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Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.

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Speaker 2: Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,

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Speaker 3: dot com.

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Speaker 2: Hey guys, for my podcast with Kyle recorded a great

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Speaker 2: interview with Matt Brunnig from the People's Policy Project. Got

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Speaker 2: into a lot about healthcare and some of the lives

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Speaker 2: that have been spread recently, but also got his reaction

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Speaker 2: to this New Wall Street Journal reporting about how Biden's

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Speaker 2: aids hit him and lied to the public about the

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Speaker 2: state of his decline. Enjoy this interview, and if you

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Speaker 2: do like it and want the full thing and to

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Speaker 2: get our interviews every single week, you can subscribe on substack.

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Speaker 2: We'll have the link down below for you in any case, enjoy. Matt,

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Speaker 2: I want zoomount a little bit to talk to you

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Speaker 2: about the Biden administration, the legacy. I saw you tweeting

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Speaker 2: about this Wall Street Journal article that just came out

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Speaker 2: where I don't know if you've seen it yet, babe,

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Speaker 2: but they've got all these details of the links that

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Speaker 2: his aides went to, Oh I did see this yet

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Speaker 2: to cover up his incredible decline. They begin with this

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Speaker 2: anecdote of Michael Lo Rosa out there touting the first lady,

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Speaker 2: Jill Biden, like her campaign schedule and how she'd been

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Speaker 2: to so many places in Iowa, and the staff was

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Speaker 2: pissed at him because they're like, well, in contrast, this

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Speaker 2: makes Joe Biden look terrible because you can't really do anything.

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Speaker 2: So obviously there's the age and declined part. But I also, yeah,

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Speaker 2: and I'd love to get your reaction just to that piece, Matt,

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Speaker 2: because you were saying, and it is incredible they knew

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Speaker 2: all this, and yet they still decided to go forward

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Speaker 2: with him. They still decided, Hey, it's a good idea

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Speaker 2: for you to get out there and debate Donald Trump.

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Speaker 2: Like none of us can really know what was going

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Speaker 2: on in their minds. But did they just they just

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Speaker 2: didn't think there was any choice but to sort of

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Speaker 2: march go forward on this death march? Were they send

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Speaker 2: it a failure?

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Speaker 1: They did the debate early in case something like this happens,

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Speaker 1: they could try to pull the plug, right, Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: don't have the theory.

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Speaker 2: I don't know what do you what do you read

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Speaker 2: into all about mat Yeah?

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Speaker 4: I mean it's hard to figure out the mixture of things, right,

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Speaker 4: because Biden is making decisions, and so maybe on some level,

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Speaker 4: you know, if Biden wants a debate, he's going to debate.

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Speaker 4: There's nothing you can do to make him not debate.

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Speaker 4: But the individual staffers also make decisions, right, So that's

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Speaker 4: the part I don't If I'm an individual staffer and

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Speaker 4: I see the situation as it is as we all

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Speaker 4: now understand it, why wouldn't I do something, say something.

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Speaker 4: I mean, you could resign, you could do whatever, right

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Speaker 4: to make a big fuss about it, especially if you think,

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Speaker 4: as so many seem to, that Trump was this sort

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Speaker 4: of existentially, you know, horrible figure that we needed to avoid,

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Speaker 4: and you're going to play this game where somehow we're

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Speaker 4: going to hide Biden. But then he's also going to

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Speaker 4: win an election without what because it's not even just

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Speaker 4: the debate, right, that was a singular moment, but debate

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Speaker 4: elections involved a tremendous amount of public appearances and interviews

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Speaker 4: and whatever, and you're not going to be able to

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Speaker 4: hide him away from that. So I don't I don't know.

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Speaker 4: I find that that whatever the thought process involved in

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Speaker 4: all that very very strange. And to say even okay,

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Speaker 4: well so we had the debate early, Well you need

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Speaker 4: to be thinking about this before the primary, right because oh, well,

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Speaker 4: he can bow out after the debate. And then what

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Speaker 4: we're left with Harris, who at that point had been

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Speaker 4: a very unsuccessful politician. I mean, you know, she's a senator,

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Speaker 4: but presidentially she'd done very very poorly. So yeah, I

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Speaker 4: don't know, a lot of bad decision making in that.

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Speaker 1: And then yeah, they ka cooned Biden's closest aids, coconed

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Speaker 1: him to hide him and to protect him from public scoreol.

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Speaker 1: And then the other people who were in contact with

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Speaker 1: him was probably limited. And then if you think about

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Speaker 1: all the incentive structures, it makes it so that it's

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Speaker 1: just like, hey, shut up, don't say anything. If you

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Speaker 1: resign and you try to virtue signal about how this

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Speaker 1: is a problem, you're immediately going to be castigated as

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Speaker 1: you're like a you know, a right wing op. You

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Speaker 1: don't have a future in any democratic politics anymore. So,

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Speaker 1: like all of the incentive structures are there to just

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Speaker 1: kind of force everybody to don't ask, don't tell. Right,

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Speaker 1: It's like it don't ask, don't tell policies.

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Speaker 2: I mean, his circle of advisors has been the same

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Speaker 2: since like nineteens.

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Speaker 1: Right, And they're willing to lie for him. They're willing

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Speaker 1: to lie for him.

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Speaker 2: As family members, right, and yeah, and you know there's

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Speaker 2: lots of reporting about how he didn't want to hear

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Speaker 2: any negative news and so they didn't bring him.

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Speaker 1: And by the way, Trump was the same way, right,

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Speaker 1: Like it's funny that the ego there are.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there are some Trumpian characters er.

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Speaker 1: Hear anything negative to show me Trump famously, so that

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Speaker 1: would say, show me the good things and have it

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Speaker 1: like on one page and big font. They have to

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Speaker 1: have his name in the briefing in order for him

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Speaker 1: to be like that's right, Trump, I like this.

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Speaker 2: And since you already have this very narrow circle of

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Speaker 2: longtime advisors established with very few you know, people who

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Speaker 2: have been able to penetrate that in the past couple

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Speaker 2: of years. If you're someone who has any kind of

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Speaker 2: an inn, you know that the minute you tell him

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Speaker 2: something he doesn't want to hear, you're out. And so

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Speaker 2: he surrounds himself with yes men and women, and then

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Speaker 2: you know, creates self, creates this bubble, and then that's

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Speaker 2: reinforced by the aid's desire to hide from the public

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Speaker 2: and even from like cabinet secretaries and members of Congress

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Speaker 2: what's going on. And it's in everybody's self interest to

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Speaker 2: perpetuate this thing right up into the point where it's

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Speaker 2: it's not possible. There's an anecdote in here. They say,

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Speaker 2: if the president was having an off day, meetings could

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Speaker 2: be scrapped altogether. On one such occasion the spring of

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, twenty twenty one, people were talking about

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Speaker 2: Here a national security official explain to another AID why

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Speaker 2: a meeting needed to be rescheduled. Quote, he has good

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Speaker 2: days and bad days, and today was a bad day,

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Speaker 2: so we're going to address this tomorrow. Like so, it

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Speaker 2: does raise a lot of questions about how many people

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Speaker 2: around him knew the state of this decline, and as

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Speaker 2: you said, Matt, like some of them I guess maybe

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Speaker 2: earnestly believed what they were saying about Trump being this

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Speaker 2: genuine threat, and yet they're so terrified I think of

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Speaker 2: any kind of an actual democratic process that they just

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Speaker 2: like push forward anyway in spite of really knowing what's

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Speaker 2: going on.

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Speaker 1: I feel like a bigger problem is the media, right,

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Speaker 1: because it really was on the media to sort of

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Speaker 1: be like, Okay, we got issues here and take the

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Speaker 1: candidate seriously. You know, the people who ran Mary Williamson, ran,

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Speaker 1: Dean Phillips ran like there were the door was opened

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Speaker 1: a little bit, right, but the media shut them all out,

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Speaker 1: didn't talk about them, made them seem ridiculous. And obviously

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Speaker 1: all the governors who had a chance, like Gavin Newsoon

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Speaker 1: and all of them, they sort of found and mid

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Speaker 1: terms were decent. Yeah, but like, don't I'm curious what

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Speaker 1: you think, Matt, was it was a bigger problem the

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Speaker 1: media and this whole thing for not taking challengers to

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Speaker 1: Biden seriously or reporting.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the that's the media failure. I'd focus on

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Speaker 4: more than anything. I remember Olivia Newsy had a piece

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Speaker 4: shortly after kind of this all went down with the debate,

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Speaker 4: where I mean, she basically is indicating that, you know,

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Speaker 4: she's known that he's had trouble for a while, she's

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Speaker 4: been covering him, and and she kind of then lays

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Speaker 4: it all out and that's all well and good. But

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Speaker 4: then you know, you kind of look at it and

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Speaker 4: you think, well, Olivia, maybe you should have written about

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Speaker 4: this a year ago when you seem to have indicated

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Speaker 4: you had knowledge of it, and there had to be

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Speaker 4: a number of media people who had some kind of

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Speaker 4: information about it. It seemed like partially what happened among

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Speaker 4: liberal media is they just decided that this was like a.

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Speaker 5: Fox News lie. I remember there was a what was it?

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Speaker 5: It was? They had a special counsel to investigate.

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Speaker 4: Uh oh that's right, Yeah, they classified doc Robert Hurt.

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Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes, and this dude was like, yeah, he's

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Speaker 1: an old man who means well, but damn his brain

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Speaker 1: is not working. Everybody was like sir, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 4: He specifically was saying, look, I don't know if we

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Speaker 4: should bring charges against him for the mishandling of these documents,

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Speaker 4: because like he's he's really not there. And I remember

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Speaker 4: I actually remember Atglesias was so incensed by this, and

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Speaker 4: I thought it was a decent point at the time.

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Speaker 4: I mean, I thought, you know, to get my cards

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Speaker 4: on the table. I wrote something in Political in twenty

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Speaker 4: twenty during the or twenty nineteen, during the dim primary

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Speaker 4: then that that Biden was his mind was gone. But

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Speaker 4: you know, it was sort of like, oh, what a

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Speaker 4: clever thing this. They couldn't find enough evidence to charge him,

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Speaker 4: so instead they're going to spear him and say that

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Speaker 4: he's just completely gone. And you know, I don't know,

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Speaker 4: just this sort of desire to think, well, that's a

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Speaker 4: right wing smear, that's a right wing smear, that's a

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Speaker 4: right wing smear, I think kept people from looking at

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Speaker 4: the reality and reporting it correctly.

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Speaker 1: That happened with Julian He was like, did you just

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Speaker 1: forget the thing you said five seconds ago? And it

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Speaker 1: was something that us Bernie people at the time were

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Speaker 1: kind of pointing out, like, hey man, he lost his

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Speaker 1: fastball at the very least. But it was just maybe

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Speaker 1: that's part of the problem is that everybody dismissed it

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Speaker 1: then and he won the election, so it sort of

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Speaker 1: felt like, well, I guess they were being hyperball, like

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Speaker 1: if the guy could win, obviously his brain's working good enough, right,

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Speaker 1: and so then but then everybody like time continues.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, well, and there's also there's also a question.

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Speaker 4: I mean, it seems pretty clear that you don't have

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Speaker 4: to be fully there cognitively to be president, you know,

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Speaker 4: so in a way, you could kind of I could

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Speaker 4: see someone reasoning like, well, who cares, Like we had

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Speaker 4: Trump and we had Biden, Reagan had Alzheimer's or something

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Speaker 4: like that.

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Speaker 5: You know, one, really it's not really that necessary.

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Speaker 4: But the problem is that even though it seems like

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Speaker 4: it doesn't, really it's not strictly necessary, when voters realize

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Speaker 4: that you're that way, that turns them off, So it

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Speaker 4: becomes necessary.

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Speaker 2: Don't look like a yeah, you're having like a bowl

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Speaker 2: of mush shit?

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Speaker 1: What does that say about us as a country? That

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Speaker 1: he's right like that? People were like, yeah, maybe his

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Speaker 1: brain doesn't work, but like whatever.

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Speaker 2: His strongest defenders at the end were like Bernie and AOC.

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Speaker 1: You remember that political calculation is what that was. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean I think it was that.

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Speaker 2: But I think also ideologically, like on an idea, like

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Speaker 2: we got Lena Khan and this transition I do want

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Speaker 2: to hear your your thoughts, matt On. Kind of like

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Speaker 2: the Biden economic legacy. We got Lena Khan, We got

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Speaker 2: Jennifer Bruzzo at the NLRB, who was fantastic. You know,

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Speaker 2: we got some industrial policy and a few things that

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Speaker 2: are like a legitimate, minor but legitimate break with the

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Speaker 2: neoliberal era. And with Kamala you were less likely to

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Speaker 2: get those things. So I do think that was part

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Speaker 2: of the calculus with them too, is like, I don't

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Speaker 2: really care that his brain is cooked. At least who

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Speaker 2: got Lena.

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Speaker 1: We also got Gaza, and that is enough of an

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Speaker 1: excuse for them to tell the truth, right.

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Speaker 2: Sure, I'm not man, Yes, I'm just trying to explain

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Speaker 2: the thinking because it's Kamalaly also gave no indication that

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Speaker 2: she was cool.

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Speaker 1: Well, they going to break with Biden Onza, He's not

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Speaker 1: stepping down. I've heard him say it a thousand times.

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Speaker 1: He's not going to step down, So everybody just shut

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Speaker 1: the fuck up and accept it. I think that was

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Speaker 1: their thinking. If Biden wins, then will have his ear

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Speaker 1: because we're the ones who defended him.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, No, I think the I think the because I

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Speaker 4: remember for a while, it wasn't even clear it was

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Speaker 4: going to be Harris that would take over. There was

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Speaker 4: a lot of you know, when they were saying all that,

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Speaker 4: no one knew what would happen. But I think the

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Speaker 4: assumption there from Bernie world, you know Bernie specifically, not

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Speaker 4: like you know, his fans, but was Look, Biden very

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Speaker 4: very clearly is not going to step down. He has

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Speaker 4: made this so clear. So here's a little moment where

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Speaker 4: kind of the center is abandoning him and they're calling

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Speaker 4: on him to step down. We know he's not going to,

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Speaker 4: so what if we kind of, you know, suck up

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Speaker 4: get close to him? And he did actually adopt some

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Speaker 4: of their policies. I remember in that innert brief period

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Speaker 4: after the debate before he dropped out, they got him

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Speaker 4: to endorse national rank control.

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Speaker 1: So you know, I I forgot about that. You remember that,

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Speaker 1: I totally forgot about it. By the way, to your point, guys,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of weird that Iglesias was such a big

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Speaker 1: defender of Biden, given that Iglesias has made crystal clear

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Speaker 1: that his politics economically are much more like a Bill

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Speaker 1: Clinton or Barack Obama than a Joe Biden. So why

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Speaker 1: was he such we shouldn't he have been arguing that

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Speaker 1: Biden has gone too far left on economic issues? You

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Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like it's not even ideologically they're

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Speaker 1: actually not lined up. Yeah, but he still was like

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Speaker 1: one of his biggest defenders. What do you make of that?

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Speaker 5: You know, I don't know. Glaciers has a complicated views.

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Speaker 5: You know, at some level.

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Speaker 4: He wrote the One Billion Americans book, you know some Yeah,

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Speaker 4: and then and.

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Speaker 2: Now it's like you people like immigration too much? Hold

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Speaker 2: the phone here, buddy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he just pretended like he didn't write the book.

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Speaker 2: But that is not How do you see uh in

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Speaker 2: terms of the economic legacy? You know, it's always difficult

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Speaker 2: to just be like put aside the genocide, but you know,

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Speaker 2: on some of the economic pieces, do you see Biden

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Speaker 2: as sort of transitional figure that the parallel that often

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Speaker 2: comes to mind is like a Jimmy Carter, who was

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Speaker 2: this transitional figure between like the New Deal era and

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Speaker 2: the neoliberal era, And I do think Joe Biden in

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Speaker 2: some ways occupies that same sort of space. How significant

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Speaker 2: do you see some of the breaks being, you know,

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Speaker 2: from neoliberalism? Do you think where did that come from like,

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Speaker 2: was that just like ron Klain? Was it Bernie Sanders influence?

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Speaker 2: Was it just that's where the center of the party

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Speaker 2: was now and sort of where the world is moving?

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Speaker 2: What do you make of some of those pieces?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so what happened there? I think on the administrative

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Speaker 4: agency front, what seems to have happened with someone like

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Speaker 4: Lena Kahan or Canter is that if you recall in

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Speaker 4: the twenty twenty primary, Warren kind of didn't really endorse

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Speaker 4: Bernie when she dropped out, which was a little bit

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Speaker 4: of a blow because now it was sort of like

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Speaker 4: the left block. It seemed like she was given essentially,

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Speaker 4: I don't know if a literal dispensation for that or what,

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Speaker 4: but she seemed to have been allowed to select the

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Speaker 4: FTC chair and some of these other administrative cabinet level officials.

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Speaker 4: So that seems to be what happened there, right in

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Speaker 4: the same way that buddhach Edge became Department of Transportation secretary,

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Speaker 4: Warren's dispensation for her behavior in the election was that

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Speaker 4: she got to pick those nominees, So you know what

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Speaker 4: have we So it was always very funny like are

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Speaker 4: we talking about Biden administration?

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Speaker 5: Are we talking about Biden himself.

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Speaker 4: Biden Himself's mind is so gone, what do we even

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Speaker 4: You know, it's always just sort of like which puppet

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Speaker 4: is is or which puppeteer is running which piece of

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Speaker 4: this puzzle. The other thing he did would have been

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Speaker 4: kind of run the economy hot, this sort of like

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Speaker 4: macro economic stimulus stuff that seemed to be coming out

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Speaker 4: of what was just kind of the consensus liberals to

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Speaker 4: progressive opinion on what happened after two thousand and eight,

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Speaker 4: which is that Obama did not pass a big enough

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Speaker 4: stimulus and that kept the economy depressed for a decade,

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Speaker 4: and so they're trying to learn the lessons from that

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Speaker 4: and that, I mean, you could find that pretty much

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Speaker 4: anyway in any of the kind of center left to

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Speaker 4: left policy world, and that's where he would have staffed

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Speaker 4: his agency, staffed his administration with those same kind of people,

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Speaker 4: whether it's Center for American Progress, Roosevelt people like that.

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Speaker 4: So that there's that part of it industrial policy and then.

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Speaker 5: And then climate right.

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Speaker 4: So I don't know, these just sort of these strands

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Speaker 4: that he picked up, and it's kind of hard in

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Speaker 4: retrospect to know how much he was hip to it

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Speaker 4: or what exactly was going on, but it seemed to

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Speaker 4: be he managed to get the people who managed to

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Speaker 4: control him were people who were, you know, of those

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Speaker 4: various policy sort of persuasions.

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Speaker 1: One of the things I fear is that the Infrastructure

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Speaker 1: Bill and the IRA and the Chips Act, and like

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Speaker 1: the lasting positive implications of that, that that's all going

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Speaker 1: to happen under the Trump presidency and Trump will just

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Speaker 1: hop in front of that parade and pretend like it

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Speaker 1: was his tax cuts for the rich that did it

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Speaker 1: or something, you know. So it makes me fear like,

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Speaker 1: you know, a backslide, a potential backslide.

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Speaker 5: It.

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Speaker 1: We have this debate like long ago about whether or

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Speaker 1: not the neoliberal era was actually coming to an end,

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Speaker 1: and my case was that because of the deleterious impact

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Speaker 1: of money and politics, it basically locks in a sort

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Speaker 1: of neoliberal era because the politicians are always going to

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Speaker 1: default doing what their donors want them to do, which

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Speaker 1: is always neoliberal. And it makes me wonder, like, let's

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Speaker 1: assume for a second, a Democrat wins in twenty twenty eight,

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Speaker 1: which is very possible considering how batchit crazy, this administration

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Speaker 1: is going to be a let's say you get a

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Speaker 1: Gavinusomer pe Buddha Jedge, just to play it safe at

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Speaker 1: the moment, because probably one of the more likely things happen.

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Speaker 1: Are they going to be more inclined to just revert

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Speaker 1: back to Obama style economics, or are they going to

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Speaker 1: be more inclined to either copy a Biden's style or

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Speaker 1: potentially even go further than a Biden side. I don't

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Speaker 1: know the answer to that, and I'm curious what you guys.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it No, the primary is going to be very

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Speaker 4: interesting in this respect. Obviously, I'm on the hunt for

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Speaker 4: who's going to carry the left torch as it's not

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Speaker 4: going to be burning this this go around. But that

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Speaker 4: seems like it's, you know, it's gonna it's really unclear

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Speaker 4: where things are going to go, especially because you had Biden,

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Speaker 4: which did who did one thing, and then as Crystal

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Speaker 4: was pointing out, the the Harris in her campaign did

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Speaker 4: something quite different. So even his successor who was the VP,

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Speaker 4: went a whole other route with it.

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Speaker 5: There seemed to be this.

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Speaker 4: Blip that for a while in kind of election world

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Speaker 4: that you know, we need to run it a certain way,

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Speaker 4: focus on a few specific popular issues, like abortion access whatever,

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Speaker 4: and keep everything, you know, everything else kind of under

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Speaker 4: wraps and tacked to the right, be more conservative, say

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Speaker 4: some negative things about immigration, go on TV and pretend

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Speaker 4: like you have a gun.

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Speaker 5: And like stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: Like that was.

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Speaker 4: Like that was a little moment, but it failed. So

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Speaker 4: but you know, is it Why did it fail?

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Speaker 5: I don't.

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Speaker 4: I don't know, Like it's very unco like we don't

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Speaker 4: have a success. Biden is gone, Harris did something completely

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Speaker 4: different Obama's way in the rear view mirror. Bernie didn't

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Speaker 4: succeed in the primary. He had a kind of an

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Speaker 4: exciting moment like so, who I have no idea.

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Speaker 5: I don't think.

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Speaker 4: Anyone maybe and maybe that's why we're having there's so

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Speaker 4: many debates now about is the problem the groups or

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Speaker 4: was the problem David.

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Speaker 5: Shore, like what's the what's the issue?

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Speaker 4: You know?

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Speaker 1: I just hope that they don't take the worst possible lesson,

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Speaker 1: which is like how could you run on that six

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars child tax credit? That was a bad idea.

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Speaker 1: That's way too much money.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it's a little bit of that out there.

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Speaker 2: I mean there is like crazy. I'm sort of I

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Speaker 2: hate to keep it bringing out Matt Iglacias. But one

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Speaker 2: of the points that he and others in his lane

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Speaker 2: are sort of raising is, look, Biden did all this

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Speaker 2: stuff you people wanted them to do, and the economy

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Speaker 2: was like, people didn't love it. It was unpopular. So

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Speaker 2: I guess you were wrong about like supporting labor rights

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Speaker 2: and anti trust policy and like these more left wing

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Speaker 2: type policy ideas. I mean, that is one argument that's

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Speaker 2: being made. Another argument that's being made right, like immigrants

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Speaker 2: you should, yeah, I just like throw trans people under

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Speaker 2: the bus, adopt Trump's like you know, hawkish border cruelty

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Speaker 2: she did, which she did, and that's what she did.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, the moderation on what you might think of

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Speaker 4: more cultural type issues if you include immigration, and then

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Speaker 4: paired down her she was not economically and but she

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Speaker 4: did all those things.

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Speaker 5: But then I think some people.

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Speaker 2: You know what what back in twenty twenty she said

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Speaker 2: a thing on a questionnaire in an interview and people

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Speaker 2: still remember that, and so that's why she lost, which

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Speaker 2: I mean, like, obviously I think this argument is incorrect

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Speaker 2: because also at the same time, when you are at

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Speaker 2: sort of like peak wokeness, Biden wins. So wouldn't you

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Speaker 2: think that the wokeness destroying the Democratic Party would have

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Speaker 2: been a factor at the time when it was that

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Speaker 2: like peak woke wokeness on the the

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Speaker 1: Whateverstometer, the peak wokeness on the wilmeter,