podcast
The Assignment with Audie Cornish
Every Monday on The Assignment, host Audie Cornish explores the animating forces of American politics. It’s not about the horserace, it’s about the larger cultural ideas driving the American electorate. Audie draws on the deep well of CNN reporters, editors, and contributors to examine topics like the nuances of building electoral coalitions, and the role the media plays in modern elections. Every Thursday, Audie pulls listeners out of their digital echo chambers to hear from the people whose lives intersect with the news cycle, as well as deep conversations with people driving the headlines. From astrology’s modern renaissance to the free speech wars on campus, no topic is off the table.
Jon Favreau and Jon Lovett of Pod Save America
The Assignment with Audie Cornish
Apr 29, 2024
Jon Favreau and Jon Lovett were speechwriters in the Obama White House who, along with Tommy Vietor, decided to venture into media with a podcast now called Pod Save America. The show became a hit, so they founded a whole company around it called Crooked Media. Now, they produce a plethora of podcasts, host a full schedule of live shows, and even write books like their new title, Democracy or Else. Favreau & Lovett go behind the fights over messaging in the Democratic party, parse Joe Biden's campaign strategy, and explain the challenges of running a progressive media company in the age of Trump.
Episode Transcript
Jon Lovett
00:00:00
You remember when we did a bunch of jokes about Mitt Romney having the dog on his roof? And it was like, let's make sure people remember the Mitt Romney put a ******* dog on his roof. You know, sometimes politics. Here's the thing, Audie. Sometimes politics is about big ideas. All right. Important, important policies. But sometimes you got to make sure voters know that Mitt Romney put his dog on his ******* roof.
Audie Cornish
00:00:27
The generation of politicos that came up in the era of Barack Obama are, in a way, defined by their optimism. Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor, all former staffers in the Obama White House, are a textbook example. They're former speechwriters, consultants, advisors who got into podcasting and more with the company they founded, Crooked Media, which is best known for its mix of humor and advocacy rooted in Democratic Party politics. So they're here in Washington for what is commonly described as the nerd prom, aka the White House Correspondents' Dinner. We asked them to come visit us to talk about the role of partisan media, how the Democratic Party is changing, and what they have learned from their experiences with both. I'm Audie Cornish. This is the Assignment. Gentlemen, welcome to the show.
Jon Favreau
00:01:13
Thanks for having us.
Jon Lovett
00:01:14
Great to be here.
Audie Cornish
00:01:15
How do you describe yourselves at this point?
Jon Lovett
00:01:17
Oh, I try not to.
Jon Favreau
00:01:20
Podcasters.
Jon Lovett
00:01:21
Podcast. Yeah. Podcast darlings.
Jon Favreau
00:01:22
I say that we run a progressive media company. Yeah, that's usually what I say.
Audie Cornish
00:01:25
Oh, progressive. Interesting.
Jon Favreau
00:01:27
Yeah.
Audie Cornish
00:01:27
Did you decide at some point, it's progressive. It's not left. It's not just sort of.
Jon Favreau
00:01:32
How did we land on progressive?
Audie Cornish
00:01:35
And I'm saying that because I am one of those people who did not see Barack Obama as progressive. I understand why people may have said that, but even at the time, I thought, like, he's kind of moderate and that I understand why some people might be like, oh my God, this is so wild. Like he's a Black Democrat. But like as Black Democrats go, I did not consider him the wildest one I had ever covered as a politician.
Jon Favreau
00:02:04
I think that's fair.
Audie Cornish
00:02:05
So I'm curious about how you guys kind of coming out of that period decided, actually, no, here's where we're going to read ourselves on the spectrum.
Jon Favreau
00:02:11
'We should call it a neo-lib media company.
Jon Lovett
00:02:15
'Neo-lib shill media company. Well, here's, for me, I remember when the term progressive started replacing liberal, not because of any ideological difference between liberal and progressive, but more because conservatives had spent 40 years turning the word liberal into a bad word. And so then a lot of people said, oh, I'm not a liberal. I'm a progressive. In terms of what Crooked is, I've always felt like the goal was to build a space that was big enough, where basically anyone who believes in democracy and believes in, like, liberal governance and believes in, having an open and honest debate. Who doesn't believe in killing your vice president to stay in power would, like, would feel welcome. Would feel welcome.
Audie Cornish
00:02:57
Subtle dig. Appreciate that.
Jon Lovett
00:02:57
Yeah, yeah, just as a hypothetical.
Audie Cornish
00:02:58
Well, we put in the intro that there was humor here.
Jon Favreau
00:03:00
There you go.
00:03:01
So I'm glad that we've gotten to it. Everyone can drink now.
Jon Lovett
00:03:04
So let's just make sure that we know that there was humor here.
Audie Cornish
00:03:06
I also have to remember for you to occasionally say your last names so people know which Jon it is. Because sorry, not all superfans will be listening to this pod.
Jon Favreau
00:03:15
No, it happens a lot.
Audie Cornish
00:03:17
Does it really?
Jon Favreau
00:03:18
Yeah. Well, now that I live in Los Angeles and so does he. It's even even moreso now.
Audie Cornish
00:03:24
Well.
Jon Lovett
00:03:24
'Yeah. The other thing too is so that's - I'm Jon Lovett, that's Jon Favreau. That's Jon Favreau, not the director of Iron Man. And I'm Jon Lovett, not Jon Lovitz, the SNL comedian.
Audie Cornish
00:03:36
I do think of you guys fundamentally as people who are very knowledgeable also about message, and who even got into the idea of creating your own partisan media because of your concerns about message. Right? Like the conservative messaging machine, so to speak. So when you first got into it, what did you think Crooked Media was going to be doing?
Jon Favreau
00:03:58
We thought we were going to do Pod Save America, which is our flagship podcast.
Audie Cornish
00:04:02
'So this is like pre-trump, right? I mean, when you start podcasting started. Yeah. When you first decide, listen, we're that's enough of this White House stuff, this Democratic Party stuff.
Jon Favreau
00:04:14
Yeah.
Audie Cornish
00:04:14
Media will be a good idea. What did you think would be the value of that?
Jon Favreau
00:04:20
So there's a huge right wing media machine, right? We did not think that there was a lot of progressive media.
Audie Cornish
00:04:27
Though there had been attempts your Air Americas and obviously very long running Democracy Now! That show.
Jon Favreau
00:04:34
Right. I also think that, like, MSNBC obviously has a lot of liberal progressive hosts, but their job is not to inspire people to get involved and active in politics. And because we all have backgrounds in campaigns, we thought, why not have a media company that also allows us to be more explicit in telling people, here's how you can get involved and here's how you can donate to a candidate, and here's how you can actually make a difference in your community and helping build a space for especially people who are either longtime progressives or maybe people who are moderate or even people who are Republicans but then Trump won and were scared and didn't know what to do, but wanted to help. And we figured we'd create the space that people could come together and figure it out.
Audie Cornish
00:05:21
Is that how it turned out?
Jon Lovett
00:05:23
It's a work in progress, I'd say.
Audie Cornish
00:05:25
Like, what did you learn about the reality of running a media company and the limits of its reach, power, etc.?
Jon Lovett
00:05:33
'So, I would start by saying we started a podcast before we ever thought about starting a media company, and we start a podcast, in part because we were frustrated just as news consumers, right? That like there was a conversation we were having around politics amongst each other that we didn't feel like we heard out in the world. That was explicit about its point of view, that was direct about the problems, but not self-serious that recognized that basically, when the stakes feel total, when it can be exhausting and frustrating and enraging, and when there's a lot of noise, like, there needs to be a space where people can come together and commiserate, but not in a way that redounds to cynicism and doing the kind of, "LOL nothing matters" but actually saying, all right, what is the way to be hopeful? Not in a false way, not in a misleading way, but in a way that reflects our actual agency, our ability to make a difference. And how can we get more people to see that they have agency, too.
Audie Cornish
00:06:29
And you're doing it in a way, people are already saying the media is liberal, right? Like that conversation never changes. But you call it Crooked Media and it's supposed to be advocacy. And I guess I wanted to know how you felt like the mainstream media wasn't serving the people you want to serve. And I ask this knowing you're sitting in the belly of the beast, like, we won't have you escorted out. Yeah, I might anyway, just to flex, but like, what, like, there are ways you must have felt this doesn't work for us. Especially coming out of the Obama years.
Jon Favreau
00:07:00
'Yeah. Look, I think that the media's job. Some - I think some Democrats, some liberals believe that it's the media's job to like, save democracy and to like, be on our side.
Audie Cornish
00:07:12
Yeah. Which we tell them that. I mean, let's be honest, I think that part of our branding, we're like, don't hate journalists, we are part of democracy.
Jon Favreau
00:07:20
'But I really don't - I don't think that is the media's job, right? And but I do think that in this information environment where the media is so fractured, where people are getting their information from so many different sources, there does need to be a space outside of the campaign world and government where progressives can organize and talk to each other about how to make progress. And I think that you don't have that space in the media right now. And so even if you have journalists who are doing a wonderful job, even if you have, like, liberal pundits on television who are brilliant, they're still not doing the hard work of organizing that's required.
Audie Cornish
00:07:58
Or I think of the, like, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewarts and even the genre of what I would call political newsdesk journalism, right? Where somebody sits behind the desk and is like, speaking truth to power with sass. And like a lot of liberals, enjoy that as entertainment. But you're saying even that is not.
Jon Favreau
00:08:17
Because it doesn't. The step that it's missing is here's all the bad stuff we're going to tell you about. And then sometimes we're going to joke about it too. But also, here's what you can do to change it. And by the way, you have a responsibility and an obligation to change it.
Jon Lovett
00:08:30
Yeah.
Jon Favreau
00:08:30
And that's what we've tried to do. I mean, we you know, the thing we're, I think, most part of at Crooked Media, is Vote Save America, which is sort of our, like, political organizing arm. In the 2020 election, you know, we got like 500,000 volunteers to sign up.
Audie Cornish
00:08:44
But responsibility and, like, that's the less sexy part.
Jon Favreau
00:08:48
It is. That's why you gotta have the humor in there, too.
Jon Lovett
00:08:50
Yeah. Look, I think also one thing that I feel really proud of about what we do at Pod Save America, what we do at Crooked Media, what we do at Vote Save America, what we tried to do in the book, Democracy or Else.
Jon Favreau
00:09:00
How to Save America in 10 Easy Steps.
Jon Lovett
00:09:00
Boom. Plug.
Jon Favreau
00:09:00
We finish each other's sentences. That's the important thing.
Jon Lovett
00:09:06
Man, we have been talking to each other on microphones for a long ******* time.
Audie Cornish
00:09:09
Yeah, I hear that.
Jon Favreau
00:09:10
Longer than we've been talking to each other in person.
Audie Cornish
00:09:11
I hear that.
Jon Lovett
00:09:13
But, it is, I think being cynical and funny is great. Being optimistic and earnest is great. It is actually really hard to try to find humor while also being hopeful. And that is a really small target that we're, that I feel honestly, sometimes the most proud, I feel is when we're able to do that and give people something that's genuinely funny, but not feeding cynicism, because there's plenty of that.
Audie Cornish
00:09:35
When did you realize that it was going to be harder than you thought?
Jon Lovett
00:09:42
Well, we had an advantage when we started Crooked Media, which is that we knew so little about what it would take to start a company, that we were freed from some of the anxieties we probably should have had because we had no idea what we had no idea about. And we really just basically had this feeling that there was an audience out there for a show like Pod Save America, because of the experience we had making a show for The Ringer and because of our experience after Donald Trump won of so many people reaching out to us and being like, what do I do? What do I do? How do I help? I feel like I don't know what to do. And we didn't have the answer, but we thought, hey, what if we create a place where we figure out the answer together? And that was really what we had, this idea that there was going to be a group of people who were trying to figure out how to move through a world in which they were caught off guard by what America could do, or they felt as though they didn't understand what was happening in politics in a fundamental way. And everything after that has been a learning experience.
Audie Cornish
00:10:43
'You guys just articulated something that's really interesting, which is, you knew what you didn't want to be, right? You had this sense that it wasn't going to be some sort of pseudo-mainstream newsroom. You knew it was going to have a call to action, etc., right? Like do the work of advocacy and I assume fundraising. And now I'm reading about this infusion, this investment from George Soros. So I want to make sure I have the language correct here. So Variety reporting in 2022 that George Soros made an investment in Crooked Media. He's also investing in Audacy, which is a radio and podcasting company, etc.. Now, I know you are already calling yourselves Crooked Media going into this, but I can't think of a bigger boogeyman on the right than George Soros. So what were those conversations like amongst just yourselves? Not with him, but of like, what are we doing here?
Jon Favreau
00:11:37
It was fascinating because we had, long before we even started Crooked Media, the three of us and Dan Pfeiffer had been like banging the drum on, why are all the, wealthy donors in the Democratic Party only funding campaigns and not trying to build a progressive media infrastructure? And for years, people tried to find people who would do that, and just, the people were more interested in paying for a bunch of ads last minute in a campaign.
Audie Cornish
00:12:04
They also rightly understood that it's hard.
Jon Favreau
00:12:07
It's very hard.
Audie Cornish
00:12:07
And there's no money in media. Oh, that's from that experience, right.
Jon Favreau
00:12:12
And then the, and then the Soros folks and it is they're sort of it's not the foundation. It's the, the other side. It's the private equity side. They made an investment in the, Latino Media Network, which is a series of radio stations. And then we had this conversation with them and they're like, and we told them what we were trying to do and they were like, we believe in this, and we don't just believe in it because it aligns with our mission. We believe in the actual business itself, too, because we're not gonna invest in something that loses money. We're not in the business to do that, even though we believe in your progressive values and share them. So, you know, we would like to we'd like to make, make an investment, and we'll help you guys grow.
Jon Lovett
00:12:52
'Yeah. I think one of the things we said from the very beginning is we want to do this. We want to build a progressive media company that has an impact, that makes an impact in politics, that helps organize and engage people, that serves as an onramp for people who maybe haven't been paying attention to politics, serves as a place for the hyper-engaged, progressive young person to figure out, in a very noisy world, what the most effective way for them to be involved could be. But we also want to prove that you can build a sustainable, growing business, that we can build something that upholds our values both in terms of what we put out into the world, but in terms of how we build a company.
Audie Cornish
00:13:31
From the outside, it reflects a sense that you have your eyes wide open about what it means to be partisan media.
Jon Favreau
00:13:38
Well, we're sort of lucky in that regard because we can't really hide even if we wanted to. We're former Obama staffers who started a company called Crooked Media. And so, we have always believed that we can be honest with our audience about who we are, what we believe politically, and still give them good information, truthful information. And, you know, if we make mistakes, we'll correct the mistakes. And we're not trying to, you know, spin out a bunch of propaganda that's false. You know who we are, you know where we stand on the political spectrum and we're trying to give people good information despite that.
Jon Lovett
00:14:18
And by the way, that includes plenty of times where we're, like, pretty tough on Democrats because we just don't agree with what they're doing. And we think it's important that we're going to be trustworthy to our audience, even when it comes to being critical of our own side.
Jon Favreau
00:14:32
'And we also wanted to be a place, like, not all the hosts of all of our podcasts, we don't all have the same politics. And when we started Crooked, we said we want it to be a place for the debate about what "small l" liberalism, "small d" democracy should be that extends from the far left to the center, or to basically this big anti-Trump coalition, for lack of a better phrase, that has formed since 2016 that includes everyone from, you know, AOC to Liz Cheney.
Audie Cornish
00:15:08
I'm here with Jon Favreau and Jon Lovett of Crooked Media. We'll be back in a moment.
Audie Cornish
00:15:21
Welcome back. My guests are Jon Favreau and Jon Lovett, they're former staffers in the Obama White House, speechwriters. They're also the founders of Crooked Media. I want to talk to you guys now about message, because that seems to be a very angsty conversation among Democrats right now on almost every level. So just to give an example, Biden. What do the Biden White House be saying? What should they be talking about? They're doing this wrong. They're doing that wrong. Gaza, the war in Israel. How should Democrats be talking about this?
Jon Lovett
00:15:55
'So can I, It's funny. I want to go back to what you were talking about earlier, about the media being criticized for being liberal. I do think the reason we end up being in cycles of this debate, it's not that the press treats Biden better and treats Republicans worse. Though that does, I think, happen from time to time. It's that mainstream journalism treats Democrats as the protagonists and treats Republicans as the antagonists. So there is - it is much more comfortable for there to be a debate about what Democrats can do, Democratic agency, Democratic mistakes, how Democrats need to come together to defeat Republicans than there is to be a similar conversation looking in a very close way at how Donald Trump is messaging.
Audie Cornish
00:16:34
And you think that's the way it is, regardless of who's in the White House?
Jon Lovett
00:16:37
Absolutely.
Audie Cornish
00:16:37
Okay.
Jon Lovett
00:16:38
Absolutely. And I think that that reflects certain advantages that Democrats have that Republicans bang the drum about in terms of what the mainstream press covers. But I also do think this is one way in which the mainstream press creates a liability for Democrats, because it is so often that institutions, especially these are reporters that live in cosmopolitan places, that live in major cities, that come from maybe liberal colleges and institutions. They view Democrats as people making decisions using rationality that they feel they can influence, versus Republicans who are a kind of an antagonistic entity they don't understand as well, they can't penetrate and they don't expect much of. And so I think that is part of why you end up with endless news cycles about what can Biden do better? What could Biden do differently? Is Biden making a mistake? What's his message? What's this, what's that? Because there is a focus on Democrats that is different than what we do about Republicans.
Audie Cornish
00:17:31
Interesting.
Jon Favreau
00:17:32
I also think it's heightened in this era, like, people are very scared of what might happen if Donald Trump wins the presidency again. And I think that's Democrats, liberals, a lot of Republicans, independents. I think some journalists probably too, even if that's not their job to say it.
Audie Cornish
00:17:48
They also do not feel assured by Joe Biden and by extension, it appears Kamala Harris. There's not a talk, even amongst Democrats, that feels confident about what they have to offer.
Jon Favreau
00:18:00
But I do think it comes from just this, everyone is operating from this place of fear, and it's not a game, right? Like, when the possibility of a second Trump term is out there, everyone who's in this business, whether you're on the politics side, the media side, you're going to start saying, well, he could do this better because he's got to win. He's got to win. And so I think if it wasn't Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, I think if it was many other Democrats, there would be different kinds of criticisms of those Democrats in the White House. But there would be criticisms because it would still be close. Donald Trump lost the last election by 40,000 votes across three states.
Audie Cornish
00:18:34
'But also, something you mentioned in one of the podcast episodes. I wasn't sure which one, but you talked about the idea that there are people who felt like Joe Biden's pitch of being a kind of bridge out of the Donald Trump era was implicitly sort of, they took away the message that maybe he was one-term. That he was supposed to, "get us out." And then all the new great stuff was going to happen. And for him to be like, actually, no, I'm the great stuff. I'm doing great, and I'm sticking with it, that there are some people who are disappointed by that.
Jon Favreau
00:19:06
Yeah. And I get that. And it's like, I went through that. And then I thought, you know what? He's Joe Biden, he's the President of the United States. He gets to make the decision. He has made the bet. And I think that he.
Audie Cornish
00:19:17
That's your inner staffer talking.
Jon Favreau
00:19:18
Yeah. Well, no, I'm saying.
Audie Cornish
00:19:19
Right, like, you did the and then you came out and said, well the boss wants this.
Jon Favreau
00:19:24
Not even that. It's like, I think he genuinely believes as he looked around the field and he looked at everyone else, that he is the best positioned person to beat Donald Trump.
Audie Cornish
00:19:34
And is the only person who has, technically.
Jon Favreau
00:19:35
But is the only person who has, right? He may be wrong, but that is his decision to make. And so, now that he's made that decision, the rest of us who don't want to see Donald Trump become president again, if we don't want that future, we should do everything we can to make sure that he's successful.
Audie Cornish
00:19:54
Hold on, Jon Lovett I see you thinking.
Jon Lovett
00:19:57
Yeah, my eyes do that. Yeah. No, I, I agree with that. Look, Joe Biden's biggest liability is his age. And it is a liability that can't be surmounted with words. And it won't change. Right? There's no policy shift that he can do. There's no message you can do. He's older and it concerned a lot of people that pay very close attention. I think he did a lot to mitigate those concerns at the State of the Union. And I think the more he's out there being engaged and active and actually kind of in some ways benefiting from the Republican caricature.
Audie Cornish
00:20:24
I hear your staffer talking.
Jon Lovett
00:20:27
Well, sometimes I am, but.
Audie Cornish
00:20:28
No, but I'm I'm looking at two people who I mean, when did you meet Obama? 21, 22. Like, you guys were young. And I remember being a young reporter at that time and what you felt was a generational shift. There is about to be a change. And I know for a lot of Black voters, and I was covering the South, they were shocked. And their tone was kind of like, okay, these white people are going to do this? Great. Thanks, Iowa. Like, we'll get on board.
Jon Favreau
00:20:54
Yeah.
Audie Cornish
00:20:55
And to be here in this place where the choices feel not at all like that generational shift, there is a palpable sense of disappointment among some voters. And tell me I'm wrong.
Jon Favreau
00:21:07
No, I. Polls, focus groups.
Audie Cornish
00:21:12
I'm not judging you guys for having an answer, but you're giving me the answer that the White House often gives. And I'm kind of curious as people who actually, you should feel that disappointment more than anyone, right? Like you were there for the moment it felt like things were about to be different.
Jon Lovett
00:21:25
'Here's how I feel about this, which is, I'm that look, honestly, me as a person, for me, inspiration has never been what drove me in politics. It's been rage, mostly. That's just how I am. I like, I am a I am a negative partisanship person. There's value to inspiration. There really is. There's value to having an inspirational figure, a once-in-a-generational figure like Barack Obama. He brought a ton of people together, and that helped build a coalition that delivered two big victories and all the policy victories that followed his ability to govern while he was president. What is the value of inspiration if it's for you? If you're saying, I need to be inspired? You should ask yourself why, right? Because the goal, the value of inspiration, the value of feeling like you're you're pushing yourself out of bed because you can't believe how excited you are to get to vote for something. That's a nice thing, but your vote counts the same. If you understand the stakes around abortion, if you understand the stakes around the difference between a president who will cancel student debt and try to pass a child tax credit, versus Trump's promise to cut corporate taxes, someone who's going to believe in democracy and someone who's not. If you understand the stakes, it doesn't matter whether you're inspired or not. I wish that politics always felt like the most exciting thing. This election for a lot of people doesn't. You're calling it our staffer vibe. I think that one of the things that led us to start this company is we kind of have a belief that there are plenty of people commiserating and cynical and annoyed by what politics isn't. And we want to be a place where we say, all right, this is the world, and we do the best we can in the world that we've had. And there's a lot of reason to be hopeful in that world. There's a lot of good that Joe Biden has done in his first term. He has been an incredibly effective president, far more than a lot of people thought possible. That's a really good and powerful thing.
Jon Favreau
00:23:09
More than I thought possible.
Jon Lovett
00:23:10
More than I thought possible, too.
Jon Favreau
00:23:11
'He's surpassed my expectations. Look, I - personally, I very much dislike his Gaza policy. Beyond that, I think he has done everything within his power to push forward the policies and values that I believe in politics.
Audie Cornish
00:23:28
Do you hear from your audience differently? And what have those conversations been like?
Jon Favreau
00:23:34
It's an ongoing conversation.
Jon Lovett
00:23:36
Yeah.
Audie Cornish
00:23:38
Well, 'cause you do a lot of live shows, you know, and you talked about doing focus groups. So I have wondered what it's like when you actually are smacked in the face with a different point of view on this who feel like there's disqualifying elements to current policies out of this White House.
Jon Favreau
00:23:54
Yeah. When we had, Jon talked to Bernie Sanders on the pod.
Audie Cornish
00:23:58
I listened to that.
Jon Lovett
00:23:59
And I thought what Bernie said about this captured the way that I feel about it, too.
Sen. Bernie Sanders
00:24:05
My own view has been, for months, not another nickel. The leverage. What is the leverage we have? The leverage we have is money, is military aid. So the idea that we're sending bombs, the idea that we're sending money to Netanyahu is, to me, reprehensible. So I say to that young person, your gut feeling is is right. And I have Palestinian friends who are worried every day what's going to happen if their family members have not already been killed. It is horrible. But all that I ask is let's not make a horrible situation even worse. Trump will be worse on that issue. Let alone every other issue. So it's a it's a tough moment. That is what I think.
Jon Lovett
00:24:50
'Joe Biden sometimes pays a little bit for promising that we would turn the page on the pandemic, on the chaos of Trump. And ironically, because we're, I think, a country that it was traumatized by the pandemic in a way we never processed, plus the fact that our news still feels overwhelmed not just by Trump, but Trump-style politics.
Audie Cornish
00:25:13
For sure.
Jon Lovett
00:25:14
'There's a way in which Joe Biden pays for saying, hey, I know you're unhappy living with dad. Mom's coming to pick you up at the Chuck E. Cheese, or we're going to go get, you know, I know that fridge was empty, and I know that he, like, you know, had you sleeping on the futon, but you're going to come home with mom and things are going to be better and things don't feel better. And I think he pays for that a little bit. But when it comes to people who wish they had a better choice or feel like they don't like the idea that we're governed by septuagenarians and octogenarians, I agree. I wish that we had more options. I wish that it didn't feel like we have 75-year-olds banning TikTok in Congress and doing things we don't agree with, but if we want to build that world, we have to organize, we have to do a lot of work. And Joe Biden is the person that right now stands between us and oblivion.
Jon Favreau
00:25:59
Old people can change.
Jon Lovett
00:26:00
Sometimes it happens.
Jon Favreau
00:26:02
Look at Joe Biden.
Jon Lovett
00:26:02
Look at Joe Biden. Come on, come on. Joe Biden, Joe, Joe Biden.
Jon Favreau
00:26:08
'But this is - there was a complaint that in the State of the Union that he was not saying the word abortion more. And I was like.
Jon Lovett
00:26:15
'And then he wore that t-shirt that said abortion the other day.
Jon Favreau
00:26:18
'The 81-year-old.
Audie Cornish
00:26:18
Not a thing. We disclaimer.
Jon Favreau
00:26:19
'The 81-year-old Catholic president, who has never been personally very pro-choice, is like the first president to talk about codifying Roe v Wade in like the first five minutes of a State of the Union. Like, that's progress. That's not enough, but like, that's progress. And you don't say that to be like, so everyone calm down. But you say they'd be like, you know what? Change is possible.
Audie Cornish
00:26:40
Well, you guys, thank you so much for for talking with me and hashing this out. And, you know, you're many years into this process and, it's been interesting to see kind of where you have landed and where it's going next. So thank you for coming in. The book is called Democracy or Else.
Jon Favreau
00:27:00
It is.
Jon Lovett
00:27:00
And oh, we should say all the proceeds, all the profits from the book are going to Vote Save America and organizing in 2024. So please go to Crooked.com/books. If you can.
Jon Favreau
00:27:12
I'ts a useful guide. It's fun.
Jon Lovett
00:27:14
Yeah. We wrote this thing.
Audie Cornish
00:27:16
The call to action.
Jon Lovett
00:27:16
'And we're not going to - all it all. It all's going to a good cause, you know? So that's something.
Audie Cornish
00:27:22
Apparently. I mean, like I said, you guys are optimists. No, I'm letting you go.
Jon Lovett
00:27:27
We are.
Jon Favreau
00:27:27
Despite ourselves.
Jon Lovett
00:27:28
We are optimists. Deal with it.
Audie Cornish
00:27:29
Thank you.
Jon Favreau
00:27:30
Thanks, Audie.
Audie Cornish
00:27:32
That's all for today's episode of The Assignment. The Assignment is a production of CNN Audio, and this show was produced by Dan Bloom. Matt Martinez is our senior producer and the executive producer of CNN Audio is Steve Lickteig. We got support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, Jon Dianora, Leni Steinhardt, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. Thanks, as always to Katie Hinman, I'm Audie Cornish. Thank you for listening.
