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S1: The following recording may contain explicit language I can’t get more explicit than May with literal say it may.

S2: It’s Thursday, February twenty seventh, twenty twenty from Slate. It’s the gist. I am Mike PESCA. Yesterday I saw a headline out of South Carolina. Biden says candidates who can’t get black support should drop out.

S1: Now, the actual quote conveyed a very similar sentiment while at the same time actually being totally opposite the squib that I saw on CNN, which is Biden two rivals drop out if you can’t get black support, because here is the whole quote quote, there would have to consider dropping out, not because I want them to or anybody else does, but because the victories and losses are going to dictate it. Biden told The Post and Courier, how do you stay in if you have demonstrated you can’t get any African-American support? Biden added. How do you stay in if you don’t get support in South Carolina? Well, I just think the process is going to take care of that. I don’t think requires anybody to say get out of the race. Well, doesn’t require anyone, but CNN said that anyway. Now, if this the idea he can’t win without black support. We’ve talked about it on the show over and over again. And this gets said on our 17 times day on cable news. The obvious counter charge is that Bernie Sanders is the leader and he doesn’t have much black support as of yet. He has. And he will continue to say he has a multi-generational and multi racial coalition. Maybe you’ve heard of the multi-generational and multi-racial coalition in Nevada. We have just put together a multi generational, multi reg- racial coalition, which is an untrue but of the races in that coalition. African-Americans aren’t particularly robust. Maybe it makes sense given Bernie Sanders background. Pete Bhuta JEJ has been hammered for his inability to garner black support, and butI JEJ is, after all, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, a town of only a hundred thousand people. Now South Bend is 25 percent black, meaning Buddha JEJ had about 25000 black constituents. Bernie Sanders is a U.S. senator of a state of six hundred twenty three thousand people, 1.4 percent African-Americans, meaning Bernie Sanders only represents 10000 black people. He represents not even half as many black people as Pete Bhuta JEJ. Let’s go to South Carolina. It’s a state where upwards of 60 percent of the Democratic electorate is black.

S3: Bernie brags about his multi-generational multi-racial coalition, but he is trailing Biden there badly and trailing even worse among black voters than among the voting populace as a whole. OK, what about Nevada? You ask, which is the source of Bernie’s bragging about his multi-racial coalition? Well, Bernie did very, very well among Hispanic or Latino voters in Nevada. He got half their vote, but he lost to Biden among black Nevadans and black Nevadans were only 11 percent of that electorate. Because when you caucus, a lot of people don’t show up. So what this means is that Bernie Sanders got the votes of about 3000 African-Americans in Nevada and no one else really. I was only 3 percent black. New Hampshire’s 2 percent black. There wasn’t much opportunity. But Bernie Sanders comes into South Carolina with almost no black support already in the books and the possibility of not gaining any on Biden. OK. What does this all mean? What’s this all means is that come Super Tuesday. The Democratic frontrunner who probably Bernie Sanders most likely will not actually have demonstrated a widespread appeal to African-American voters, actual voters, voters who have voted. Granted, he didn’t have many chances to do so, but in the chances he had, it didn’t happen. And this will put to the test the notion that, quote, you can’t win the Democratic nomination without the support of black voters. Now, of course you can. Judging by the definition of the word can, it’s mathematically quite possible. African-Americans are about a quarter of the party, sizable, but not dispositive. But let’s also realize that with proportional delegate allocation, it means that it’s really quite likely if things go in a quite foreseeable manner that the leader in delegates at the end of this whole process might not be the leader in the black vote. And at that point, you can’t win the nomination without the African-American vote. Might look like less of a prediction or a normative statement and more of a threatening edict on the show today. I shpiel about the oh so informative press briefing and congressional testimony around the Corona virus. Oh, so. Hmm. Hmm. Elucidating.

S4: But first, Washington Post columnist and frequent author of many books like. Month E.J. Dionne is out with another book. E.J., over his career has analyzed liberals, chastise Republicans, diagnosed bureaucrats and described radicals. And now, with his decades of insight into left of center politics, he brings it all to bear. He attempts to bring together the left and the further left. Will it work?

S5: Well, this is the experiment we’re living inside of, isn’t it? Code Red. How progressives and moderates can unite to Save Our Country. With E.J. Dionne. Up next.

S1: E.J. Dionne is the calm cooling saucer of American politics. You know him from The Washington Post. His stints on NPR. He’s a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. I mean, that phrase alone screams moderation sensibility. And so the question is, is E.J. Dionne the right man for the moment? His new book is called Code Red. How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country. Oh, wow. How timely. E.J. Dionne, welcome.

S6: Great to be here. I’ve never been compared to a cooling saucer before. So thank you for that, I think.

S1: Well, I’ve read a bunch of your past books and I’ve been listening to you and reading you for many, many years. And you’re well positioned to be the person who speaks sense to those two wings of the Democratic Party, the moderates and the progressives. I want to get into it in detail. But first, how do you self-identify?

S6: I am a liberal. I’m a social Democrat. I sometimes say that my analysis is often somewhere on the left and my temperament is moderate. So I feel a certain identification with each side of this fight.

S1: So you want really progressive, quite liberal policies, but you want to do it nicely?

S6: Well, more than that, you know, I call myself a social Democrat rather than a democratic socialist, a hawk, because I accept that the market does some good things, that we’re not going to overturn the market, funnily enough, with Bernie. And Paul Krugman has been writing about this, Bernie, and sometimes cast himself as more radical than he actually is, because when you hear him and I talk about this in the book, that when you hear him describe democratic socialism, he is often describing the new deal and, yes, praising Franklin Roosevelt. The other part of it is I use the phrase in the book, as, you know, visionary gradualism, which actually comes from a democratic socialist, the late Mike Harrington. It’s not something you’re going to march down the street screaming for. But I think visionary gradualism describes where each side in this debate is right, that we do need some fundamental reform in areas like health care, how people go to college or get post-high school training. Certainly on climate change. But historically, a lot of change. Big change in this country has happened in steps and that moderates are right to say we’re not necessarily going to get all this in one fell swoop like single payer, but we sure as heck better get everybody health insurance, decent, affordable health insurance quickly. And that’s where I’m trying to bring these two sides together, because there’s a lot of history on the side of visionary gradualism.

S1: Yeah, in that answer has my look, I love the book in respect you, but is embodied. My critique of this book, which is the book was published a couple weeks ago, but it must have gone to press a few months ago. And when you were writing it and thinking about it, I don’t know if you had one figure in mind, but it might have been someone like Elizabeth Warren. But now that the progressive strain of things is embodied in Bernie Sanders, I read the book with that in mind. And through that lens and found it a lot harder to digest for a number of reasons. It. Was there a progressive that you had in mind when you were writing this book? Was it Bernie Sanders?

S6: No. You know, it’s funny. There are Warren is in the book quite a bit, but so is Bernie Sanders. One of the points I make about Sanders that I think moderates can or at least should accept is that he speaks for a real and legitimate frustration that a lot of Democrats, a lot of progressives, particularly young people, have with how the entire political conversation essentially capitulated to Reaganite economic ideas for a long time. Everybody was reacting to Reagan. Actually, one of the people who’s said that quite eloquently is Pete Bhuta Judge. And so there Bernie plays an important role in this account. I think the question if you want to take the theme of the book and flip it, which I think it can be flipped, the question then goes to Bernie If Bernie were the nominee, would he find ways of saying to the more moderate wing of the party, I am not writing you out. I understand that steps might be taken that might some of these things might be done in steps. And I had a kind of a hopeful moment a couple of weeks ago when ‘80’s she was quoted as saying that, well, yeah, we are going for single payer health care because that’s where we’re starting a negotiation. But she said, you know, if we ended up with a generous public option, you know what’s wrong with that? And I had this feeling, hey, maybe ‘80’s she read my book, which I’m not sure is true, but it might help me make the case and other people should read the book. Right.

S1: A lot of socialists say that say that at the very least, it’s a great negotiating point. Is that usually the best way to get change? Because I’ve I don’t I’ve studied the New Deal. I’ve read a lot of books about it. And it doesn’t seem that proposing something, asking for a euge ask that you didn’t really want and then settling for good enough. That doesn’t seem to be the major theme of how FDR got most of.

S7: His New Deal legislation through first of all, no, but it is how the New Deal itself got created. Take Social Security as a good example. FDR was reacting to pressure from his left. There was the Townsend plan out there for a massive old age pension. There was youwhy long shared the wealth populism. Whether you want to locate, you belong on the right or some on the left or the right or somewhere else. It was a big redistributive idea. And FDR came along and said, right there is this pressure for some big change. I’d better respond to it. I’m obviously putting words in his mouth. And so thus came Social Security, the National Labor Relations Act, the Wagner Act that empowered American unions. There was a lot of pressure coming from the CIO. The CIO worked as a force on the left, creating pressure on Franklin Roosevelt. Would you sometimes welcome while giving him critical support? So, yeah, I think this model that I’m describing and I am explicit about this in the book really does sort of match the new deal and how we move forward toward greater social justice in our country during the New Deal years.

S8: OK, so here’s where I do think the book falls down, that it doesn’t speak to the Bernie moment, though it might have spoken to the Elizabeth Warren movement. Is this progressive? Zermatt moderates can unite and that’s a logic. And you’d lay out the policy reasons why. I agree. But then again, I’m a moderate. I also think most moderates would agree not all, but most moderates practically enough would say I might not like it, but I will vote for Bernie Sanders in order to be Trump. What I don’t think is I do think an Elizabeth Warren acolyte, you profile Ayanna Pressley in the book. She favorite of the squad. She was the one who favored Warren that she would say we will get behind whoever the Democratic nominee is. I do not hear that rhetoric out of the Democratic Socialists of America. I do not think it’s true. I think the Democratic Socialists of America hate moderates, hate them as much as they hate Republicans, in fact, probably more. And trying to convince the DSA that they should unite with moderates to save the country like they should, but they should also do a lot of things that they will never, ever do. So that is my theory. What do you think?

S9: In a word coined by George W. Bush, I think you misunderestimate a lot of members of DSA. And actually, I think I had this very interesting experience out in Iowa right before the caucuses where I was talking to a Bernie co-ordinator in one of the districts. And she was saying that, you know, you judge us by the loudest of our supporters. You don’t judge us by the kindest of our supporters. And I have encountered an awful lot of Bernie people. And certainly in the polls, 80 percent of the Bernie people right off the top say they would vote for the Democratic nominee. A lot of Bernie, people are strong union people, strong social justice people who understand what the threat of Donald Trump is now. I will grant you and I’m citing a recent poll out here in Washington state where I happen to be sitting right now. There were 20 percent of the Bernie ites who said they wouldn’t vote for the Democrat. That is problematic. I think a case does need to be made to them. But I think it’s a mistake to view the entire Sanders movement or for that matter, the entirety of DSA as folks who’d rather see Donald Trump win, too, I suppose, heighten the contradictions. I don’t think that is the majority view on that side of politics.

S1: One other question. This isn’t about uniting to get someone elected. Let us say that Bernie Sanders is the candidate and the president. Does his theory of governance make much sense to you?

S6: There’s part of his theory that makes a lot of sense to me, which is the fact that a movement should stay mobilized after someone is elected. Again, I would point to groups like the CIO in the Roosevelt years. I thought, you know, it’s funny. I went back and looked to this up the other day. I interviewed Bernie Sanders back in 2010, right before the 2010 elections. And he said at the time and I quoted in positively in this piece that Barack Obama’s mistake was not to keep his movement mobilized, to fight for the changes that he was proposing. So I think there is something to this argument that you need a movement. I think that Sanders would have to be willing to compromise more than he’s letting on now. And I think he would do well to signal that because he wants moderates like you. Well, you already said you’d vote for him. There are others like you who would be more reluctant. And I know there’s a study that came out yesterday that showed that, you know, he would lose some of those moderate suburban voters who helped give the Democrats the House of Representatives. He needs to figure out how to reach out to them. And I think suggesting that he would govern in a way that would bring them in won’t help him win their votes before the election.

S1: So, by the way, back in 2010 or even before when he was elected to the Senate. I think in 2006 election, where would you rank Bernie Sanders as likely to be president?

S6: Probably close to the bottom, because he first of all, because he never seemed to have this in mind until he decided until actually Obama was elected. And I don’t know all the facts on it, but there’s a whole dispute about whether he was thinking of running against Obama in the primaries. I think Bernie was trying to push the Democratic Party to the left. And by the way, he has succeeded in that. If you look at where are these moderates are, the public option couldn’t get passed. Yeah. When Obamacare was passed. And now it is the moderate position. The same with taxing wealth, which is Warren’s main issue. You know, moderates say, oh, no, we can’t do her plan, but let’s raise the capital gains tax. So I think the left of the party has, in fact, moved the center in a more progressive direction. The folks at Third Way, a group very critical of Sanders, I quote them in the book acknowledging mistakes of the New Democrat years. So I think he was trying to move the party. I didn’t expect him to run for president.

S8: I agree. And I would say this, too. Oh, whatever. Democratic socialists are listening to the show that even if the loathed Michael Bloomberg is president, his presidency will be informed by what Bernie Sanders has wrought. Look, Bloomberg’s tax plan, it is more progressive than any tax plan ever enacted in the United States. And that’s thanks in large part to Sanders. I don’t know if they’ll hear that message or if the rest of Bloomberg won’t overwhelm that.

S10: No, I think the rest of Bloomberg is I think Bloomberg is an unusual problem. You talk about the final conflict out of the international the song. Yeah. I mean, a billionaire against a democratic socialist, if that’s what this fight came down to. There’s the class war for you and one set of primaries. So, yeah, that would be problematic. But you’re absolutely right. You look at his tax plan, you look at Biden’s tax plan. These are incredibly progressive tax plans that they are proposing right out of the box. And again, I am one of those who thinks when you’re negotiating, you shouldn’t just offer the asking price and move on from there. So these progressive positions would suggest they really are looking to move the needle on public policy.

S1: Classic art of the deal right there, E.J..

S10: I’ll take that as complimentary. Just like the saucer at the beginning.

S5: Code red. How progressives and moderates can unite to save our country. E.J. Dionne is the author. Thanks so much. Great to be with you. Thanks.

S1: And now the spiel last night, Donald Trump for the second time ever in his presidency, took to the White House briefing room to address the potential of a Corona virus covered outbreak. He began by taking credit for his judgment in the area and having established his bona fides. He followed up with an assurance.

S11: We closed up our borders to flights coming in from certain areas, areas that were hit by the Corona virus and hit pretty hard. And we did it very early. A lot of people thought we shouldn’t have done it that early and we did. And it turned out to be a very good thing. And the number one priority from our standpoint is the health and safety of the American people. And that’s the way I viewed it when I made that decision because of all we’ve done. The risk to the American people remains very low.

S1: Actually, all experts say the risk is quite high, which is why he had the press conference in the first place. The virus will almost certainly spread. The question is how much not? If, as the experts put it, Politico covered the press conference with this paragraph. Trump’s alternatively combative and lighthearted press conference on the government’s corona virus response did little to calm escalating global concerns about the epidemic as U.S. markets continued to slide upon opening Thursday morning amid reports that the virus continues to spread to most countries. Trump insisted Wednesday night that health workers are, quote, testing everybody that we need to test. A statement one expert called, quote, blatantly false. After the taping of the show, Trump was said to be considering or doing another press conference. We’ll see how much more accurate that one is. Now, there’s no indication that the corona virus causes ear infections, but apparently a few people who heard the original Trump press conference interpreted the president’s attempt at leadership as quite effective. Here’s Representative Darin LaHood of Illinois.

S12: He must watch a different press conference than I watched last night because I objectively watched that entire press conference. And I think it couldn’t have been more reassuring to the country.

S1: I think it could. This was, after all, the press conference where the president said of this rapidly spreading potential epidemic.

S11: Hopefully we’re not going to have to spend so much because we really think we’ve done a great job in keeping it down to a minimum. And again, we’ve had tremendous success, tremendous success beyond what people would have thought again of this of this press conference.

S1: Indiana Congresswoman Jackie Will Lauriski found the president’s expertise positively infectious.

S13: I’ve not seen or heard anything. I’ve not seen any evidence that any senior official is lying about what’s happening with Corona virus. So I would like to say that, you know, I think we need to be very factual when we talk about this. And I think you have been secretary is ah, I think is appropriate for the American people to know that this is priority one at the administration. I’ve not seen any evidence that there’s anybody lying about what’s happening with Corona virus.

S1: But OK. She wants us to know she has a deep and abiding commitment to the truth. The important thing is that government have credibility. And she said this at a hearing with the secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar. His department is tasked with combating the virus. All right. Let’s see where Rep. deLaski wants to go with this one.

S13: I’ve not seen any evidence that there’s anybody lying about what’s happening with Corona virus. But I just want to proceed by saying 10 years ago, Democrats rammed Obamacare through the Congress based on the slogan, if you like your plan, you can keep it. If you like your doctor, you’ll be able to keep your doctor. That slogan, of course, turned out to be a lie. In fact, it was rated as PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year in 2013.

S1: Okay. I think we get the context moving on. ACOSTA Alex Acosta, the good Acosta. Trump says did have in his hearing a pretty decent command of facts. He was simultaneously complimentary of the wisdom of the president, but he also cleared up some of the president’s misstatements from the night before. He also underlined that CDC funding was up, up, up during the president’s tenure.

S14: Every part of our preparedness and infectious disease program activity has been enhanced and expanded. CDC budget is up six hundred sixty seven million dollars during his tenure, to which several Democratic representatives noted.

S1: Yeah. But only over the objections of the administration. Every budget that Trump has submitted tried to slash funding for the CDC and the National Institutes of Health. But there was one other aspect of the hearing that I found quite interesting. Indulge me. Let us play some clips of different members of the House of Representatives as they questioned Alex Acosta about combating the Corona virus here in order, Adrian Smith of Nebraska, Drewe Ferguson of Georgia, Dan Kildee of Michigan and Dwight Evans of Pennsylvania.

S15: And so I guess, first of all, Sarah, thank you for you for being here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

S4: Mr. Secretary, did you get the through line there? It was coughing. All those guys were coughing. The latter two coughed into their hands, not their elbows. The first two just coughed directly into the air. The second person, their Republican representative, Drew Ferguson of Georgia, was not seated the floor as Rep. Ferguson to inquire or Mr. Ferguson to inquire. He was, in fact, Dr. Ferguson. Yes, he’s a doctor, a dentist, but a doctor. And behind Alex Azar, the whole time there was a staffer. I looked it up. She’s the acting assistant secretary of financial resources for the Health and Human Services Department. Her name is Jennifer mollyann. I think it’s pronounced. And what did she do as her boss testified? She wiped her nose. She coughed into her hand. And then she did this thing where she was leafing through paper is going mouth to paper, mouth to paper, mouth to paper, lips to paper, mouth to paper, back to nose wipe. Look, you can’t stem the outbreak with mere words, but my God, you can at least visually model good behavior for the rest of us. If it is next press conference, I will say this if in his next press conference, Mike Pence leans away from the mike and ostentatiously does a Dracula cough right into the crook of his elbow. I swear I will do my hardest to forget that the president has put in charge of combating a highly evolved and puzzlingly mutated virus, has put in charge a man who doesn’t believe in evolution.

S3: But I’ll give him credit for the Dracula cough. It’s really quite disturbing. Looking at the hospital ward of a committee room in the mental ward of a White House briefing room, I seek reassurance in the calm and erudite words of our leader.

S11: Over the last 10 years, we’ve lost three hundred and sixty thousand decent people that have died from the flu. From what we call the flu. Hey, did you get a flu shot? And that’s something.

S3: Now what we’ve done. Yes. We understand what the flu is, Mr. President. You know, you always brag that you could be so presidential. More presidential than anyone, with the possible exception of Abe Lincoln. Now was maybe time to trot out that persona or not.

S5: And that’s it for today’s show. Priscilla Lobby just associate producer, is out with a new book, Code C.P.A How Mugwumps and Doe Faces Can Learn to Overcome Suspicion and Loathe Thaddeus Stevens. Daniel Shrader, just producer, worries about the flute. You know, the flu as in I just flew in from Mohan Province. And boy, is my surgical mask inadequate.

S8: The geste. Judging from Congress, if America ever has to overcome any elbow borne pathogens, we will be in fine shape per adepero to Peru. And thanks for listening.