This week, Nick and Goldy interview a Pitchfork Economics first: a sitting President of the United States. President Joe Biden joins the podcast for a conversation about the transformative economic vision at the heart of his presidency. Biden shares how his groundbreaking middle-out economic policies—investing in workers, rebuilding infrastructure, and revitalizing American industries—are reshaping the economy and creating a legacy of shared prosperity. From empowering unions to creating good-paying jobs and boosting wages, the President underscores why a thriving middle class isn’t just the foundation of a strong economy—it’s the engine that drives it. This is an insightful discussion with the leader who has helped turn the page on five decades of failed economic theory, breaking the suffocating DC economic consensus in favor of prioritizing working Americans.

Joseph R. Biden is the 46th President of the United States. 

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Further reading: 

President Biden in The American Prospect: From the Middle Out and Bottom Up

A New Economics Takes Hold

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Nick Hanauer:

The rising inequality, and growing political instability that we see today are the direct result of decades of bad economic theory.

Pres. Joe Biden:

It’s time to build our economy from the bottom up, and from the middle out, not the top down.

Nick Hanauer:

Middle out economics is the answer.

Pres. Joe Biden:

Because Wall Street didn’t build this country. Great middle class built this country.

Nick Hanauer:

The more the middle class thrives, the better the economy is for everyone, even rich people like me.

Speaker 6:

This is Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer, a podcast about how to build the economy from the middle out. Welcome to the show.

David Goldstein:

Nick, you know that guy we always play a clip of at the top of the podcast?

Nick Hanauer:

The President of the United States?

David Goldstein:

Absolutely. Guess who we’re talking to today?

Nick Hanauer:

Yes. Today, we get to talk to the actual President of the United States on our podcast, which I guess you would call a pretty big get in the podcast world.

David Goldstein:

It’s a pretty big get to talk to Joe Biden. As a former talk radio host, I would’ve killed for that opportunity.

Nick Hanauer:

Yeah, it’s so fun that he’s willing to chat with us for a little while about his economic legacy, middle-line economics, and stuff. Obviously, the man accomplished so much, and was such a transformational president. Such a shame that the orange one is going to try, and screw it all up. But who cares about that right now?

Today, we get to talk to the President of the United States about middle-line economics. Let’s go do that.

Speaker 7:

You have President Biden on the line.

Pres. Joe Biden:

Hey Nick, you going to admit me?

Nick Hanauer:

Mr. President, we are going to admit you expressly. How are you, Sir?

Pres. Joe Biden:

Hi, thank you. Hi, thank you. How are you doing? It’s good to … How’s things of the hour?

Nick Hanauer:

They’re great. Mr. President, I’m here with my colleague, David Goldstein, and we are so excited to talk to you about the extraordinary economic legacy that your administration has created. It’s just such an honor to get to talk to you. Do you mind if we start peppering you with questions?

Pres. Joe Biden:

Pepper away. I may put some salt on it.

Nick Hanauer:

What would you say is the most important part of your economic legacy?

Pres. Joe Biden:

I hope, and think the most important part is making sure that we change the dynamic of how we think we build a stronger economy. By that I mean, and I know you’ve used the term as well, the stronger the middle class is, the better everybody is. Poor have a way up, and the wealthy still do well.

I’ve come from a background where when I grew up in Scranton; Claymont, Delaware; Wilmington, Delaware, where a lot of hardworking people, some of them pretty well-educated, and still struggle like hell.

My dad used to say that, “Joe, they talk about trickle-down economics, the wealthy do well, trickle-down to all of us. Nothing ever trickle-downs on my kitchen table.” My dad was a well-read good, hardworking man.

The other thing, Nick, is I drive my staff crazy, including some of my economists. One of the things that I think is important is to try to establish a principle that we can say is a principle that the United States of America has attempted to abide by, but it didn’t do it very well, which is that when a president goes and spends taxpayers money, he should spend it by buying an American product, whatever it was, and by hiring American workers to get it done.

For example, if you’re going to build a new aircraft carrier, and replace a deck on an aircraft carrier, you use American metal, and you use American workers. You can do an exception when you don’t have them available.

Now, granted, as your old buddy points out that works for me, that’s not what grew the economy. That sets the principle, is investing in America, and Americans. We have the best workers in the world. We have the greatest opportunities in the world. For me, it was to focus on middle class, and middle class built this country. Wall Street didn’t build this country, the middle class did. Unions built the middle class.

I’ll say it again. The unions built the middle class. There would be no middle class in this country where not for the fact unions existed, and were strong. But they’ve really been undermined for a long time. I focused a lot on reaching out to the union movement to get them up, and running again like they never have been before. I know I’m labeled the Most Pro-union President in American history. I’m proud of it. But I think that’s who we are.

All these are hardworking people who are middle-class folks, who have gone out, and want a fair return on their wage. One of the thing that drives my economic staff crazy for me saying this, but I really mean it. One of the most important things about this is that we have the best damn workers in the world, the most qualified workers in the world. That’s not hyperbole.

I really ripped into the union movement for this, privately with them. I said, “You guys don’t talk about how hard it is to get your license to be an electrician, or to be anything else.” For example, the average person out there thinks, Nick, if you ask him that, “I want to be an electrician. Okay, I go to school for six months, I get a license, and I can be an electrician.”

Five years, five damn years, apprenticeship program. You get paid. How much do you get paid once you become a union member? One of the things that always was the case, you heard a lot from, I come from the corporate state of the world, Delaware, more corporations incorporated in Delaware than every other state in the union combined. I’m used to corporate power.

The fact of the matter is, everybody said, “All the unions do is raise the cost of products.” That’s much malarkey. But what the unions do is they, in fact, increase the fair wage that Americans get, and it boosts everybody’s salary. When I started pushing this union bit really hard as president, I’ve been doing it my whole life. What I did was I made sure that we went out there, and made the case that it also helps everybody.

For example, I had the Treasury Department do a study. When union wages increase, what happens to the rest of the wages? The average person say that, “It’s going to cost me more money.” The truth of the matter is it raises the salaries of everybody, everybody. I know I’m talking like an economist here, but what I tried to do is start, and talk to people where they live, how they think, what moves them.

What moves them is when they realized, “Holy mackerel, I can do this.” You have 60% of the population never went to college. These are people who are hardworking folks. They have the capacity to do great things. I’m talking too much here, but look, and took on big corporations to increase competition, lower costs, and support small business as well.

For example, I’ve been a pain in the neck for the industry that does all the prescription drug stuff. I can put you in Air Force One with me tomorrow, and you take a prescription from a major drug company in the United States. I can fly you to 20 cities around the world where you’ll receive 40, 60% less for that same prescription, for that same exact prescription. That’s why we went after … The only ones we are off-limits for Medicare, and negotiate with, were the drug companies. Everybody said, “That’s going to cost all my right-wing, and great conservative friends. That’s going to cost the government a lot of money.”

Guess what? We passed that Prescription Drug Bill, and we’re saving over the next 10 years, $160 billion in taxpayer money, $160 billion. I’m talking more like when I was a history major, and an international relations major than an economics major. But we’re talking in normal terms of people.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that, the result is 16 million jobs, lowest unemployment of any president in 50 years, collective bargaining is doubling the union election petitions going on, took on big corporations, lower cost, lower cost for, as I said, everything from hearing aids, to prescription drugs, to all these hidden fees that we have, the junk fees. There are no rationale for that. I know you know this better than I do.

But an overdraft in a bank, they’re charging 35 bucks for an overdraft. Guess what? It’s $5 now. Ridiculous. Doesn’t cost them 30 God damn dollars to make an overdraft.

Same way we’re talking about credit cards. But look, got about 20 million new business applications, doubling Black business ownership, Hispanic ownership is up 40%. My dad used to have an expression. “Everybody deserves even chances, Joey.” Just a shot. No guarantee, just a shot. People weren’t even getting a shot before. But I’m talking too much. I’m a little excited about this.

Nick Hanauer:

No, that’s awesome.

David Goldstein:

We’re excited to have you talking this much. Obviously, the economy hasn’t been perfect over the past four years. We had that post-COVID spike in inflation, and of course, interest rates continue to remain high. But you were talking about how great the economy is doing. I’m curious, how is the US economy doing compared to the rest of the world, and how do you attribute its relatively strong performance?

Pres. Joe Biden:

We’re doing better than any other major industrial nation in the world, period. The only advantage being an old guy in the presidency, I know more heads of state than any president ever sat in this chair. All the time, all the time, they’re talking about us. What are we doing?

I go to these international meetings. We’re doing better than any other economy in the world. Look, obviously in the past four years, events haven’t been perfect. But look, the fact is that the pandemic really disrupted our supply chains, and increased inflation. I was talking about it. It was pointed out to me by the staff. I just thought I was just doing what everybody else was doing. Using supply chains, talking about that before I ran for office.

Because what was happening is with the pandemic, it’s so badly, badly handled. There were businesses shutting down. One of the areas was, I remember, I’m sitting behind the resolute desk right now. I got a couple staff in front of me. I remember saying to my foreign policy staff, “I want to go to South Korea.” “Why do you want to go to South Korea?” I said, “Because I want to talk to South Koreans about CHIPS and Science.” We invented those damn computer chips. We, the United States, we stuffed 40% of the market.

Then what happened was, as time moved on, it all went overseas because this is all the case I learned in Delaware for all those years as a senator, is that corporate America started to decide what to do. What you want to do is you want to find the deepest labor in the world, take your product there, have them build it, and import it. Not me, I want to make sure we build it here, and export it.

What happened is that we found ourselves in the re-emergence of pandemic, really stronger, but it disrupted supply chains, and increased inflation. We found ourselves in a situation where it was very, very difficult to get anything moving, and all the people put out of work. But what’s happened is since we took office, our economy has grown more than 12%, more than any other major economy in the world.

Incomes are up by four grand more than prices. Inflation has fallen back to pre-pandemic levels. Now, what we have, as I said, this whole notion about I call a corporate greed, where you’re talking about how they’re charging for things that are hidden costs. But it’s no accident we did this by getting shots in people’s arms, and checks in their pockets. We got America back to work. We empowered them to get better jobs, secure better pay, organize more unions, and we’re rebuilding our infrastructure.

Remember, I think you were probably surprised, although you less than most people, because I don’t want to ruin your reputation, but I think we agree more than about it. But all kidding aside, think about it. Remember, the last guy, and the guy coming in, the same guy, said he declared infrastructure weak. He declared it for four years, never built a damn thing. They told me you couldn’t get it done. We got $1 trillion, $300 billion for infrastructure.

How the hell can you be the leading nation in the world politically, economically, and physically without the best infrastructure in the world? We got it done. Then what happened was when that occurred, we found out that … Remember they said the price of new cars skyrocketed? Why did they skyrocket? This 3000 computer chips, the size of the tip of your little finger to go into new automobiles, go into your cell phone, going to our weapons systems. We weren’t making anymore. There was nothing here.

I went to South Korea, sat down with Samsung, sat down with the President of South Korea, and said, “I want you to come, and invest in America your chip making.” Guess what? Samsung came, invested billions of dollars here, we’re not seeing the benefit of yet because it’s just being built. I asked them, “Why America?”

This is regards to head of Samsung. He had two reasons. “The safest place in the world for me to have my money invested, number one. And number two, you have the best workers in the world.” That’s grown from looking at, I don’t have with me the exact number, but we’ve got commitment of over I think $60 billion of investment in building these new fabs, and these new facilities. Everywhere from Columbus, Ohio to Syracuse, New York, to Alabama, all across the country.

What that does, and what people don’t realize, you do, but when these co-fabs are big as a couple of football fields that’s put together, where they’re building these computer, you don’t need a college degree to work there. Average salary is 102 grand. Without a college degree, you can get a job for a $102,000. You’re in a situation as well where those same people are people who are … It takes a hell of a lot to build a building. We significantly increased …

Remember, “How can we be a great manufacturing country? How can we be a country with a building?” Guess what? A lot of carpenters, cement masons, and a whole lot of folks out there now having jobs. But the reason people haven’t felt it yet, and the reason why I’m so anxious to talk to you, and you talk about it, is that I know it’s going to take time for this to happen.

I think we’ve announced, I don’t know, thousands of projects around the country for infrastructure, and the CHIPS Act. But guess what? The fact is, it takes time to get them up, and running.

Nick Hanauer:

Yeah, people don’t know.

Pres. Joe Biden:

They don’t know yet, but they’re going to know when … Guess what? As I pointed out, when Samsung going to invest, I forget how many billion, outside of Columbus, Ohio, and I said a thousand acres. I call that the field of dreams. What’s going to happen there is when this investment takes place, first of all, it’s going to generate a lot of economic activity in the greater region in southern Ohio, number one.

But number two, in addition to that, when this sucker is built, guess what? They’re going to be building more drugstores, barbershops, [inaudible 00:17:34].

Nick Hanauer:

Everything.

Pres. Joe Biden:

Everything’s going to grow. But I knew it wasn’t going to happen for a while. That’s why it’s like, “Oh, Biden’s promising all these jobs, and all this investment.” It hadn’t come yet. I guess it was what Time Magazine or something. I’m paraphrasing that. Trump’s the luckiest son of a gun in the world because Biden loves an economy that can’t fail, basically.

Look, and what I did was, you may remember, I got in trouble for it. We made significant investments in red states, for investing more money in red states than in blue states. The reason why I did that, I’m a president for all Americans. The idea is because those red states had such lousy practices, and were the ultimate practitioners of trickle-down, how many factories closed?

I’ll bet you can name for me people you know growing up who say, “My grandpa used to work at this factory. My father worked … Mom, I got to move. There’s no jobs here.” What we’re trying to do is restore some pride as well. But I’m excited about the way things seem to be moving. I think that throwing from middle out really makes a difference.

Nick Hanauer:

No, absolutely. You’ve spoken about your commitment to worker power, unions, and undoubtedly, you’re the only sitting president to ever join a picket line, which is quite an extraordinary thing. My question to you is slightly broader though.

Your approach to economic policymaking was such a break from what people have done for the last 50 years, and certainly took lots of people, myself included, Democrats, by surprise. Just how bold you were willing to be. Where did that come from? Was that hard? Did people yell at you on the inside for doing all that stuff? That courage was just amazing.

Pres. Joe Biden:

You give me more credit about the courage than I observed. Because look, my dad used to have an expression. I mean it sincerely. He said, “Joey, a job’s about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity, about respect, about your place in the community.” It’s about people looking your kid in the eye, and say, “Honey, it’s going to be okay,” and mean it. All about dignity, all about treating people fairly.

Second piece was I grew up in a household where my mom was one of five kids, four brothers, and my dad had three of his family, where people busted their ass just to be able to get a good paying job at a time when things were pretty rough during the ’30’s, and going into the ’40’s when things began to pick up. I talked a lot about the middle class as a basis for my reason for running for office, when I was a senator.

People are now going back and figuring, “I was told last night,” I don’t know this to be true. I forget. My communication staff said that Lawrence O’Donnell had a piece on where I was making a speech in 2019 about what we needed to do to grow the economy, and then showed the speech I made in Brooklyn five years later, or was it five years later?

When we did all of them, I was talking about the things that I wanted to do back in the teens because I really believed it would work. I come from the corporate State of Delaware, that was the giant banking industry. If I lived in New York, and that was a major industry, I might’ve not been able to get elected.

But Delaware’s small enough that I could do a say what I meant, and yet I could show up in people’s living rooms. I could show up in town meetings. I could show up, and explain in plain English what I meant. It was hard to distort what I meant. That, I’m not sure I could have done it, had I represented the State of California even though it’s much more liberal than my state.

Nick Hanauer:

Interesting.

Pres. Joe Biden:

I think it’s just being able to talk straight with people. As I said, I drive, my economic team is a great team I have here, crazy because I say, “Speak English, not economics. Talk to people like ordinary people talk.” We still go, “Don’t get me wrong, we’ve got a lot more work to do.” But I use phrases that are sketchy, but not perfectly accurate when I said, “Where’s it written we can’t be the manufacturing capital of the world?”

People look and go, “Yeah, right. We’re the United States. Why can’t we do that?”

We’ve always believed anything is possible if we set our mind to it. That’s why we’re viewed as the ugly Americans, because we thought we could do anything. I’m serious. Think about it. But we stopped thinking that anything was possible. But I think it’s important that we focus on, and wasn’t that hard. Because it doesn’t relate to economics.

In 1972, I was 29 years old when I won my senate seat in what was a very red state at the time. I was the only guy elected statewide, with one other got elected that year. I was a Democratic governor. One of the things that mattered was I talk about what we could do, and appeal to America’s sense of patriotism, and their sense in anything is possible.

One of the things we talked about was, “Why if we invested in ABC near D?” For example, before I announced for president, you may recall this big event out on the South Lawn. I hadn’t introduced, even though I’ve been the head of most people, and most of my colleagues on the environmental issues, going back to the first. I invested the first major environmental bill in ’78.

I said, “Why haven’t I talked more about the environment? Because I haven’t talked to Labor yet.” Why Labor? Remember, if you go back four years, if you said the environment, Labor thought that meant they’re going to lose jobs. Seriously, how’s the joke? When I think the environment, I think jobs, not a joke.

I sat down with the president of the IBEW. I spent better part of three hours, and convinced him that it’s in the interest of the IBEW to have us invest billions of dollars, which 38 billion, which I think $4 billion we got for the environment. I said, “That’s thousands of jobs.” All of a sudden, if you know now, Labor thinks what we’re doing, doing jobs [inaudible 00:24:48]

Nick Hanauer:

Is good.

Pres. Joe Biden:

It was part of just seems like the mindset. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that I’ve solved it. We got it done, but we lost this election. It’s going to be hard as hell hanging on to the property gains in any rate. Back in ’72 when I ran and won in the State of DuPont, Nixon won my state by 60% of the vote. I won by 3,200 votes, and ran against a decent guy, a guy named James Caleb Boggs, involved in both the Clean Air and Clean Water Act, but a decent man.

Everybody said, “Oh.” All the young guys and women that wanted to run would come and talk to me in ’73 and ’74. “What was the secret?” I said, “The biggest most important secret for you to learn is, what is worth losing over? What are you willing to lose over rather than change your view?” I said, “Because people reward you for that, if you explain it to them.”

I think when you asked me about what was hard, it wasn’t hard. There was no reason to have this damn job, unless we could do something about the economy and foreign policy. [inaudible 00:26:04] not enough to know what I wanted to do.

Nick Hanauer:

That’s great. Mr. President, on this podcast, we always ask our guests one final question, and we’re going to put it to you.

Pres. Joe Biden:

Okay.

Nick Hanauer:

Why do you do this work?

Pres. Joe Biden:

I guess I do it because the family I was raised in, and the neighborhood I come from, it was all about everybody has an obligation to make sure the other guy next door is helped out a little bit. I didn’t start off wanting to do this. I started off because I got involved in the Civil Rights Movement. I wasn’t in great shape.

I was a kid when I moved from Scranton, there’s very few African Americans who were [inaudible 00:26:43] We had to move and find work, move back to Delaware, where my dad had gone up to junior in high school. But it was all about, you look out for the other guy a little bit. You expect him to look out for you a little bit. As I said, my dad was one of those guys who thought everybody deserved a chance. Everybody deserves an equal chance. No guarantees, just a shot. As it kept coming clearer and clearer, there was no shot for a whole hell of a lot of people. It’s also selfish.

The better they do other people, the better I do, the better the community does. I think we could have lost that notion too. That’s why. But anyway, I got involved in the Civil Rights Movement as a kid, moved to Delaware where there were the eighth largest Black percent of population in the country. For a great shame, we were a slave state. We fought on the side of the north. But I got involved in trying to reform the Democratic Party, which was much more conservative than the National Democratic Party at the time.

When Dr. King was assassinated, we had a Democratic governor who insisted that they be placed on every corner in the city of Wilmington, the National Guard would draw on bayonets for 10 months. I quit the law firm I had gone to work for. I became a public defender. That went on from there.

Nick Hanauer:

Wow. Mr. President, thank you so much for being with us.

David Goldstein:

And, thank you for all your work.

Nick Hanauer:

Yeah. Because it is an extraordinary legacy. You were the man who killed neoliberalism. We, and the country, will be forever in your debt for having done it.

Pres. Joe Biden:

I’m in your debt. I’m in the debt of you guys who just are … Look, one of the things that worries me most, and I’ll get off the line, is that the kind of things you hear, the numbers. You know that survey done by the Michigan survey, how people feel about this, I think it’s between 65, 67% of American people think they’re better off than they were before we got elected in the last four years.

But when asked, “Do you have a positive view of the direction of the economy?” I think it’s like only 34% that have a positive view. I think that’s because the press isn’t the way it used to. They’re good people, don’t get me wrong. But let me put it this way. After my son died because of Iraq, I wasn’t going to ever run again. One of the things I wrote, I started to write another book about inflection points in world history that changed economic growth, and changed the economy overall.

I said, “We’re one of those inflection points.” In the decisions that we make in the next two, four, six years are going to determine what the rest of the world looks like for the next six, seven decades. I may necessarily think of the changes we’re taking. The idea of what global warming is doing in terms of just the pure development of the world, how we’re responding is gone.

One of the things that I found was that if we focus on the things that really matter, we can make a difference in my view. The decisions we’re making now are going to set the agenda for the next, not just the decisions I’m making, I mean the world, going to set the agenda for the next five, six decades.

Post-World War II is over, done. Everything’s changing. But the biggest change taking place is the press. They’re not bad. They’re still good people. But where do people get their news? The thing is, don’t hold me to this. If the data’s correct, something only 5, 7% of people under the age of 25 are reading the newspaper.

We pick what news we want to hear. It’s a totally different deal. We’ve got to figure out how we deal with this significant technological change. If Nixon was more accustomed to television, he wouldn’t have perspired so much, and he would be president when he’d beat Kennedy.

I know that sounds silly. But think of the changes taking place. Where do you go? What is true? We have no evidence anymore. I’m not sure how that gets resolved. But I think it’s a big deal.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time. I’m sorry, I take so much of your time.

Nick Hanauer:

No, Sir, thank you so much for being with us. We wish you the best. Hopefully, we’ll see you soon.

Pres. Joe Biden:

All right, pal.

David Goldstein:

Thank you.

Pres. Joe Biden:

Good talk.

Nick Hanauer:

Thank you for being with us.

Pres. Joe Biden:

Thanks for having me.

David Goldstein:

I got to say, Nick, this isn’t economics. But I just want to reiterate what the President just said about really, he was talking about at the end the failure of journalism. The reason why most people don’t understand how good the economy is, or how much the President has done, and how well he has set up our economy for the future, I think is at least partially a failure of journalism to educate the American people. I know a lot of other journalists won’t want to hear it, and maybe the President’s staff didn’t want him to go there. I’ve got no idea. But I’m with him 100% on this.

Nick Hanauer:

No. It’s obviously a tragedy that 9 out of 10 Americans couldn’t name three of the economic accomplishments probably, right? It’s so, so, so sad. But it still was fun to talk to him.

I did one-hour and a half or two-hour one-on-one with Joe Biden before he ran for president. The thing that really came through for me in that conversation, before he ran, was that his guiding political philosophy, his guiding principle was that it was all about the middle class. That he just thought that if you took care of middle-class people, then the country would be fine.

I don’t think that there’s a better heuristic for governance than that. I think under any circumstances, and for all time, you show me political system that governs to ensure that the median family is thriving, I will show you a successful society. I don’t think you could find a counter-example.

David Goldstein:

That, Nick, is one of the strengths of middle out economics, both in theory, and in practices.

Nick Hanauer:

That’s right.

David Goldstein:

You don’t have to understand why it works in order to be successful by adhering to its heuristics, to that rule of thumb. When the middle class is strong, America is strong. What’s good for the middle class is good for America.

When you grow the economy from the middle out, everybody benefits. He didn’t just say these things. That was really important. The leadership he provided, obviously, there were chinks in the armor of neoliberalism well before he took the White House, but that leadership that he provided, I think just people underestimate how consequential it was, how consequential it was for a president of the United States to join the picket line of striking auto workers. Never before in our history.

If you look back and you remember what happened, he did that, and a few days later, Ford folded. They settled. When Ford settled, the other automakers settled. When the other automakers settled, the non-unionized automakers in the south, they all tried to match those contracts. Because that’s what the competition was doing. They had to follow along.

That’s leadership. Who knows what will happen over the next four years? You know me, I’m really pessimistic about the state of our democracy, whether we’ll even be allowed to have real elections again. But if we do, I’m pretty confident that his legacy historians will look fondly on his legacy, particularly in terms of his economic policy, and narrative.

Nick Hanauer:

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Joe Biden may be out of the White House, but we’re definitely going to continue the fight. I think that the American people are going to get a huge serving of trickle-down economics over the next couple of years. I just don’t think there’s any way that the Republican Party won’t revert to their tax cuts for the rich deregulation, for the powerful, and wage suppression for everybody else. I just don’t think they can help themselves. But we will be here-

David Goldstein:

We’ll be here.

Nick Hanauer:

… reminding people that that choice was a terrible choice, and that there’s a better way.

David Goldstein:

What could have been, and what could be, again, in the paraphrase, the words of Milton Friedman, when the crisis comes, what takes the place of the ideas that are lying around? For the next four years, we’ll just have to continue to promote these ideas.

Pres. Joe Biden:

Pitchfork Economics is produced by Civic Ventures. If you like the show, make sure to follow, rate, and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Find us on other platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads at Pitchfork Economics.

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As always, from our team at Civic Ventures, thanks for listening. See you next week.