BONUS: Biden And McConnell
Consider This from NPR
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4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 22 November 2020
⏱️ 24 minutes
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Summary
In this episode of NPR's Embedded, host Kelly McEvers talks to Janet Hook and Jackie Calmes, both currently at the Los Angeles Times, about the relationship between these men who will shape the country for the months and years to come.|
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, it's Elsa Chang. It's Sunday, so we've got a bonus episode for you. |
| 0:05.5 | It comes from our colleagues at M.P.R.'s Deep Dive Investigative Podcast embedded. This |
| 0:10.3 | episode is all about the man who will soon be the most powerful Republican in Washington, |
| 0:16.6 | Senator Mitch McConnell. He and President-elect Joe Biden have a long history of working together, |
| 0:22.9 | but can they work together when Joe Biden becomes president? And if so, how? Those are |
| 0:29.8 | the big questions right now. Here's the host of Embedded and the former host of Consider This, |
| 0:36.2 | Kelly McEvers. December 30, 2012. The United States was about to go over this thing called |
| 0:47.6 | the Fiscal Cliff. And without going into too much boring, budgetary detail, what that meant was, |
| 0:55.7 | if Congress didn't do something before midnight on New Year's Eve, there would be these massive |
| 1:01.7 | tax increases and spending cuts all the same time, which could put the country into a recession. |
| 1:10.6 | Democrats wanted to tax anyone who made over $250,000 a year. Republicans wouldn't allow a |
| 1:17.7 | tax increase, even on people who made more than a million a year. Negotiations stopped. |
| 1:23.2 | Mitch McConnell was the ranking Republican in the Senate at the time, and he picked up the phone |
| 1:30.0 | and called the one person he thought could help. Someone he had worked with in the Senate. |
| 1:35.4 | Joe Biden, who was flying on Air Force 2, so McConnell left Biden a voicemail. |
| 1:43.8 | The voicemail, according to Mitch McConnell, the voicemail said, is there anyone over there who knows |
| 1:53.1 | how to make a deal over there, meaning the White House? This is Janet Hook, National |
| 2:00.7 | Political Reporter at the LA Times. She's covered Congress since the 80s. What I like particularly is |
| 2:06.3 | the kind of bossy rest of the message. This is McConnell to Biden. I need you to get up to speed |
| 2:12.4 | on this, Joe. Get off the plane. Think about things and call me in an hour to the Vice President |
| 2:18.8 | of the United States. Wow. And then McConnell, after placing that call, McConnell goes to the Senate |
| 2:27.8 | floor and announces that he's trying to break the log gem and that he called Joe Biden. |
... |
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