76: Decision Time 2020 with John Podesta

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:05:15] Yeah, he's playing a different game. Paul, what do you think?

Paul Dickinson: [00:05:19] Yeah, I want to notice just what an extraordinary moment this is. It's an absolutely extraordinary moment, I think, in all of our lives. And, you know, because of everything that Christiana has just put so eloquently and effectively, because the US is important, you know, the shape of a lot of industry for the next, you know, decades is going to be potentially hugely halted by the next seven days. It's just so strange. I feel like I'm floating in space or something and like anything could happen and my heart's full of sort of best wishes for the outcome that doesn't kind of destroy us. But, you know, it feels like a kind of twilight. And I looked up Twilight twice in the dictionary. In one dictionary it says the sort of half-light before dark but in another dictionary, it said the half-light before dark or dawn, but twilight. Twilight.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:06:13] Nice. And that twilight quality, of course, and many commentators in a far better position than us have talked about the fact that it's because we've entered into a post-truth period. But there's one particular story that I'd love to bring into this podcast. Christiana, I remember when President Trump announced in the Rose Garden that he was going to withdraw from the Paris agreement and you had a particular process for processing that event. Do you want to just share what you did that day as you watched him?

Christiana Figueres: [00:06:37] Yeah, yeah. First of all, my heart went out to all the roses in the Rose Garden that actually listened to this. I mean, it is total rose abuse. But I was traveling and we all knew that this speech was coming. The EU two days before it came out to say no matter what the White House does, we're staying in. China came in one day before saying no matter what they do, we're staying in, et cetera. So it was pretty clear that he wasn't going to be followed. But so he had this speech and I was sitting in some hotel room sitting on the edge of my bed with a piece of paper, sorry, it was paper and a pen, pretty primitive. And I thought I am going to write down every sentence that he says that is factually correct because, you know, that's important information. And little did I know that that would have been historical to get a sentence that was factually correct. But this was way in the beginning of his presidency. So we didn't know what behavior patterns we would be observing. In any event, so I listened very carefully to the entire speech and I finished with a blank piece of paper. There was not one sentence that was factually correct. And I thought, how is it possible that the largest economy in the world, its leader is so ill-advised by whoever is advising him? I don't expect him to sit down and read the Paris agreement, but certainly his advisors have the responsibility to read that and to know the circumstances under which it was adopted and not to invent science fiction and present it as reality. I was just aghast.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:08:25] And as policy for nearly 400 million people.

Paul Dickinson: [00:08:29] Yeah, I mean, you know, there is an explanation, Christiana, and you kind of know what it is. I think we all do to an extent. And this is something that, you know, you can say whether it's the epitaph for this Trump period or whether it's the, you know, preparing ourselves for the next four years but there was an article in The New York Times in January about the sheer number of fossil fuel industry lobbyists who made their way into senior positions in environmental protection. You know the Citizens United ruling in 2011 said that business could spend without limit to influence the political process. And, you know, the result of that is this kind of constriction. You know, we're spending money on goods and services and it's stopping us passing laws to do anything about it. But, you know, I have been listening to a great podcast, actually, by the BBC called How They Made Us Doubt Everything. And it talks about tobacco lobbyists and then, you know, fossil fuel industry lobbyists, you know, opposing science, opposing government action. And my question at this special moment is, why are those people not in jail? Because if you mess with, you know, the biosphere, I'm in it, by the way, and so are my friends and you're messing with me.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:09:41] It's very interesting. And I mean, apart from getting over my astonishment that you actually listen to podcast these days, both of which I'm actually very proud of you, that you've started doing that.

Paul Dickinson: [00:09:48] It's sponsored. I'm raising money for my nephew's Christmas present.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:09:53] I would also point out something I came across this week was an amazing exposé that was generated by Greenpeace Canada. I don't know if either of you have seen this that exposes the strategies that oil and gas companies are still taking in Canada to resist legislation and regulation. And they're no longer saying climate change isn't happening. What they're trying to do, the tool by which they're trying to prevent progress is by persuading people that it's too late, that there's no point in doing anything. There's nothing we can do about it, which is amazing that we, I mean, apart for anything else, it sort of feeds into the optimism idea and the way, they're kind of almost endorsing the strategy that we have adopted, that optimism can create an outcome because they're trying to spread pessimism. But I agree with you, Paul, that will probably ultimately become.

Paul Dickinson: [00:10:39] That's strategy wouldn't work if, you know the fire brigade, your house is burning down or something, and the fire brigade comes out, I'm sorry, it's too big. We're not going to waste the water. That's not the way fires work. Sorry, feeling riled.

Christiana Figueres: [00:10:50] I think we should listen to John.

Paul Dickinson: [00:10:54] An expert, a real homegrown U.S. political expert.

Christiana Figueres: [00:10:57] Yeah, because, you know, none of us are U.S. citizens to begin with. So, you know, but John Podesta, as Tom introduced him, he was an adviser to President Obama on climate issues, on strategy. Certainly he was the main brain behind the participation of the United States in the lead up to the Paris agreement. He was one of the main brains in all of the conversations with China and with India before the Paris agreement and is a deep, deep connoisseur of both U.S. politics and climate change political dynamics. And so that puts him, that combination of experience puts him in a very unequaled position here to comment on what we're seeing just a few days before the election.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:12:00] And I mean to go right back, chief of staff to Bill Clinton. I mean, his involvement in presidential politics goes back decades. And head of the Center for American Progress. So, yeah, I agree, and how amazing to get John Podesta to speak on this podcast a week before the election.

Paul Dickinson: [00:12:14] He did actually win the last election. It's worth remembering that Hillary got three million more votes than Donald got.

Christiana Figueres: [00:12:21] Yes, he did. Yes, he did.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:12:22] All right. Good good call, Christiana. Let's go to John Podesta and we'll be back afterwards for a bit more discussion.

Christiana Figueres: [00:12:32] John, what a pleasure to have you on Outrage and Optimism, we are all biting our nails, fingernails. All 20 of our fingernails here just what seems like just seconds before the election in the United States. But given where you were practically four years ago, we would love to hear your thoughts, John, on is it not true that at this point four years ago, we were all pretty assured of the fact, fact in quotation marks, that there was a very comfortable lead for the Hillary Clinton Campaign? And now we are again in the situation of seeing a comfortable lead. Is the lead this time any different than the lead four years ago?

John Podesta: [00:13:31] Well, I would say the answer to that is yes. Four years ago, we came out of the debates with a lead about the same size lead in the battleground states that Biden had. But there are several things that are different. There's less third-party vote this time around. So that Biden is actually over 50 in the key battleground states he needs to win. We were never over 50 at this period of time. We had a couple of developments towards the end that were really unexpected and upended the race a little bit, hurt us with some key swing voters, particularly noncollege educated white women, the most important of which was the letter that Jim Comey sent to Capitol Hill ten days before the election. So just a few days ago, that said he was reopening the email investigation of Hillary. The whole thing that lasted for two years never really amounted to much of anything, but it cast that big shadow on her. We saw the race narrow during that last week. We thought we were still going to have the edge in the Electoral College, obviously, she won by three million votes. But we went under by those 70000 votes in the three states and in the Electoral College states.

John Podesta: [00:15:02] I think Biden's in a more comfortable place there. I think the vote is more baked. It's been consistent. You know, if you look at the polling averages, he's well ahead in Michigan. He's up by more than six points in Wisconsin, he's up by just under six points in Pennsylvania, it's still competitive in North Carolina, Florida, Arizona. But Trump won all those states, so he can't afford to lose any of them. And Biden is currently ahead in all of them. What remains unclear is how effective the voter suppression techniques will be, will they be able to contest in court some of the ballots that are being cast, particularly the mail-in ballots, which we have a tradition of mail-in voting, it's always been fine. There's no, Trump's own FBI director said there's no reason to believe that there's a fraud in the mail-in voting. But Trump has constantly been on that, you know, sort of tune. And then will there be voter intimidation for the, you know, what is likely to be a still a very significant same-day voting on Election Day. Through Friday, about 60 million people have already voted. That's about 40 percent, a little over 40 percent of what the vote cast in 2016 was, by the end of the weekend it's probably over 50.

John Podesta: [00:16:30] So we're well on our way to probably two-thirds of the vote being cast before Election Day. But that last weekend on Election Day, I have no doubt that there will be efforts by outside groups, by the Republican Party, by outside forces, including, our friends the Russians are back, trying to suppress the vote, intimidate the vote. In any fair election, Biden would win. Trump's strong disapproval rating now in the United States is 50 percent. You can't get reelected on that unless essentially you're, what I would describe as cheating, you're kind of selecting the electorate by trying to make sure people can't vote or are discouraged from voting or their votes aren't counted. So we have to be aware of that. We have to do everything we can to make sure people are getting out to vote, that we're encouraging all our friends, our families, our contacts. But people are working very hard and always taking anything for granted. And I think that Vice President Biden and Senator Harris will continue to campaign like this is not won.

Christiana Figueres: [00:17:48] Yes, correct. Until the vote is counted.

John Podesta: [00:17:50] Until the last vote. Not even till the last vote is cast. But until the last one is counted.

Christiana Figueres: [00:17:56] Correct. John, that heavy voting by mail has advantages because all of those who are voting by mail, as you have pointed out, are probably pretty clear about where they're voting, otherwise, they wouldn't be voting early. However, it does pose a logistical challenge, right? Because all of those votes need to be opened up. They need to be counted manually, and that means delays. That also means potential human error. So how do you assess the impact of mail-in voting, both positive and negative? Where do you come out on that?

John Podesta: [00:18:44] Well, look, I think we should be making it easier for every person to be able to cast the vote. That's their right as a citizen and that's what we should be after. And particularly given the dangers of covid spiking in the United States, really across the country at this point, but particularly in some very, very hard-hit states, people should have the ability to mail-in vote or vote in person early or vote on Election Day. It should be their preference. They should be able to make a plan. I think that with respect to county, that's a state decision about when to count the votes. So some states are already counting.

Christiana Figueres: [00:19:27] Counting, correct? I think Florida, is that right?

John Podesta: [00:19:30] Florida is counting its mail-in vote. Other states won't begin to open and count the votes until Election Day. And that's what causes the delay in getting final tallies because of problems in computer voting and fears about voter systems being hacked, etc. Most states have gone to something in which there is a paper backup on the ballot. A lot of states now have a system where even if you're voting on a touchscreen, it prints out a ballot. You can look at that and then you file that. That's essentially similar. I was actually just voting in the District of Columbia where I live, you fill in the circles, you put it in a security envelope, you put that in another envelope, you sign it, you can drop it off or mail it in. You can check to see that your vote has been received. So there is security in that. When it comes to counting, I'm not so worried that there'll be human error as much as that they'll be attempts to disqualify a lot of ballots, the Republicans have a major operation underway, you know, tens of thousands of volunteers and lawyers trained to try to challenge because, you know, the signature was tilted a little bit too much and ran over a line or whatever to try to throw out.

Christiana Figueres: [00:21:04] The corner of the paper is folded over.

John Podesta: [00:21:07] Yeah. So in past elections like California, probably 50 percent is mail-in, Colorado one hundred percent is mail-in, Oregon is 100 percent mail-in. In those states that do a combination of both, mail-in ballots do get thrown out a little bit more than obviously going to the polls because people forget to put their signature on the envelope or whatever. There's a process called curing where it is noted that the ballot was cast but there's some technical problem, like, for example, the one I mentioned, somebody hasn't signed their ballot. There is an opportunity to go back to that voter and say, you can cure your ballot. States are different about the time frame for doing this, but obviously, the operations on both sides, Republicans, Democrats will be looking to chase the ballots that have been tossed to try to get the voters to cure them. There's a tremendous amount now going into voter protection, making sure ballots are received, fighting back against the efforts to suppress, certainly pushing back on efforts to intimidate the vote. Trump encourages that, you know, he tells the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by. You know, these other guys with assault weapons who tend to run around and show, you know, on the steps of the Capitol or show up at polling places.

John Podesta: [00:22:55] But I think the Democrats are well prepared to try to push back on that. Spent a lot of time with attorneys general where a Democratic governors were, where we have Democratic governors. Fortunately, we do have them in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina to make sure that people feel safe about voting, they can go out and vote and they can get their votes counted. There's just cases galore being challenged with the Democrats wanting to make it easier to vote and the Republicans want to make it harder to vote. There's a reason for that because the demographics of who's voting, particularly these Trump voters, are narrowing and narrowing. Our country is, as you well know, is quite diverse. Young people, people of color, they want to do everything they can to tilt that playing field. So those people who are new voters into the system, particularly younger voters, you know, don't have an opportunity because they're not voting for Trump or they're, you know, in large numbers. He's losing that vote by tremendous margins, you know, probably two to one.

Christiana Figueres: [00:24:13] John, you also mentioned international interference, which was a novelty four years ago, but is no longer a novelty, apparently. Is it here to stay? And why are we in this situation again? If it happened four years ago, why are we not better prepared and better shielded than we apparently are? Because here we are again dealing with bots and all kinds of influential political messages through social media, et cetera, et cetera. How is it possible that we knew that we had that as a weakness and that we're in that situation again?

John Podesta: [00:24:56] Well, I think that there are really two reasons for that. The Russians are clearly back. The Iranians are kind of fooling around evidently, in this election, the Chinese are content to run more traditional intelligence operations against the campaigns, as they did in 2008, probably did in 2016, although it was never reported and there's some indication they are doing that now. But the reality is Trump benefited from it. He encouraged it in 2016, he asked the Russians to interfere in the election. He benefited from it. He got impeached by asking the Ukrainians to interfere in the election against Biden in 2019. And so his administration has done precious little to take the problem seriously, try to do as much as it could, the Republicans on Capitol Hill reluctantly finally were forced to go along with providing states more resources to basically be able to more secure their voting systems themselves, although it sounds like the Russians have hacked into at least a couple of systems this year. So, definitely a problem but one of the reasons it's a problem is because the president thinks it helps him. And he's always had this, going back to 2015 and 2016. He's got this love affair with Vladimir Putin. He's basically said, I believe him and not the intelligence community. He's ignored all the.

Christiana Figueres: [00:26:36] The U.S. Intelligence Committee.

John Podesta: [00:26:38] U.S. intelligence. Yes, exactly. The Russian intelligence community is very hard at work hacking the US. And so, you know, why wouldn't they come back? Think about the ROI?

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:26:53] There's been no consequences, right?

John Podesta: [00:26:55] Yeah. Very little consequences. And they've you know, they've had a compliant president in a context in which he's breaking down traditional alliances, throwing doubt on NATO. Why wouldn't you come back?

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:27:15] John, can I ask? We're going to go, we want to ask you some more broad questions about what's happening in the US and also some climate-related things but just before we do, we're a week out from the election. You're going to be obviously watching the results as closely as anybody. At what point are you going to feel you know the result? Is it Pennsylvania? Is it Florida? Is it a particular county you're looking at?

John Podesta: [00:27:32] Well, you know, I think because of the way they're counting the early votes and the mail-in votes, I think will have the most complete picture on Florida on election night. If Biden wins Florida, he's ahead now by a couple of points. If he wins Florida, that's game over. There's no path for Trump if Biden wins Florida because he's going to do better in those upper Midwest states than he's going to do in Florida. So it is just, it's beyond Trump's reach, notwithstanding their rush to get this Supreme Court nominee filled. It's just beyond his reach to win. And we might know that on election night, it might take a little longer. Obviously, in 2000, it took until December to get the final results.

Christiana Figueres: [00:28:27] Exactly. Do we remember that?

John Podesta: [00:28:29] But you might know that on election night because that will be the most complete vote counted. I think even if it's still just quite narrowly within, you know, five to ten thousand votes in Florida, the way it was in 2000 in the Bush v. Gore race, I think that's a very, very bad sign for Trump. Again, in 2016, he won Florida by just over a percentage point, but those upper Midwest states were closer than that. So if it's kind of Bush v. Gore numbers, that means that Wisconsin ought to come through, Pennsylvania ought to come through, Michigan ought to come through. So pay close attention to that.

Paul Dickinson: [00:29:16] Ok, so that's a shout-out to our listeners in Florida. It's very important to as John just explained, you know.

John Podesta: [00:29:21] As Tim Russert always would do with his whiteboard, Florida, Florida, Florida. I don't think it's decisive. Pennsylvania is probably the decisive state.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:29:30] But we may not know that on Election Day.

John Podesta: [00:29:32] But we might not. But Pennsylvania is not going to have, they'll have a lot of the vote out on election night. So it'll be a little bit less clear.

Paul Dickinson: [00:29:40] I mean, there's probably been, what is it, like 12 millimeters of sea-level rise since the last election. So probably Florida is thinking more sensitively about this and we'll come on to ask about climate change. But, John, can I just ask you, like, a really big question? You know, I live in little old England on the other side of the ocean, small old country. And long story short, what is going on in the U.S.A.? I mean, you know, the great republic, the United States of America, were really quite a normal country and much admired around the world. What went wrong? I mean, you've talked about a corrupt president. Was the problem Citizens United? What went wrong?

John Podesta: [00:30:16] Well, look, I think it's been going on for a generation of this push to a nationalist authoritarian right. Politics of hate and division. You certainly see it in Europe. The difference is we have a two-party system, so it expresses itself a little bit differently in multiparty systems where you have that hard authoritarian nationalist right be sometimes in government, sometimes not in government present. Here, it captured the Republican Party, kind of started with Gingrich, maybe I would say it was kind of interrupted by Bush. You know, we sometimes forget this, but when Bush campaigned in 2000 as a compassionate conservative, he was running really as rejecting that hard-right negative push of Gingrich. And obviously, McCain didn't embrace it. Romney didn't really embrace it. And Trump came along and he found a way to both find their core of voters who were really angry about the social changes in this country. He tapped into the economic anxiety and the effects of globalization, which you felt in Brexit and you can see the difference in voting patterns. He tapped into that and gathered up some other voters there. Some of us switch from Obama, Trump, back to Democrats in 2018 and I think Joe Biden in 2020. 

John Podesta: [00:32:04] Are those voters who felt really squeezed by trade, by forces of globalization, by feeling kind of left out and left behind. And that's been part of what you might think of as the swing vote. But that core conservative vote really consolidated around a message of conspiratorial right-wing nationalism that was aided and abetted by social media. When I was asked about what's different, you know, that's still not different enough. For all the pressure of the puke that's running through social media, the conspiracies. Now, the Q-Anon who just flip back over to Germany in particular, but to Europe in general, all that stuff was for years the profit engine of companies like Facebook and to a lesser extent, you know, Twitter, YouTube, now even Tik-Tok is trying to throw them off. But the fire has been set. So it's a little bit too little and it's a little too late. And I think that that has had a profound effect on the way people see politics in the US and generally around the world.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:33:33] It's astonishing how quickly that's grabbed the zeitgeist and people have sort of seen things differently through that. I want to pivot now and obviously, there's so many people now that are really concerned about the climate issue even more than there were four years ago. And there's a lot of hand-wringing that goes on as people look at Biden and sort of say, well, where really on the priority list does climate fall for him? I mean, you will know more than anyone else in 2008, Obama came in, made the decision to go to health care. By the time we pivoted to climate, it was a different story. That's well established. So what can we learn from the fact that Biden is closing on climate in this campaign? And does that portend the fact that he's going to make this the big legislative run at the beginning of his term?

John Podesta: [00:34:14] Yeah, I think there's a bunch of explanations for that. He didn't come into the primaries as the guy who is emphasizing climate the way some of the other candidates did. But Democratic primary voters were in a demand mode. They were saying this is serious. This is a top-tier issue. This rivals health care for things that you need to have a plan for, you need to prioritize and we expect a lot. What's ended up happening was climate was always climate solutions, climate as a problem, was always a kind of 60 percent issue in the US, but it was way down the salience list. That's shifted. Part of that's the activism of young people, you know, particularly Sunrise and the groups that have been out campaigning on this. Some of it is just the focus, as I said, of Democratic primary voters. A lot of it is that we are experiencing the devastation of climate while sitting here talking on this podcast. The fires on the West Coast, the hurricanes in the Gulf. There was a week in September where four of the most polluted cities in the world were on the west coast of the United States. Portland was the most polluted city in the world. I don't know if you've ever been to Portland, but it's. 

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:35:49] It's not usually polluted.

Paul Dickinson: [00:35:49] Big trees.

Christiana Figueres: [00:35:54] And this summer, John, didn't Washington DC just have the most record-breaking heat wave for days?

John Podesta: [00:36:03] Yes, record heat over 90. You'll help me compare that to Celsius.

Paul Dickinson: [00:36:10] Very hot. Very hot.

John Podesta: [00:36:12] It was hot here. And it's combined with, I think now people's real sense of the nature crisis, the loss of species, the tremendous pressure on the oceans, et cetera. People are seeing it, they're feeling it, they they know things have changed. You know, nobody knew what a derecho was a year or two ago. Now it's kind of wiping out the state of Iowa. These extreme weather events combined with the press finally sort of taking it seriously. And the debates are a good example of this. When Chris Wallace announces debate topics, he didn't have climate change. And, you know, I helped form this organization called Climate Power 2020, whose sole purpose was to inject and wind the politics of climate in the 2020 election. Us, Move On, Sunrise, and others mounted a major campaign to push to say what is this? Is this Rupert Murdoch telling Chris Wallace what the topics ought to be? And to his credit, I mean, I don't think the questions were that great but.

Paul Dickinson: [00:37:30] It was there.

Christiana Figueres: [00:37:33] They were there. They were there.

John Podesta: [00:37:33] And by the time we got to Kristen, well, you know, came up in the vice presidential debate, by the time we got the Kristen Walker people were actually pushing in and saying, these are the questions. You know, don't just ask, do you believe in climate science? That's like not debatable.

Christiana Figueres: [00:37:52] No, she had a different level of questions by that time.

John Podesta: [00:37:58] Check-in on environmental justice. What's this doing to poor people? What's your plan to deal with it? Biden committed the truth. We need to transition from fossil fuels. That's got to take place over some period of time. It's not going to happen overnight? He's got plans to do it. And, you know, Trump, in his own way, lies about whatever Biden said. And I think he thinks this is going to win Pennsylvania for him, et cetera. Biden is you know, his team is probably, in my view, overexplained what he said. He should just tell the truth. You know, this is a crisis. We need to deal with it. We can do this over a period of time. And guess what? It's going to create millions of jobs, tens of thousands of new businesses, put people to work at all skill levels doing the work that needs to be done.

Christiana Figueres: [00:38:50] John, you know, that was going to be my question to you, because, yes, you say that there is so much more awareness because of the negative impacts of climate change and what is happening with nature, which are both the same thing. Yes, I agree. And also, I wanted to know from you whether do you think that there's more awareness of the benefits and the opportunities and the economic stability and the better health and the better cities and the better transport, et cetera, et cetera, better food production that comes with action on climate? Are we actually beginning to turn the curve from seeing climate only as a huge burden that we have to bear versus an opportunity that we can move into?

John Podesta: [00:39:34] Yeah, that's a great question, Christiana. And I think the answer to that is yes. And it's kind of born out in what the program Biden put on the table is. He calls for two trillion dollars worth of investment, creations of millions of jobs. You know, Morgan Stanley, or maybe it was Moody's, I can't remember, I think it was Morgan Stanley, put out an analysis that said Biden's plan will create millions of more jobs than Trump's plans of just more tax cuts for wealthy people. And I think people can get that. It's not abstract. They know and they see because it's happening around the country that people are going to work in these clean energy industries. They're transitioning the energy system to more renewables. The price of electric vehicles has come down, it's going to cross over, it'll be not the all-in-life cost, but the actual showroom sticker cost is going to cross over pretty soon. So I think people get that that's the future. They know that's the future.

Christiana Figueres: [00:40:56] Thank God, it's about time.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:40:58] It's coming.

John Podesta: [00:40:58] There are now state-based networks that, it began in New York called climate jobs, there are climate jobs natural resource centers, made up of state based local unions who are coming together to push for legislation that would transition the energy system, invest in efficiency, do it with union labor for high paying jobs. And so these are front-line workers. Front line unions are saying, let's get on with the program. We can build a lot of offshore wind. We could transition. In Illinois, there's a big push to put solar on all the public school buildings in the state. There's opportunity and even the organized sector see that that's their future and that's happening all across the Midwest, it's happening in the Northeast, it's happening in Texas, it's happening in California. People are saying, I want to get on with this. I want to be part of a future that's going to produce a cleaner environment, a healthier society, avoid the risk for sure, but put people to work doing that work.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:42:20] But it's amazing. I mean, what's so interesting about the fact that we've reached this moment where people are seeing it as an opportunity, the risk is becoming clear, it's becoming this presidential priority in a campaign the way it's never been before. And yet we have the unbelievable spectacle of a Supreme Court justice being appointed within a week of an election. Now, traditionally, right, a president, if they couldn't get legislation through, would go the regulatory route. But I wonder now, given the six three conservative majority, whether that regulatory route looks at least as difficult as legislation. So I wonder whether is there, in your analysis, is there any path to the US doing something really meaningful on climate without filibuster reform and adding justices to the court, is that the only way to get this to happen?

John Podesta: [00:43:05] No, it's not the only way, but we Democrats have to control the Senate.

Paul Dickinson: [00:43:11] That's the trick. That's the trick.

John Podesta: [00:43:13] But we got to win the Senate because if Mitch McConnell is the Senate majority, he's going to block what Biden wants to do. But if we do win the Senate, then there's a path forward. We have this arcane procedure, it's called budget reconciliation. It's what Clinton did in 1993 to get the economy moving in the United States to produce twenty-three million jobs. His economic program passed by a single vote in the House and by Gore breaking the tie in the Senate. So it passed by one vote in each body. Simple majority produced tremendous dividends for American workers as well as the American economy overall. And I think that is a path forward for Biden. And Tom, you're pointing out something very important about the regulatory pathway now. I think there is a role for standards and regulation, and there's still the ability to do that even with this more conservative core. But you won't be as ambitious if you will. You can still regulate power plants. You know, you can still regulate methane, particularly in oil and gas development. You could convert public lands, which are a major source of coal production, and some lesser source of gas and coal and oil, although public water is our major source of oil production, you can begin to shift those places to renewables and with offshore wind and onshore solar and wind.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:45:00] You never would have got something like the endangerment finding, right? That happened when you were in the White House where it was decided that the greenhouse gases were regulatory.

John Podesta: [00:45:09] Yeah, I think if that's a matter of first impression, you probably do have a different outcome. But now I think it might be a hard precedent to roll back. But I want to emphasize this, the question should be asked to the Republicans, why did you pack the Supreme Court? Not to Biden, will you pack the Supreme Court? Because that's what they did. And so, you know, it's challenging, but I think that the federal government, instead of resisting California's automobile program, might try to align with California's automobile program. Gavin Newsom, by the way, just announced that no new car sales in California that aren't zero-emission by 2035. That was awesome. He also just signed an executive order that will protect 30 percent of California land, state waters, and land by 2030 consistent with the global push at the Convention on Biodiversity. Biden has pledged that at the national level, he'll have a lot of capacity, authority to try to work with states, private landholders, the agricultural community to do better protection of land and oceans. But there's way, way, big ways to go in terms of land protection. But we need that kind of regenerate the biodiversity, the species, you know, that's really important in the ocean environment for particularly for these top of the food chain *unintelligible*.

Paul Dickinson: [00:47:00] That's impressive. That's impressive.

Christiana Figueres: [00:47:02] John, we would love to keep poking here at your brain and knowledge, but sadly, we have to bring the episode to close. And I can't do so without asking you perhaps the most challenging question of all if you're up for it.

John Podesta: [00:47:19] Sure.

Christiana Figueres: [00:47:19] Here we go. As you look back at the last four years, Trump administration, can you find anything good, productive, constructive for the interest of the United States, either domestically or internationally?

John Podesta: [00:47:39] I would say it remains to be seen how this ultimately plays out but nurturing the deal between the UAE and Israel. Which I think the UAE nurtured more than the US nurtured, but, you know, followed by Bahrain, followed by Sudan, I don't know, that really leaves the Palestinians out in the cold so what the last chapter of that story is going to be, I don't know. But that is probably the, might be the only spot where I think, well, maybe they did the right thing on that. Everything else, everything else foreign and domestic is a disaster.

Paul Dickinson: [00:48:23] It's like the stopped watch is right twice a day or something.

Christiana Figueres: [00:48:27] Wow. OK, well, John, thanks. Thanks very much. And we always close out by asking our guests whether with the perspective of both the wisdom of the past and the view into the future, are you feeling more outraged about what we're seeing or more optimistic about what we might see?

John Podesta: [00:48:51] I started in presidential politics fifty-two years ago, so I try to keep a more even keel. I'm outraged when talking to my wife and I'm optimistic when I'm talking to my grandchildren.

Christiana Figueres: [00:49:08] For what? Poor Mary.

John Podesta: [00:49:11] She's a good soul. She takes it all in.

Christiana Figueres: [00:49:17] She is a good soul.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:49:19] John, thank you so much. This has been so insightful. So I appreciate you taking the time. Just a week to go. We're going to be watching, as I know you will. We are all as three non-U.S. citizens sitting on the line, where the rest of the world is behind you. Hoping for a good result in a week's time.

John Podesta: [00:49:34] I know if the citizens of the world could vote how the elections would go.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:49:38] It wouldn't be close.

Christiana Figueres: [00:49:41] For sure, maybe that's the novelty, right? Not in interference but open participation of the whole citizenship of the world.

John Podesta: [00:49:51] We might lose a few precincts at Hungary and Moscow but I think the world would.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:49:56] I think it would get lost in the mix.

Christiana Figueres: [00:49:59] John, thank you so much.

John Podesta: [00:50:02] All right. Talk to you.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:50:11] Ok, how amazing to get a chance to sit with John Podesta just a few days before the US election. That was amazing and weirdly reassuring, I thought, that he felt so calm as he was facing this, although, of course, he's aware more than anyone the implications and the stakes. What are you guys leave that conversation with?

Christiana Figueres: [00:50:28] You know, I listened to a podcast that Hillary Clinton did herself two days ago, also, where she was asked what she sees differently and she, not surprisingly, she agrees with John's arguments of why this is completely different. She also points out in that podcast that this hole in the influence of social media and the international influence in U.S. politics was completely new four years ago. Everybody was caught sort of by surprise. And she says that it no longer catches anyone by surprise that if you want to be on the positive side, that people are beginning to be a little bit more discriminatory with respect to, I don't know, the inventions that are made on social media about candidates and that social media is beginning to have less influence. Do you think that's true?

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:51:29] Anecdotally, yes, I think that's true. I don't have any evidence to suggest that people are not believing social media stories, but my experience of my social group and knowing younger people is that there's much more skepticism and discriminatory perspective that is brought to, discriminatory in the sense of being discriminating in terms of what is true, towards what they read online.

Paul Dickinson: [00:51:52] I'm still a little bit suspicious because a lot of this social media stuff is about us against machines and the machines are getting bigger and stronger and better all the time so I'm still nervous. I mean, one thing I loved about, I mean, on the social media point to a degree, I thought it was fascinating the way he talked about this core conservative vote getting concentrated around conspiratorial right-wing nationalism. You know, he said that the hard right was not really embraced by Bush or McCain or Romney, but Trump tapped into it, this economic anxiety about globalization and said that we'd had it with Brexit and then, you know, made the point that, you know, this pretty dangerous thing is formed now. And he definitely saw it aided and abetted by social media and the pressure of the puke in his rather memorable phrase. It's not a pleasing image, I'm just telling you what the guy said. It's like I heard him. I heard him. Because the thing is that puke is being pressurized and cooked by machines. So you've got to be you know, you've got to keep an eye on that. And to be honest, if it's regimes, if it's oppressive regimes doing that, you know, we need to kind of weaponize their dissidents with our technology because this is not fair. You know, we can't have asymmetric war against democracy.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:53:07] Well, no, indeed. And I mean, this is not a new, this is not going away anymore. This is going to be about hopefully we can have a president after this election who actually will do something about it between now the next one, rather than just sort of encourage it and sit back and give the implication that there's no consequences for messing around with democracy in other countries. The other thing, which I thought was interesting was I sort of challenged him and slightly provoked him by saying, is it true that the only path to US climate action is now through filibuster reform and new supreme justices on the new justice on the Supreme Court? And actually, I felt he had kind of a sort of no, it's OK. We can do this through budget reconciliation process. I sort of felt quite like I mean, he knows far more about mint than me, obviously, about the legislative process and how you get bills through Congress. And it seemed to me that although he didn't quite spell it out, that the tone of how he talked about that suggested he kind of had a plan as to how this would happen and I found that weirdly reassuring.

Paul Dickinson: [00:54:03] You know, he had just incredible energy. I love that. All those terrible things, he's just like, he keeps plowing on.

Christiana Figueres: [00:54:10] I was also taken by his reducing this whole hysteria that everybody's feeling to Florida. Stay focused on Florida, right? Wherever Florida goes that's where the election goes. I mean, that's pretty amazing. And everyone listening to his conversation with us will be eagle eyes on Florida because of the number of votes that they represent. But I did a little background search, and it so happens that there are eight states that are allowed to begin to count votes ahead of time, not just Florida. And some of them can count two weeks before, some of them cannot count until more than two weeks before, some of them have to wait until weeks before, some of them actually have to wait until Election Day themselves. But, you know, it's a pretty arduous process. But then, Paul, you talked about machines, but the fact is that all of these little envelopes. And we tend to forget that envelopes exist because we don't mail anything anymore. But I mean, picture this, right. Election workers have to open envelopes, verify signatures against the registered signature. I mean, that is just incredibly time-consuming.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:55:38] Two or three minutes per vote, I reckon.

Christiana Figueres: [00:55:40] Yeah, yeah. Then they have to remove something that is called secrecies leaves. Then they have to start counting. I mean, this is just incredibly primitive. I'm not sure what other word to use. And there are eight states that will be in that, in the position of doing that if they so choose and in fact all of the eight, no, except sorry, one, two, three, four or five, six, there are six of them that cannot start that process until Election Day. The others can actually start ahead. But what a complicated system. For those of us who are used to. 

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:56:21] Where's Pennsylvania? 

Christiana Figueres: [00:56:21] Pennsylvania starts on election day.

Paul Dickinson: [00:56:22] By the way, I mean, I'm laughing because there is just the funniest thing if anyone wants to look out for on Google, YouTube, or whatever. It is from The Onion News Network, and it speaks to the alternative. Christiana, I mean, it's a fictional election where a voting machine wins and becomes president. So you've got to look out for that because, you know, if you let the machines run things, you know, you might get a bit of a surprise. Now, Christiana, can we ask you a question from a listener? Someone has asked, what are the financial implications for the United States of withdrawing from the Paris agreement?

Christiana Figueres: [00:56:54] Yeah, we saw that question come in. So that depends on what we call how we interpret financial implications. The fact is that the only, let's say, binding financial responsibility of the United States to, it's not even to the Paris agreement, it is to the convention itself. And depending on whether you're party to both the protocol or the Paris agreement, it varies a little bit, but not much. But every country contributes to the operation of the secretariat of the Climate Convention according to rules that are established by the U.N. and that have to do with the size of the economy. So larger economies pay more, smaller economies pay less. And that has been an astounding formula for years. And so the United States pays a sizable portion. Now, if I remember correctly, and I'm really digging down into the bottom of my memory here, I think the United States tab for that is about 15 million dollars for two years because they pay for two years at the same time. And I think I remember. But Tom will remind me if this is true, that the United States actually flatly refused to pay that already several years ago, at which point Mike Bloomberg came and said, well, if the U.S. as a government is not going to pay, I'm going to chip in because this process has to continue. And so that is actually the only financial obligation of the United States, which has now been paid by a U.S. citizen.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:58:38] Out of small change, I should mention.

Paul Dickinson: [00:58:40] Found it behind the sofa.

Christiana Figueres: [00:58:44] But that's the only true obligation. Then there are other, I would call, goodwill gestures that countries participate in, such as, for example, the contribution to the Green Climate Fund or the contribution to these hundred million total that are supposed to be put there so that developing countries can meet their outsized vulnerability to climate change, none of which or not all of which is expected from the public sector. Most of it is actually coming from the private sector as investments, for-profit investments. So it's not that big a deal. And that was one of the lies that Trump said in the Rose Garden speech, as I say, poor roses because he said, you know, that the United States was forced to do this against their will. No country was forced. And he said that the United States had to pay these huge sums into the process, all of which is just completely erroneous, misinformed, science fiction.

Paul Dickinson: [00:59:54] Deceitful.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:59:55] Deceitful. No. Well, that's great. Thank you for taking the time to answer that. And we love questions like this. So other listeners. If you want to send us in some questions, we'll do our best to answer them and maybe we'll do a Q&A at some point in the future. But that was great. So now this is the end of our last conversation between the most consequential moment. 

Paul Dickinson: [01:00:11] At least we hope so.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [01:00:16] Next time we see you. Well, at least the US will have voted. We don't know if we'll know the response, but we're going to keep talking about the US next week, of course, and we will bring you analysis. Whatever happens, we'll be back next week talking about where we are and what that means, and what that means for climate. So we should say good luck everyone, we'll see you on the other side and we're leaving you with a great piece of music to carry us through. So, Ok, Go!, you've probably heard of them, there are a very well-known band. Their career has spanned many decades. They first formed in 1998 in Chicago and then moved to Los Angeles. Their career has included award-winning videos, the establishment of a DIY transmedia mini-empire, collaborations with pioneering dance companies, tech giants, animators. Ok, Go! is a band at the intersection of music, visual art, technology, and science. Their music has been encoded on the strands of DNA and played at President Obama's fiftieth birthday party. And I particularly love this piece of music and it has a real piece of meaning for me. So a few months ago I recorded a TED talk in the woods near my home in England. And the night that came out, which was at Ted 2020, the prequel, we were right in the middle of the first lockdown and that evening, which of course was all virtual, Ok, Go! played a piece of music that they had been working on during the lockdown and it's called All Together Now. And they wrote it because they were inspired by a piece.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [01:01:48] They were inspired by an op-ed that was authored by Rebecca Solnit, who's been on this podcast. And she talked about the fact that at that moment it was like we were all in a chrysalis. A chrysalis, of course, is this moment in the life of a being, a caterpillar on its way to being a butterfly. And I'm sure the listeners know this, but the caterpillar becomes completely liquid. It loses all of its form, but it's full of complete potential to then reform in the form of a butterfly. That's how it makes such a transformation. And they wrote this song, which they all performed in their various homes. And I'd encourage you to watch it on YouTube. And at the end of it, they then all walked outside and Los Angeles was applauding for essential workers. Now, I've always loved this, I first heard it that night, and I think it's particularly relevant now because this moment of latent potential that we're about to realize what's going to happen in the next week really made me want to play that this week. And I just like to recount listen to the lyrics really carefully. There's one of them that really stuck out for me where the singer says nothing changes until one day it does and then there's no going back. Our best selves and our worst selves live in the moment there, sparring over who draws the new map. And though the lights may look unchanged, everything depends on who wins that game. This is Ok, Go! All Together Now. We'll see you next week.

Clay Carnill: [01:07:47] So there you go. Another episode of Outrage and Optimism. My name is Clay, I'm the producer of the podcast. If you're joining us for the first time, second time, or what is it, seventy-sixth time. Welcome. It's so good to have you here at the end of the show, I take this part of the podcast not only to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible but to provide you with some resources to take action on climate, connect with others and learn more. So thank you for joining us. Be sure to hit subscribe and meet us back here next week. The song you just heard is called All Together Now by Ok, Go! They film the video obviously Ok, Go! style, which if you don't know what that is go to YouTube immediately. You can watch this video from the song online and there's a really special moment at the end and you don't want to miss it. They're doing a really cool thing. All proceeds from the song are going to Partners in Health. It's such a cool social justice and global health organization. They're working to make health care a human right for all people, starting with those who need it most. Everything I just mentioned is all in the show notes. Go click around, watch the video, make a donation and enjoy. OK, special thanks this week to Jenna Shogren for helping coordinate our interview with John Podesta and thank you to Christian Rodriguez for getting the mic to John. Christian, I miss your cat. Pedro? I think his name is Pedro. OK, Outrage and Optimism is a global optimism production. Our hosts are Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac, and Paul Dickinson.

Clay Carnill: [01:09:20] Global optimism is a small team, but we get it done. We are Sara Lau, Katie Bradford, Lara Richardson, Sophie MacDonald, Freya Newman, Sarah Thomas, Sharon Johnson, and John Ward. So I don't know if you've heard, but there's an election coming up and millions of people are about to make a very important climate decision with their vote. Our social media team has just posted carbon briefs candidate climate action commitment tracker. It's a mouthful. That shows the candidates' climate commitments side by side. It's so informative and really helpful for helping friends and families see what the two U.S. candidates have to say. And again, what they've committed to if they're elected. You can check out the tracker and so much more by looking up @globaloptimism on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and LinkedIn. Can't forget about LinkedIn. So if you love this podcast, it means the world to us if you could read us and write us a review, we read every single review that comes through. We often WhatsApp message together about them. And when you write a nice review, it's making smiles happen around the world. Thank you. OK, we can do this. The election's coming. We're going to be back here next Friday. And you know, who knows what we'll know at that point, but we're going to be right here. So there are only two things left to say. Number one, if you're a U.S. citizen, vote, if you haven't already. And two, a word of advice for the upcoming days from Samuel L. Jackson in the classic cinematic blockbuster film Jurassic Park. See you next week.