"3 Presidents"

27:50I'm sorry. Just on that point, President Obama, were you surprised during those five years of the last administration how quickly that protection and passion for democracy was diluted? Yeah. How prime the country was to just sort of dissolve and get lazy with it and let it go. You know, I will say, and Bill saw this begin to happen during his presidency, it then accelerated during my presidency. I have been surprised that there haven't been guardrails inside the Republican Party. Trump didn't surprise me. No. He was the natural conclusion. No, I mean, you watch Trump's campaign. You watch his career.

28:39He's never changed. If you know anybody who's— He's a huckster. I mean, he comes from New York. There's nobody in New York who does business with him or lend him money. He's not considered a serious guy here, but— President of the United States. So I was surprised he was elected, but I wasn't surprised in terms of his behavior. I did expect, and I suspect, Bill and Joe, you'd agree with this, that there would be some folks in the Republican Party who would say, no, you can't go that far. You can't start praising Putin and saying that his intelligence is better than the U.S. intelligence agencies.

29:22Were you surprised that there were 60-some million people that bought it and voted for him and then did it again? Well, you know, I think that we can't discount the fact that the world's changing quick. And when the world changes quick, people get scared and they get confused. And we had a historic recession in 2008, 2009 where the financial system almost collapses. We end up having, you know, we'd obviously already gone through 9-11. You got globalization. You have suddenly people feeling as if they're losing manufacturing jobs. Some of the towns in Illinois where I was representing, Arkansas where Bill was working, you see people starting to feel like they're losing status.

30:12Suddenly you've got the internet and social media and people are being flooded with all kinds of stuff and they don't know how to sort it all out. And when people get scared and concerned, then the appeal of somebody who says, I'm going to make it like it used to be where you don't have to worry about it. And, you know, men are men and women know their place. And that message can sometimes have some appeal. Look, again, I love this country. I am so... You better. I'm Canadian. It is the best country in the world. You've only been to two countries. But it's... He watches CNN International, though.

30:50It's true. Because, you know what? I mean, the Canada. No, I agree with that. And by the way, it's a phenomenal country. When it's at its best, it is the best. Well, if the rest of the world looks to us, no matter what you say, no matter how you characterize it, there's not a single country in the world that does not think we're the single most consequential country in the world. Not a single one. Including our enemies. Including our enemies. I mean, across the board. If there's a problem around the world, You know, if there's a natural disaster, if there is a crisis, nobody's calling Moscow or Beijing expecting them to help.

31:25Right, right. Everybody's looking to Washington. But beyond that, here's the deal. Look, think about it. When Trump got elected, he said he's going to go America first, America alone. Look who he talks about his best friends being, Kim Jong-un. I'm serious. Jack Nicklaus. Hey, listen, he won two golf championships last week. The regular championship and the senior. I told him when he won, I told him he came into the upstairs oval and we bumped into each other. He said something about playing golf. I said, look, I'll give you two strokes if you carry your own bag. He couldn't make it. President Biden, do you know that Kim Jong-un, he had 18 holes in one once?

32:06Yeah. We're not far off that with this guy. I'm looking forward to your guys' merch coming out. Do you guys have an apparatus, a mechanism whereby you can contact one another like this without anybody connecting? Like a bat phone? It's called a smartphone. Do you have one of these? Continue. But could you do that? Great. Okay. You guys text each other? Yeah. I mean, like emojis and stuff. I don't text much, but we pick up the phone and talk to each other. I love that. Do you really? That's so cool. No one else listening and no one else connecting the call. We can't be sure of that. We're not positive of the cyber side.

32:46But does President Obama, like he picks up and he goes, hang on, I'm going to add President Clinton. I'm going to merge calls. That's a little too advanced. You might need a 25-year-old aide to help on the merger thing. I love it. I mean, one plus one plus one makes ten with you guys. So I just, I'm glad. I want to know, like, do you all miss something specific about the holding office? Obviously, except for you because you're in office. But do you guys miss something? I miss not having office. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Look, everybody talks about Air Force One. Yeah, sure. Marine One. Yeah.

33:21It's pretty convenient, I won't lie. But I'll tell you the thing I miss the most is, you remember those music concerts I used to do at... Yeah. You can basically invite anybody. And you have this concert. Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, we got, you know, Stevie Wonder. Yeah, yeah. Paul McCartney. Everybody will show up. They'll show up. I thought they'll still take a look. And they've got, they do these rehearsals the night before a lot of times. And you can kind of sneak down and you can just sit there and watch, you know, Mick Jagger practicing with B.B. King or something on a blues night. I do miss that.

34:03That's so good. I miss the fact they don't play a song when you walk in a room anymore. Sure. Oh, we should have done that today. I was lost for three weeks after I left office. But let me tell you something serious. This is one reason that I so badly want President Biden to be reelected. What I really miss is the job. Not doing it. I'm glad. I believe in the two-term limit strongly. Yeah. But what I learned was on the worst day, when nothing was going right, problems are everywhere, there was still something you could do that would make somebody's life better. I love that. There is no job like that on earth.

34:44I love that. And I want somebody that I trust to make the most of that every day. Thank you. Because there'll be bad days no matter who gets elected. But he'll get up and he'll start thinking about that. And I think his opponent will be thinking about himself. who I can get even with, who I can send away, who I can manage. His judgment is— Joe Biden will make the best of the bad days. And the team that you have assembled and your comfort with deferment. I don't know. For me personally, I love leaders that have the confidence to hire those that they respect, that might make them a little nervous.

35:31And also not to think that you're the smartest guy about it. You're going to have every, you know, we've had people like, we had leaders like that in the middle part of the last century who were put into government by presidents of old, and they made a lot of decisions that they thought that they were right about, and they were terrible people. And when you let somebody, when that happens, when you think that you've got all the answers is the moment you don't. Like Ron Klain, you know, bringing us out of COVID. And on and on and on. The way in which you surround yourself with the absolute best this country has to offer.

36:08I made a commitment. I have an administration that looked like America. I have more women in my cabinet. I have appointed more black circuit court judges than every other president combined in American history. I've kept my commitment about putting a black woman on the Supreme Court. I have an opportunity to go out and get the best people. and by the way, I sometimes pick the phone and ask these guys who they think are the best people. I'm looking for people that most of all though not just are good, but care about what they're doing. Whereas the other guy is only hiring people that won't talk back.

36:42Mine talk back. What are those things that you look back on? Because the other guy has, as we know, no capacity for this. And President Obama, I'll start with you. What are the things that you think about that keep you there are there things that you look back and you go geez i wish i wish that had worked out a little bit better not necessarily regrets but things that you would wish it uh handing off the baton in 2016 yeah definitely but i i think bill's point is is the right one which is when you're sitting in that office you are essentially a relay runner you've you've taken a bunch of problems from the previous president and you're working through them as best you can, you're running the best race you can, and then you hand it off.

37:27During that time where you've got the baton in your hand and you're running, if you are focused on every day, can I make things a little bit better? Because you're not going to make them perfect. There are too many problems. They're too hard. If you can make them a little better, then a lot of people are helped. So the Affordable Care Act wasn't perfect. We didn't get everybody health insurance. But we got tens of millions of people. Yeah, really big deal. We got tens of millions of people. You can say the real quote on the show. It was a big fucking deal. We got tens of millions of people health insurance and my successor tried to kill it.

38:09Didn't succeed because it was starting to actually work. You get it passed on to Joe and what does he do? He then takes what's already in place and builds on it. expands the subsidies so that more people can start getting on it. Expands Medicaid so that more people can get on it. And so with all the changes he made, healthcare in America is still not perfect. There's still folks who are having a tough time. But what has happened is that even more people have gotten coverage. And now Joe caps insulin at$35, which means it's people who've got diabetes and really desperately need help. They're not getting price gouged.

38:51And he's negotiating with Big Pharma to make sure that drug prices are affordable the way they are in Canada. Thank you, I'll take credit for that. And so what you get are these incremental steps. You're never sad, to answer your question, Will, you're never satisfied when you leave because there's always gonna be a bunch of stuff that's undone. But I couldn't have done the Affordable Care Act Bill hadn't made the efforts he did around the children's health insurance program. Right. And Joe then builds on us. And that's what you're hoping for each and every time. And let me say this, last point I'll make.

39:28It's not always just Democrats. George Bush and I had a huge number of differences. but he set up this program called PEPFAR that provided drugs and support and help for people in sub-Saharan Africa and around the world who had HIV in the midst of the HIV AIDS epidemic and because of his program millions of lives, tens of millions of lives were saved and we then built on that program So it doesn't just have to be a partisan thing. Part of what you want, though, is somebody with Joe's decency and basic focus on the American people and who have a sense of responsibility to say, all right, I've inherited some stuff.

40:17Some of it's good. Some of it are problems. What more can I do? And that's the attitude Joe has. We'll be right back. So then what are the issues coming up that people are focusing on that you believe are the wrong things or they may be the right things, and what should they be focusing on? I think they should be focusing on a couple things. Number one, we're going to, in the second term, God willing, we're going to make sure that we do something about gun violence in this country. Yes. The idea that we allow salt weapons to be sold in magazines with 100 rounds is just bizarre. Well, President Biden, I'm so glad to hear you say that because that was going to be my other question, which is the Democrats never said we want to take your guns away.

41:03Absolutely not. You never said that. You said we've got to be smart about what's going on. You just don't need to kill a deer with an AR-15. The Second Amendment, which when I taught law school, the Second Amendment wasn't absolute ever. You weren't able to have a cannon when you were, you know, the liberty is water with the blood of patriots. I mean, that's a bunch of crap. Well, it kind of brings us back to... President, we have a listener question that he already knows about, but if you want to read it to him, it's a listener call-in question. Uh-oh. Okay. This is unusual, but I think I know who it's from.

41:36We have a caller here. Mr. President, I'm assuming he's talking about President Biden here. You have done so much for this country in the past three short years. You've been the architect of an incredible bipartisan infrastructure deal. Under your leadership, America has been running a white-hot economy. Inflation has been plummeting and unemployment remains at an all-time historic low. But like so many Americans, I dread the possibility of having to listen to the grating voice of a narcissist man-child on our airwaves for God knows how many more years. He's a bully that can barely manage his own personal life.

42:10I have a feeling this is about me. Has the strangest tan. No, that's Will. And he takes golf way more seriously than any adult man should. So, Mr. President, my question is, now that you're sitting directly across from Will Arnett, is there nothing you or Congress can do to get him to shut his big fat mouth? I'll take my answer off the air. That's Justin T. from New York City. Justin Thoreau. Justin Thoreau, sleeveless. We don't know if it's Thoreau. Justin, there are certain powers that are beyond the presidency. That's well beyond my presidential power. I asked you, President Biden, last time if you'd make me golf czar, and you never answered me.

42:49I had to call Trump. He wasn't sure. I want to know, like... I just wanted to say we're kind of back where we started, which was the whole idea of the messaging and what's good for people. And we're all so hung up on, are you Democrat? Are you blue or red? Yeah, but that's what campaigns are for. Look, the average voter... Yeah. wants to do the right thing. But how much bandwidth they have for politics. I mean, they've got to pay the bills. They've got to take care of the kids' health care. They've got to make sure your school business is all right if you have children who are school age. I mean, there's just so many things they have to do.

43:30That's our job. That's partly why we're here. That's why you're doing a public service by asking us questions and letting that. That's what campaigns are for. It seems like... That's what you have to use them for. It seems like they're sort of making it sort of this binary choice between social issues or pocketbook issues. And if you're going to go for the social issues, then you're going to take a hit on the pocket. If you're going to vote for pocketbook issues, you're going to lose all the social issues. But here's the truth. The truth is almost all the rational position on social issues and on those issues that are like unions, for example, They all, in fact, grow the economy if you do the right thing.

44:13They grow the economy. The economy grew under Bill. It grew under Joe. It grew under me. And the reason it grows is when everybody's got a stake, when everybody's making money. Morale. When people are getting paid decent wages, they have decent benefits, they feel better, they go shopping. Yeah. They might even listen to this podcast. Well, they've got to be pretty bored. But the point is that American economic history shows whenever prosperity is broadly based, and all of us ran campaigns with this basic premise that if you give everybody a fair shot, everybody does better. So this whole idea that we've got to somehow make it great again is a fallacy.

45:11It's such a joke. You've got to fill them with fear. Because we've never been in better. And please, my next question, Die Hard, is it a Christmas movie? I'm kidding. President Biden, if you could resurrect one person from the past to come hang out in the Oval Office, you update them on the current state of things, What's their advice? Who would you bring in to give you some perspective on? It would be a hard choice for me between Lincoln, because we are such a divided nation and how he dealt with it, and possibly Roosevelt. But look, I think the country is in much better shape than we're talking about it.

46:02I don't mean finance. It is. We have the best economy in the world, the strongest one in the world. Period. Right now, okay? Everyone, if you know how China's going to eat our lunch, notice who China's coming to talk to all the time now, right? The idea that Russia was going... I want to tell you a quote. I got a call from Dr. Kissinger before he died, about 10 days before he died. And he asked me to give him a call. And I called and he said the following thing. He said, you know, he said, not since Napoleon has Europe not looked over its shoulder at Russia with dread. And then you guys came along, you strengthened NATO, you expanded it, and that's changed.

46:40You've changed it all. Well, this guy's changed it all, but he doesn't care. He doesn't care. And that's what the rest of the world looks at and says, do you have any interest in our concern? And can you imagine us being able to avoid a European war? Can you imagine us why the hell we set up NATO in the first place? Can you imagine what we're, I mean, there's, it's just, he has no sense of anything. He doesn't believe in anything. We know that, right? There's no. He believes in one thing. He believes in selling what he, going to benefit him personally. Right. Well, I do think that there's one other thing.

47:16You were talking about, Jason, social issues versus economic issues. and why is it that sometimes things look good but people don't feel good all the time? Part of it is, as I said before, things are changing. Folks are nervous. But underneath all the polarization that people are getting through TikTok and social media and cable news, Bill's point about the average person just wanted to do the right thing, They actually don't want folks arguing all the time. They're really not looking for sort of a death match, you know, on every single issue. They'd like to see people treating each other decently.

48:05Right. They don't want to go to Walmart and argue with their neighbor about whether they're a Democrat. Or if you're in a little league, right, or you're sitting at your kid's soccer game, and you've got the parent next to you, you want to talk about kids and soccer. And I do think that underneath all this demonization and anger that people make money off of and that gets a lot of clicks, people do want to see some decency and common sense. And I think Joe represents that and his administration represents that. And if we can break through, all of us doing the work, of a campaign just to remind folks of what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature, then I think we're going to be okay.

49:00And, you know, but the challenge we've got is anger and resentment and calling people names gets more attention. And we do have to, one thing we do have to, I'm not sure, Jason, that in order to do the show, the performance you talked about, that it has to be pugilistic, that it has to be hitting the other guy in the nose. It does have to be entertaining. You do have to be able to... Bill, Joe, me, when I'm doing okay, it's about telling stories that people can relate to because people can't relate to facts and numbers and figures as much as they can relate to stories. Right, and to personal experience.

49:48And personal experience. That's what people relate to. And that performing by telling people stories, reminding them who they are, what family means to them, what it means to struggle and overcome. Joe, you know, what he had to overcome in terms of getting where he was. Bill, a master storyteller, talking about what it was like growing up, single mom, Arkansas. on. Those are the things that really, I think, resonate with people. And if we can get more of that instead of the kind of name calling that we're seeing out here, I think we'll do okay. That's where you let people know you understand what their concerns are.

50:29Look, I mean, think about it. Everybody's gone through some tough times. But one of the, my dad used to have an expression, swear to God. He said, Joey, a job's about a lot more than a paycheck. It's about your dignity. It's about respect. It's being able to look your kid in the eye and say everything's going to be okay. And there's a shot of it. That's what the three of us have tried to do. We've tried to, we're not, if you, look, if you want to be, if you can earn a billion bucks and you do it legally, great. I'm a capitalist, fine. Just start paying your damn taxes. You know what a billionaire is paying?

51:04By the way, we have just one example. They're 1 ,000 billionaires in America right now. If they paid 25 % instead of 8.2 % what they pay now, just 25%, it would raise$400 million or the next billion dollars in the next 10 years. We could take care of child care, which increases productivity. We could take care of elder care. Let's do it. Yeah, let's do it. Screw 25. Why don't they pay 40? Look, here's the deal. That's what everyone else is paying. Now who's Canadian? Yeah. That's what I was thinking. No, but I'm just making the point that you don't have to be extreme in anything to get this done.

51:42Don't forget that Trump's dad once said, get that family out of 14G. Hey, listen, listen. If this comes out and it's helpful at all, is there a chance that the three of us could be on a bill of your designation, President Biden? Maybe a special$250 bill or something? with our dumb faces on it. Yeah, I think it should be. Think about it. Don't give us an answer. We'll see you at inauguration. $3 bill. $3 bill. $3 bill. Thank you. Well, I've been called as queer as a$3 bill. But anyway. Honestly, listen, we've taken up way too much of your time. You gentlemen are very, very busy. We thank you. Really, really cool.

52:26Thank you. It's just moving to be part of the three of you. Thank you so, so much. Really important. Appreciate it. Thank you, guys. Thank you. We've had a great time. Thank you. Have fun tonight. All right, guys. Wow. Oh, boy. That was cool. That was... That happened right there. I'm very proud of us for keeping it together, keeping it classy. How are you guys feeling about it? That's crazy, right? Yeah. I feel like I'm in good hands, right, when I'm around those guys? Absolutely. Boy. Anyway, that was a real privilege for the three of us. I agree. I hope our listeners enjoyed that as much as we did, irrespective of your political affiliation.

53:07being able you know three knuckleheads like us sitting across from three leaders of the free world is nothing the three of us ever expected we'd be able to do so thank you guys as listeners for enabling that how about the secret service people on the way in and on the way out you know Sean was disappointed because he had heard he was having the impression that we were going to have a visit to the secret circus and he thought that that was the thing he thought that there was a secret yeah and so he thought I bought peanuts and he said he wanted to see bears riding bicycles I'm like I could see that at home for free

53:47wait so let me ask you guys were you nervous because at the beginning of it I remember saying I thought I'd be more nervous but because they're so relaxed and they feel like you know they just speak so free you feel like you connect you connect with them that I the nerves went away a little bit they're very good at disarming the folks that are sitting across from them. They were very chillaxed. I found them to be very chillaxed, and that's how I would describe people. But then when I wasn't talking, I was nervous, and I was listening to you guys. I got to say, I felt pretty chillaxed. Like, I know, you know what I mean?

54:23If you say it one more time, I'm going to hang up. I'm going to shut the computer. I just want it back. I want it back. I want people to start using it. I think it was you that explained to me what the Netflix and chill phrase is. I never knew what the hell that meant. It annoyed me quite a bit. But then, was it you that told me it's code for having sex? Is that right? Well, I don't know if I want to get into more like the fact that you're a dad or that we're back in 2017. I don't know which one I want to hit first. You know what I mean? By the way, have you guys heard this band, Public Enemy?

54:56Fuck me, man. You're killing me. This is a group. You are killing me. I do want to say with the presidents, it was incredible. You know, and I mentioned this too, which was that the one thing that you can't deny, no matter where you are on the sort of political spectrum, if you will, is that under President Biden, the jobs numbers have been incredible. And I think that he has earned the moniker Joe Jobs. Joe Jobs. He is, to me, he's Joe Jobs. That is great. That's great. Joe Jobs. Yeah. Joey Jobbenstein. in sure whatever you want joey joey jobs is great i love that joe jobs well because what unemployment is at a 50-year low yeah right i think we covered um the economy is at an all-time high it really is meaning inflation is going to work itself out but that's not his fault at all that was something that pre the covid and the whole all that's other stuff i'm not smart enough to describe but no and we never went into that recession that they thought would happen and that And then a lot of that was due to supply chain stuff, issues, et cetera, et cetera.

56:05So we're definitely back on. But the one thing that you can't argue with is the jobs. Like it's just irrefutable, right? So again, I don't care where you fall. I'm not saying he's better than your guy or your guy, whatever. I mean, he is. But what I'm saying is— Whether you're Republican or Democrat, you need a job. And he's the guy that's bringing it. Yeah, because he's Joe Jobs. So you have Obama and Clinton, and then we used this one before, but it's pretty beautiful. Go ahead, Sean. And Biden. Biden. Joe Jobs. Smart. Nice.

56:46Smart. Nice. Smartless is 100 % organic and artisanally handcrafted by Rob Armjarf, Bennett Barbaco, and Michael Grantary.

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