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

Listen and subscribe: Apple | Spotify | Google | Wherever You Listen

Sign up to receive our twice weekly News & Politics newsletter.

Jon Lovett was deeply involved in 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 emerging ecosystem of right-wing news platform. “Too much media treats people like cynical observers,” Lovett told David Remnick, “and not enough treats them as 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 concerned about voters no longer getting a steady stream of reliable political coverage at all, as local news outlets wither and platforms like Facebook curtail the sharing of news. “Most people don’t know about Joe Biden’s accomplishments,” he said. “When they tell a pollster it’s not someone they view as being on the job, they’re not . . . understand how he’s performed on the job so far.” Lovett shared widespread concerns about Biden’s apparent aging, but noted that his performance remains effective, whereas, “with Trump, it’s the opposite: he’s more energetic— I think the threat of federal jail time sharpens the mind!—but by all accounts it is emotionally, psychologically, and mentally incompatible with the job.”