“Pod Save America” ’s Jon Lovett on Biden’s Accomplishments

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

Lizza, Obama, Wickenden, Wnyc, News, Politics, Washington, President, Barack

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2024

⏱️ 32 minutes

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Summary

Jon Lovett had been deep inside politics, as a speechwriter in the Obama Administration, before he joined his colleagues Tommy Vietor and Jon Favreau to launch Crooked Media, a liberal answer to the burgeoning ecosystem of right-wing news platforms. “There was too much media that treated people like cynical observers,” Lovett tells David Remnick, “and not enough that treated them like frustrated participants.” Crooked Media has gathered millions of politically engaged listeners—“nerds,” Lovett calls them—to “Pod Save America,” “Lovett or Leave It,” and other podcasts. But Lovett is more worried about voters who no longer get a steady stream of reliable political coverage at all, as local news outlets wither and platforms like Facebook downplay the sharing of news. “The vast majority of people do not know about Joe Biden’s accomplishments,” he says. “When they say to a pollster that this is not someone they view as being up to the job, they’re not . . . understanding how he performed in the job so far.” Lovett shares the widespread concerns about Biden’s apparent aging, but notes that his performance remains effective, whereas, “in Trump, the reverse: he is more energetic—I think the threat of federal jail time sharpens the mind!—but by all accounts is emotionally, psychologically, and mentally not up to the job.”

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0:39.0	Your favorite designers, expertly authenticated.
0:42.5	Yeah, eBay. Things people love.
0:49.3	This is the political scene, and I'm David Remnick.
1:07.0	After Donald Trump won in 2016, stunned Democrats found ways to cope.
1:10.5	Some marched, some donated, some screamed into their pillows. John Lovett launched a new podcast,
1:14.1	and more than a podcast, a media empire. Now, Lovett had been in politics for a long time. He worked on
1:20.9	John Kerry's campaign when he was just out of college, and then he went on to write speeches for
1:24.9	Hillary Clinton, and finally, in the White House for Barack Obama.
1:29.9	Lovett then got together with some of his former Obama administration friends, John Favreau and Tommy Vitor, to launch Crooked Media.
1:38.8	Crooked Media is an unabashedly partisan effort to counteract powerful conservative outlets like Fox.
1:45.4	Crooked Media's flagship show is Pod Save America, which has been a huge success in a pretty
1:52.0	crowded field. And now two elections later, Donald Trump is once again on the ballot and ahead
1:58.3	in a lot of polls. So I called up John Lover to talk about what we learned last time and why America still needs
2:05.9	saving.
2:08.6	John, welcome, and I'm thrilled to be with you.
	...

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