<i>[upbeat music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> - How are you guys doing? - Who are your friends? - This is <i>The Weekly.</i> - I’ll follow you. PHOTOGRAPHER: Can I get a big smile? - That’s as big as it gets. - What an opportunity. [laughter] KATHLEEN: Uh, all right. We’ll head in. WOMAN: We’re going in? - Okay. KATHLEEN: Welcome. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>ELIZABETH WARREN: Is that one down at the end mine?</i> - Yes. - Yes, it is yours. - Morning. - Hi. - Okay. - Well, thanks for having me over. <i>♪ ♪</i> - Let’s just dive in. <i>[spacey music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>[indistinct chatter]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> - Can we get a mic check on John, please? <i>KATHLEEN: The editorial board</i> <i>is a group of writers and editors</i> who are given the task, basically, to think about the biggest issues of the day and write informed opinions. <i>We have a lawyer by training.</i> <i>One lapsed scientist.</i> <i>We have people who’ve written about politics for decades.</i> <i>The editorial board is in the Opinion department.</i> <i>We are completely separate from the</i> Times’ <i>newsroom,</i> and the newsroom has a really different job than we do. Their job is to go out and gather facts and to describe the world as it is, <i>whereas us in Opinion,</i> <i>we really try to take those facts</i> <i>and describe the world as it should be.</i> <i>MAN: Five minutes out.</i> <i>KATHLEEN: Every election year,</i> we invite all the candidates to New York, and we interview them. We sit down and ask them tough questions, <i>questions that they’re not being asked</i> <i>on the debate stage or on the campaign trail.</i> And then finally, we make a decision. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>[spacey music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> - Hello. How are you? - Good. I’m Brittany. <i>BERNIE SANDERS: Hey, Brittany.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>Where would you like me? USHER: So you’re gonna take a seat</i> <i>at the end of the table.</i> <i>BERNIE: Hello. LAUREN: Hey, Senator.</i> Good to see you. How are you? <i>WOMAN: Hello. Great to meet you.</i> <i>MAN: Nice to see you. Welcome.</i> <i>BERNIE: I’m already impressed by the size of this table.</i> [laughter] KATHLEEN: So, Senator Sanders, thank you so much for coming. We all know your bio. We’ve watched the debates. The revolution like the one you’re proposing overhauls everything, but can you walk us— - Not quite everything. - [laughs] What of that legislation do you think could pass a Mitch McConnell Senate? - I wanna just convey to you that I look at the world maybe a little bit differently than you do, and I say that in— in due respect. What my administration is about is not sitting with Mitch, negotiating something. It is rallying the American people around an agenda that they already support. This is, I think, what makes me a little bit different than other candidates. Not only will I be commander in chief, I will be organizer in chief. - How do you respond to studies that show that you have one of the worst records in terms of bipartisan deal-making? - Really? - Yeah. - Well, you may want to know— - I—make the case for us that you’re a deal-maker. - Well, first of all, I’m not quite sure where you’re— I’ve not seen that study. But second of all, the point that I am making is that the way you bring about real change in this country, what the history of America is about, is when millions of people stand up for justice. You’re saying, “How do I negotiate with Mitch McConnell?” And I’ll tell you how I negotiate. Because when the people of Kentucky are demanding to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, that’s the basis of the negotiation. You make an offer to Mitch McConnell that he cannot refuse, and that is that the American people want to move in a different direction. - After the, um, artery blockage that occurred earlier this fall, there’s obviously some concern among voters about your health. Um, what are you doing to take care of yourself now? - Thank you. Uh, my wife watches me very carefully. Don’t tell her we had spareribs last night, please. [laughter] Don’t let her know. That was a good place. Uh— KATHLEEN: This is on the record. [laughter] BERNIE: And I’ll tell you something. You know, you asked me a personal question. The heart attack was shock to me, not physically as much as it was intellectually, ‘cause I have been blessed— [knocks on table] This is not wood, I know. Whatever it is. Uh, with good health my whole life, and the idea that my body malfunctioned on that day was shock— I couldn’t believe it when the doctor told me. I really couldn’t believe it. So to answer your question, I am gonna do my best. I-I see it as a public responsibility. BRENT: What about the fact that Trump has touched a chord in 40% to 44% of the people? What about that issue, is that Trump is a symptom of a widespread problem? BERNIE: Yes. - So I mean, how do you address that? - The Amer—mi- not everybody, but tens and tens of millions of Americans feel that the political establishment, Republican and Democrat, have failed them. - That explains the appeal of racism? BERNIE: Yeah. People are, in many cases in this country, working longer hours for low wages. Life expectancy is actually going down in America because of diseases of despair. People have lost hope, and they are drinking. They’re doing drugs. They’re committing suicide. And when that condition arises, people are susceptible to the blame game, to say that it is the undocumented people in this country who are the cause of all of our problems, and if we just throw 10 million people out of the country, you’re gonna have a good job, and you’re gonna have good healthcare, and you have good education, you—that’s all we gotta do. And you take the despair and the anger and the frustration that people are feeling and you say, “That’s the cause of your problem.” KATHLEEN: I wanna get to climate. BERNIE: Good. JOHN: Yeah, let’s talk about climate for a minute. What policy would you establish right away? - The first thing that we have to recognize is, this is a major, major, major crisis. - Right. BERNIE: All right. - So what do we do? - You do everything humanly possible. That’s what you do. Climate change is the equivalent of a major attack. President would say we’re in a state of war. Well, we are in a state of war against climate change. The most fundamental thing that we do is say to the fossil fuel industry, “Sorry, your short-term profits are not more important than the future of this planet.” MICHELLE: So now, politics is about priorities. Sounds like this would be... - This is a major priority. How could it not be a priority? - If not your signature issue, at least one of the ones. BERNIE: I reject the signature issue. I believe that members of Congress and the American people can chew bubblegum and walk at the same time. Saving the planet, yeah, I guess that’s a signature issue. - One last thing for me. What are you likely to fail at, or to do poorly, as president? - Look, I don’t tolerate bullshit terribly well, and I come from a different background than a lot of other people who run the country. I’m not good at back-slapping. I’m not good at pleasantries. If you have your birthday, I’m not gonna call you up to congratulate you so you love me and you write nice things about me. That’s not what I do. Never have. And I-I—you know, I know— I take that as a little bit of a criticism, self-criticism. I have been amazed at how many people respond to, “Happy birthday!” “Oh, Bernie, thanks so much for calling.” You know, it works. It’s just not my style. Um, you know, I try to stay focused on the important issues facing working families in this country, and I fight for them. KATHLEEN: Thank you very much for coming. - Thank you very much. KATHLEEN: Appreciate it. BINYAMIN: I mean, there were several issues here where it felt like the details were not there. LAUREN: There’s sort of a rote, vague answer that he gives. “Everything humanly possible. We’re gonna do everything humanly possible.” - It’s kind of remarkable how similar it is to kind of the Trump way of doing business, right? Pretending that, you know, the three branches of government don’t exist, hoping that by executive fiat, you’re gonna be able to make the changes that you want. NICK: I mean, on the other hand, you know, I mean, there is some role in rallying popular support, and it’s something that Obama has been heavily criticized for not doing. MARA: He really deeply understands a lot about life in working America that frankly, other establishment Democrats are not talking about, and I think young people hear that. He’s far more in tune with them because he’s talking about the whole system being broken. - Yeah. MARA: I think we would be wise to kind of understand why that has such wide appeal on both extremes. KATHLEEN: Giddyup. - Come on in. Welcome. <i>[gentle music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>ANDREW YANG: Hello, everyone. Good morning. LAUREN: Hi.</i> - This is, like, the coolest job interview of all time. Get together and be like, “Should this person be president?” <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>KATHLEEN: In your assessment,</i> what are the policy breakdowns that lead to Americans still being hungry today? - Wow. I love this question. The fact that we’re not able to put food into people’s houses and on their tables uh, is a structural problem. My campaign’s based upon the premise that we’re going through this profound economic transformation, uh, the fourth Industrial Revolution, and one of the major problems is that we still pretend that if someone wakes up in the morning and says, “Hey, I need to put food on the table. “I can go out to my Main Street, “I can sell my time for money at some hourly rate, “and then I’ll be able to make a good enough living so I can feed my family,” and that has become progressively less true over the last 40 years, unfortunately. My main priority will be as president get the Freedom Dividend across the finish line and get buying power into Americans’ hands, which will then lead us to be able to solve many other problems much more quickly. MICHELLE: I think it’s clear that people are responding to you in part ‘cause you have this big vision, but Washington has a problem achieving even kind of modest visions. ANDREW: Yeah, we noticed. [laughs] - So—and we are currently enjoying a businessman president who has no experience in government or the military. What is your argument to people that you will do a better job dealing with the peculiarities of Washington? - First, any person who says they’re gonna run government like a business does not know what they’re talking about, because they’re two completely different things. In a business, you can say, “Hey, we’re gonna go this way,” and people generally have to do what you’re saying. In government, it’s much more analogous to my role as the founder of a national nonprofit, where you have hundreds or even thousands of stakeholders and you have to try and generate energy around a vision, let people see that it’s in their self-interest to get on board with your vision. That is the way I would lead as president. MARA: If you become president, what government secret are you most excited to learn about? - Definitely aliens, of course. [laughter] That’d be my first question. I got in there, I’d be like, “All right, let me see ‘em.” [laughter] CHARLIE: Who else besides you that you’re running against understands the Internet? - Um... I’m going to say I do not have, uh, confidence that any of my opponents get the Internet. - I was looking at the— the pin on your lapel, “Math.” What’s your math to winning the nomination? - To victory. - [laughs] ANDREW: We think we can do well particularly in New Hampshire, because my campaign has a very strong appeal to Independents, Libertarians, and many, many disaffected Trump voters. I spoke to half a dozen Trump voters at my events in New Hampshire yesterday, and they said that they are crossing party lines to—to support me. - All right, thank you very much for your time. - Thank you all. Thank you all. We’re gonna make history together in 2020. [laughter] NICK: I think he’s certainly in the running for the candidate you might want to spend more time with. KATHLEEN: Yeah, he had amazing energy. I don’t know if you guys saw. He was literally bouncing out the door and down the hall. - And he—and he gives you the sense that he’s actually in touch with sort of the anxiety of people under 40. - But it’s just hard to get around the sense that this guy should be running for, like, New York City Council. I just kept on wanting to ask him, like, “Are you the guy who should be in charge of our national security?” BRENT: Trump kicked the door open, and there are a lot of people who look at this and say, “Man,” you know, “I can do a better job than that,” and I have to tell you, I haven’t voiced it to you, my colleagues, but I’ve thought that several times myself. I’m serious. - [laughs] - I thought, “Shit,” you know? I mean... - Strike that from the transcript. [laughter] <i>[low music]</i> <i>AMY KLOBUCHAR: Thank you.</i> WOMAN: Looking backwards. - Okay. - We made it. - All right. <i>[gentle music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> - This is more people than the <i>Des Moines Register </i>board. [laughter] <i>♪ ♪</i> KATHLEEN: National polls show that the former vice president, Joe Biden, is still leading in a lot of states. Your platform, in many ways, is very similar to his. Make the case for us of you versus Joe Biden. - The number one case, uh, is that I am someone that, uh, has a record of bringing people with me and winning in districts that eluded the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016. In Minnesota, Secretary Clinton had her lowest percentage in a state that she won in the country, and then I went on, as I’ve done now three times, to win every rural congressional district, including the one bordering Iowa, and including Michele Bachmann’s district. You don’t do that just by a fluke when you do it three times. The other thing about me is that I am from the heartland, and I think that that matters in this election as well, and the fact that I have passed over 100 bills since I’ve been in the U.S. Senate every one of them bipartisan— I think it shows, compared to every other candidate that’s left there, maybe with the exception of the vice president, that I have that ability to get things done, and being a progressive, the last time I checked, meant that you should make progress, and I have done that and will do that as president. LAUREN: Senator, you alluded earlier to the fact that you’re running to become the first female president of the United States. On the one hand, you see voters say that they would be really excited to vote for a woman for president. On the other hand, you look at the likeability numbers for individual women candidates, and they’re in the single digits. - I think it is on me, uh, to make my case to the American people. In my own state, the one very clear poll of me versus Trump where they know who I am, I am 18 points up on Trump, 8 points more than the vice president. I do better with men than any of the other candidates, and I have tended to always have a lot of support with men. I think it is a barrier, and I think that it is on the two of us that are left on the stage uh, as the candidates to dispel that. JESSE: Can I just take you briefly to the issue of, uh, executive orders and—and guns? AMY: Sure. - You’ve laid out an aggressive series of actions you would take. How would you go about doing that without alienating the millions of gun-owning Americans? - That’s a great, great question, ‘cause people don’t ask it enough. Uh, so I am the one on that debate stage uh, who has, again, won in areas that have a lot of hunters. My state is a big hunting state. So when I look at these proposals, I say, “Uh, do they hurt my Uncle Dick in his deer stand?” Uh, they do not. Right now, we have seen a shift in politics on this, and if we screw this up, it’ll be on us. KATHLEEN: As you well know, um, there has been a lot of reporting, including in <i>The New York Times,</i> about the work environment that you have in the Senate. Um, one of the more troubling parts of that reporting, to my mind, was the fact that you have the highest turnover in the Senate. Why don’t talented people want to continue to work for you? - [laughs] But they do. I hope you meet the people outside in the hall. I may not be the leading candidate right now, but I have beaten, like, 19 people, including every governor. Um, and so you can’t run a presidential campaign uh, if you have a dysfunctional work environment. My campaign manager is the same one I’ve had for 14 years. My state director has been with me for seven years. The acting chief of staff has been with me for four years, and is on her third baby. - Do you have an Alexa or a smart speaker that’s in your home? - Yeah, okay. Yeah, I bought one of those, and— CHARLIE: You do? - Yeah, and then I got worried when I read everything, so I unplugged it and hid it in a drawer. - Okay. AMY: And took out, like, all the things, because I would play, like, holiday music, and then every time a senator called, I was unplugging it and putting it somewhere else, and I thought, “This is ridiculous,” and so I’ve stopped using it. - Great, thank you. - Okay. Thank you. KATHLEEN: Thank you so much, Senator, for coming. AMY: Thank you. MICHELLE: She obviously has more experience than a lot of these guys. What she is short on is charisma and inspiration. - Even though she’s anemic in the polls, there is a sort of central tendency in this person, you know, the basic sort of, like, utilitarian cut-the-difference, get-it-done, that I think, if it can break through, will find an audience. MARA: The central case for the Senator seems to be, the political crisis can be met with an adult in the room and some moderation and a Midwestern view. It’s worth taking seriously. I don’t know whether anybody knows if that’s actually enough. - Hi, I’m gonna take you up. I’m Lauren. Nice to meet you. - Nice to see you. <i>[bass music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> - Thank you. PHOTOGRAPHER: That was great. Thank you. <i>♪ ♪</i> - Mr. Mayor, one of the issues that I think a lot of, especially, young people have is that you don’t seem nearly as progressive or as, uh, revolutionary, in some ways, as some of the other candidates. - So first of all, what I’m proposing would make me the most progressive president in the lifetimes not only of young people, but I mean, certainly in the last half-century. I’ll also say that it matters that we hold together an American majority, not only to do the right thing on areas where Democrats have generally been trusted— wages, labor, health— but also areas where we’ve been on defense, like immigration, guns. Holding that majority together is a big part of the task of the next president. I’m not just talking about how to win an election. I’m talking about how to govern this country. We need to have enough clarity of vision that we can see that the boldness of an idea is not measured only by how many people it can alienate, but by what it can get done. - How do you counter the “Mayo Pete” memes? Are you familiar with those? - I’m not. Do I want to know? AISHA: Okay. Well, mayonnaise, as I think, and a lot of people think, is really, really gross, and there have been teens— - Wait a minute. - Mayonnaise is delicious. - A more generous interpretation is, it’s bland. PETE BUTTIGIEG: Okay. - Yes. NICK: And white. - I get the white part. [laughter] First of all, again, um, try to get folks to look at how big these ideas are. I mean, I’m talking about the biggest reform of the American healthcare system we’ve have since Medicare was invented. I’m talking about a game-changing transformation on the availability of funds to go to college. Talking about getting our climate carbon-neutral by 2050. That will test the limits of human capacity. BINYAMIN: If I can put this question in a slightly different way, you have been on the front lines of corporate downsizing. You’ve been on the front lines of corporate price fixing. You’ve been on the front lines... PETE: Whoa, whoa, whoa. That’s—that’s—I’m sorry. BINYAMIN: Of our misadventures— - That’s— BINYAMIN: Of our misadventures in foreign policy. You’ve had direct experience of many of the things that make a lot of young people very angry about the way that this country, uh, is operating right now. You don’t seem to embody that anger. - So the proposition that I’ve been on the front lines of corporate price fixing is bullshit, just to get that out of the way. Um... - You worked for a company that was fixing bread prices. - Uh, no, I worked for a consulting company that had a client that may have been involved in fixing— or was apparently in a scandal. Um— BINYAMIN: But do you feel the anger that many young people feel about the state of the— - Yeah, of course, because it destroyed my city. I-I grew up surrounded by crumbling factories and empty houses. My city lost 30,000 of its 130,000 people. I’m under no illusions about the problems that are present in American capitalism generally and were unleashed beginning with the Reagan era specifically, and while I may not be as emotive sometimes about my sense of anger or frustration or injustice, uh, and I would argue that some people are given more room to be emotive than others, I would not be doing any of this if I were not propelled by a level of passion. BRENT: When you—when you say— just a little aside there— some people are given latitude to be more emotive than others, what are you talking about? - You are sometimes asked to, um— - “You” being Pete? - Yeah, sure. I am sometimes asked. - Mm-hmm. PETE: To, um, be more—I don’t know, have more of a flourish in—in displaying my emotions... BRENT: Mm-hmm. - And it is precisely because I feel very strongly about lots of things that I’ve learned to master how I might feel about anything, and I’m also mindful, as the new guy... BRENT: Mm-hmm. - Um, that maybe waving my arms is not the best way... BRENT: Mm-hmm. - To convey what I care about. CAROL: What do you see as real advantages or challenges as being the first openly gay candidate for a major party? - I mean, I’ll tell you, a couple of things that it means right now which are very powerful, which is young people letting me know that I’m helping them in some way just by doing this. Then you have older folks. It’s not unusual—I would say every rope line, almost— eh, maybe not every rope line, but often— somebody comes up to me, starts to try to say something, and can’t. They’re usually in their 50s or older, and I know exactly what they’re saying, and that’s all it takes, and that is extraordinary. It’s not why I got into this race, but it’s part of what this campaign means, and I’m very mindful of that. KATHLEEN: All right, thank you very much. PETE: Thank you very much. KATHLEEN: Maybe it is because I’m from the Midwest, but I find, like, the Midwest affect and the way he talks about things to be very appealing. JOHN: It reminded me of Obama, who, as a pioneer, as Pete is a pioneer as a gay politician... Obama’s catchphrase was “no sudden moves.” I think that’s the soothingness that Pete’s trying to achieve. BINYAMIN: Success as a politician requires you to convince voters that you feel their problems, and I do not get the sense— maybe it’s because I’m not from the Midwest, but he did not give me the sense that he feels these problems. AISHA: Yeah. I mean, even his tone. That’s not what people want right now. Like, I-I don’t feel excited by him. I don’t—there’s this block. <i>[gentle music]</i> - I’m Elizabeth Warren. It’s nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>Where do you need me? Let me guess.</i> PHOTOGRAPHER: Uh, yeah, sit on the stool. - Uh-huh. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>ELIZABETH: Hi!</i> KATHLEEN: We don’t have very much time together. We all know your résumé and your bio, and then many of us have met you in the past. ELIZABETH: Uh-huh. - So I hope you don’t mind if we just jump right into questions. - Of course not. KATHLEEN: Um, should it be against the law for the children of sitting presidents and vice presidents to serve on the boards of foreign companies or otherwise profit from their parents’ service? - You know, it’s like so many things. I hadn’t actually seen the implications of it. I think it’s actually a very bad idea. KATHLEEN: Do you think that Vice President Biden has been forceful enough in his, um— - Look, I’m— I’m not gonna do this. I’m—I’m just not. I’m not here to take on Joe Biden and what Joe Biden has done. I’m glad to talk to you about why I’m running for president... KATHLEEN: Okay. - But not to attack. - Um, Senator, I—how do you first campaign in, and then govern, a country as polarized as the one that we’re living in right now? ‘Cause this doesn’t feel like a— like a disagreement on a few policies. This is a situation where the cost of letting the other side win seems almost too much to bear. - I think you’re overlooking the places where we’re not divided. I have three brothers. One is a Democrat. And do the math. The other two are not. Um, and yet all three of my brothers and tens of millions of people around this country get furious over the fact that Amazon reports $11 billion in profits last year and paid $0 in taxes. All three of my brothers understand that we have an America that works great for giant drug companies, just not for people trying to fill a prescription, works great for oil companies that want to drill everywhere, just not for people who are worried about climate change. I think the old left-right division— yeah, there’s a lot of that, but I think there’s a very different division in America, and that is an America that’s working for a thinner and thinner slice at the top and not working for much of anyone else. - Is that enough to— to—to bridge, you know, the—the systems, the ecosystems of misinformation and hyper-partisanship, things that are, you know— KATHLEEN: Yeah, and even more practically, is it enough to get anything past a Mitch McConnell Senate? - I think attacking the corruption in Washington brings a lot more people together than most folks recognize, and that it really does reach across party lines. - Well, it has to come to the Senate floor. I mean, Mitch McConnell has— already has an anti-corruption... - And who’s—I’m sorry. And who’s fighting Mitch McConnell right now, and from what platform? - Uh, House Democrats are fighting Mitch McConnell. [laughs] - So here’s a question about— - Wait, wait, wait. But let me finish my point. If you fight on ground where I think you’ve got lots of bipartisan support and you lead a damn fight and then—just bear with me— if you can deliver, at that moment, the world starts to shift. - Certainly, this will appeal to a lot of Democratic voters, but you can’t win the nomination just with the progressive base. - So the way I see this is, all I can do is get out and tell you what I’ll fight for, and I’ll point out the difference between the two, and I try not to get over my skis, I really— no, I do. And because I think this is the fundamental question. Do you think that this democracy, do you think that this economy, do you think this government is gonna make it if all we’re offering are little nibbles around the edges? - You have to be careful to balance the big promises with the over-promising, because then you risk the disillusionment, which I think we saw during the Obama administration. I mean, comprehensive immigration. For one, you can’t do that through budget reconciliation. - Oh, I’m sorry, but you can do it if you roll back the filibuster. I stood on the floor of the Senate when we had those votes. - And there’s a good question. How do you do that if Mitch McConnell still holds that Senate? ELIZABETH: All right, so what do you want to do? You want to just give up? Say, “Oh, damn. Mitch McConnell has the Senate. “Let’s go with a begging bowl and say, ‘Give me a crumb or two.’” You start by disrupting. You start with some wins. You start with some places people want to be, and actually, immigration reform is one of them. You know, if you’re not willing to get out there and fight, nothing is gonna change. - Thank you so much for coming. - Thank you for having me. <i>JESSE: I like the fighting spirit, and I like the sense that,</i> “I’m gonna—I’m gonna shoot for the moon. I know I won’t hit it, but there’s— but you gotta start there.” BRENT: And I have to tell you, I haven’t seen her up close and personal for many years, but rhetorically, her chops have improved, and they... [laughter] And she’s not— and she’s not gonna ask the questions I wanted answered, but she got the chops. I can’t—you know... MICHELLE: Yeah. - What can I say? SERGE: Did those chops verge on being patronizing at times? MICHELLE: Do you know who doesn’t like to be lectured by powerful women? Male voters. MARA: The flip side of that is, you’re going to motivate people to come out against you, you’re going to motivate people to come out for. I mean, it doesn’t cut one way or the other very cleanly, I don’t think. - And a woman came within a whisker of being elected president. - We’re going to go right in this way. - Oh, right. Hey, everybody. <i>KATHLEEN: We were told that you had had the flu.</i> - I hope that I’m out of the infectious period, but if people... - Okay. - Do not want to shake my hand, I understand that. - Okay. <i>♪ ♪</i> - I am a highly-caffeinated, medicated, uh, uh—I should be sedated, but I am—I am, uh... I’m still a little bit woozy, but this might be my best, uh, interview ever. [laughter] <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>NICK: Why do you think you’re trailing</i> among African-American voters? - Same reason, uh, Senator Obama was trailing among African-American voters. Number one, he wasn’t that well-known. My—my humility has been handed to me time and time again. This is why I think this process that I used to think—decry is actually really good, because, uh, it’s very humbling when you start out and you realize that barely 50% of African-Americans in the nation even know your name. And then number two is, like my family members, who are traumatized by President Donald Trump, uh, the safe brand is the brand that—that African-American voters are gonna go with, uh, until you show you can win, and I think that’s when the shift happens, and it happened again for previous candidates, most particularly, uh, Barack Obama. - I wanted to ask you about the lead water contamination crisis that Newark is facing now. Your campaign has said that there’s no link between the corruption that unfolded at the watershed agency during your tenure and the current crisis that the city is now facing, but your critics say that it was precisely a lack of leadership during that time that laid the groundwork for what we’re seeing now. - Look, my one big political defeat was trying to end the watershed. I-I did a frontal assault, so I’m not sure what anybody can criticize. We saw it as a problematic agency. JENEEN: You were an ex officio chairman of the agency, but never attended meetings, nor sent anybody in your stead to—to oversee those meetings, and—and from my understanding, at those meetings, it was laid out that there were problems, particularly in the watersheds where we’re having the lead problems now. - We didn’t send anybody there. We demanded them to regularly come to the city offices and put them through grillings on a regular basis that they had never experienced before. So I’m— I’m actually very proud that we s—tried to do everything, including ending their very existence, to make sure that we had the resources to actually deal with the problem. - So we wanted to end on who has broken your heart? - Look, I have this firm belief that if America hasn’t broken your heart, you don’t love her enough. Living in Newark for the last 20 years, uh, I mean, I’ve been broken, shattered. The one that I think a lot about every time I’m in election is Hassan Washington. Hassan lived a few floors underneath me. I lived for ten years in the projects. I watched these kids grow up from six, seven years old. These kids don’t have margins for error. I started saying I was gonna set up mentoring programs. I asked each of them what they wanted to do, and they had such humble dreams for their lives that I knew I could help, but I got busy running for office, and I lost track of them, and a month into my office, I arrive on the scene of a murder. This was my first weeks as mayor, and I was showing up to every shooting, and at this one, I barely even acknowledged the humanity on the pavement, and I ministered to the living and talked about what we were gonna do to stop this crisis, but I get home that night to steal a couple hours of sleep and read through my Blackberry, and I will never forget that moment of being broken, ‘cause the name on the Blackberry of the kid that was murdered was Hassan Washington. And I will never, for the rest of my life, forget that feeling of suffocation in his funeral, because everybody was there. It was packed at Perry’s Funeral Home in the basement and it to me, it felt like the bowel of a slave ship, ‘cause we were piled on top of each other, chained together in grief, moaning and crying and wailing at what is an everyday reality in America is another boy in a box. And I ran away from his funeral. I didn’t even stay. And I ran back to a new mayor’s office and I sat on that couch, and I wept, because we were all there for his death, but we weren’t there for his life. <i>[melancholy music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>[synth music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>JOE BIDEN: Hi.</i> <i>GUARD: How you doing? JOE: How are you?</i> - I’m great. I love you. - Okay. Thank you. - I do. - You’re like my favorite of my—oh. JOE: Thank you so much. What’s your name? - Jacqueline. - You got a camera? JACQUELINE: I do. - If you get it out, we’ll take one, okay? JACQUELINE: You are awesome. Oh, my gosh. <i>[gentle music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>WOMAN: Which way are we gonna put this?</i> <i>WOMAN: This way.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>KATHLEEN: Jimmy Carter has said</i> <i>that he wouldn’t be up for the job</i> of the presidency at age 80. How do you respond to comments like that? Uh, are you too old to be running for president? - Watch me. Watch me. All this stuff about lack of energy. Come get in the bus with me, 16 hours a day, ten days in a row. Come. JESSE: Do you think it’s legitimate for voters to be concerned about... JOE: Sure. JESSE: People in their later 70s running for the highest office in the land? JOE: Sure. Yeah, just like it’s— it’s legitimate for people to ask whether you’re mature enough when you’re 35. The nominee has to be able to win in states that, in fact, are up for grabs and we can win. I’m beating Trump in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and all those Midwestern states which I will win in a walk. - In 2003 in December, Wesley Clark was winning the polls. - Oh, don’t get married to that. Look, come on. Be—be fair, okay? I’ve been consistently leading in the polls after taking all the hits. I go down, and everybody who’s hit me is out. You all declare me dead, and guess what. I ain’t dead, and I’m not gonna die. JESSE: Speaking of those other candidates, several of them have proposed major structural reforms to our government and to our democracy. These include abolishing the Electoral College, uh, expanding the size of the Supreme Court, setting term limits for justices, abolishing the legislative filibuster. Which, if any of these, do you support? - None, because that structural change requires constitutional amendments. It raises problems that are more damaging than the problems that exist. - And you think with the legislative filibuster in place, even if you control the Senate, that you’re gonna move any of your agenda? - Yes. JESSE: How? - Because there’s a lot of things people agree on, things like cancer and healthcare and a whole range of things. KATHLEEN: I want to get to foreign policy, um, but before that, um, who’s someone who has broken your heart? - I can think of what has broken my heart, but it’s not someone who’s broken it. Broke my heart when my son died. It... [clears throat] Broke my heart when I was unable to... Do anything about... I left the house and I got a call saying my wife and daughter were dead. Anyway, there’s—there— there isn’t anybody that is, any woman or man since I’ve been a high school kid that has really hurt me. ALEX: Can I—can I ask about our national security? - Sure. - Reporting out from <i>The Washington Post</i> about years of generals in Afghanistan essentially lying about the conduct of the war. You know this issue very intimately. Have the American people been lied to? - Yeah. ALEX: What do we do about it, and why should they trust you again? JOE: They should trust me because you wrote about— I was the only guy who took ‘em on. The first thing I did when we got elected: the president asked me to go to Afghanistan, and I came back, and I wrote a report saying we have no policy. The idea that the Afghans can absorb training of 120,000 forces— ALEX: Do you have a responsibility to say that in public, though? - My responsibility was to make that fight, and I did fight it. I fought it all along the way. - And yet your administration sent thousands more troops into Afghanistan. JOE: No, we pulled those— they were asked to send— they sent 1/3 of the number of troops that were asked. - If you truly were concerned, why would we have sent a single— - Because I wasn’t the President of the United States of America. I had profound disagreements with the military on this. I won half the fight because we did not put in 150,000 troops, which they wanted to do. KATHLEEN: A lot of the reason that Trump was elected, at least one of the things that we heard a lot following the 2016 election, was people being angry coming out of the Obama administration, and that that anger fueled his—his rise to power. - Somewhat what I heard is that the Democratic Party forgot our base. Think about the people you know. Go back to your old neighborhoods. Even if they have a job, they’re frightened. They are frightened. But who in a political establishment is talking to them that’s even remotely realistic? And unless we figure that out, folks, we’re in real trouble, man. I’m probably in real trouble after this interview, but thank you very much for having me. KATHLEEN: Thank you. - Thank you. <i>ALEX: I was really concerned about this interview</i> because I was looking for the candidate that’s been sort of portrayed in the media, but I didn’t—he didn’t strike me like that at all. NICK: I agree. I totally agree. - Very p— I was really comforted by the Joe Biden that showed up there. - Yeah, I thought he was pretty much on his game. CHARLIE: This is such an uninspiring argument, just in general, that, like, there’s this— there’s this moment that feels very urgent and necessary, and it’s just like, “Let’s just, like, you know, put a warm body that a lot of people can agree on there.” Well, I—it’s just— I don’t know. It’s just— I just— we had a lot of people come in that chair with really interesting ideas. - He’s not— there’s no question. He’s not running a campaign of ideas. He is not your ideas guy. He is your retail politician pragmatist who’s really good at, you know, reaching a certain part of the population, and—and his argument is, “I can beat this guy, and if we don’t beat him, the country’s gonna be really, really in trouble.” CHARLIE: But I don’t buy that that that is what heals the soul of the country. Like, you have to say then that Trump is— is the disease and not the symptom. LAUREN: There is a real question to be had about whether this safe person is the one that will turn people out to the polls or if somebody who really excites you and gives you something to vote for is who will turn people out to the polls. NICK: Well, it’s the fundamental question. <i>KATHLEEN: I wanna use this time</i> to assess the pros and cons of each of the candidates. <i>[pensive music]</i> Why don’t we start with Vice President Biden? - The case for Biden boils down to a couple things. The first, obviously, is electability. He’s making the case, and I think with some credibility, that he is the best-positioned candidate to beat Donald Trump. My issue with Joe Biden... - Right. BINYAMIN: Is that simply restoring the status quo doesn’t get us where we need to be as a society. - I can’t be persuaded, even with all of the things we’re talking about with respect to electability, that the person who has been around the longest is the right one to fix all of the problems that we now have. - If you look even just back at the last, roughly, half-century, people who we think of as traditionally electable... - Right. JESSE: Keep losing, and the people we think of as complete long shots keep winning. KATHLEEN: Andrew Yang. - To me, the thing that stands out the most about him is just like, uh, caring about human dignity. It feels very right for the moment. - I’m really wary of people with zero government experience. I mean, we’re watching it play out right now. That, to me, is, like, a major hurdle for me. KATHLEEN: That actually, though, feels like a good segue to Bloomberg, who, obviously, decided not to participate in the endorsement process, his argument being that he didn’t have enough to say yet. - The reason that he entered the race is because he saw an opening for a manager. He is an entrepreneur. He’s an actual billionaire who built a real business, and that might have some appeal. - I don’t want to spend too much time on the mayor, mostly because I think some of the behaviors that we’ve seen since he entered this race have been disqualifying. We can probably set him aside. Turning to another mayor, Mayor Buttigieg... - Pete talking about how he doesn’t emote as much as some... MARA: Yeah. - Is a real problem. I mean, voters love that “I feel your pain” stuff.” LAUREN: He also, almost surely, would be painted in some unfair way if the gay man on the trail was overly emotional. Right? I mean, it’s a bind. - I trust that he would try to make the right decision and he would surround himself by good people, but I actually could say that f—about several of the candidates. - Right. MARA: One thing that Pete Buttigieg has is a lot of the advantages that we talked about with Biden um, with one major exception, which is support among black voters. - Senator Amy Klobuchar? JENEEN: She has plans that have some detail. She’s not as detailed as Elizabeth Warren, but that has hurt Warren, actually. BRENT: Miss Klobuchar is basically talking about doing a kind of retail politics that you do not— not just at the— at the proverbial diner, but at the corner, just talking to people who have a plain, flat view of things. I mean, it was very familiar to me, which is why I kind of gravitated toward it. SERGE: I sort of imagined her in a crisis. She had a very kind of organized way of thinking, talking. She was tough as hell. She had guts. - Charisma is a— I know it’s a hazy concept, but it’s a real thing, and I—like, it matters. Like, Warren has charisma. - Well, right now, Elizabeth Warren’s charisma has her behind Trump in some swing states. - But it has her ten points ahead of Klobuchar. - Uh, I get that. Booker—he’s— he’s kind of this weird cipher on the trail. I have no idea. I’ve never been able to understand why he’s not getting traction. - There was an emotional resonance to what he was saying, and most of his answers, actually, that I found, uh, compelling. - In a lot of ways, I feel like there’s something attractive about Bernie Sanders’ message. Clearly, government is failing... - Yeah. KATHLEEN: At least some portion of the American public right now. - Yeah. But I got just such a sense of vagueness from Bernie Sanders. Um, it felt like a lot of platitudes. - For me, Warren and Bernie are really the ones who understand the moment. - I mean, look, Warren is a fighter. She absolutely oozes competence. [laughs] I do worry about how people perceive her. I think a lot of that is unfair. Probably some of it’s sexist. - The way she’s trying to save the middle class and the policies she’s pitching a lot of people in the middle class don’t support, and she hasn’t seemed to, like, wrap her head around that. - It just comes off condescending, I mean— - Yeah. - And there just is this risk in—in a lot of the ways that she talks, like if you don’t agree with her, you’re dumb. BINYAMIN: I think Warren and Sanders have played a valuable role in the race which shouldn’t be forgotten, which is that they have demonstrated that there is political support for ideas that were significantly more liberal than where we were just a few years ago. - Right. - True political reality is, nobody’s gonna get the vast majority of what they’re talking about done here, so all of our talk about policy and the details of policy doesn’t really matter. What matters is beating Trump. Biden and Warren and Sanders are the three big fighters in this. They’re the fighters. They’re the ones who I could best see standing on that stage with Trump and hitting right back. KATHLEEN: I want to narrow this field of candidates, so let’s—everyone write down the top two candidates, and we’ll go from there. [board talking indistinctly] <i>Warren, Klobuchar, Biden, Klobuchar,</i> <i>Booker, Warren, Bloomberg, Buttigieg,</i> <i>Warren, Biden, Biden, Booker,</i> <i>Klobuchar, Booker, Warren, Buttigieg,</i> <i>Klobuchar, Pete— Buttigieg, obviously—</i> <i>Warren, Sanders, Warren, Booker,</i> <i>Warren, Booker, Klobuchar, Booker,</i> <i>Klobuchar, Buttigieg,</i> Klobuchar, Warren. What were the top four there? - Warren, Klobuchar, Booker, and Pete. - I feel very torn. I don’t know. I don’t know what the answer is, but I actually— like, there’s part of me that, um, leaves this room, like, being a little bit terrified by the idea of choosing just one of them. I have a few questions that I want to call the candidates specifically about, and then, uh, I’ll use that to make my final decision. Thank you. <i>[synth music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>KATHLEEN: Coming out of that final meeting,</i> <i>there were really four candidates</i> <i>that had risen to the top:</i> Booker, Buttigieg, Warren, and Klobuchar. <i>And since then, I’ve really hemmed and hawed.</i> <i>I sat in front of my computer,</i> <i>trying to go through 30,000-word transcripts</i> <i>of the endorsement interviews.</i> <i>I really want people to have a sense that we’ve taken this process</i> <i>very seriously</i> and that we made this choice because we really believe in it. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>In this election, Democratic voters face a choice</i> <i>between divergent visions for the party’s future.</i> <i>In one camp are those who view President Trump as an aberration,</i> <i>and believe that a return to a more sensible America</i> <i>is possible.</i> <i>On the other side are those who believe</i> <i>that the political and economic systems of this country are in need of a radical overhaul.</i> <i>But in this perilous moment,</i> <i>both the radical and the realist models</i> <i>warrant serious consideration.</i> <i>For this reason, we are breaking with convention</i> <i>and putting our support behind not one,</i> <i>but two candidates,</i> <i>Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar,</i> <i>each of whom articulates</i> <i>a different path forward.</i> <i>Senator Warren is a gifted storyteller</i> <i>and a brilliant architect of regulation.</i> <i>While we would push back on some specific policy proposals,</i> <i>we are struck by how effectively</i> <i>her message has matched the moment.</i> <i>Senator Klobuchar has a lengthy résumé in the Senate</i> <i>and bipartisan credentials</i> <i>that make her an invaluable deal-maker.</i> <i>She has shown she can unite the party</i> <i>and perhaps the nation.</i> <i>There will be those that are dissatisfied</i> <i>that the board is not throwing its weight</i> <i>behind a single candidate,</i> <i>putting its thumb on the scale for either the radical or the realist.</i> <i>But this is a fight the party itself has been itching to have,</i> <i>and it’s a debate, ultimately,</i> <i>that Democratic voters must decide</i> <i>before their nominee squares off against President Trump.</i> <i>Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren</i> <i>are the most effective advocates</i> <i>for the Democrats’ contrasting visions,</i> <i>and voters should consider them</i> <i>the party’s strongest candidates.</i> <i>May the best woman win.</i> <i>[spacey music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i>