside, the problem, the challenge right now is that this vote shows that Trumpism has not been repudiated and the Republican Party is Trump’s party. So how does a 50/50 Republican Senate govern as a Trump party in conflict that’s defined by being in conflict with Democrats that’s defined by not cutting deals. And then democrats will also be enraged and emboldened by this outcome, and by the past four years to, you know, push their agenda and really get as much done as possible early on. I don’t know that either side is going to be motivated to move to the center right now. Right, which is what’s required for that kind of Senate to be effective.

Andy Slavitt

Yeah, well, let’s talk about this. I mean, what does this tell us about our country? What is it tell you? What is it? We should never live with that conversation.

Jessica Yellin

I mean, you know, I think it tells us that we are extremely obviously polarized and divided that we don’t know each other as well, as we thought we did. I mean, from the Republican side, they were enraged in confidence that Democrats were going to be shocked by the outcome, and to some extent, they’ve been proven, right. Democrats I talked to today are, you know, extremely frustrated and a little stung that the country didn’t see what President Trump has done in COVID, that nothing that’s happened with 200,000 plus dead matters, because other things matter more? And so a lot of attention? I’ll just be blunt, like, let me just say the thing about attention focusing on is this about race, you know? And is this about like, Mr. Law and Order? And is this about some of the cultural and Flashpoint issues are more dominant on a lot of voters’ minds than, you know, how he’s responding to come in? Is he keeping us alive? Are we safe right now?

Andy Slavitt

Right, or I don’t even sometimes I wonder Jessica said even the issues? Or is it the person in the brand, that people respond to me, there’s a lot of people carrying Trump flags who, they’re not so policy driven. There’s some there’s evangelicals who are who care a lot about  their view on pro-life. There’s undoubtedly people who care about issues. And so this isn’t mended in any way to denigrate people’s perspectives. But there’s a lot of people also who I think, as you say, you we don’t necessarily know each other, but who, obviously, to a greater extent than we know, just are really compelled towards whatever that brand represents. And they and many of them would probably knowingly say they overlook some of the flaws, because of what that I don’t know that I can describe it perfectly well.

Jessica Yellin

I think it’s an excellent point. And it goes to impart it’s his anti-elite posture, right? He’s taking on the establishment and he is successful. He’s a bit like Berlusconi was in Italy, where he occupies the center of power, but always is still seen as taking on, you know, entrenched powers in America. And I think a lot of people in a way, the way people have experienced COVID, and the economic pain, they’re suffering, the pressures they’re undergoing. They’re under make Donald Trump’s kind of message resonate with a lot of people who feel disenfranchised. And you add that in with the fact that he has been nonstop on Facebook for the last six years spreading disinformation. That is remarkable. I think there’s a Facebook conversation to be had after this. And I say that at some personal risk, like my entire brand is built on Instagram and Facebook, but it needs to happen. And then, you know, I got to say the Trump team has been very effective at ground operations, reaching out to like evangelical leaders in Latino communities talking to Latinos all this time. And they’ve really been able to build a communication strategy where they’re engaging their people consistently in a way that I think Democrats haven’t really seen. It’s a little bit invisible because it’s on digital. And it’s effective.

Andy Slavitt

Yeah, I think that I think they were taken by surprise. I talked to a couple of the outreach leaders for Biden and the Hispanic community, and they had Inklings. But they were they were late developing Inklings, I think, relative to kind of what was going on there and remain somewhat similar but different story with not just black young men, but I think there’s a story among older black women evangelicals, many church going supporting Trump, that I think Democrats missed, I don’t know that those are things that to make made it made a difference in the election, but it does go to make the point that there are certain things that appeal about him. That are people who are repelled by him don’t understand. He said something else I want to pick up on which is You made the comparison to Berlusconi from Italy. I get the sense from this election, now that we are officially much, much more like the rest of the world, in our politics than we once were, that worldwide, that the left has become the party of the slightly more educated people, the right has become a party of slightly less educated. And by that I don’t mean smart or not smart. I just mean their sort of level of education and where that puts them in society. And it feels like this this appeal to the to the Berlusconi’s and the Trump’s by kind of people who used to be union going. And in the in this 60s 70s 80s and early 90s, were supporters of Democrats are becoming very much the heart of the Republican Party.

Jessica Yellin  30:54

And I think some of that goes back to 2008. And the way the federal government responded to our economic collapse, and that the federal government really brought back the banks and the financial institutions, and then big companies, and the rich got richer. And I you know; it covered the Obama White House at that point. And so I really had granular, like, evidence in this. And basically, you know, there’s a rescue for Wall Street, but not for Main Street. And nobody knew how that would play out. And I think we’re seeing part of that play out right now.

Andy Slavitt

Yeah, Iraq War, we could probably point to a lot of things that the elites did that, you know, that people rebel from, let me ask you another political question. And you get asked me, we can talk about a pandemic, and so forth. What do you expect to hear from the far left from the Bernie Sanders crowd out of this? How will they interpret the election? And what difference Do you think that ends up making and politics within the democratic party?

Jessica Yellin

I think to some extent, it depends on what happens in this interregnum period, you know, the litigation and how protracted it becomes if there’s a quick Biden win this week. He will, it’ll be one scenario. But if this gets really drawn out, I think that even emboldens the progressive wing further, I think in either case, the you know, like the young part of the Democratic Party, the progressive part of the Democratic Party has consistently been saying, Democrats are in this back on our heels position consistently, because the other side is fighting, and we’re playing nice. And they’re going to want to go for all of it quickly, as big as they can. Because this was going to be an opportunity. And, you know, if you look at it holistically, we’re in this period of political volatility, right, where the right has swung further. Right. And I think the left that the momentum is for them to pull the party left. But the dynamic we’re describing, like the political reality, will make it really hard, like Pelosi picked up some seats in the House. But how do you push a progressive agenda in a 50/50 Senate?

Andy Slavitt  32:55

Right, right. I think you’re right. I think that there is a there’s a set Republicans that you got to be in charge and in your charge, you make all the rules. There’s a sense, I think, among Democrats and progressives, that this is not a Senator out country anymore, that they have to do the same. But you know, winning, there’s less and less evidence, potentially, that at least with this electorate, and there’s gonna be new generations coming, but at least with this electorate, that you can win an electoral college. On that kind of agenda now. Things will change it in four years from now. AOC could be president, you never know.

Jessica Yellin

Yeah. Who knows? It’s, you know, we can’t make it. I’m out of the prediction business. I was never into it, but really out now.

Andy Slavitt

Don’t go anywhere, we’ve got to go earn some money to donate to charity.

Jessica Yellin  34:00

I’m really curious to know, let’s take the scenario that the Republicans have a narrow margin in the Senate and the Supreme Court, you know, in some way guts, the ACA. What do you foresee?

Andy Slavitt

Well, I think the first thing is that I think the most likely gutting of the ACA is probably a partial gutting not a complete gutting. So I think, if I’m a justice, a conservative justice, do I really want to say that there is no such thing is severability and to explain that to the folks listening in, which basically says that if there’s one small part of a law, including one word, which is what’s at stake here, that you got to throw out the entire law, it would seem to me that that’s a pretty bad precedent to set. If you’re a young justice, you’re 48 years old, you’re 52 years old, whatever you are, you’re going to hear thousands, thousands of cases. Now, I don’t think severability is quite such I think it’s a pretty flexible precedent. I don’t think it’s a strict precedent. So In certainly there’s a lot of relativism in these decisions, a lot of politics, nice decisions. But I think, you know, the court likes to split the baby a little bit, and saying, you know what, we’re gonna take a small part of the law and throw it out the mitt, you know, and if it’s just the mandate, no big deal.

Andy Slavitt

If it’s the mandate, because the mandates effectively gone, if it’s the mandate plus preexisting conditions, well, that’s a big deal. If it’s a mandate, plus preexisting additions and the exchanges, that’s a really big deal, if it’s those things plus, Medicaid expansion, that’s an enormous deal. And you can go on and on, it could get bigger and bigger before you get to the whole law, So my first instinct is that they’ll probably play around in that space somewhere. And the kind of place where they would do very little harm, let’s just say the mandates out. And it may be then that Congress has a little bit of repair work to do. And if it was a clean sweep by the Democrats, they could definitely do repair work. They could build an aggressive agenda, fix the ACA, do all of those other things. If those if that’s not in the card, then and there’s a there’s a small amount of fixing to do, I wouldn’t rule it out. But I think that’s where you live.

Andy Slavitt  36:14

Now, if they throw out the whole thing, or large parts of it, let’s say they get rid of Medicaid expansion, which basically takes billions of dollars away from the States as  12 million people to the insured list, marginal low-income people. The real question then is, how does Pelosi do Pelosi and McConnell come together? On a compromise there? And before today, we’ve been inclined to say no, that Pelosi doesn’t compromise. But at this level, I think it’s possible that everybody says if we do it quickly, we can kind of, we can kind of make some sort of tweaks, I wouldn’t bet against it. Because I think it’s entirely possible, McConnell comes out day one, and if Biden’s president and says the same thing he said last time, which is I’m gonna make him a one termer. If that’s the case, then you know, we’re gonna, we’re gonna end up living with what the court gives us. And there’s a lot of responsibility for these justices.

Jessica Yellin

I have a million questions. One is, if McConnell does what you’re saying, to do people who are on Obamacare who have pigs, do they lose it instantly? And, the medic, you know, do people who rely on this lose their care instantly? And can the states step in and create their own pay for and solve this piecemeal?

Andy Slavitt

Right. So two to the two parts of this, the court can decide when it wants to, and they can, they can stay it, they can do it instantly, they can do a lot of things. It would be surprising if they did it if they did it instantly. Now, the states, of course, can do anything they want, if they have the money. And this relates to another question, which is that one of the biggest and most important things that that needs to happen now is this is this next pandemic bill dependent relief bill for state, because states are really hurting, they get massive budget, budget deficits, and very limited ability, as people might know, to raise the money themselves. So they’re already in a tough spot, the money that would the money that currently goes to subsidies into Medicaid would go back and tax cuts to wealthy individuals and corporations right away. So states could open up an exchange, but the subsidies that they need to have low income people be able to afford coverage and for Medicaid expansion doesn’t exist. And so, you know, if your

Jessica Yellin  38:41

Is there a federal government that can fix that, correct?

Andy Slavitt

Well, I mean, if you were if you were in different financial circumstances, if you’re in California, and you had a $20 billion surplus, which they had, by the way, when Newsome took office, they could spend it on those sorts of things. But we’re not in a situation where that happens. Massachusetts, for example, under Romney, they were able to budget for it. It’s very difficult to imagine that states have the funds to do it. And really here they can outlaw now they can do is they can outlaw insurance companies from discriminating against people with preexisting conditions. And if they’re blue states, they many of them have done that. Others might do that. But that in of itself doesn’t get them the insurance.

Jessica Yellin

Okay, can I just ask you separately? If Biden were to become president, which is, what can he do independently? To address, you know, the challenges of COVID-19 right now, how much is he able to do and what would you want him to do? Regardless of what Congress, how deadlocked Congress is?

Andy Slavitt

So I think there’s three tools that you have. You have a set of regulatory and operating tools, the executive branch, and I think Biden will be a master at those and using those, and I think those will include how to basically get more production and defense production act, how to get more masks, how to unify a lot of that kind of operational things that Trump has really ignored, or just not done very well. The second tool that you have at the federal government level is money. And, that’s really important. And here’s, here’s an example, paid medical leave. So if you are working at an Amazon warehouse, Jessica, and you know, you’re feeling sick, if you don’t have paid medical leave, you’re gonna keep working, there’s just no possible way for you not to. So there’s no way to really end this pandemic, unless we give people the opportunity to afford to isolate, you need money for that you need Congress for that, that’s something that is going to be a little bit more challenging.

Andy Slavitt  40:56

And then the third thing you have is probably, in some ways, the hardest and most important, which is how you commute But the third thing is communication, and how you how you bring the country together and help them understand what they’re up against here, and what messages you give. And this is sort of, you know, putting your arms around governors like DeSantis who are exporting, and can export to the country, a lot of COVID. So, you know, this is these are skills that that Biden has Biden is foot by, you know, I think it’s a very hard challenge. But if there’s anybody who can have a think about unifying the country and creating unifying messages and taking heat down, I think he’ll want to do that, that’ll be his biggest challenge.

Andy Slavitt

And then fourth, is the science. And, you know, we will have some vaccines ready to go, how they are distributed, we’re gonna have an upcoming show, in a couple weeks on, and you know, that requires a degree of skill and capabilities that I think it’s gonna be tough for anybody. But I think Biden, I know, for a fact has been thinking about how to do it and these issues. for quite a while we’ve gotten people started to get a gauge, and that’ll roll out over the course of the next six months, nine months, and then we got more vaccines that need to be approved. So that’s kind of my sense of how he looks at it.

Jessica Yellin  42:18

So that starts at the end of January, we have a period in before that, that we have to get through. What would you at the bare minimum, what would you want this next lamed up Congress to pass? What do you think Pelosi and McConnell and the White House can agree on right now that’s essential? And what should we look for?

Andy Slavitt

So, here’s my sense of this is a really tricky period. And I suspect, I don’t know what you think I don’t think anything is passed. I think McConnell is pretty much set as much. I think he’s; I don’t see that changing. I think that what’s really tricky though, is if you’re Biden, and you know, you are in a period of time, while the election really hasn’t been called. And then there’s a period of time where if you win, you know, you could technically begin the transition process. What you don’t know is what kind of transition you’ll get from the Trump administration. And I think you have to assume that it’s going to be less than ideal. Right? So what so what do you do about that? There are career  civil servants all across the FDA and the CDC, who are just dying, just countless people out there just dying for somebody to come in and let them do their jobs. I don’t think it’ll be very hard to activate them. Again, I think you appoint, you name and you call your CDC and FDA people and some of your key people on the on the response right away. There’s governors and county commissioners and folks who are going to have to carry the brunt of things for the next few weeks through a very difficult period of COVID. I mean, probably the worst we’re going to see, it couldn’t happen at the worst time. And, you know, if I were Biden, I’d be leaning in as hard as I could. I mean, normally, I would say you’re the right advice is one president at a time. You don’t do anything till January   21st. But like we all are going to have to pull that in this together. And I think he’s got to be able to keep probably should have his team lean in as far as humanly possible.

Jessica Yellin  44:31

So, you’re saying he should bully pulpit this?

Andy Slavitt

He should start bully pulpit in this. And he should start calling together governors, and sitting down and reviewing the data, he should start releasing, you know, whenever data is just start getting into the right sets of habits,

Jessica Yellin

Acting like he’s in charge. You know, it’s interesting, because Obama did that a little bit when he was transitioning and during the crisis. We’ve already seen a little bit of this from Biden, you know, he won the race to the podium last night. He got out there. So it looks like we’re going to win, all the votes will be counted before President Trump can do anything. So I think that his team is not just primed from the experience of, you know, correcting for what happened with Hillary. But there are people on his team, who were young staffers dealing with the 2000 recount in Florida, and learn the lessons of Al Gore’s sort of, like, slower to the podium style. And I think that what you’re signaling is something they’ll really get,

Andy Slavitt

Yeah, that’s smart and I’ve been, I talked to their health care team, and the transition people all the time. And my sense is you, you can never be fully prepared for a scenario like this. But there’s so many good people, I mean, the health that the democrats just have a lot of health care people, it’s just they have an abundance that they got 10 health care people for everyone, maybe 20, for everyone that Republicans have. And I’m sure there’s an equivalent, you know, of a deal with probably the department of defense, there’s probably 20 for every democrat, but  he’s out there, there’s a lot of talent he’s got, they’ve got to organize it. And they got to get, you know, they got to get moving, they’ve got to treat this transition the right way. Look, I think there’s something to be said for, like, you always want to know, like, what is the issue that really matters to the President. And everyone I know in the Trump team knows that anybody that makes him look bad, is really disappointing him. What Biden has to get across very quickly, is any, I’m not putting my head on the pillow and having a sleep, a good night’s sleep, until every one of our medical professionals is fully equipped, I’m not putting my head on the pillow. Until every one of those kids is reunited back with their families, I’m not putting my head on the pillow, until we have testing for every school in the country. And when the President sends those messages, and you have good people, it’s very, very powerful. Now, it’ll take them a little bit to get organized. But my sense is that Biden kind of his heart and his head kind of merged on this issue into this sort of, I know what’s right, I know what I want to do. And I think that will be hopefully that’ll help drive change.

Jessica Yellin

And in fact, the sort of scenario we’re describing plays to Biden’s strengths, which is he has a proclivity to reach out to the other side, he wants to create consensus, he wants to if there’s any area of overlap, he will try. So I think on all the points, you’ve said, they would get this, you know, using the bully pulpit, working Congress to the extent he can if not just pulling all the levers in the executive, I just want to ask you, you’ve painted sort of a dark scenario for the interregnum period, if you’re a regular person listening to this, or a parent at home, or somebody who wants to know how to prepare for what’s ahead. It sounds like it’s going to be a little bit of a scary few months,

Andy Slavitt

Here’s what I’d say. You have not been able to count on the federal government so far, they have not come through for you. This will be no worse. You have to think about long and hard about Thanksgiving. That is a very dangerous time. Because what we know about indoor transmission, and cold weathers and bringing multiple generations together. And now the size of gatherings where this is spreading is absolutely peak, Thanksgiving. So you know, take a year, my mantra is gonna be taken up all holidays off. If we had done this Memorial Day and done this at Fourth of July, we could have had a great Labor Day. If we had done it a labor day, we could have had a good Thanksgiving. If we don’t do it a labor to eventually we’re going to have to do this and a vaccine is not going to be the answer all by itself. At some point, we will have to say you know what, we’re just gonna bite the bullet. And do this. I know it’s gonna it’s everyone’s tired. Everyone’s fatigued from this. But it doesn’t matter. We will keep living with this as long as we don’t choose to make other options. Tough thing for Biden to come in and persuade people of sacrifice is not an it’s not a word our country has much practice within the last 70 years. But unless we begin to do that, I don’t think we help each other get out of this.

Jessica Yellin 

Those are harsh words, but important words, I guess they’re not harsh, but they’re hard to hear, but it’s important. And can you describe what that means? Just specifically, like we stay home on Thanksgiving, we don’t go to see our families.

Andy Slavitt

I would not bring multiple generations together. I would only spend Thanksgiving with the people you’re already spending time with. That’s the best approach to like, get on Zoom, do a Zoom-Giving, you know, have some fun with it. Whatever get a smaller Turkey.

Jessica Yellin

You know, Andy, what FOX NEWS is gonna say is that the Democrats are killing Thanksgiving and the Democrats are killing Christmas.

Andy Slavitt 

That’s their secret hope.

Jessica Yellin

2020 everyone.

Andy Slavitt

Oh boy. Hey, well, Jessica, thank you so much for coming on. It’s so generous of you to this was a great recap to do together, we will do this again.

Jessica Yellin

I would love it. Thank you for having me, really. You’re very special.

Andy Slavitt 

Thank you. Let’s do this again. Maybe when we figure this thing out.

Jessica Yellin  50:24

Okay. Sounds like a plan.

Andy Slavitt 

That was so much fun having Jessica going through all this. I should remind you that she is in Emmy and Gracie award winning political journalist. Fantastic insights. Obviously, from her time as the white house correspondent, the Chief White House correspondent at CNN. But she’s been on. I’m sure you’ve seen it everywhere. CNN, ABC NEWS, MSNBC. She does a great job covering the Capitol. Don’t forget, at @jessicayellin is the Instagram. And you can really find what she does on her NEWS NOT NOISE. Let me tell you what else is coming up.

Andy Slavitt 

You can keep track; I’ll keep tracking selection on Twitter. But we’re going to get back to some podcasts next week. And we’re not going to be entirely focused on the election because we got a pandemic to manage, people. Monday, the podcast that I think you’re really gonna want to hear, which is about we have experts on how to get through winter, how things work at winter, how to keep safe during winter, indoor outdoor, we’re gonna have to get through it. So you’re gonna have to listen, second, on Wednesday, Eric Topol, who will take a great look at the pandemic, and all of the science and everything that’s going on. He is brilliant. He’s wonderful. And then the following Monday, we’re going to dive into what a next term and the meaning of the next term will look like in managing the pandemic and I will have guests on from the winning side of this election. And I am very, very confident and hopeful that we will know by then. Thank you, everybody. I really appreciate you all.

Andy Slavitt  52:20

Thanks for listening IN THE BUBBLE. Hope you rate us highly. We are a production of Lemonada Media. Kryssy Pease and Alex McOwen produced the show. Our mix is by Ivan Kuraev. My son, Zach Slavitt emeritus co-host and onsite producer improved by the much better Lana Slavitt, my wife. Jessica Cordova Kramer and Stephanie Wittels Wachs still brew our lives that executive produced the show. And our theme was composed by Dan Molad and overhill and additional music by Ivan Kuraev. You can find out more about our show on social media at @lemonadamedia. And you can find me at @aslavitt on Twitter or at @andyslavitt on Instagram. If you like what you heard today, most importantly, please tell your friends to come listen, but still tell him at a distance or with a mask. And please stay safe, share some joy and we will get through this together. Hashtag stay home

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