#407 — Can We Ever Return to Normal Politics?

Welcome to the Making Sense podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you're not currently on our subscriber feed, and will only be hearing the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense podcast, you'll need to subscribe at samharris.org. There you'll also find our scholarship program, where we offer free accounts to anyone who can afford one. We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers. So, if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one. I am here with Jon Favreau. Jon, thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me, Sam. Nice to finally meet you. We I I I've seen you working your magic in democratic circles for many years, but we our paths have never crossed. I know. Maybe can you summarize your background in politics and media at this point? Sure. I started on the Kerry campaign, on John Kerry's campaign in 2004, two weeks after I graduated college. I started as a press press assistant there, and then I ended up becoming a speechwriter. And then after Kerry lost, I worked for then senator Barack Obama. When he got to the senate in 2005, I was his head speechwriter. And I stayed with him through the Senate, through the February, went on to the White House to be head speechwriter there, and I left the White House in 2013. And then in 2016, started a podcast about the twenty sixteen election with some, Obama colleagues as a hobby. And then after Donald Trump won, which we did not expect, like many others Mhmm. It became a full blown media company called Crooked Media. And, and the pod is now Pod Save America, and now we have many podcasts and a and a big company, and we're all based in Los Angeles. Nice. Nice. And and you're on more than one podcast at this point. Right? Yeah. I I cohost Pod Save America, and I also host offline. Right. A podcast about how the Internet's breaking all of our brains, which I know you like to talk about as well. It is doing that. And, and then I also host a podcast called The Wilderness where I do sit down and do focus groups with swing voters and talk about what's wrong with the Democratic Party and how to fix it, which, lots to talk about there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's get into it. But your your experience as a speechwriter, I'm interested to know what that job, how is it demarcated from actually thinking about weighing in on policy? I mean, are you simply transcribing what the president and other advisers tell you they want to express? Or do you are you in the weeds and actually trying to think of of what they should be saying and and doing in the first place? It's a great …