← Next Up with Mark Halperin
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Keys to America's Deal with Iran, and Inside MS NOW, with Joe Scarborough, Plus 2028 Politics, with Neera Tanden
01:13:44
Mark Halperin delivers a reported monologue on the growing uncertainty surrounding a potential U.S.–Iran deal, breaking down what’s actually on the table, the competing perspectives, and the high-stakes risks that could shape the outcome. “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough joins, questioning who is really advising President Trump, raising concerns about the structure and effectiveness of the current war cabinet. He also explains why he believes Democrats are missing a key reality of the conflict, arguing the party is struggling to balance criticism of Trump and acknowledging Iran as a global threat. He also warns why a nuclear Iran remains an unacceptable outcome, emphasizing the importance of verification and enforcement in any deal. Later, Scarborough reflects on the shift from MSNBC to MS NOW, offering new insight into his show and the network. Former Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council Neera Tanden also joins to outline what Americans need most right now, from ...
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The wrongs we must right, the fights we must win, the future we must secure together for our nation. This is what's in front of us. This determines what's next for all of us.
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We are Marines.
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We were made for this.
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Foreign welcome to NextUp. I'm Mark Kalperin. I won't say you won the lottery, but you're fortunate to be here. We've got a great episode for you. I'm the editor in chief of live interactive video platform 2way and your host here to everything. Next up, quite a show today with two great talkers, two great guests. First, my friend Joe Scarborough, the host of Morning JOE on Ms. Now, will be here. We're going to talk about the Trump war cabinet and a little bit about TV as well. Excited to hear from Joe. And then Nir Tandon. She's the former White House domestic policy advisor and now president and CEO at the center for American Progress. This is a great success story in Washington of the Democratic Party and of the left. They've been around now for about a quarter century, competing with places like Heritage and other places on the right to put forward ideas. They've got a great track record. We'll talk to Nira about some of the ideas they're working on now and what she thinks of both President Trump and what her party needs in 2028 to put together a winning presidential campaign. But first, in just a moment, my reported monologue topic today again is Iran. I've been talking to folks about what should be shaping up, what could be shaping up as the basis for negotiation between the Iran and the United States in Pakistan and why there is both possibility and peril there for President Trump. So stay tuned. In just a moment, my reported monologue is next up. Hey, let me ask you something. Do you own physical gold? Most people don't. And given the current state of the world, that's something that's worth thinking about. Acre Gold makes it simple. You pick a plan that fits your budget, make monthly payments, and when you've accumulated enough, they ship you a beautifully designed 24 karat Swiss gold bar. Gold is up 70% year over year in central banks. Tom are still buying it at record levels. Smart money has been moving into hard assets for a very good reason. Acre Gold has had subscribers stacking consistently for six years now because once you hold it in your hand, you'll understand the difference between owning something real versus a number on a screen. Right now, they're giving away over 18 grams of gold in their Acre declassified sweepstakes. You can enter for free and subscribe to gold@getacregold.com right now. Go to getacregold.com mark. All right, next up, my reported monologue with a lot of uncertainty about what's exactly going to happen in Islamabad and the talks between the United States and Iran. I've been talking to a lot of people, both connected to the negotiations, but also foreign policy analysts and others with a keen interest in how this comes out and can there be a deal? And there's certainly some people who say there can't be a deal, that the Iranians will allow it to happen either, because there's internal divisions in Iran. Basically, they don't want any deal. Right. There's nothing they could actually agree to for their internal political purposes. Some people say they're no deal because they can't agree on this deal. The outlines of what's being discussed, which I'll get to in a minute, some people say Iran's playing their normal games. They're playing Donald Trump, they're delaying, they're going to blame him. But this is all just a strategy to draw things out. So can't be sure there's a deal, but the president seems pretty confident there'll be a deal. And based on the conversations I've had in the last 48 hours as we head towards an actual expected meeting, the betting is that there could be a deal. There could very well be a deal. And if there is a deal, then the question is going to be, what's it look like? What are the contours of a deal? And we've seen from the start the president has toggled back and forth between confidence there'll be a deal and skepticism. And even now, even as he's prepared to send his delegation to Islamabad, to Pakistan, he's saying maybe there won't be a deal that he's willing to bomb. Again, expressing reluctance to have an extension of the ceasefire. So what I understand is happening now is there's something on the table that will be extremely controversial and its supporters, if they strike this deal and the Pakistanis believe this is the deal that's in play, if they strike this deal, some people will love it. Some people will say this is the best available thing the president could get. And other people will say this is a disaster. And it's interesting who will be in that second category. So if Iran does show up and if they're serious and if they want to have a deal, in other words, if a deal is possible, this is what I understand the contours are a 15 year ban on enriching uranium to try to build a bomb. Okay, 15 year, that's short of the 20 years that the White House talked about earlier. We're told it's longer than Iran has agreed to so far. They take the existing uranium that's been deep enriched and blended down is the term of art, to turn it into something that could not be used to make a nuclear weapon. Then very heavy monitoring of what goes on in Iran by both the United States and other international organizations, that's. That's been tough to do. Right. Finding a version of that that works is going to be a challenge because the Iranians have cheated, just like the North Koreans. Every time there's been some sort of agreement, you can't do something, you know you're going to get some sanctions relief if you, if you stop doing this. They just have cheated. And so negotiating that would be tough. But Mr. Witkoff and the Vice president, Jared Kushner, maybe, maybe they've got an idea about how to institute that. So it's a different category of monitoring. Then the strait needs to be open, right? The straight of Hormuz needs to be open. And this is a tough one for the President. The Iranians want sanctions relief. They want their assets unfrozen. How does that work? Because one of the biggest criticisms the President himself has made of the Iranian deal that Barack Obama struck was gave him cash and they were able to use that cash to go back and do bad stuff. So how does that work? We'll talk about that. What's not currently, I'm told, in what's being discussed now, these could change, but nothing more about degrading their missile capacity, nothing more about their terror networks. They. Nothing more to guarantee that Iran won't harm people, harm their own citizens. Now, today, the President on Truth Social said he's read these reports that they're thinking of hanging eight women for various allegations in Iran, and the President's warning them not to do that. But how do you put that in a deal? So what they're trying to do, as I understand it in this meeting, is produce a framework to game some of these things out. And these things are very technical. What is it? How's the material going to be handed over and diluted down so it can't be used for nuclear weapons? How are they going to develop a way to make sure that these things can be monitored? Okay, so for a couple weeks, extension of the ceasefire, opening the strait during the negotiations, that'll be done by you know, technical experts in a lot of cases and then try to get a final deal. To me, the biggest hell in the last couple days that the President is focused on the nuclear stuff. And that's what this deal largely is about. It's not about other aspects of the Iranian regime has been what he said. He's, he said regularly focus on the nuclear stuff. Focused on saying, I've said for years, Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. My predecessors have said it too. That's, that's, that's the, that's the main thing here. And it has been from the start. So while there are other goals, other things would be nice to have, okay, this may be the best deal the President can get. This may be, in the President's view, what the traffic will bear. A deal that does the basic thing, the main thing, keeping the main thing, the main thing which is not letting them have a nuclear weapon. Now, the Iranians reportedly want all these guarantees that they can't be attacked again. But, but if they start to develop missiles again, you know, you're not going to tell Israel, the United States, not to violate the deal. That's just a reality. What the President is worried about, and you saw this in his big Truth social post on Monday, he doesn't want his deal compared to the Obama deal. He doesn't want people to say, you could have had this deal without the war. And all you're doing is giving Iran money for a promise to not do nuclear stuff for a while. Okay? He'll be criticized if he makes this deal, regardless of the details. He'll be criticized by Biden folks like Jake Sullivan, who worked in the Biden administration, as, as having done all this stuff broken apart the alliance, spent all this money for a deal they could have had before. And then people like John Bolton, other hawkish folks in the United States will say this wasn't good enough. You've empowered Iran now. You've given them stuff that are going to help them rebuild. Now, the spin on this from the President will be, first of all, you can't evaluate this enterprise only by the deal, okay? Because he had the war that preceded the deal and what happened during the war, to a large extent, not as much as some would like and not entirely. The missile program was degraded. The terror network has been degraded, not just in this war, but in everything that's happened around. In the wake of October 7, Israel and the United States together have done a lot to degrade their terror network. So if you're saying, was it worth it? You can't just, and again, White House people are already saying this quietly. You can't just evaluate was it worth it based on what the deal is. You have to also add in what got accomplished during the war. And then the second thing that they're going to have to demonstrate and hopefully it's not just spin, but reality is the, as I said before, the inspection regime, the way the United States is going to be positioned with international agencies to make sure Iran doesn't cheat, that has to be best in class. That has to not be bull. That has to be real. And that means understanding where the material is. The Iranians are geniuses at this. They're geniuses that they've got a long history of claiming they're open to inspections and they're hiding stuff all over the country. So that's going to be key for the President, not just on the, on the spin, but on the substance. Right. And so the real fight in the, in these negotiations, if this happens, if this two step process happens, a grand bargain is struck and then an extended several week long negotiating period of working through the details. How intrusive are those inspections going to be? How confident can the United States be that no enrichment of uranium means exactly that anywhere in the country, no hiding stuff. And then we get to what I think is going to be, regardless of what the deal looks like in all its particulars, it's going to be the question of the sanctions relief Iran gets and the unfreezing of assets. Why is that such a big deal? First of all, because the comparison with the Obama deal with those famous pallets of cash, you give Iran money, they're going to spend it on some bad stuff. So they're demanding sanctions relief. They say we need the money. So how much money do they get? How fast do they get it? Are there triggers where they have to prove certain things that they're telling the truth about regarding the inspection, for instance, before they get sanctions relief? And the same with the unfreezing of the assets. How much money do they get and can they spend it on whatever they want? Is there any accountability? For a few days, people in the administration were talking about the Iranian negotiators going over a golden bridge, welcoming them into the community of nations. Right. Well, there's not a lot of talk of that now. Right. The Iranians go into the negotiations as they happen with a lot of hostile rhetoric, a lot of suspicion towards the United States. And the American negotiators are under no illusions. They know they're still dealing with not Just liars and thugs, but a murky chain of command in Iran still, some Americans saying, we think we're dealing with people who can make this deal, but they may get pushback at home. So how do you talk to them about giving them money? How do you try to have some accountability there? How do you give them the money in a way that maybe brings them into the community of nations? That's the president's dream here. President's dream here is there is someone like in Venezuela where they can do business, where they can normalize the prospect of the United States and Iran interacting and liberate the Iranian people. In Venezuela, the claim is that the oil money that they're getting now working with the United States is not going to dictators and their cronies, but to the people. How do you do that in Iran? The details of that and the negotiations over that, frankly, based on the people I've talked to both Americans and also Europeans and people in the Middle east, they say how they try to do the inspection regime and how that connects to the ability of Iran to get back money, both sanctions relief and unfreezing. It's a very complicated. And if, if you think that the grand bargain will lead inexorably to the working out of the details, they say no. They say no. The president will do everything he can in describing any deal, whether it's this week or down the road, as different than the Obama deal. How is he going to say it's different again? Better inspection regime and a greater elimination of the Iranian threat, not just on nuclear, but, but on the other stuff. And he'll say, quite rightly, this is an historical achievement, an achievement that does what his predecessors did, not taking some risk. Now the, the, the critics are gonna, are gonna go through everything that's not accomplished by the war and the deal. They're gonna go through everything that's still a threat. They're gonna, they're gonna mock the president by comparing it to the Obama deal. And there are, there are some similarities about what's being discussed and the Obama deal. Without a doubt, the proof will be in the pudding. The proof will be in is the inspection regime more complete, Is the, is the nuclear material truly accounted for? And then how does Iran get access to money and what are they able to do with it? The Israelis are interesting so far. You know, you know, Benjamin Netanyahu knows a lot of the details of what's, of what's going to be in a possible deal. And so far he has, he has also in the last couple days emphasized the nuclear the existential threat averted is what he said of the nuclear deal. Are the missiles and the terror networks also existential threats? They are, but not in the same way. And again they have been at least partly addressed. How much those have been addressed, we don't know exactly. We know again it's not as much as some would like. But if you look at the cost of this war in all its respects, the financial cost, the human cost, the cost to Americans alliances, the cost to feelings of insecurity from the Gulf states, the costs have been substantial. But you're never going to get Iran to be in a different place regarding its threat that it poses to Israel, the United States and others without some cost. And so people are going to tally it up. And that's why it's going to be incumbent upon the president to focus not so much on spin but on substance. And the first issue is can he and his negotiators actually get a deal? I go back and forth because my sources go back and forth. Some people are today are very, very bearish on the prospect of a deal for the reasons I said. They just don't think the Iranians are serious. They just don't think in the end Iran, which has developed so much of its power over the region and the world by developing nuclear capability, is going to give that up. They don't think Iran with its newfound power to control the international economy by shutting down the strait is going to give that up. And they think that to the extent the Iranians will open the door to giving up the two sources of international power they've had, what keeps them from just being another Middle Eastern country, nuclear material and now the capacity to shut down the street. So to give that up when they haven't lost the war in their view President says they have, but they don't think they have going to require a lot and the a lot is going to be largely money. So can the president find the deal, the sweet spot between what he feels he can get away with, avoid the Obama comparison and what the Iranians will accept without empowering them unduly to go spend the money on things to do miss make mischief. So that's the first question and then the second question is will this eliminate the nuclear threat? Truly because again there's a lot of mocking of the President and, and, and some correct fly specking to say it's been all over the map shifting day to day sometimes. What's the goal here? What were you trying to do? But make no mistake as the President will tell you, he's been concerned about this for decades. Every one of his predecessors been concerned about it, eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat. All the other stuff is super important, particularly their expanded missile capacity, drone capacity. But that's been at least partially dealt with and decoupled from the nuclear. Now, in all honesty, in asking people about the nuclear, which of course has been the decades long issue that's in some ways now easier to address or at least in a more linear way, people see how that can be addressed. What do you do about the strait? Because how do you make sure it stays open? Just as Iran is concerned the United States is going to bomb them again if they don't like the way the Iranian government behaves. How do you keep the strait open? How do you make sure that Iran doesn't do all the things it's done in the last couple weeks to intimidate the insurance companies and the, and the people who run these ships into saying we're not going to go through that's going to be a really big problem. Make the deal and then convince the world in a binary we Iran went from beyond the doorstep of nuclear capability to not having it any longer. There may well be twists and turns, the war may restart, but at some point the President's going to have to strike a deal. And what I've just laid out from you based on talking to my sources, are the variables here that really matter. The variables that really matter. What is the president asking for and what is he giving back to the Iranians and how much money? When, how, what can they use it for? This is super complicated. The macro deal is big, but then the details are going to matter just a ton of we'll keep watching it, we'll keep reporting on it. But that gives you, I think, as good a snapshot as you can get right now about how this is being thought about, about the prospects of a deal. For the judgment of Donald Trump to say this is as good as we're going to get, this is what the traffic will bear for the Iranians. This is what the Pakistanis say the deal needs to be. And then he needs to make sure it actually serves the interests of the United States and Israel and the world. All right, there you have it. Let me know what you think, let me know what you think of this deal. Deal can happen and if it does, whether it be good for the security of the world. Email me your thoughts on today's report. Send it to Next up Halpern gmail.com make sure to subscribe for the to on Next up on our YouTube channel and watch full episodes there, get exclusive bonus content, go to YouTube.com Next up, Halperin YouTube.com @nextup Halperin. Also, we're a podcast, as you probably know. You can subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcast and of course, make sure downloads are turned on there. That way, every time we drop a new episode, you get it right away. All right. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, next up, my friend, the great host of Morning JOE on Ms. Now, Joe Scarborough is next up. Are you being lied to? They tell you to defer paying your taxes by saving in a 401k or an IRA because you'll retire in a lower tax bracket. But if that were true, why are so many retirees now in the highest tax brackets of their lives? It's time to get the truth and discover a better way to grow and protect your money. Bank on yourself is the proven retirement plan. Alternative banks and Wall street desperately hope you never hear about. It gives you guaranteed predictable growth that doesn't go backward when the market drops. It can provide tax free retirement income under current tax law, putting you in control of your future tax rate. You also have control of your money. Access it when you need to with no government penalties or restrictions and your money keeps growing even when you use it. You can get a free report that reveals how you can bank on yourself and enjoy tax free retirement income, guaranteed growth and control of your own money just right. Now go to bankonyourself.com mark and get your free report. That's bankonyourself.com mark one more time, it's bankonyourself.com Mark all right, next up and joining me now, the host, Good Morning JOE on Ms. Now, a simple country lawyer by acclamation and description. But in fact, much more than that. Former congressman, current host, speaker of many languages, including the international language of compassion and love, Joe Scarborough. Joe, welcome back to the program.
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It is it is good to have fallen off the turnip truck and and landed right in front of your your massive studio in the top of like what, 87th floor.
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87th floor. It's 360 degree views, the whole thing. Thank you. I want to just start by asking you just your general take on where we are at this moment on a bunch of things. Where are we on the president's war cabinet? Are they are they is this the war cabinet you'd want to go to war with or do you have doubts about them or questions about them. How are they doing?
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Well, I mean, I don't know, Mark. I mean, you and I talk with people inside the White House and, and people really close to the President a good bit. I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly who that war cabinet is. I certainly read in the media that Pete Hegseth is giving him a lot of information, and I'm not sure how persuaded he is by that. I think the President, even though he is not the most traditional of commanders in chief, still usually listens a good bit to his generals, his admirals. So from everything I've heard, General Kane is doing a good job. Marco Rubio certainly, certainly has experience. All of his years in the Senate made a big difference all of his years in the Intel Committee. I hope the President's listening to Marco. But at the end of the day, you and I both know, and it's a question I asked Donald Trump back in 2015. I said, who do you. Who will you go to if you're President of the United States? Who will you talk to if you have a tough question to answer? And one of the more revealing answers he gave on Morning Joe in 2015, he said, well, Joe, I'm a pretty smart guy. I've got a pretty great brain. I'm going to talk to myself. I don't really need advisors. So I suspect that's. I suspect that most of this is being run by the President, which I suppose at times is good when you're going into Venezuela, when you have to make some decisions that involve an extraordinarily complicated war like Iran. I think having a more qualified, more experienced war cabinet might help. But we're fighting the war with the President, the commander in chief that we have. And so I think that's why we've seen a lot of back and forth. Again, he's a guy sometimes for good, certainly for domestic politics, that's worked for him very well. He's, on the surface, he responds immediately to outside stimuli, like an amoeba. He moves where he has to move to keep surviving. It's not quite that way when you're dealing with the Iranians. It may be that way when you're dealing with the Venezuelans. It'll probably be that way when we're dealing with the Cubans, but not that way when we're dealing with the Iranians.
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So many things you said I want to follow up on. I'll start here. In my experience covering vice presidents, and I've covered everyone since George H.W. bush, we all know, for whatever reason, their coverage is often skeptical, negative, mocking. And yet every vice president I've ever covered, the people who know them best, who I know as sources or mutual friends, worship them, think they're wonderful, wonderful people. What accounts for that really bifurcated view of JD Vance, where some people think he's fantastic and other people really think he's just a disaster?
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I think the biggest problem for JD Vance is unlike Marco Rubio, who has 20 years or so of very, very focused view on diplomacy, on warfare, you have JD Vance, who on most issues has done a 180 going from saying Donald Trump was Hitler, like, to saying he's the greatest president ever, saying that campaigning in 2024, saying Kamala Harris will get us into a war with Iraq, with Iran. Donald Trump will never get his store there. By the way, I still have Iraq PTSD syndrome because Iran often goes into Iraq, for those of us who remember how badly that went, how quickly. So I think JD's biggest problem is just the inconsistency of it all. You never really know where he is, where he's going to be six months from now. I think that may be his bigger problem with a base. Maybe why Marco Rubio seems to be picking up a bit in some of these polls. I know you're very bullish on J.D. vance and believe that J.D. vance is, is going to be the presumptive GOP nominee. But most places I go, most Republicans I speak to don't feel that way, and a good number are looking for an outsider. And I think before, you know, two months earlier, I would say Tucker Carlson would have been up there as somebody that may have jumped into the race. That obviously has changed a good deal over the past couple months.
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I'm less bullish on his chances in part because I'm not sure he's going to run. I think that new baby might make him think twice about doing it. And I do sense a real change. I've written about this and how the donor class and some elected officials feel about him. At a minimum, they'd like to see a competition. They don't think it should be a coronation, right?
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Yeah.
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Which Democrats on the national stage, whether members of Congress, governors, people who might run for president. Which ones do you think have really distinguished themselves in critiquing the war and pointing out what they think are the real risks of the conflict in Iran. Anybody come to mind as kind of finding their voice on this?
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I don't think anybody specifically. I think for a Democrat to really have the type of credibility that they would need to reach independent voters and maybe even a few Republican voters. They would have to start with a premise that most Democrats are not willing to start with, and that is that Iran's been the epicenter of terrorism since 1979, that one president after another has allowed Iran to lie to them. It's allowed Iran to build their missile systems, has allowed Iran to build a nuclear system. So unless you're willing to start there, and unless you're willing to say, listen, Iran is a threat to mankind. It's one of the most dangerous countries on Earth. So US Degrading their weapon systems are a very positive thing. But how we went about doing it, you know, there are a multitude of problems there. I think that's where the Democrat has to start. And I certainly found with Chuck Schumer on my show, I couldn't even get him to admit that it was a good thing that the epicenter of terrorism, Iran, that it might be a good thing for America that their military. Their military power's been degraded.
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Yeah. That interview you did with them a couple weeks ago was one of the seminal moments in trying to understand the control that the Democratic base still has over its party leaders on this issue, but on. Also on others. Do you think Senator Schumer and other Democratic leaders maybe have the wrong view of where the country is or even where the Democratic Party Party is on this issue, and they're just kind of reflexively spooked by the base, or you think they're looking at polling data and really understand the party?
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Well, I. I think it's very hard for them to come out, considering how the base feels about Donald Trump, considering how most Americans are against this war. Sometimes for a lot of politicians, it's hard to do two things at once. One of the things that was always maddening about Bill Clinton when we were trying to chase him down back in the 1990s, a reporter would say, well, what do you think of this Republican idea to balance a budget in seven years? He'd go, well, I think that's a great idea. He wasn't afraid to do two things at once. However, the way they're doing it is too tough on the poor, too tough on the disadvantaged. This is how I think we should do it. There aren't a lot of politicians, at least that I've seen on the Democratic side, that are willing to say that Iran has been a minister of the world for 47 years. And also to say something else, that even if this president failed miserably in planning ahead for this war, which I think he did, Even if he did that, that doesn't take away from the fact that at some point we were going to have to move on Iran. I think it may be a tragedy. Maybe we survived this intact economically, and so it's not a tragedy for working Americans. You know, at some point we probably were going to have to go into Iran. We would have had to plan it out better. We would have had to do all the things that Cap Weinberger and Colin Powell talked about. And when they're talking about the Weinberger doctrine, preparing the allies, having a lot of allies on your side, having the support of the, of the American people on your side, having the substantial support of Congress on your side, all the things we didn't have in Vietnam and a lot of things we didn't have going into Iraq. But, but even if the President had all that, this still would have been a very, very tough slog. It just though. But, but at least he would have gone in there without being blindsided about the strait, without being blindsided by all these other things. So I think Democrats need to learn to say Iran's a menace. Iran's been the epicenter of terrorism since 1979. Iran is a country that at some point we were going to have to confront, just not now, and just not with this commander in chief who just wasn't willing to plan ahead and listen to all those that were warning him that it was going to be a very complicated matter.
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I don't like hypotheticals, but I do like time travel questions.
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Oh, perfect.
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So let's say, because it seems like this might end okay, but it's not going to end with a lot of what people who have been worried about Iran think need to be part of a final deal. So let's go back to January of this year, which is kind of when all this started. And you've seen the future and you're meeting with the President and he says january. Joe, here's the list of the six things we want to get done. We want to make sure they don't have a nuclear weapon. We want to make sure they don't have ballistic missiles, want to make sure their terror networks are torn away. We want to try to free up the country so the people can live in liberty and democracy, and we want to bring them back into the community of nations. But I don't want to team up with Israel to bomb them, because that's not going to work. And I don't want them to take over this strait. Because you've told me from the future they'll happen. But I still want to achieve these goals. And I know you share all those goals. So what would you. What could he have done? If his goal was by the end of this term to achieve those things, what could he have done differently? I know you said build an alliance, but what would the other action pieces of that then?
- [34:08]
A
You know. You know, I actually, as you know, and I did talk about this on the show briefly, I did speak to the president on the Friday before the attacks commenced. And I said, be careful listening to people like Lindsey Graham. He makes this sound easy. He makes it sound glorious. It's nothing. I mean, Iran is not Venezuela. And I said, Iran's not even Iraq. This is far more complicated than anything you would do. I think what I would say would be, is what any general or any admiral would say or anybody that's ever been on the Armed Services Committee and say, you really need to focus. Your goals have to be limited, and you have to ask yourself what is the one thing, the one great thing you want to accomplish? And if you talk to the Emirates or the Saudis or you talk to our allies in the region, they would say that would be getting rid of the missile systems, degrading the missile systems, degrading the nuclear systems. But that I would say you're not going to be able to change the government. Regime change in the Middle east is always disastrous. It never works. It didn't work in Iraq. It certainly won't work in Iran, because in Iraq, all you had to do was kill Saddam Hussein and the entire government fell because he was an absolute dictator. In Iran, we've been debating for a decade or two who has the real source of power. Is it the mullah or is it the mullahs? Is it the Revolutionary Guard? How much power does the parliament have? Their sources of power were far more dispersed even than Iraq. So I would say pick a limited target. What's the most important thing for you to take care of? And I think that answer would be getting rid of their nuclear program. And that might include teaming up with Israel and continuing to destroy their nuclear sites. And then it would require, and I would tell the president, if you're going to do this, there's going to be sacrifice. You're going to have to send in troops. You're going to have to send in special ops. They're going to have to go to those sites. You're going to have to send in engineers. It's going to be an extraordinarily complicated thing. Mr. President, if you really want to do this, if you really want this to be your legacy, if you really think this needs to be done, you know it's not going to be. You may lose 4,000, 5,000 troops like we lost in Iraq, but if that's what you want to do, here are the costs, here's the blowback you're going to receive, but this is how you get it done. But this general idea that we were going to change their regime or we were going to, he, he really did believe that There was Adel Rodriguez in Iran two weeks, three weeks into the war. As I said on the show, there's not a Delia Rodriguez in Iran. If there were, she would get shot in the back of the head because a Revolutionary Guard would never allow that to happen. So that's what I would say. The benefit of hindsight, and this is what I say, even today, the president cannot come home and declare victory if all he's going to provide us is an Obama light solution to Iran's nuclear program. And that may upset a lot of, a lot of isolationists on the left and on the right, but there cannot be a nuclear Iran. Seven presidents have said that. I would not have gone into Iran, but we are in Iran right now. And I find it hard to believe that the president's going to be able to come home, bring the troops home and declare victory when he finds himself and other American presidents in the future find themselves sitting across the table from Iranians who have always lied about their nuclear capabilities. It's the same thing that happened with North Korea. We thought we had North Korea contained. North Korea lied. That's what dictators do, that's what tyrants do. So it seems to me that the strait has to be open and we have to have a really workable solution to limit Iran's ability to build nuclear weapons. And right now they're at 60% enrichment. That's roughly the enrichment of the bombs that we used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So they are not contained.
- [38:51]
B
Leaving aside the political issues and, and the comparison to Barack Obama, how worried are you on the merits about taking sanctions off Iran or unfreezing their assets? What, what, what, what are the dangers there for you?
- [39:09]
A
Well, I mean, I was dead set against Obama's nuclear deal from the very beginning. Thought it was absolutely idiotic to, to enter into that deal. David Ignatius called it a existential gamble. And yeah, and I said at the time, yeah, an existential gamble. We will lose. We will. You will always lose. There is no Trust, but verify with the Iranians. So I, so I think that's what has to be done. I'm sorry, I forget. Forgot your question.
- [39:48]
B
Are you. What are the concerns you have about giving them access to money, either through sanctions?
- [39:54]
A
Great concerns. Wait, so we, we, we've actually, we've enraged the Iranians even more than they've been arranged. Enraged since they've been chanting Death to America and burning American flags for, for my entire adult life. And now we've given them an excuse to believe they have to build up their missile systems and they have to build up their nuclear systems. And now they feel like they have justification because the United States and Israel have attacked them and tried to wipe them off the face of the earth. So, you know, I, I had an old campaign down or one of my first campaign donors, Charlie Hilton, who, when he was talking about my opponent in the primary, said Scarborough, if you attack a snake, you better kill it. That was Northwest Florida's version of if you shoot at a king, you better kill him. I just don't think we're in a position to let Iran go back to the status quo. I'm not saying topple their government, but I'm saying we're going to have to drive an extraordinarily hard bargain, which is going to be very hard for the president to do because I know he's always looking at the markets and looking at oil. But I think his legacy in great part depends on whether we leave with Iran with the ability to build back their nuclear weapons and build back their missile systems. And I will tell you, our allies in the Emiratis, our allies in Saudi Arabia, our allies across the region, many of whom I've spoken with over the past three or four months since this war began, are dead set against the United States doing any of that. Because they are the ones, whether it's in Riyadh or whether it's in Dubai. They're going to be the ones on the front lines and they're the ones that the Iranians will strike.
- [41:43]
B
So you'd be very. Look, very jaundice at any deal that allowed Iran to get back money, either either through sanctions relief or unfreezing events.
- [41:53]
A
It depends on what they're willing to give us.
- [41:55]
B
Are they willing to give us if we get. If they give us their nuclear material,
- [42:00]
A
if they give us the nuclear material, if they give us unfettered access? And I don't want a United nations agency doing that. I want, I want the United States to be able to go in periodically and go in and inspect all of their sites.
- [42:18]
B
But if they give us that, you'd be, you'd be comfortable giving them cash money in return?
- [42:23]
A
If they were willing to give us all of their nuclear materials and if we were willing, if we thought we had a way to verify that and continue verifying that, then yes, I would give them some money. But it would have to be a deal that we would have to bring the Emiratis in on, we would have to bring the Israelis in on, we would have to bring the Saudis in on to say, listen, we want to do this deal with Iran, we can take the nukes away from them, but they're probably going to be able to build back some missile system systems that still will be a threat to you. What do you, you know, what do you think about it? So, but, but again, you're asking me this question. I don't think, first of all, I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think the Iranians are going to ever give up their nuclear program, especially now. But if they were willing to give up their nuclear program, then yes, I would be willing to grant some sanctions relief. But it would be sanctions relief that would be tied very closely to verification for a. I trust even less than I trusted the Soviet Union having.
- [43:32]
B
I'm going to switch topics because I want to talk about your show, which has been now on a different platform for a little bit. Very difficult to have a successful show for a year or two or five or ten. How long has your show been on Morning Joe?
- [43:45]
A
19.
- [43:46]
B
19 years. So again, I know, I know you're truly a modest person, but what allows a show to succeed for 19 years? What's this? What are the ingredients of a show being popular with an audience for 19 years?
- [44:00]
A
Well, Mark, you were, you were the first person that actually recognized it. And you, I saw a quote that you, you gave, I think it may have been New York magazine. I didn't even know you at the time. You said the show is revolutionary. They actually let people come on the show and disagree and talk. And instead of talking for five minutes, you're talking for 15 minutes, 20 minutes. They're debating op eds in the new York Times, the Wall Street Journal, other papers across the country. You know, we actually, we just trusted our viewers to want to listen. And I've always said one of the first sort of eye opening events was when we had Walter Isaacson on the show to talk about his Einstein book. He didn't want to come on the show. He was a Morning person. I said, well, just call us from bed in New Orleans. I don't care. And so Walter, you could tell Walter was asleep, but he Talked for about 15 minutes on Einstein. I was absolutely fascinated by it. I had Chris Licht in my ear screaming, go to break. Go to break. I said, walter, can you stay with us for another block? And Chris is screaming, no. So we invite Walter back. We do another 15 minutes. So Walter Isaacson's doing 30 minutes while he's half asleep in bed talking about a book about Albert Einstein and science. It was the highest rated half hour of our entire first year. And at that point, I realized we can do whatever we want to do on the show. We can talk as long as we want to talk. We don't have to talk about. At the time, it was Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton. We could talk about what's happening in Syria or what's happening in Russia or what's happening across the world. And I will say. Or, you know, people always complain that nobody wants to talk about foreign policy or foreign policy segments relative to the rest of the stuff we do rate very well. Now, part of that, as you know, is because we have David Ignatius on a good bet and Richard Haas and a lot of other very smart people. General hurdling. But our. Our audience. Our audience once. Once they hear the news and they want long conversations, and occasionally they'll let me talk about the Boston Red Sox or Paul McCartney.
- [46:14]
B
You and I are fans of comedy, and I think the two funniest things I've ever seen on tv, one's the Simpsons, and the other is the many attempts other shows, other channels have made to try to replicate your success by doing a version of what you do. Why can't anybody just copy it? What's the barrier to entry, to doing a show to compete with your show?
- [46:32]
A
You know, it's we. We are.
- [46:34]
B
We are.
- [46:35]
A
Truly. I only. I just got. I'd say we're just so blessed. We were just blessed by God. Willie, Mika and I hardly knew each other when we started the show. I had known Willie when he was Tucker Carlson's executive producer. And, you know, occasionally we would throw Nerf footballs across the studio and in Secaucus, where MLB now runs. But I just hardly knew him. But I talked to him. I said, this seems like a fun guy. I go, hey, would you want to come on? We're gonna try to do a show to replace Imus. And he goes, yeah, sure. And then Mika, I met her one night when she was working overnights and she, I said, I'm Joe Scarborough, you always do bump ins when I'm doing my show out of Florida. And she goes, hey, it's good to meet you. And she said something insulting about me and how stupid my show was. And I immediately called Phil. I go, phil, I think we, we found our co host. And so we got on that day and I know you've heard this, but others may not have. We got on that first day and Mika, who'd been in the business for 20, 25 years, had everybody call asking, how did you know? How do you know these guys? When did you work with these guys before? Because the timing was, was great. Even the first countdown, you know, they're going five, four, three. And I just whispered to everybody, I said, keep talking, tier one, go. And they were going crazy. And we just kept talking, you know, for about five minutes. I looked up and go, oh, hi, welcome to the show. And then we went back talking. So we, we always, with, with Willie and Mika and myself, we had three people who didn't want to play TV that wanted to be formulaic. We've had several people come in and want us to be formulaic and say, well, we don't do that here. And, and so it's worked for us. And I don't know really why, but I know that you really can't replicate it if you don't have three people who don't genuinely love each other and don't know. You know, when I start sort of one of my wind ups, Willie will start smirking before anybody else on set or anybody at home other than you because Willie knows where I'm going. And it's been like that from the beginning, which is just pretty crazy.
- [48:56]
B
And then lastly, you've moved to a whole different company. Is it pronounced Versant? Versant, how do you pronounce that?
- [49:02]
A
I, I had called it versa and everybody laughed at me. They said, you can call it that if you're in France, but it's really pronounced Versant Versant.
- [49:10]
B
So you're on a totally different channel, different bosses, different studio. And yet the shows is not just the same as it's always been, but as good as it's always been. How, how does that work?
- [49:20]
A
And it's doing better. You know, my theory always was when people were freaking out, my theory always was we're in a new media world. You look at what you're doing, you look at what Megan Kelly's doing, you look at, you know, we talked about Tucker Carlson before, you look at what all of these other people are doing. People don't care if they're attached to CBS News or CNN or the Washington Post. I mean that's not to say there aren't still great people doing great work. I think Emma Tucker at the Wall Street Journal is an extraordinary editor and she's just really made the Wall Street Journal more relevant than it's ever been. But, but it doesn't really. People are going to find us, people are going to figure out where we are and we're very lucky. The, you know, when we worked, when we first started General Electric was the company with Jack Donahue over us. It's a three rock joke. And then it was Comcast. And as I always said, I mean I, I love Brian Roberts and loved Comcast but if we did well and made money for Comcast, which we did, we made a ton of money for Comcast. They wouldn't reinvest it back in cable usually because Wall street would kill him for that. You know, they'd be burying more cable and like Bismarck. So it's great to have Versant where you have. I think they've got about eight or 10 cable channels. Their business is linear television. So when we do well, they reinvest back in us and their stock is, has been going up pretty consistently over the past couple months and ratings are high.
- [50:59]
B
I call him a simple country lawyer, Larry King. We call him the great Joe Scarborough. There you go Joe, thank you for making time. Great to see you man.
- [51:07]
A
Mark, always great to see you. Thanks for having me.
- [51:10]
B
All right, that was Joe Scarborough. Next up near Tanden, a former big shot in the Biden White House, the Obama White House Close advisor Hillary Clinton now president and CEO at the center for American Progress. Neer Tanden's next stop. Did you know that high blood pressure is the number one risk factor for mortality? One in two adults has it. That means there's a 5050 chance you are walking time bomb. But here's the good news. You can take control of your blood pressure naturally without relying on Big Pharma. 120 Life is a Blend of great tasting super fruit juices that have been shown to help lower blood pressure. It's backed by hundreds of doctors and trusted by thousands of people who've seen measurable results. And here's the best part. It's completely risk free. Try 120Life for two weeks and if you don't see a difference in your numbers, you get your money back. Go to 120Life.com, that's 120Life.com and use the code NextUp to save 20% and get free shipping. This is serious. This is your life we're talking about. 120 life can help. All right, next up and joining me now, one of the leading voices in the Democratic Party, the progressive movement, Neera Tanden, a former domestic policy chief at the White House and president and CEO at the center for American Progress, which has built now an enduring record and legacy as a relatively new but significant organization in Washington. Neera, explain how and why the center started and how you all have had so much success over a pretty long period of time by now.
- [52:50]
C
Thanks so much for having me. So the center for American Progress is an action oriented think tank and we started in the early 2000s and we really started with an understanding that the the right had built a series of ideas institutions, Heritage, the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Cato, and while the progressive side or center left had built up, had a lot of institutions that were advocacy oriented, didn't really have a broad multi issue ideas organization. So that was how we got started. John Podesta was our first CEO, a former chief of staff to Bill Clinton. And our focus is to develop ideas that, that can solve the country's problems. And we were one of the, we were the first organization to have a actual plan to end the Iraq War way back in, in 2006, which President Obama championed. And we also developed a framework around the Affordable Care act, which he then championed as well. In late 2017, 2018. We developed the idea was separate apart from the Green New Deal, using subsidies to address climate and of course President Biden championed those ideas. So our goal is to develop ideas that solve problems that can make it through the political process and actually become law and make people's lives better.
- [54:26]
B
Yeah, I'm very grateful to you for being here and for explaining it that way because that's to me what's been so impressive because a lot of think tanks and groups in D.C. claim they're serious about ideas. But you guys have are you guys are ideas first and your practical ideas first. Big ideas, sometimes smaller ones. But that's to me what's been impressive. You have serious policy people and you focus on, as you said, solving problems as Bill Clinton would say, in the real lives of real people. So you ran. Absolutely, you ran. And again, I think in some ways you've lapped some of these conservative groups who you were trying to compete with because they've, in the Trump era, they've been a little caught up in the politics of Trump and the politics of maga. And I don't think they necessarily are developing ideas at the same rate they used to, whereas you all continue to do it. So congratulations to you for doing it over a quarter century. Now, my question is, you ran through the history of some of the big ideas that have been adopted by the party. What are some ideas you have now that you think whether Donald Trump would like them or not, the country really likes and you wish we're getting more attention?
- [55:32]
C
Well, I'm so glad you asked that question. So we've recently put out a series of ideas on how to lower the cost of living for folks in specific areas. So a few months ago we put out a plan to make housing more affordable. We put out plans to make health care more affordable. We're developing and hopefully we'll have a plan out soon to address utility costs. And our housing plan was kind of emblematic of the way we approach this first and foremost. You know, it's fascinating to me that cost of a living is as much of a concern today where inflation is lower than it was during the Biden administration. In fact, cost of living concerns are higher today than when we were in the Biden administration. We had 9% inflation, we're over 3%. It's gone up a little bit over the last year. But even with a lower rate, people are as concerned as they, as they have really as they were, as I said in the, in the previous administration. And I think that is because lots of costs have risen. For example, health care costs have risen, Premiums have risen 25% over the last five years. Housing costs, apartment rents went up 30% over the previous five years. They had a price shock and then they kind of stabilized. And I think overall people are having a harder time making ends meets. So I think that it's important for government to address people's concerns. So in our housing plan, for example, we have a robust push on supply. We think, you know, we're sort of abundance plus we think that it's important the way to lower costs is generally to improve increase supply of a good. We do that really through two means. First and foremost, cost, a lot of red tape, zoning restrictions make it is
- [57:30]
B
that, are those Feder, is that federal red tape or that state red tape?
- [57:33]
C
That is state red tape. So basically for housing, I mean some programs it's federal, but really in housing, in some areas it's federal, but for housing it's mostly local. And the way we, we encourage that is we basically say that for localities, you know, will, will Help them build more housing with some federal investment. But they have to match that with cutting and making it easier to build. Permitting reform, zoning reform. It's not enough to just put federal dollars down. We actually have to make it easier for, you know, like developers to build housing. That's a crucial part.
- [58:17]
B
I interrupted you the first, I interrupt you. The first you said was cutting red tape, incentivizing local, state and local to make it easier to build housing. What's the second thing? To increase supply.
- [58:27]
C
Federal investment, sorry, ensuring that LI tech. Other other areas of investment, we have some additional supply. So lihtc, the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, is a tax credit that exists. We would increase some of that funding, federal funding for that.
- [58:45]
B
How many. What's the gap between how many new houses, new homes we need versus how many we have? We're talking tens of thousands, hundreds, millions.
- [58:54]
C
I mean, there's some variance here. Some estimates are 2 million units, some estimates are 5 million units. But the way to think about this is you identified the precise right way to think about this, which is the United States States has over the last several years not produced enough units to keep up with population. And that has risen the costs of units. Like a normal market, if you have less of it, the prices go up. So not having enough supply has meant that rents have gone up, housing costs have gone up. And fundamentally, you know, one of the big problems in America, I think, is not just increased revenue rents, but today the average age for purchasing your first home is 40 years old. And it used to be, not that long ago, 29 years old. I think this is a deep challenge in our society and really makes a lot of people much more pessimistic about the future when they think it's going to be so long for them to have access to this kind of basic middle class life or element of a middle class life. So on housing, we increase supply, but we also provide tax credits to localities that engage in this and say, you know, to provide limited sort of efforts to stabilize rents. We're really trying to ensure that we increase supply, but that also people feel that. Feel the benefits of that, you know, and like Ezra Klein and others have written favorably on our plan recognizing. And I think what's really interesting about where the public is is, you know, they're interested in ideas that can address cost of living issues now. They're feeling those issues now and are really hungry for ideas that will deliver sooner rather than later. So that's kind of the principle in our housing plan.
- [60:51]
B
And you're telling me that the problem could be addressed to a large extent. Obviously wouldn't solve everything if we just built at the upper end five million new residences.
- [61:00]
C
Yeah, I mean, really the problem is
- [61:02]
B
it doesn't seem that hard.
- [61:04]
C
Well, building 5 million, I mean, this is exactly the point, which is communities that have been building a lot of units. Houston has made it very easy to build. The average cost of an apartment in Houston is about a single bedroom apartment is about $1,200. Places like Los Angeles, it's, you know, $2,500 because it is harder to build there. So it is a little bit of this is important to, you know, ensure that it's easier to build in places and encouraging making it easier to build. Now there are, there are constituencies that are opposed to building, you know, people who have, you know, people who like to have limited supply live housing because it keeps the values of homes up. So kind of.
- [61:54]
B
Well, and the president's in that category to some extent.
- [61:57]
C
Yes, yes, yes. You know, I have, I mean, it's one of a few disagreements I have with Donald Trump is that I think that there should be.
- [62:05]
B
He's also.
- [62:06]
C
I think it is, look, I think it's a problem this has developed over a long period of time, but I do think it is a really corrosive problem that the kind of signature hallmark of a middle class life is increasingly out of reach for people until they're getting older and older. And I think that is part of the reason why people are so much more pessimistic about the future than they have been in the past.
- [62:29]
B
Totally agree. One of my critiques of your party is that is that when people think about the last presidential election, they come up with all sorts of explanations of why Donald Trump, someone who many Democrats feel as the worst possible person, was on full vivid display for four years in the White House, couldn't possibly win again, but then he did. And they'll focus on whether the vice president laughed too much or her one particular answer on the View. But there seems to be not very much reflection of, from a policy point of view for what she stood for and what Donald Trump stood for. What are the policy lessons of her loss to you? What did she talk too much about or not enough about? What was she talking about that was unpopular? What was the Biden Harris policy record that was unpopular? What would you say about that set of questions?
- [63:19]
C
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a lot to hang it on the vice president in 107 day race. So I think the broader question is, you Know, why was it that the President wasn't on a easy cruise line to reelection? And, and which I think was a similar question as why it was so hard for her. And I think the truth is that there were problems the President solved. President Biden solved a lot of problems, but there were a lot of problems that remained. And I think a lesson for me is that if you're not solving a problem, people like, I kind of like, have learned a lesson that a bad answer will often be no answer. Now, I still believe a good answer will be a bad answer, but I don't think I've said many times, I don't think we address the border early enough. And we should have put forward ideas to do that earlier than we did. And a cap. I've lived that idea. We've put forward a plan that would ensure border security. And the way it would do that is, you know, permanently reform asylum to ensure that it's meeting its original purpose and not, you know, essentially a magnet for abuse of asylum, really did become a magnet of border entry. So, you know, I think we should also have a plan. We have a plan that also, you know, still has a path for citizenship for people and expands legal immigration while constricting illegal immigration. So fundamentally, I think we have to wrestle with the fact that there were some problems we didn't solve. And then I think the truth is that both the Biden administration and the Trump administration is dealing with the fact that Americans are feeling that it is much more difficult to make ends meet, or at least the bottom 60%, 70% of the country, frankly. I think the economy is really a K shaped economy. The top 20, 30% are doing pretty well, but the bottom 70%, 60%, feel very precarious. And I think they feel precarious because they are precarious. You know, while we've seen wage gains, costs are really eating into higher costs are really eating into people's, you know, like, their ability to feel like they're getting their head above water. And I think the kind of irony of the current situation, frankly, is that the President Trump campaigned very effectively on attacking Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on cost of living. And, you know, not only it's not that he hasn't done enough. I think he's, he's taken three specific actions that raise costs for people. One, the tariffs, which are a national sales tax. Two, the One Big Beautiful Bill act, which raised people's health care costs by dumping health care for, you know, 15, 20 million Americans. Well, you know, at least taking A lot of energy off the bill, off the grid because of his concern, concerns about utilities. And then finally the Iran war, which is creating real spikes in gas, fertilizer and other areas.
- [66:49]
B
So if you took some AI assistant and just said, show me the top 20 issues of voter concerns and then show me Donald Trump's position and then show me the consensus Democratic Party position on which of those 20 issues would the President's policy views be more popular than the Democratic parties?
- [67:12]
C
Well, I mean, another way to put that as where is the president? I mean, he still has advantage or his advantages. Actually, I don't think he has that many advantages if you were like looking at the polls. But he has, he, he, his numbers have come down. The Republican Party has some advantages. I mean, I guess it's really, I don't know the answer to that question. I can say, you know, where the top concerns are of the public, which is cost of living, political reform. And then there are issues like crime and immigration, which are personal security issues, I think for people. Now I can say where CAP is in all these issues. I can't speak for a Democratic consensus, but I could say CAP has put forward ideas on border security, on how to reduce crime. Crime is coming down, but crime is still terrible, and when it happens, it's bad. So we've learned a lot of lessons of how to reduce crime. We've put forward ideas on how to reduce crime, and then we are putting forward ideas and developed policies on major costs to people, health care, utilities and housing. I think people really see it and they see all of those issues as real core concerns to them.
- [68:27]
B
Let me ask it this way. Does the President have any policy positions that you think are popular?
- [68:32]
C
Well, he did have one on, yeah. I mean, I think his. Donald Trump changed the Republican Party on issues like Social Security and Medicare over time. That was very popular. He saw a Republican Party that had a kind of libertarian party perspective on some issues and move them off those issues. I think his positions more recently, I think the immigration issue is kind of a fascinating issue because he's lost a big advantage on that topic by, I think, going to an extreme. If he had just secured the border without the extreme policies, I think he would have a lot more popularity. So. So it's not really, for me, I don't really know. I gotta say, nothing's topping my head. I mean, it's tax cuts. No tax on tips was very popular. It's interesting to me that that hasn't really redounded to a success for him in other areas. It hasn't helped Boyd, his approval, even though we've literally just gone through tax time. And, you know, I think the Republican.
- [69:45]
B
It might have buoyed it. It might be even lower. It weren't protected.
- [69:48]
C
Yeah, that's fair. Could have been, yes. I mean, he's hitting some kind of low notes on the polls here, but maybe you're right. You never know. That is a definite feature of politics.
- [69:57]
B
I want to ask you one. One series of questions about presidential politics, 2028, not about specific people. I'm going to give you two traits and you tell me which would be better if we're a Frankenstein candidate to win a general election and. Or you could say doesn't matter.
- [70:14]
C
Or Frankenstein candidate or optimal candidate. What do you mean?
- [70:17]
B
Well, optimal. I'm positive frames. In other words, you're building it from the ground up.
- [70:21]
C
Oh, you're building it up. Okay, got it.
- [70:22]
B
So. So I'll start easy and illustrative, like insider or outsider. Which would be better?
- [70:28]
C
Outsider inside Washington, D.C. yeah.
- [70:31]
B
Okay. So that's an easy one. Young or old. And again, you could say doesn't matter for some of these young or old, which would be better?
- [70:36]
C
I think being a next generation leader will be very important.
- [70:40]
B
Will be better. Okay. Time serving in the federal government, like in Congress or in the cabinet or never having worked in Washington.
- [70:49]
C
I mean, I think there'll probably be interest in a candidate who comes from outside of Washington. So. Yeah, not likely. You know, I mean, I don't think it was going to hold it against you if you, like, served at one point in the federal government, but like, if you're, you know, your message should be from outside Washington.
- [71:06]
B
Got it. Male or female?
- [71:09]
C
Well, that's up to the voters.
- [71:11]
B
Well, no, it's all up to. It's all up to the voters.
- [71:13]
C
I'm not going to pick. I mean, I.
- [71:15]
B
Well, you could say neither.
- [71:16]
C
You could say neither. I mean, I, you know, I. Look, I think. I will say. I think the Democratic Party has. Has. Doesn't. Does as like reflected on 2016 and 2024. And.
- [71:28]
B
Yeah.
- [71:29]
C
A lot of people think, like, one of. We picked two women who had a lot of.
- [71:34]
B
Yeah.
- [71:34]
C
Who had a lot of experience.
- [71:38]
B
They were. They just. It's just factually true. Two women were over two and they lost to Donald Trump.
- [71:43]
C
Yeah. And one was like we. I mean, also, it was like one. The complaint was she didn't smell enough. And the other one was the complaint she smelled too much. It's a little hard to know what the Perfect.
- [71:53]
B
But you're but you're saying you're agnostic about which would be better. A woman, I think.
- [71:56]
C
I mean, talented people.
- [71:58]
B
Okay. You know, Jewish or not Jewish?
- [72:01]
C
I don't think that matters.
- [72:03]
B
Doesn't matter. Equally. Equally strong general election.
- [72:06]
C
Yeah. I think we will have great Jewish candidates and great non Jewish candidates.
- [72:10]
B
Okay. White or not white?
- [72:13]
C
I don't think that matters either.
- [72:15]
B
Don't think that matters either. Okay.
- [72:17]
C
I mean, Barack Obama, like, he was a pretty amazing candidate and won reelection. Yeah, pretty well.
- [72:24]
A
Yeah.
- [72:25]
B
Tall or short?
- [72:28]
C
I have no idea. I don't think that matters.
- [72:31]
B
Well, in the television age, pretty much without exception, the taller candidates won every time.
- [72:38]
C
Okay.
- [72:39]
B
Sometimes we've had people about the same thing.
- [72:40]
C
Maybe you're right on that. I don't know.
- [72:42]
B
Yeah, well, just. I mean, there's always exceptions. But someone who supports AI as a. As a. The future key to future American success, or someone who's very skeptical of AI.
- [72:56]
C
Yeah, I think someone. I think. I think the nominee will be someone who can communicate to the public that they have some plan to manage the transition. That doesn't mean they have to be like. Like you can't really end AI So I think that's kind of ridiculous. But I think if someone says let her rip, that is going to not. That's not where the public is. In fact, the public's attitudes towards AI are, are getting much, much. I mean, it's moving negative relatively quickly as kind of big issues like that go.
- [73:29]
B
Okay. Lastly, someone who's married or someone who's single.
- [73:33]
C
Oh, I don't think that matters either.
- [73:34]
B
Doesn't matter. Okay. All right. Thank you for being here and for playing that wacky game.
- [73:41]
C
Great. That's fun. The time flew by.
- [73:45]
B
Yeah. All right. Grateful to Neera Tandon again. She runs the center for American Progress. Former senior, senior White House official in all sorts of jobs. Neera, thank you. Grateful to you.
- [73:55]
C
Thanks. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Have a great day.
- [73:58]
B
And to you. That's it for today's program. We'll be back on Thursday with a brand new episode. Subscribe now on your YouTube or podcast platforms wherever you'd like to enjoy the program so you always know what's coming. Next up, Hi, I'm Chef Franklin Becker. You know the jingle. Now discover the facts about Ozempic, a GLP one.
- [74:23]
A
There's only one FDA approved Ozempic made by Novo Nordisk.
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B
Learn about the real thing. Talk to your healthcare professional today. Call 1-833-OZEMPIC or visit ozempic.com to view
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A
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