Latest / Pod Save America / Should Democrats Save Kevin McCarthy?

Transcript

Should Democrats Save Kevin McCarthy? · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm fire exit user Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitoria.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal joins to talk about
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: whether Democrats will join Matt Gaetz's plan to oust Kevin
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: McCarthy as speaker. Donald Trump is in court for his
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: fraud trial, making all kinds of threats. Joe Biden is
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: framing the 2024 election as extremism versus democracy. And Gavin
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Newsom appoints LaFonza Butler as California's newest senator. But first,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Congress has averted a government shutdown for now because Kevin
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: McCarthy caved to Democrats at the last possible minute. 126
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: House Republicans joined 209 of their Democratic colleagues to keep
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the government funded at current spending levels for the next
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: 45 days. Donald Trump and most Republicans had been demanding
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: huge cuts to everything from health care to education, more
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: immigration restrictions and all kinds of other crazy stuff. They
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: got none of that, though they were able to keep
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: additional funding for Ukraine out of the deal, at least
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: for now. President Biden said he's confident the Ukraine aid
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: will pass and told Republicans to pass the full budget deal.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: they agreed to last summer.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: Stop playing games. Get this done. I'm sick and tired
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: of the brinksmanship. And so are the American people. I've
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: been doing this, you all point out to me a lot,
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: a long time. I've never quite seen a Republican Congress
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: or any Congress act like this. Enough is enough is enough.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: This is not that complicated. The brinksmanship has to end.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: There's no excuse for another crisis. Consequently, I strongly urge
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: my Republican friends in Congress not to wait. Don't waste
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: time as you did all summer. Pass a year-long budget agreement.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: Honor the deal we made a few months ago.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Joe's angry. I like it.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Works better on audio because you can't see the ice
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: cream cone. There's no ice cream cone.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: There's no ice cream cone.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: He's on a podium.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: What do you think happened here? Why do you think
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: McCarthy caved at the last minute? to avoid a shutdown
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: that almost everyone thought would happen? I mean, like Friday
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: heading into the weekend, it was like most certainly, most likely.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: What do you think happened?
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: The thing that I don't understand is McCarthy clearly felt
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: like he needed to prove to his caucus that there
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: was no way out of this without Democratic votes. And
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: a lot of the assumptions were that, okay, in order
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: for that to happen, there has to be a shutdown
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: There has to be some pain before that can happen.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: For whatever reason, McCarthy decided he didn't need to wait
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: for the shutdown to actually transpire to have the vote.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: And I think part of it might just be that
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: it was becoming increasingly clear that no matter what he did,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: there was no avoiding this motion to vacate coming in
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: the next week. Yeah, seems right. I mean, he blinked.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think, yeah, I think he originally thought
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: that maybe he could pass something through the House with
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: all Republican votes. And then, you know, it obviously wouldn't
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: pass the Democratic held Senate and the White House. But
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: then he could trigger a shutdown and everyone could argue
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: about it. I think he realized last week after several
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: votes that he couldn't get anything past the House with
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: just Republican votes. And then he realized he was going
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: to get jammed by the Senate because McConnell was going
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: to throw in with Democrats in the Senate to pass
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: a bipartisan funding bill. So if there was a shutdown,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: it would have been McCarthy versus not only Chuck Schumer
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: and Joe Biden, but Mitch McConnell and a bunch of
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Senate and House Republicans who wanted to pass a bipartisan
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: funding bill.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: And a bipartisan funding bill that would have included funding
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: for Ukraine.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think he realized, look, it's, you know,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: probably hard to win a shutdown fight when it's just
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: a Republican bill passing through the House. But when you
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: can't even get something passed through the House. going to
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: be really hard to win a shutdown. Yeah, they couldn't
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: even get a defense appropriations bill passed.
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: They can't do the basics of anything. Yeah, they couldn't
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: get anything done. How big of a problem, Tommy, is
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: the lack of additional Ukraine funding?
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's a big deal.
• 4:21
  Speaker 6: For Ukraine, it's obviously existential, but I think that, well,
• 4:25
  Speaker 6: the broader context is I think the U.S. has passed
• 4:27
  Speaker 6: something like $ 75 billion for Ukraine in aid so far,
• 4:29
  Speaker 6: and Biden wants another $ 24 billion, which is a lot
• 4:32
  Speaker 6: of money. And for a while, there was a broad,
• 4:34
  Speaker 6: pretty bipartisan support and polls in for supporting Ukraine and
• 4:39
  Speaker 6: giving them, you know, stuff, guns, et cetera. And now
• 4:43
  Speaker 6: that polling has eroded over time. There's a CNN poll
• 4:46
  Speaker 6: in August that found a majority of Americans opposed.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: More USA for Ukraine.
• 4:50
  Speaker 6: So, you know, I always thought that an up or
• 4:52
  Speaker 6: down vote in Congress would probably pass and probably pass
• 4:56
  Speaker 6: in a bipartisan way. Like there's more support for Ukraine
• 4:58
  Speaker 6: in Congress maybe than in the broader electorate. But I just,
• 5:02
  Speaker 6: I'm not sure how you get an up or down
• 5:04
  Speaker 6: vote right now in the House. And Matt Gaetz seems
• 5:06
  Speaker 6: to think that McCarthy, is it Gaetz or Geitz? What
• 5:08
  Speaker 6: are we going with these days?
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: I thought it was Gaetz. Is it Gaetz?
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Gaetz. All I see is the Botox
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: in his forehead. It seems so strong. That's my opinion.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: But so, defamation training.
• 5:19
  Speaker 6: You know what they call it? You have to save
• 5:23
  Speaker 6: the joke. Now we're going to get sued for that.
• 5:26
  Speaker 6: I suspect that you could get a bipartisan majority if
• 5:29
  Speaker 6: you had an up or down vote on some sort
• 5:30
  Speaker 6: of like a reasonable amount of funding.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: But You know, I don't know.
• 5:33
  Speaker 6: And McCarthy, Gates, Gates thinks there's a secret deal that
• 5:36
  Speaker 6: the White House made. Biden seems to suggest there might
• 5:39
  Speaker 6: be one that the White House won't comment on it.
• 5:41
  Speaker 6: But I just don't know how you get to that vote.
• 5:43
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 5:43
  Speaker 6: Because the strategy was let's pair Ukraine money with disaster
• 5:46
  Speaker 6: relief money and other popular stuff and force everybody to
• 5:48
  Speaker 6: vote for it. But now they passed all the disaster
• 5:51
  Speaker 6: relief money.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: So what do you do? Yeah. Border security money. I'm
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: not sure. Yeah.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: I don't think McCarthy, he's got enough problems. He doesn't
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: want to be talking about any secret side Ukraine deal
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: right now.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: By the way, how could he keep all these secret
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: deals aside? It's like, he's like Mrs. Doubtfire at the end.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: He's just running in and out, changing in the bathroom,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: telling Biden one thing, telling the Republicans another thing. It's not, yeah.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, I think the problem becomes if the
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: next potential government shutdown fight hinges on Ukraine aid, you
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: could then see McCarthy and the House Republicans shutting down
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: the government over that.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:29
  Speaker 6: And McCarthy was accusing Democrats of shutting down the government
• 6:31
  Speaker 6: to support Ukraine on the Sunday shows, which royally pissed
• 6:34
  Speaker 6: off a whole.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Lot of Democrats. Yeah. And well, I think that there is,
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: you're right that the Congress is behind where the country
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: has moved on the issue. There's still a majority, certainly
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: in the Senate, there's still a majority in the House
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: that if it came to a vote would support Ukraine aid.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: So it's the same dynamic that keeps playing out. If
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: a bill If a bill came to the floor, there's
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: a majority for it, but there's not a majority among
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: Republicans for it. Right, right.
• 6:58
  Speaker 6: And the support for supporting Ukraine has slipped precipitously among
• 7:03
  Speaker 6: Republicans in particular.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: But of course, there's also not a majority among Republicans
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: for any kind of funding bill right now. So that
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: might save the Ukraine aid in the end.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Because you need Democratic votes. Yeah, right. And the dynamic
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: continues to be the same. The only bill that can
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: pass the House and the Senate is a bipartisan bill
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: with more Democrats in the House than Republicans in the House.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Well, the other thing that might save Ukraine aid and
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: avert another government shutdown is Matt Gaetz's antics here.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Because now the fun really begins. Not only we're going
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: to have another Potential shutdown fight in 45 days, but
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: we have a fight over who should be Speaker of
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: the House. That's about to happen right now this week.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy had a choice between shutting down the government
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: or potentially losing his job as Speaker. And sure enough,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Gates said he plans to file a motion to vacate
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: this week. Here he is on the House floor and
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: talking to reporters afterwards.
• 7:57
  Speaker 7: It is going to be difficult for my Republican friends
• 8:00
  Speaker 7: to keep calling President Biden feeble. while he continues to
• 8:05
  Speaker 7: take Speaker McCarthy's lunch money in every negotiation. What commitments
• 8:09
  Speaker 7: were made to President Biden to continue the spending of
• 8:14
  Speaker 7: President Biden in exchange for doing things for President Biden?
• 8:19
  Speaker 7: It is becoming increasingly clear who the Speaker of the
• 8:22
  Speaker 7: House already works for.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: And it's not the Republican conference.
• 8:27
  Speaker 7: If Kevin McCarthy works for Democrats and utilizes Democrats in
• 8:32
  Speaker 7: order to keep power, that would be consistent with everything
• 8:34
  Speaker 7: we've seen from him.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Have you spoken to President Trump about this?
• 8:39
  Speaker 7: I have.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: And what was his advice to you? I think I'm
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: going to keep that between the two of us. Oh, man,
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: this is fun. This is fun.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Let's just enjoy. this moment of fun before the chaos continues.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: And it somehow redounds to a terrible catastrophe that we're not.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Quite yet understanding. But at this moment, very fun.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Look, Matt Gaetz is a pig in shit. He is
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: loving every fucking moment of this. And then he's going
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: to the floor and giving speeches that you could just
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: copy and paste into Democrats.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: He's cutting ads for the Biden campaign. I love it.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Matt Gaetz.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: It's unbelievable.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, in kind contribution.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: By the way, it's like, it is pretty remarkable where
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: we're at, where the current speaker of the house, like,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: We're a nerd to it in so many ways, but
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: it is a bit unusual that it is just a
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: thing that Republicans and Democrats all agree. Kevin McCarthy is
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: a liar. They call him a liar with an L.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: It is wild. Yeah, because he is.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: And also, I mean, not to defend Kevin McCarthy here,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: but he kind of had to lie because he put
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: himself in a terrible situation. And the root of this
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: is in order for him to become speaker, to get
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: the job after 15 votes, he said, okay, we'll, insert
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: this rule into the agreement where you only, it only
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: takes one member to trigger a motion to vacate vote,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: a vote to get rid of the speaker. And, so
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: that's his fucking fault.
• 10:00
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's why you should have no sympathy for him
• 10:01
  Speaker 6: because this guy so desperately wanted this job that he
• 10:04
  Speaker 6: made it impossible to govern the House. I think it
• 10:06
  Speaker 6: was Carl Hulse of the New York Times said that
• 10:08
  Speaker 6: McCarthy likes being Speaker so much that he'll just like
• 10:11
  Speaker 6: post up in public places and take photos with tourists.
• 10:14
  Speaker 6: Because he just likes being speaker and being in the
• 10:16
  Speaker 6: speaker's lobby and showing off. Like Tom Hanks sitting on
• 10:18
  Speaker 6: that Forrest Gump bench.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Monkey's paw.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: That's what he.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Careful what you wish for, Kevin, because now you got it.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Also, it's like, Tommy, thank you for letting the people
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: listening to this show know that they shouldn't feel bad
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: for Kevin McCarthy. It's something that they were all doing. Listen,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of Kevin's fans here. I just came
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: to his defense.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: I just said, this is why he had to lie. Yeah,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: it was an apologist. How else was he going to
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: keep his job? He's got to lie to Biden, and
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: then he's got to do the Mrs. Doubtfire thing.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he had to lie. It was the only way
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: to get the thing he wanted. Right, yeah, exactly. Which
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: is power.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: And I will just say, it will be difficult for
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Republicans to still make the argument that Joe Biden is
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: feeble because he keeps taking Kevin McCarthy's lunch money. I
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: think they'll still do it, though.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they'll take a run at it.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: They'll take a run at it.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: They took a run at it. All right.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: So what does Gates need to succeed here? And what
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: are the chances that he ultimately does?
• 11:08
  Speaker 6: So one member, so he can force the motion to
• 11:10
  Speaker 6: vacate vote. That just takes, he can do that alone.
• 11:14
  Speaker 6: Winning that vote, though, will take a majority. So I
• 11:16
  Speaker 6: don't know if he's put it forward yet as of
• 11:17
  Speaker 6: this recording.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: I don't think so.
• 11:19
  Speaker 6: But then basically the leadership has two days to bring
• 11:22
  Speaker 6: up this motion to vacate deal. There's a couple of
• 11:24
  Speaker 6: ways McCarthy could.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: Try to kill it. They could basically say, should the
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: House be considering this right now? Yes or no.
• 11:31
  Speaker 6: And vote it done that way. They could vote on
• 11:34
  Speaker 6: a motion to table the bill. But again, you need
• 11:36
  Speaker 6: a majority to do that. So in both cases, Democrats
• 11:39
  Speaker 6: have a lot of power because they could vote to
• 11:42
  Speaker 6: bail out McCarthy. They could vote to get rid of
• 11:44
  Speaker 6: McCarthy or they could vote present, which changes the math
• 11:47
  Speaker 6: and makes it easier for him to win. So this
• 11:50
  Speaker 6: is where all the kind of machinations start. And if
• 11:52
  Speaker 6: I got any of that wrong, please blame Jake Sherman
• 11:55
  Speaker 6: at Punchbowl.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he needs a majority of those present and voting,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: which means that if someone votes present, the threshold goes down.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: And then, so if every Democrat, here's one way to
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: think about it, if every Democrat votes to dump McCarthy,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: which they normally would in a situation like this.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Should Kevin McCarthy be speaker? We all agree, no.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: So if every Democrat votes to dump McCarthy, then Gates
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: would only need five Republicans to join him in voting
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: to oust McCarthy, which he very likely has. Eli Crane,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Victoria Sparks, Andy Biggs, Bob Good. He's already got a couple.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: People think he could get up to 20.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: The kooky caucus. He had the same group of people
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: that took us to so many ballots.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's lost them. He doesn't have Chip Roy, he
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: doesn't have Byron Donald.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, some of them.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Are getting mad at his antics. So he's losing some
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: of them, but he probably has enough if he has
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: all the Democrats. But the point that Tommy made stands,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: which is if the Democrats all vote together, they basically
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: decide whether or not Kevin McCarthy remains a speaker. So
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: next question, should the Democrats bail out Kevin McCarthy? And
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: if they do, what do you think they can get
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: out of the deal?
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Love it. So I asked, I think it's worth just, yeah,
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: I interviewed Jayapal about this. She didn't get into the specifics.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: The other thing I asked was also just sort of like,
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: is this about, so there's the vote to oust and
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: then there's what happens after a speaker is oust, right?
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: There's like a few different places at which the Democrats
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: will have power in this. Like she really didn't want
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: to get into it except to say that the only
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: way she thought Democrats would go along with any kind
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: of plan would be if there was actual rule changes
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: that were written down that Democrats would have, like written extractions,
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: not a promise from McCarthy, not like a side deal,
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: not like we'll do what, you know, not all the
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: kinds of deals he's been making over the last year.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. None of which he has honored so far.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: No IOUs from that guy.
• 13:48
  Speaker 6: But also McCarthy's problem is that Gates can just put
• 13:50
  Speaker 6: forward the motion to vacate again and again and again,
• 13:53
  Speaker 6: and he has threatened.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: To do so. So you're right.
• 13:55
  Speaker 6: You could like the only path forward that seems to
• 13:58
  Speaker 6: fix anything is, some sort of grand bargain.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: As they like to say in D.C. Yum, yum, yum.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: That includes rule changes.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Are Simpson and or Bowles still alive?
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: A joke for three people in this room. They put
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: together some sort of rule changes that, I.
• 14:13
  Speaker 6: Don't know, disempower the right-wing fringe in the House, make
• 14:15
  Speaker 6: it more governable for McCarthy, make it more governable. We
• 14:18
  Speaker 6: give Democrats a little bit more power, but I don't know.
• 14:20
  Speaker 6: Is that really on the table?
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Who knows?
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's a whole menu of possible concessions. It
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: seems like there's some fantasy politics.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Being played here.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: I saw someone be like.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: A lot of West Wing. Maybe.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Maybe they'll say that the NRCC is not allowed to
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: spend any money on, you know, against vulnerable Democrats in
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: races in 2024. It's like, okay, yeah, that'll work.
• 14:40
  Speaker 7: Sure.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And Donald Trump has to be quiet for six months.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Can't say a word.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: I'd rather him say a lot. Politico has said that
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: one thing that's not negotiable, forcing McCarthy to stick to
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: the spending caps he inked with Biden in May, that
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: dem say isn't a concession, it's a given. So that
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: is interesting and it does make more, like, You're not
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: going to save Kevin McCarthy if then he's not going
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: to agree to the fucking deal he agreed to with
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden in the summer on spending. But then if
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: I guess if McCarthy does that, then he's I don't
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know what happens here.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: I don't think that's confusing about like, OK, so they
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: make a deal on spending. Every McCarthy goes against that
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: deal for what he was trying to pass through the House.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: But McCarthy has to go against that deal to get
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: anything passed through the House because of the promises he made.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: to the House Republicans. And what actually ends up passing
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: doesn't violate the deal. It's just a continuation of the deal.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: So in a sense, what McCarthy ends up actually putting
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: through the House in the end does uphold the deal
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: he made with Biden before. It's just that everyone's claiming
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: he broke his deal when he tried to pass the
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: House bill, right?
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I didn't quite follow that.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: So everyone's saying McCarthy's a liar because McCarthy went back
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: in the deal he did with Biden.
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: But he's only tried to go back. He tried, but
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: he tried to go back. But McCarthy does a lot
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: of things to demonstrate what can and can't work. Right.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Like no matter what McCarthy passed through the House, what
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: McCarthy passed through the House was never going to pass
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: through the Senate. It was a messaging bill for a fight.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: So in some sense, couldn't McCarthy have just been doing
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: what he did to get a Republican bill through ultimately
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: to uphold the deal? Because whatever he was going to
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: pass through both the Senate and the House would have
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: uphold the deal anyway.
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: Sure, maybe.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: But the only the only thing that matters here is
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: if he ends up agreeing like to keep his job,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: if he ends up saying, OK, if you guys support me,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Democrats as speaker, then I will agree to the Biden deal.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: And at those spending levels and we'll just, you know,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: keep the government open and we'll keep it open at
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the levels that Joe Biden and I agree to. And
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: that's it. Then Matt Gaetz could say, OK, I'm going
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: to do another motion to vacate. Then maybe you ideally,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: then more Republicans would join Matt Gaetz because, oh, he
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: just did this. But I think at that point, if
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: you've got all the Democrats on board, saving McCarthy as
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: one block, then I don't think that Gaetz will have
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: the votes to oust McCarthy. He won't have a majority.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: And it's also why I think that any kind of
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: deal can't just be about budgeting or policy. It has
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: to be about genuine concessions and committees and votes and
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: actual power sharing, which is the thing that Jayapal talked
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: about as well. It can't just be you uphold some
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: policy deal we made a year ago. He already made
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: that deal. He should be living by it anyway. And
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Matt Gaetz, I mean, he's an arsonist. He hates Kevin McCarthy.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: He's getting a lot of attention and probably would run
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: for governor of Florida. So real fiscal conservatives are furious
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: at him that they had a deal that cut domestic
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: spending by 8% and got a bunch of border funding.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: And they said no to that.
• 17:39
  Speaker 6: And now, so but like the trap here for Matt
• 17:41
  Speaker 6: Gaetz is He will either get rid of McCarthy or
• 17:44
  Speaker 6: he'll say McCarthy is a pawn of the Democrats and
• 17:47
  Speaker 6: that's the only way he is still in power.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: So it's not a great setup for the speaker.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I do think this does– it changes the dynamics
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: of the next shutdown fight just because I think Democrats
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: have so much more leverage now. I mean we always
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: had leverage because Republicans only control one house of Congress.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't even it was there wasn't even a
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: majority of Republicans who wanted to have a shutdown. So
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy never really had that much leverage except for
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: shutting down the government and getting all the blame himself,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: along with his House Republicans that voted to shut it down.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: And the fact that a bunch of Republicans who are
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: in Biden districts could say, fuck this and join a
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: discharge position with Democrats and get out of this anyway.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: But I do think that if he wants to keep
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: his job, then he will have to agree to keep
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: the government open and work with Democrats to pass something.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: Right. And as part of that, you can come up
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: with some kind of rule change because you'd have a
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: majority that would be able to say you need Matt
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Gaetz plus 10 other assholes to do a... Right.
• 18:42
  Speaker 6: And McCarthy might be banking on the fact that Democrats
• 18:46
  Speaker 6: will look at the menu of options they have in
• 18:49
  Speaker 6: front of them for who could come next and decide
• 18:51
  Speaker 6: that a lying asshole who will say anything is actually
• 18:55
  Speaker 6: their best option.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: Because he has no principles. Give him the votes anyway.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: No principles. How nice to have a... We can look
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: at them. He'll do anything.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Now for Democrats, I think... You'd want to make a
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: promise to maybe save McCarthy once or twice or, you know,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: just to get through the government shutdown thing, because like
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: you were saying, Tommy, down the road, if McCarthy is
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: really if Mac is able to prove that McCarthy is
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: now just a, quote unquote, tool of Democrats. then you
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: could start seeing more and more Republicans as time goes
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: on over the next several months, over the next year,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: say like, all right, we're done with Kevin McCarthy. And
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: then maybe you trigger another motion to vacate someday down
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: the road and the Democrats are like, oh, I'm not
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: saving you twice.
• 19:34
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 19:34
  Speaker 6: That's why I don't, I sort of feel like any
• 19:36
  Speaker 6: real deal would have to change the motion to vacate
• 19:39
  Speaker 6: threshold and some other structural things to make sure that
• 19:41
  Speaker 6: we're just not trapped in this endless cycle of Matt
• 19:44
  Speaker 6: Gaetz being mad.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: And imagine that they take away the power of motion
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: to vacate, then they're would be so pissed.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: That'd be fun.
• 19:52
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That's the other thing about this. It's like, we, we,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: we hear a lot about the, like the, the Republicans
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: in vulnerable districts. And then we hear a lot about
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: the freedom caucus, but there is this soft middle between
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: the two that for all we know, this is like
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: completely anathema to them. And, a reason they would say,
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: I'm done with Kevin McCarthy. It's time to move on
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: to Steve Scalise or whoever.
• 20:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think McCarthy controls like 200 votes and the
• 20:15
  Speaker 6: rest are kind of nightmares up for grabs.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: I just don't know.
• 20:19
  Speaker 6: No one has floated an alternative for who could do
• 20:21
  Speaker 6: a better job, right? Everyone talks about Steve Scalise, but
• 20:23
  Speaker 6: he's doing some medical treatment. So they're kind of waiting
• 20:26
  Speaker 6: for him to get through that before they'll talk about alternatives.
• 20:28
  Speaker 6: Even Matt Gaetz won't talk about alternatives.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Tom Ammers has been floated around too. He's the majority.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: He's the whip now.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump. Even Steve, Donald Trump. Steve Scalise even is
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: out there. Even Steve Scalise's statement today was so lukewarm.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: I remain committed to Kevin McCarthy. Yeah.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Well, he needs to be ready for stepping in.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Ready for action.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: What do you guys think the call between Donald Trump
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: and Matt Gaetz was like?
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Good question.
• 20:53
  Speaker 6: I mean, Trump only cares about harming Biden, right? So
• 20:56
  Speaker 6: he's like, shut down the government, blow up the economy,
• 20:58
  Speaker 6: do whatever it takes to harm this guy.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: And it's not like he's got a lot of loyalty
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: to Kevin.
• 21:05
  Speaker 7: No.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: He dumped that guy in a second.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: And they're certainly not, you know, strategizing, playing, like, thinking
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: through the moves. No, they're not doing whip counts. Yeah.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: They don't know the names.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Speaking of Trump, he is in court again defending himself
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: against a lawsuit brought by the state of New York
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: that accuses him of committing business fraud. Last week, the
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: judge delivered a surprise pretrial ruling that Trump is liable
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: for fraud. And the judge has already revoked the business
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: licenses for Trump Tower and the Trump International Hotel. Now
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: the judge is going to decide the rest of Trump's punishment.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Attorney General Tish James is asking for a $ 250 million
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: fine and a ban on Trump running any business in
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: the state of New York. Trump's lawyer told the judge
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: that he will hear testimony from Donald Trump during this trial.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: But apparently Trump couldn't wait to take the stand to
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: lay out his defense. Here he is during a court
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: break on Monday.
• 21:56
  Speaker 7: This is a judge that should be disbarred.
• 22:00
  Speaker 8: This is a judge that should.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: Be out of office.
• 22:03
  Speaker 8: This is a judge that some people say could be
• 22:05
  Speaker 8: charged criminally for what he's doing. He's interfering with an election,
• 22:10
  Speaker 8: and it's a disgrace.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: Thank you very much.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: What do you guys think about the deft legal strategy
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: of threatening the judge who's solely responsible for deciding the
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: fate of your business empire?
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: I was like trying to like, why does Trump matter?
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Because of the substance of what's at issue and the
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: threat to his livelihood or just the fact that he
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: had to sit in a chair and pay attention for
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: a couple hours. Just absolutely bored of his fucking mind
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: getting angrier and angrier and angrier. He's so hungry. I mean,
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: he decided to show up.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Like, well, I don't even know.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: And also there was, there's, I didn't expect there to
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: be camera footage. There's camera footage. Oh, there's a great,
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: there's a great moment where the camera comes around and
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: the judge basically does like, hey, how you doing?
• 22:50
  Speaker 6: And someone said it to like the credits of some
• 22:51
  Speaker 6: 90s sitcom. Yeah, I mean, I think this one speaks
• 22:54
  Speaker 6: to the fact that Trump never has a legal strategy
• 22:56
  Speaker 6: these days.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: He has a political.
• 22:57
  Speaker 6: Strategy where he wins pre-election and that solves all of
• 23:01
  Speaker 6: his legal problems. Because otherwise, being like, hey, see that
• 23:04
  Speaker 6: guy over there who controls my fate?
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: Fuck that guy. It's a really, really weird thing for
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: him to do.
• 23:10
  Speaker 6: He didn't have the balls to hurt me. It's like
• 23:13
  Speaker 6: most people grovel before a judge deciding their fate.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: I'm not guilty. He's guilty. He should be charged.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: Also, last week, Trump was like, in one of his
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: truths was something like, I need a judge, federal, state, anywhere. Please,
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: some judge help me.
• 23:31
  Speaker 6: It's weird that, you know, Trump is very mad that
• 23:33
  Speaker 6: he's not getting a jury trial, but that's because his
• 23:36
  Speaker 6: lawyers forgot or just.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Decided not to request for one. Yeah, they didn't ask.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: So now it's in the hands of the, his fate
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: is in the hands of this judge that he hates.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: The judge was.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Like, no one asked for a jury. That's why I'm deciding.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: You could ask for a jury. No one's asked for one.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: And also just, I mean, like, I don't know. I
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: just didn't fully internalize how quickly this trial was going
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: to start. And like the fact that it is hard
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: to keep track of all the trials. It is, it is.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: But like, you know, they, it was the judge issues,
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: this surprise ruling say, Hey, I've looked at what you've
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: both presented. We can go straight to damages here. Like we,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: this is, this is open and shut. And so who
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: knows what they were preparing for, but it must be
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: quite a shock to go from thinking, Oh, I'm going
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: to be in a trial where I get to at
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: least try to assert innocence, the outcome is in doubt,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: and now it's purely about how much he owes and
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: how much the damage is. And that is, that's trapped.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: He's trapped there.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: I find it incredibly difficult to believe that these lawyers
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: are going to let Donald Trump testify. I saw something
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: that perhaps when the defense lawyer told the judge that
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: they would be hearing testimony from Donald Trump, it might
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: be the testimony that was already prerecorded in the earlier
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: stages of, yeah, in this trial. And maybe they'll just
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: play it for the judge. I don't know why they
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: would need to, because the judge could have already watched it.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: But putting Donald Trump on the stand, I mean, great.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: I can't wait.
• 24:58
  Speaker 6: But Trump's probably like, look, every time I show up
• 25:01
  Speaker 6: at one of these things, I get a five-point boost
• 25:03
  Speaker 6: in the polls. So here I am again, ranting about
• 25:05
  Speaker 6: another judge.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Maybe he just assumes he's going to lose. He wants
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: to shape public opinion. And he also thinks he's going
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: to appeal this and eventually hit some right-wing judge somewhere
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: on the ladder.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: He's already lost.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: He has lost.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: This is going to be about the number. So this
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: is just about a number, like what he owes.
• 25:21
  Speaker 6: There was a criminal trial last year where his CFO
• 25:24
  Speaker 6: got sent to jail.
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: This is like pretty well established fact pattern here.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think he's going to be too successful,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: which is also, I mean, perhaps the forgetting to ask
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: for the jury was intentional because maybe Trump just thought
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: he'd have better luck telling everyone that it was a
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: crooked judge than it was a crooked jury. Although I
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: don't really think he'd care that much about the distinction.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: At least with the jury, you get like maybe one
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: MAGA guy.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, yeah. You're like Bernie Carrick on there. Like, oh, sweet. Yeah,
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: that's true. Just like, can we move this thing to
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Staten Island? Yeah, right, yeah, exactly. Just want firefighters from
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Staten Island. That's my jury. Please, please, Your Honor. So.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Do you guys know that Trump was right here in Anaheim,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: California over the weekend?
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: What? Checking out Disney?
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was checking out Disney. He was there at
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: the California Republican Convention, and he laid out his larger
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: vision for law and order in a second term during
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: a rambling speech. Let's listen.
• 26:27
  Speaker 8: I will direct a completely overhauled DOJ to investigate every
• 26:32
  Speaker 8: radical DA and AG in America for their illegal, racist,
• 26:37
  Speaker 8: and reverse enforcement of the law. and you don't like somebody,
• 26:41
  Speaker 8: or if somebody's beating you by 10, 15, or 20
• 26:43
  Speaker 8: points like we're doing with Crooked Joe.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Biden, let's indict the motherfucker. Let's indict.
• 26:50
  Speaker 8: And we'll stand up to crazy Nancy Pelosi who ruined
• 26:53
  Speaker 8: San Francisco. How's her husband doing, by the way?
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: Anybody know?
• 26:58
  Speaker 8: Very simply, if you rob a store, you can fully
• 27:02
  Speaker 8: expect to be shot as you are leaving that store.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Shot.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I mean... So this is all being covered as background noise.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Trump calling for the execution of suspected shoplifters as they
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: walk out the door of the store. That did not
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: make a lot of headlines. The Atlantic's Brian Klass is
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: calling this the banality of crazy. Professor. He argues that
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: the press needs to treat Trump's incitements and lawlessness as
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: the story of the 2024 election. What do you guys think?
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: It seems like that's... Yeah. Well, wouldn't that be nice,
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: I guess. But like, that's what Biden's doing when he's
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: trying to, you know, draw attention to this. That's what
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: we're doing when we're talking about, I don't, I don't
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: know how at this point he, he has inert us
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: to this kind of stuff. He is doing this every day,
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: threatened to shoot, threatened to execute Mark Milley last week. That,
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: that was the fifth story. Yeah.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: That finally bubbled up.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: It did bubble up.
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: And also, you know, look, Mark Milley got booked on
• 28:03
  Speaker 6: 60 Minutes and made comments about this. And I think
• 28:06
  Speaker 6: his His final speech as chairman of the Joint Chiefs
• 28:10
  Speaker 6: reference sort of like not kowtowing to dictators. So I
• 28:13
  Speaker 6: do think this stuff– every time someone yells about something
• 28:15
  Speaker 6: not getting covered, it ends up getting covered. I think
• 28:17
  Speaker 6: this was probably just like a late-night speech on what,
• 28:19
  Speaker 6: a Saturday night, Friday night in Anaheim? So it wasn't
• 28:23
  Speaker 6: downtown New York. But you're right that Biden is– making
• 28:28
  Speaker 6: political violence threats to the courts. That was a big
• 28:32
  Speaker 6: part of the speech in the interview that we're going
• 28:34
  Speaker 6: to talk about in the next section that he did.
• 28:35
  Speaker 6: So it is becoming part of the narrative in the campaign.
• 28:38
  Speaker 6: But yeah, of course, it's crazy.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: To shoot a shoplifter is an insane thing for a
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: president to suggest. And you can't really say, oh, that's
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: just Trump says these crazy things. He has put out
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: a proposal, a campaign proposal, policy proposal, that if he's
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: president again, he will execute drug.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Dealers, right?
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: So it's not that far from drug dealers to shoplifters.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: He's talked about, you know, sending federal troops into cities
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: that have high crime rates using the Insurrection Act next
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: time around, using also troops to start deporting immigrants, right?
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Like he is, he's starting to propose these things. And
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: of course, they want to clear out all the bureaucrats
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: in the federal government so that they only have Trump
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: loyalists who will carry out all these plans and not
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: worry about adhering to the constitution or the law. So
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: it's something to, something to actually be Quite scared about,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: It's really. Yeah. Yes, I agree. I just I also like,
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: you know, we the insurrection pushed it out of the headlines,
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: but like, you know, clearing Lafayette Park, one of the
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: first uh, uh, one of the first, one of the,
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: one of the early 2016 kerfuffles was like, ah, you
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: got to knock the crap out of them. Like he's
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: been talking about drug dealers being executed for a very
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: long time. This is like, the reality is yes, these
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: are more extreme statements. They are also incremental to the
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: crazy shit he's been saying for years.
• 29:51
  Speaker 6: I think it's quickly worth pointing out that he's not
• 29:53
  Speaker 6: alone in making some of these comments. Uh, Ron DeSantis
• 29:56
  Speaker 6: is talking about executing suspected drug dealers and trafficking drugs
• 30:01
  Speaker 6: across the border. And when pressed on how you would
• 30:03
  Speaker 6: figure out someone's a drug dealer versus, I don't know,
• 30:06
  Speaker 6: a parent with a kid, he was like, wow, we
• 30:08
  Speaker 6: figured it out in Iraq, so we'll figure it out here.
• 30:10
  Speaker 6: We absolutely did not figure it out in Iraq. We
• 30:11
  Speaker 6: had a horrific problem with killing civilians. So, you know,
• 30:14
  Speaker 6: like this kind of bloodthirsty law and order rhetoric is
• 30:17
  Speaker 6: gaining a lot of traction on the right. They're all
• 30:19
  Speaker 6: chasing each other to a, you know, darker, darker place.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: On this stuff. And what is chilling to me is
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: obviously it is terrible that Donald Trump is saying these things,
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: but joking about how Nancy Pelosi's husband was beaten in
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: the head with a hammer during a home invasion, getting laughs,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: the blood-curdling cheers from people about shooting shoplifters. The problem, right,
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: is that over decades, the right-wing media has, like, stirred
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: these people up and gotten them to this point. Trump
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: was the one who figured it out, but so have
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: a lot of other people now, too.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: And look, I don't think that the media... needs to
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: cover this in a way where it's like, look how
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: bad Trump is, right? Again, it's not the media's job
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: to win the election for Democrats. But if we think
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: back to a lot of the complaints around the CNN
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: town hall with Trump and Caitlin Collins, it was, why
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: are we platforming Trump.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: Again, right?
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Or we shouldn't, there's this whole movement, like we shouldn't
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: amplify his message. The mistake in 2016 was platforming Trump
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: and amplifying his message, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: the more Trump that people hear, the worse it is
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: for him, right? When does his approval ratings tank or
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: go the lowest, right? Trying to take healthcare away, Charlottesville,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: January 6th, the daily COVID press conferences, the more people
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: hear from Trump, the worse it is for him, right?
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Like the person who is best at prosecuting the case
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: against Trump is not a Democrat. It's not a Republican.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: It's not a lawyer. It's not a judge. It's Donald Trump.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: And I just think that like the The media sort
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: of overcorrected from 2016 in ways in 2020 by thinking like, oh,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: we don't need to platform him all the time or
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: have people listen to him. Like, I think people need
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: to hear him all the time.
• 32:02
  Speaker 6: Well, especially now when, look, Ron DeSantis' super PAC today
• 32:07
  Speaker 6: decided to release a bunch of polls that show him
• 32:08
  Speaker 6: losing by between 28 and 31 in early primary states.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: It's wild.
• 32:13
  Speaker 6: In head-to-head matchups, Donald Trump is getting over 50% in
• 32:16
  Speaker 6: New Hampshire. So I think everyone's just got to wrap
• 32:18
  Speaker 6: their heads around the fact that There's like a 90
• 32:20
  Speaker 6: percent chance Trump is the Republican nominee, if not 95,
• 32:22
  Speaker 6: 100 percent. And he's going to have a 50 50
• 32:26
  Speaker 6: chance against Joe Biden. So, yes, I do think the
• 32:28
  Speaker 6: coverage of these kinds of comments and all the other
• 32:30
  Speaker 6: things he's saying will pick up and increase. My concern
• 32:34
  Speaker 6: is the overlap of where some of these issues will
• 32:37
  Speaker 6: be popular. I think the really hard line, bloodthirsty immigration
• 32:41
  Speaker 6: rhetoric is more popular than people think.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: And it's really scary.
• 32:46
  Speaker 6: Ron DeSantis is talking about deporting everyone who came into
• 32:49
  Speaker 6: the country during the Biden administration.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Seven million, eight million people.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, my my my question about all this is, yeah,
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: like I agree. Trump is at his least popular when
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: he's most in people's faces, but also memories are short.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: You know, Donald Trump was at his lowest ebb after
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Access Hollywood and, you know, James Comey putting out a letter. Yes,
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: that hurt Hillary Clinton. But one of the things it
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: did is it kind of pushed Donald Trump's scandal aside
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: just for a couple of days. just for long enough
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: for people to forget just enough that just enough people
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: forgot how heinous he was. And like, sure, do I
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: think covering this now is really important? Yeah, I think
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: people should understand how much of a threat Donald Trump is,
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: how extreme his rhetoric has gotten. But really, this is
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: going to be something we're going to be dealing with
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: for the next seven months.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: I realize that Access Hollywood seemed like a bigger scandal
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: at the time. I think what came after, the many
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: years after Access Hollywood, at least made me think that
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: there is a difference between Trump being caught saying things
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: that are horribly offensive and Trump saying things that could
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: end up affecting people's lives in a tangible way because
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: it would result in policy from Donald Trump. So I
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: do think that like January 6th, sort of these incitements
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: to violence, to physical violence, to political violence, I think
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: that lands with people and lands with voters in a
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: different way than your typical Donald Trump said something crazy
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: today or Donald Trump said something horribly offensive about this
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: person or that person or that person. And I just
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: think that we get it like the Biden folks. They
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: totally understood this in the run up to the 2022
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: midterms and the January 6th committee understood it and Biden
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: understood it. And I think like making sure that that
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: message is out there and that people are understanding what
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: could actually happen if Donald Trump wins is going to
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: be the most important thing to do.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just really hard.
• 34:40
  Speaker 6: Biden in his speech at the McCain Institute tried to
• 34:44
  Speaker 6: get into the schedule F changes and removing civil service
• 34:47
  Speaker 6: protection from all these federal employees, which is a really
• 34:51
  Speaker 6: big deal. And, you know, I think Biden laid it
• 34:53
  Speaker 6: out well, like Trump is going to make civil servants
• 34:57
  Speaker 6: pledge fealty to him and not to the Constitution and
• 34:59
  Speaker 6: not have any protections.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: It's just it's a tough thing to explain.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, it was an official speech, then he's
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: not in, like, campaign mode.
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: But the easier way, the more understandable way to say
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: that is, like, yeah, Mike Flynn in charge of the
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Defense Department and Sidney Powell is AG, right? Like, you just,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: you got to make it easier for people to understand them, like, oh, no,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: he's going to get rid of a civil servant bureaucrat
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: and replace them with a political appointee. Like, that's not very,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: it's not going to move.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: A lot of people. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you... You
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: said it, but like one of Trump's lowest moments wasn't
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: actually because of his rhetorical excesses or threats to violence.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: It was his position on health care, his extreme position
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: on health care.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't say his position. I would say his attempt
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: to take it away from people, which then is in
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: the same category of like January 6th, people worried about
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: political violence in their own community. You know what I'm saying?
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Like you've got to bring it home to people. And
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: I do think that like losing your health care or
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: worried about the country falling into like chaos and violence
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: is is they both can affect you. Yeah.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, you can say that like people were
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: worried about political violence in their communities. What they saw
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: on their television was an attack on the nation's capital.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: So, yeah.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: So, you know, so Biden gave that speech in Arizona.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: It was sort of little noticed. It was a great speech.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Everyone should go check it out, but it didn't get
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: a ton of coverage. He honored the late John McCain there.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: And he warned that today's Republican Party is being driven
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: by an extremist movement that does not share the basic
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: beliefs of democracy. He then sat down for an interview
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: with John Harwood for ProPublica, where he laid out the
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: stakes for 2024.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: Somehow we've got to communicate to the American people, this
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: is for real. This is real if they were to
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: take over. If the former president were to become president again,
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: the things he says he will do are a threat
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: to American democracy. And by the way, it's not just here.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: As I travel the world, I have heads of state
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: asking me, I mean, concerned of heads of state, look,
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: what's going to happen? Does that mean? Because democracy is
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: in jeopardy in other parts of the world as well.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: I never thought I'd see a time when someone was
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: worried about being on a jury because there may be
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: physical violence against them if they voted the wrong way.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: What'd you guys think of the interview, right? Message for
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Biden in 2024?
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: It was a good interview.
• 37:20
  Speaker 6: I mean, I think the challenge is just getting enough
• 37:23
  Speaker 6: people to see it. You know, I mean, they did
• 37:25
  Speaker 6: it with ProPublica. ProPublica is a great organization. They've done
• 37:27
  Speaker 6: amazing work digging into corruption at the Supreme Court, for example. But,
• 37:31
  Speaker 6: you know, I checked the view count on YouTube. It
• 37:33
  Speaker 6: was like 115,000, right? So like got a lot of
• 37:36
  Speaker 6: work to do to reach more people with this very important,
• 37:40
  Speaker 6: urgent message. The speech is the other part of that.
• 37:42
  Speaker 6: I saw the White House was deeply frustrated that Fox
• 37:45
  Speaker 6: News took none of President Biden's speech in Arizona live,
• 37:49
  Speaker 6: par for the course from them. But, you know, it's
• 37:52
  Speaker 6: but like reaching people with this message is really tough.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Shows you what a bubble Twitter is, too, because like
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: I went on Twitter Sunday and all you could see
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: is people talking about Harwood's interview. And it was a
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: great interview. And Biden did great. It was great questions.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: But one hundred thousand views on YouTube, you're like, oh, yeah.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Everyone was talking about it in a very small bubble.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: And it got picked up. It'll get clipped and shared
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: and picked up other places. For sure. But yeah. Yeah.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, here's, first of all, I think the speech
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: was excellent. I, there, it is, you know, there's been
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: a few different stories about how he's kind of like
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: drawing on his like coterie of historians. And the speech
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: is definitely, it is a, there are lines that are
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: clearly meant to evoke FDR speech at the 1936 democratic
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: convention about rendezvous with destiny. This talks about this generation's job.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: He says, you know, in the rendezvous with destiny speech,
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: he says, you know, uh, that other places they have
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: sold their heritage of freedom for the illusion of a
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: living in Biden's speech. He says, uh, people are giving
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: away that's most precious to them because they feel frustrated.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: He is trying to evoke the seriousness of what the
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: world faced with, with the rise of fascism in this moment. My, and,
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: and what is also clear in the interview is how deep,
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: like deeply and personally Biden takes this and how much
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: he views it as like the central, uh, goal and
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: mission of his presidency in his life is to be
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: here to make the case for democracy and to make
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: the case for not just like democracy as a form
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: of government, but democracy as a practice of being respectful
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: of of treating the other side as opponents and not enemies,
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: like how much he internalized that and how meaningful it
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: was for him to speak about John McCain. But there
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: was one part of the speech he gave where he says,
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: for all its faults, American democracy remains the best path
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: forward to prosperity, possibilities, progress, fair play, and equality. And
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: what I found when I was listening to the interview,
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: when I was watching the speech, you're right. It is
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: like a big conversation about people that are hyper-engaged. They
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: are worried about the threat to democracy. Biden is correctly
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: worried about the threat to democracy. But there's another part
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: of the case that I don't think comes through in
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: the speech, which is a very grand story about the
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: values of the democracy and why these threats are so dangerous,
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: which is why is democracy the better way to organize ourselves?
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: Why do you believe democracy can deliver? What are the
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: ways in which you think democracy is going to be
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: better for people in their day-to-day lives? How can it
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: help them? How does it matter? How does it manifest?
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: Because there are portions of the speech, as Tommy points out,
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: where he goes into great detail about Schedule F and
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: the federal bureaucracy and all of these details. And there's
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: other parts that are very... like emotional and direct and
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: not as sort of bureaucratic. But I do think that
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: that's part of the story that I think a lot
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: of people assume, which is democracy is just better and
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: everybody gets that. But one of the issues we see
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: in poll after poll is like, especially for young people,
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: they don't understand why democracy is so good. They don't
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: understand why democracy should deliver. And we need to be
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: making that argument too.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: Two things about that. One, the Biden administration and the
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Biden campaign would say that The way that their economic
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: agenda links to their democracy agenda is that Biden's whole
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: goal since being president was to show that democracy can deliver.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: They keep saying that. And so that's all, you know,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: we did this bipartisan infrastructure bill. We passed the Inflation
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Reduction Act. We got all this done. And we are
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: showing through our action, through the legislation that Biden's passing
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: that democracy can deliver for people.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: And they're hoping they connect the dots. It's still tricky,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: but they're they're trying to do it. Second, I think
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: you're right that like there's a lot of rhetoric so far,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: both in the Harwood interview and in the very good Arizona.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: Speech, too.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: The next step is to be specific about what the
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Trump MAGA extreme agenda, anti-democratic agenda will actually mean for people.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: And that's going back to what I was saying where,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: you know, he wants to send troops into if you
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: if you live in a blue city, which is most cities.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: And he decides you have high crime rates. He wants
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: to use the Insurrection Act to send in federal troops
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: to your city. Imagine that. Imagine if you're a business
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: that doesn't seem sufficiently anti-woke. Maybe he'll have his new
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: loyalist IRS director investigate your business. Maybe if you are
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: a political opponent in some way, he's going to come
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: after you with the DOJ because Rudy Giuliani will be
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: attorney general. I do think you've got to actually draw
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: those connections. That's the next step.
• 42:10
  Speaker 6: Well, I think it's also hard to sell the democracy
• 42:12
  Speaker 6: is the best form of government can deliver when all
• 42:15
  Speaker 6: anyone ever hears is that Washington is a mess. And
• 42:17
  Speaker 6: we're currently in the middle of a government shutdown debate.
• 42:19
  Speaker 6: So I agree with you, but it's like, it's a
• 42:20
  Speaker 6: tough sell. I also think the speech though, it wasn't
• 42:23
  Speaker 6: just about democracy. There was also a big like veterans
• 42:25
  Speaker 6: thing keying off McCain because they talked up, he brought
• 42:28
  Speaker 6: back the Atlantic reporting that Trump called dead service members,
• 42:34
  Speaker 6: suckers and losers at a cemetery. He talked about Trump
• 42:38
  Speaker 6: calling Mark Milley a traitor and floating death as punishment.
• 42:41
  Speaker 6: There was a, whole like kind of riff on the
• 42:44
  Speaker 6: ideals that McCain stood for that seemed designed to peel
• 42:47
  Speaker 6: off the military vote. He went after Tommy Tuberville for
• 42:50
  Speaker 6: his blockade on military promotions.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: They're just doing a lot of things in the speech.
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Just, but one more, just, I think everything that you
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: just said was right, but I think there's another piece
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: of it. So you're, you're talking about some of the
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: kind of like the ways in which Trump's threats to
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: political violence could be made to feel real for people.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: I think that's really important, but I do think one
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: thing that, and, and I, and I do think they
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: are doing this and just, this was a speech that
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: was broader about like, kind of like big, big D democracy,
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: but the threats to basic rights are also tied to
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: the threat to democracy and referring to the, basically, you know,
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: he talks about the rule of law, but part of
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: this is also live and let live and people being
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: free to live as they want and not coming for
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: the books you want to read and not coming for
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: your kids and abortion bans and abortion bans. And so
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: I think like, it's not, but when Biden thinks about
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: the threats to democracy, it's clear in the interview, like
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: he is very much focused on like undermining the rule
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: of law, undermining democratic institutions and the threats to political violence.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: But I think more of it, I think, I think
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: it is very visceral for people, especially after the last
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: year we've had that part of the attack on democracy
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: is an attack on basic rights. And like, I feel
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: like that is just as important and real for people.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's what I'm saying. I wasn't just talking
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: about political violence. I'm saying like troops in your cities
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: and like book bans and abortion bans and like all
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: of the, you know, what you can't do is just
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: talk about sort of gerrymandering and the filibuster and all
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: this kind.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: Of stuff like that.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Because that all gets into process stuff, right? You've got
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: to say like what the anti-democratic agenda actually means, how
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: it would affect your life. And there's a whole range
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: of ways it can affect your life.
• 44:26
  Speaker 6: There's a whole lot of people who like anti-democratic agendas
• 44:28
  Speaker 6: is the problem because it helps their outgroup Stay in power.
• 44:31
  Speaker 6: But anyway, did you guys catch there was a very
• 44:33
  Speaker 6: funny moment in the speech where Biden was referencing the
• 44:36
  Speaker 6: 1972 campaign and he says to John Harwood, who's 66,
• 44:39
  Speaker 6: you're not old enough to remember.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: I know, I know. What was interesting is that we
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: had another Strom, I got Strom Thurmond to help finally
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: reauthorize the Voting Rights Act, I think. like a long
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: time ago.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: At that moment, he also, he started, he used a
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: term that you don't even hear anymore, which is limousine liberals. Yeah.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: He started talking about limousine liberals and I've never been
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: a limousine liberal.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: I will say though, you watch that John Harwood interview
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: and there is the whole idea that Biden is like
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: senile and losing a step.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: He was sharp.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: He has thought really deeply about these issues. He was
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: very good.
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: He was.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: He still does his like- Don't take our word for it.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Matt Gaetz.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: He does his old timey references for sure, because he's old,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: but he doesn't seem like he lost a step at all.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: No, I agree. And actually that was, I was feeling
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: the same way. And, and the other thing that was
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: interesting too about it is like when he talks about
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: the limousine liberal issue, he's actually getting at what we're
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: talking about, which is we have to like, I've always
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: understood that you can't, that you need to talk about
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: issues in a way that people can really understand. But
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: the other thing he said that actually, that I haven't
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: heard him maybe articulate exactly this way. He said that
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: hate never goes away. It like hides under rocks until
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: it's given oxygen. Yeah. And it was a really kind of,
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: it was just interesting seeing him kind of, by the time,
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: it was later in the interview and he was... That
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: was in the Strom Thurmond context. Yeah.
• 45:59
  Speaker 6: He used to think it could be killed off, but
• 46:01
  Speaker 6: instead he's learned that no, it just hides and waits
• 46:03
  Speaker 6: to be resuscitated.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: And the thing that's interesting is he always comes back
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: in that democracy speech. He ends by being like, I've
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: never been more optimistic about America. I've never been more
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: optimistic about America. And I'm glad he's saying that, but
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: he's not. He's actually, he is very, very worried. He
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: is very, very scared. And he is scared in part
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: because he has this sort of practical understanding of like
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: racism and bigotry, clearly from his own experience and from
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: being a very old man. And it was interesting to
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: see him kind of go there. Yeah, that was really interesting.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: I think what probably makes him optimistic is he believes
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: that if enough people are made aware of this and
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: are paying attention, then we can overcome it. And again,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: like we have in the past, but he's worried.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: And he says, but that's why he keeps saying in
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: the interview, it's real, it's real, it's real. And he's,
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: and like, and I agree. And I, it is frustrating
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: for all of us. But in that moment when he's
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: saying it's real, it's real, it's real, he sounds like
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: every resistance liberal that's like, why don't you people see
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: this the way that I see this? And I think
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: what is the parts that we're talking about are like,
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: how do you make it real for people? And it
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: has to get out of the historian mode. It just
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: has to.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: Finally, we have a new senator here in California. Governor
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Newsom has appointed Emily's List president LaFonza Butler to fill
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: the seat of the late Dianne Feinstein, who passed away
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: last week at the age of 90. Butler has quite
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: a resume before leading the country's biggest organization to help
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: elect pro-choice women. She led the Fight for 15 in
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: California as the head of the Service Employees International Union.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: She's also been a senior advisor to Vice President Kamala
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: Harris during Kamala Harris's campaign and will be the first
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: black lesbian to serve in the United States Senate. What's
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: still unknown is whether she'll serve as a temporary replacement
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: or enter the crowded primary race to succeed Senator Feinstein.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: That includes representatives Adam Schiff, Katie Porter, and Barbara Lee.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: What do you guys think of the pick and how
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Newsom handled it?
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you what my honest reaction was, which is, oh,
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: this doesn't seem like much of a caretaker. I guess
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: the next time Gavin Newsom goes to French Laundry, it'll
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: be because one of the three people currently running will
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: have rolled his head in there. I had a different reaction.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: I did.
• 48:04
  Speaker 6: I thought it was really, look, the Senate's full of
• 48:07
  Speaker 6: like rich people and lawyers. And I know it's cool
• 48:10
  Speaker 6: to have like a former SEIU local 2015 president, right?
• 48:15
  Speaker 6: And Emily's List organizer and an activist. I thought she
• 48:18
  Speaker 6: was sort of in the vein of other clearly interim
• 48:21
  Speaker 6: picks who are basically former staffers. There was Mo Cowan
• 48:24
  Speaker 6: in Massachusetts who took John Kerry's seat for a short
• 48:28
  Speaker 6: period of time. There's Ted Kaufman in Delaware who was
• 48:30
  Speaker 6: Biden's longtime chief of staff. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe she's
• 48:33
  Speaker 6: going to decide to run. If she does, like, she'll
• 48:35
  Speaker 6: have a real head of steam. But it seems like
• 48:37
  Speaker 6: it was well received. I do think Gavin probably regrets
• 48:42
  Speaker 6: putting a bunch of conditions on who he would name
• 48:45
  Speaker 6: in advance. That just always seems to create political problems. Like, politicians,
• 48:48
  Speaker 6: the one lesson you want is, right, give yourself as
• 48:51
  Speaker 6: much space as possible because Barbara Lee's supporters tried to
• 48:54
  Speaker 6: box him in and demand that she be the one
• 48:57
  Speaker 6: selected to this interim post.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: But I don't know. It seems like people are happy
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: with the pick.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just so people know how this all went down,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: Newsom made a promise three years ago that he'd fill
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: a hypothetical vacancy by Dianne Feinstein by appointing a black woman.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: This was after criticism that he didn't appoint a black
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: woman to fill Kamala Harris's Senate seat, but appointed Alex Padilla,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: the current senator, the other senator from California, who has
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: become California's first Latino senator. What he clearly didn't account
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: for or wasn't thinking about at the time was that
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: there would already be a competitive primary for the seat
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: when Feinstein retired, or in this case died, featuring a
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: black woman, Barbara Lee. And then he said he wouldn't
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: appoint anyone who's running in the primary because he didn't
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: want to give that person an unfair advantage when voters
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: were going to decide soon anyway. Then last week his
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: office issued a clarification saying anyone who he appointed was
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: free to also run in the primary, which of course
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: was always the case because there is like, there's no
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: such thing. There's no such thing as an interim replacement
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: that has conditions where you can't run. That's just, that's
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: just not a constitutional requirement. And so, but I do
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: think to Tommy's point, like, LaFonza Butler, first of all,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: her resume is stellar. Very exciting that she's going to
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: be California's newest senator. But because she is such a
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: longtime Democratic Party activist and organizer, close with Vice President Harris,
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: she almost served as Newsom's chief of staff. At one point,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: he tried to make her chief of staff. It does
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: make me think that it's very possible she has already
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: decided that she's not going to run and communicated that
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: to Newsom. And he knew that when he picked her. Again,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: things change, she could decide, hell, I'm going to run now.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: And if so, she would have five months to put
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: together a campaign and raise a fuckload of money. Adam
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: Schiff was out today reminding everyone that he has $ 32 million.
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, the other thing about it is that lesbians
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: famously can very quickly come to a decision to pursue
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: something long-term. And that's part of it as well.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: I don't even.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: Barely get it. Barely get it. Olivia. Olivia's with me. Okay, cool.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: Anyway, there's now four elections for this California Senator. It's
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: because there is a special election to fill out the
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: last weeks of Feinstein's term. Meaning that, like, once the
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: election happens in November 2024, there would be between November
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: and January when the new senator is sworn in. There
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: would be, like, a slice of about a month for
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: someone to become senator. But the primary... for the special
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: election will be held as the same day as the
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: primary for the general election in March. And then the
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: two other elections, the final, the general election for the
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: special and the general election for the full six years
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: will happen in November.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: But so do all these candidates, they're just going to
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: file for both and hoping everyone's voting for the same
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: person twice?
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: I think they're all going to do what the other
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: ones are going to do because you don't want to have,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: like if Schiff decides to go on the special, then
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: Porter and Lee are, are, they're going to file on
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: the special too. So I'm wondering if they'll have some
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: kind of communication, like, are we all doing this? Are
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: we not doing this? Like what's happening? Maybe LaFonza Butler
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: will file for the special, you know, and then she'll
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: serve out the last month and, and the rest, the
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: other three will say, okay, we're.
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: Going to back off. As part of a speech where
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: she says, I have decided to file for this and
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to pursue the election. Yeah.
• 52:11
  Speaker 6: That would require, I think a little bit more of
• 52:14
  Speaker 6: a collegial California delegation that doesn't always get along. I'm
• 52:18
  Speaker 6: not sure that, Katie Porter is going to do what
• 52:21
  Speaker 6: Gavin Newsom's team wants her to do necessarily.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: But like I said, I think they all probably, like
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: LaFonza Butler, they probably all know LaFonza Butler. I'm sure
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: she talked to all of them too, right? She's been
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: part of California politics. And I do think it was
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: a smart pick from Newsom because he was getting criticism
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: from the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Barbara
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: Lee supporters. And he selected someone who is not going
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: to get criticism from any of those people. And sure enough,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: the CBC applauded the choice of Lafonza Butler after criticizing
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: him on the Barbara Lee thing. So I think he
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: sort of headed off any criticism about the pick because
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: it's hard to criticize him picking someone who is progressive
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: and a labor leader and, you know, head of Emily's List.
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: Look, this started because he didn't want to be criticized,
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: and now he's ending it by trying to not be criticized,
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: and I hope it all works out. Hey, just based
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: on this conversation, are there things we could do instead
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: of democracy? Are there alternatives? I know, this seems too complicated.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: She seems really cool. She's young, too. She's like 44, 45. Yeah.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: The only challenge is she currently lives in Maryland. I
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: saw Darla Ice or someone was like, question.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: You just have to register to vote in California before
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: you're sworn in.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: That's all.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: That's what the rules say.
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: Well, you've got to get an apartment or something.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: Well, she's been in California forever, too. So she's been
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: like a fixture. It's not like she's a real carpetbagger here.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: She's been a fixture of California politics for years and
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: years and decades.
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: Right, right. She just needs a mailing address.
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Two decades she was leader of SEIU California.
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Before we go to break, two quick housekeeping notes. The
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court is officially back in session. And if you
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: want to know what kind of bullshit they're up to
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: this term, Strict Scrutiny is just the pod for you.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: Melissa Murray, Leah Littman, and Kate Shaw are brilliant, funny,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: and make the law accessible for dummies like us. Listen
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: to new episodes of Strict Scrutiny each week wherever you
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: get your pods. Also, this week is apparently banned book week.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: You know, I said last week was. I don't fucking know.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: You always call that too early.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how do I miss that week? It's the most
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: important week. Anyway, go to votesaveamerica.com. Find all the ways
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: to help fight book bans across the country. We also
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: have some fun merch in the Crooked store. There is
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: Free the Books merch. Are you afraid of the books
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: teased that are well-timed for Halloween and kids teased in
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: onesies that say, read me a banned book? Check it
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: out at cricket.com slash store. When we come back, Pramila
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Jayapal talks to Lovett about what role Democrats will play
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: in the McCarthy-Gates drama.
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: The government didn't shut down, but the House is still
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: a shitshow. After a last-minute passage of a bipartisan short-term
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: funding mill that pushes the next funding deadline to November,
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy's allies are in a frenzy trying to save
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: the Speaker's job as Matt Gaetz leads a right-wing rebellion
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: to remove him, an effort that includes reaching out to
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: Democrats to help him do it. Joining us to help
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: us understand what is happening and why she didn't send
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: Gaetz's call to voicemail, the chair of the Progressive Caucus,
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: Representative Pramila Jayapal. Welcome back to the pod.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: Thank you for having me.
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: All right. So for weeks, we were hearing that McCarthy
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: wouldn't work with Democrats to get a CR pass because
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: he wouldn't risk the gavel, which is, of course, exactly
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: what he ended up doing. What can you tell us
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: about how this went down? There was a lot of
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: conversation that McCarthy had to somehow prove a shutdown had
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: to happen to prevent a shutdown. What changed? What did
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: you see?
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: Well, I think that's exactly right. I mean, we had
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: to get down to the end, which is terrible, terrible
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: way to run government. But I think from his perspective,
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: he just didn't have the votes. And he kept leaning
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: more and more to the right to try to.
• 56:05
  Speaker 5: Get the votes.
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: But when it became clear that he still wasn't going
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: to get the votes, despite cutting the spending by 30%
• 56:14
  Speaker 4: across the board, despite putting in all these terrible border provisions.
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: He still wasn't going to have the votes. He realized
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: that two things. One, he was going to need us.
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: And two, that the Senate was going to jam him
• 56:29
  Speaker 4: with Ukraine funding, which his people were not going to
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: want if we didn't pass something first. And I think
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: both of those things led to him realizing that one
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: way or another, he's going to have a motion to vacate.
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: He should get this deal done and perhaps bring more
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: people in through doing that.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: President Biden, after the deal came through, said that he
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: was hoping that this process would cause Kevin McCarthy to
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: have some kind of a revelation. I don't know if
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: you saw any light shining down on him or any
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: kind of religious experience in his eyes, but Is the
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: fact that he thought no matter what he could do,
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: that Gates and the far right of his caucus was
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: going to try to remove him, is that in part
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: why the government didn't shut down?
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: Look, there was no halo suddenly shining above Kevin McCarthy's head.
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: He didn't undergo some kind of a big spiritual transition.
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: I am not close enough, John, to him. to look
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: in his eyes and see anything that's changed in his soul.
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: Kevin McCarthy exists every day to make sure that he
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: can be Speaker just two hours later, four hours later,
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: six hours later. And I think the pressure from a
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: lot of his Republicans and Biden districts was getting intense.
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: They didn't want the government to shut down. The pressure
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: from the Senate was getting intense because there was a
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: Senate effort to push a bill over to us. And
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: I think he realized that he was going to get
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: a motion to vacate one way or another. So might
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: as well bite the bullet, get this done, hope that
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: he could buy some goodwill. We could talk about whether
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: or not he did, but hope that he could buy
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: some goodwill and just move forward.
• 58:09
  Speaker 5: And I think that's exactly what happened.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: So I think there's a place where the far right,
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: and I think a lot of Democrats, I think virtually
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: everyone agrees, something that is that Kevin McCarthy isn't a
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: reliable negotiator. People just don't trust him. Matt Gaetz reached
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: out to you to find out what Democrats might do
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: in the event of this effort to, you know, a
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: motion to vacate, which is an effort to remove the speaker.
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: You kicked, you told him basically, we're not, I'm not
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: dealing with this today. Let's keep the government open. But
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: what is your What is your take on what Democrats
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: should be doing in response to this effort to remove McCarthy? Yeah.
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: Well, first of all, I did tell him that any
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: shot of us working with him would have to come
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: after we had a CR, a continuing resolution to fund
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: the government. And so I think he gets and, I
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: think that helped in making sure he didn't push a
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: motion to vacate soon. We have had these conversations and
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: really thought through all the scenarios with the Progressive Caucus.
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: And our aim is to put as much power in
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: the hands of Hakeem Jeffries, our leader, as possible. And
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: so the way to do that, because Kevin McCarthy is
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: completely unreliable, I mean, let's look at the made a
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: deal with the president, signed a bill into law around
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: funding levels, and then immediately flipped on it. Let's look
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: at the fact that he apparently told the president that
• 59:40
  Speaker 4: he wanted to do Ukraine funding, according to the president.
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: But when the president said that, he immediately flipped and said,
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: not unless we do border stuff first. So the guy
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: is completely unreliable. And that is one thing that both
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: Democrats and Republicans agree on.
• 59:54
  Speaker 5: He's a liar.
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: And so if we are going to think about anything,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: and this is really going to be a call for
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: our leadership, but also ultimately for all of us, we
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: just need to make sure that it is baked into
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: the rules of the House, that it isn't just relying
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 4: on Kevin McCarthy's goodwill or that halo to suddenly come
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: shining down or anything like that, but it's actually baked
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: into the rules of the House.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: And so that's, I think, what we're hoping will happen.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: So I'm trying to understand, that is similar to what
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: you said earlier last week, that basically we can't trust
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy. If we're going to do something that involves concessions,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: it's got to be written down, not one of these
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: side agreements that Kevin McCarthy seems to make where he
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: promises people things and they say that he's going back
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: on his word. But then you were also asked if
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: you would do anything to help Kevin McCarthy secure the gavel.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: And you said, no. Are those two things in conflict?
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: Am I missing a nuance?
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: I mean, what I said is don't look to us
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: to save Kevin McCarthy unless we have some sort of
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: power sharing agreement that's codified in the rules because I
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: don't trust him. And, you know, um, fool me once,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, or
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: if you're George Bush, shame on you again, or, you know, whatever.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: We'll get fooled again, yeah.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: But I think we have to make sure that we're
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: not just falling for this, oh, Kevin McCarthy has suddenly changed.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: The same dynamics that Kevin McCarthy has been dealing with
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: this whole time are still going.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 5: To be there.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: And if we have, you know, there are lots of
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: examples of how you can give power to the Democratic
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: side or to the other side so that it's a,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: It's a shared governance. Let's think about what pieces of
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: legislation we want to bring up, control of the committees,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: those kinds of things.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: That, I think, is important to do.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: Is that basically saying that if there is this motion
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: to vacate, are we in a world where Democrats are
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: talking about voting for Kevin McCarthy, or is this a
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: situation where Democrats are just voting present so that they
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: don't need as many votes to keep him? I'm trying
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: to understand what this actually looks like.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: Well, I think if there was some serious agreement for
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: power sharing. And I think it would be very difficult
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: to convince our members on anything other than something that's
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: codified into the rules.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 5: So I just want to be clear about that. And
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 5: I also think, by.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: The way, that there will need to be probably more
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: chaos with the Civil War on their side before their
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: members get to a place where they might want to
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: do that. But Remember that a present vote is essentially
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: taking our vote. It's essentially saving McCarthy. And that's a
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: very serious thing. I mean, for our members, saving McCarthy
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 4: means we're signing on to the rest of his agenda
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: forever and ever.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 5: And as long as he's speaker.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: And I think that is a very dangerous proposition for Democrats,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: both now and going into 2024.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: It's a position I think you must be surprised to
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: find yourself even contemplating. Like on the one hand, no,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: of course not. This is a person you moments ago
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: referred to as a liar, someone who has pushed some
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: of the most extreme legislation that we've seen in Congress
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: in years, except at the same time, we don't have
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: a majority. If there is going to be a speaker,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: we're not choosing between Kevin McCarthy and Hakeem Jeffries.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: Well, it depends. I mean, I think that it depends.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: You know, if things get bad enough, I've had Republicans
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: say to me, we just want somebody who doesn't lie. And,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: you know, that could be a Democrat. Now, when I say, well,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: we've got our speaker, it's Hakeem Jeffries, people are like, oh,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: you know, well, I don't know if I could go
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: that far to vote for a Democrat.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 5: So I'm not saying there's consistency here.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: But what I am saying is the hope of getting
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: anything that gives Democrats real power is is going to
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 4: be difficult and it needs to be codified.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 5: That's my belief.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: Otherwise, I don't think we should save Kevin McCarthy because
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: how can you get worse than Kevin McCarthy? It's not
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 4: like Kevin McCarthy has bent at every stage to his
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: far-right people. The makeup of their body is such that
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: their caucus, that whoever is speaker is going to deal
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: with these same dynamics. And one thing I do think
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: Matt Gates understands is The speaker is never going to
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 4: be Matt Gaetz or Marjorie Taylor Greene. It's got to
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 4: be somebody who can be accepted and get the majority
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: of votes in their caucus. And so that's why I
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: told him that one of the things that I have
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 4: learned in my seven years here is that you can't
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 4: run nobody against somebody.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: And the somebody has to be that you run somebody.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: has to be somebody that's going to be acceptable on
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 4: your side, because why would we want somebody that's worse
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: than Kevin McCarthy? Hard for me to imagine. But let's
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: say it's Marjorie Taylor Greene or Matt Gaetz. And so
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: you notice that the names they're coming up with are
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 4: quite more moderate people like Tom Emmer and Tom Cole.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 5: But still, whoever it is, if we.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: Don't have it codified into the rules of the House,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 4: they will bend to the right of their party, just
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: like Kevin McCarthy did.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: So we're in this period where we have 45 days
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: until the next potential shutdown. This stopgap kicked a lot
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: of the contentious issues down the road. They include funding
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: for Ukraine, this debate about border security. What happens next?
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: It seems that there was some kind of promise around
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: Ukraine funding to go to this stopgap that didn't include it.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: What's going to happen in the next six weeks? Well,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: we have.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: We have six weeks and that means we have to
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: get the ultimate.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 5: Government funding bills done.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: And the bills that the Republicans are putting forward right
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 4: now are total non-starters in the Senate. I mean, things
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: like a 70% cut in the LIHEAP program, which is
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 4: heating for, you know, for needy residents across the country.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 5: Winter is coming. People need that heating. Things like kicking out,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 5: you know, tens.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 4: Of thousands of teachers out of work, just complete non-starters.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 4: And so what we need to do is essentially get
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 4: to a place where the Senate bipartisan funding appropriations bills,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 4: all came out of committee unanimously, all 12 bills, are
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 4: the bills that we move forward. And those bills do
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: have funding for Ukraine. We have plenty of votes for
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: Ukraine funding from all Democrats plus Democrats you know, a
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 4: good number of Republicans, I think half of their caucus,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: but the problem is that it, it, it has to,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: it has to get put up. And I think the
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: best way to do that is to put it within
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 4: the context of the government funding bills, because, um, somebody
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: is going to have to explain if they vote against those,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: why they voted, um, against, you know, keeping the government
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 4: open or, or funding the military, um, just because they
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 4: didn't like funding for Ukraine. So to me, that's the
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: best way to do it. And frankly, it's the best
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: thing for our constituents as well, because we won't have
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 4: people saying, well, you funded Ukraine, but you haven't funded
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: the government for us yet.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 5: You haven't funded SNAP. You haven't funded WIC.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 4: You haven't funded all the things that are part of
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: keeping Americans healthy and safe. And so I think they
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: need to be combined And, you know, in an ideal world,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: the Senate would do this very quickly and get it
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: to us before we get to the next deadline of
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: the shutdown, so that once again, we can be clear
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: that there is a bipartisan solution that's passed the Senate,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: and all we have to do is put it on
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 4: the floor, and it would get enough votes.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: One more question on this. As this is all unfolding,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: this is going to be in the context of this
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: bite over the speakership. When the far right is reaching
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: out to Democrats? Is it because they want to know
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: whether or not Democrats are going to in some way
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: help McCarthy keep the gavel? Or is it because the
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: far right wants Democrats to step aside so that McCarthy
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: loses the gavel?
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 5: I don't know that there's.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: Too much of a difference in that at the end
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: of the day, because they They literally, you know, some
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: of them have obviously it's been written about some personal
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: objections to McCarthy. But I do think that one thing
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 4: that McCarthy did that has really hurt him is he's
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: lied to everybody.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 5: I mean, he's lied to the president. He's lied to
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 5: the far right. He's lied to the moderates. He's lied
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 5: to everybody. And so that means that he doesn't have
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 5: the kind of trust he needs. for anything he says.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 4: And that's why they keep holding things up, because they
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 4: feel like certain commitments were made. And I'm not weighing
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 4: in on whether that's true or not true. But I've
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 4: seen it from our side, what he did to Biden,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: what he's done around Ukraine aid.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 5: Consistently, he has lied. And so I don't know that
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 5: it matters.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 4: From our perspective, I think what matters is, number one,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 4: we do not support a speaker who has a right-wing agenda.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 4: Number two, we do not, I mean, we have our
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 4: own candidate. That's Hakeem Jeffries. We took 15 rounds of
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 4: votes on him. We can take a 16th, a 17th, 18th,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: 19th if we need to. But we've got our speaker.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 4: What we need is for them to recognize that, that
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 4: and to create enough instability or, you know, we're not
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 4: creating it, they're creating it, but to, but to not
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 4: feel like we have to step in to save them
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 4: from their chaos, because at the end of the day,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 4: we need to get power for Hakeem Jeffries to be
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 4: able to have some control over the legislative agenda, over
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 4: the proceedings of the house, or, um, you know, as
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 4: long as we continue to keep the government funded, um,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: if they're unable to move any of their legislation, that's
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 4: okay with us.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 5: All of it's bad.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 4: So, you know, I don't think we need to, we
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: need to get into why they, I have no idea
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: why they, I don't, I'm not interested enough to be
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: close enough to like figure out what their, what their
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 4: rationale is.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: Is there any part of you late at night that thinks, well, look,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: McCarthy doesn't act on principle, something everybody agrees. But here
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: we are, the government's open. We came within an inch
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: of default, but we didn't default. And that there's a
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: world in which anyone that replaced McCarthy who would be
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: worse might be in a position even worse than McCarthy was,
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: unable to do what is necessary to prevent us from
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: really crossing the line, from going into more shutdowns, from
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: the risk of default.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, I have thought about that over and over again,
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 4: and we've actually gamed out the scenarios all the way
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 4: to the end, like multiple scenarios of what could happen.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 4: And I feel very confident in saying that the extreme
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 4: mega right of the Republican Party is governing right now.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 4: I mean, we have been relentless as Democrats in in
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: fighting back, whether it's on the impeachment, baseless, absurd impeachment
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 4: of President Biden, whether it's on these extreme cuts that
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 4: are so cruel that you can't even pass a Department
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 4: of Defense bill, which is normally bipartisan, even if progressives
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 4: don't always support it. There's usually enough in the middle
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 4: to support DOD appropriations. That couldn't even happen this time
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 4: because they put in a nationwide abortion ban, because they
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 4: put in a ban on trans kids because, you know,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: our transgender affirming care, or they put in, you know,
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 4: they took out all the quote DEI woke policies, which
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 4: are really just about teaching about slavery, in schools. I mean,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: it is so extreme that I don't think we can
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 4: fool ourselves into thinking that somehow McCarthy is this person
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 4: and there could be somebody worse.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 5: So no, I don't really think that.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 4: And I think the only reason, I just want to
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 4: be clear about this, this keeping the government open was
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 4: an enormous victory for Democrats because we continued to hold
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 4: the line. And, you know, last week when we heard
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 4: about these border provisions that both the Senate and in
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 4: the House, including some, quote, Democrats or independents in the Senate,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: were trying to put in the Progressive Caucus, the Hispanic Caucus,
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 4: the Asian Pacific American Caucus, and the Black Caucus, all
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 4: came out and said, we are not voting for something
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 4: that has bad immigration, bad border policy. And so once
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 4: we made that really clear, then it had to get
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 4: stripped out. We said, we are not voting for things
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: that are not the fiscal 23 cuts. And this is
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 4: the whole Democratic Caucus. And once that came out, the
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: cuts had to get stripped. And so I think we
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 4: and we all said we want disaster aid. And we
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: on the Democratic side said we wanted Ukraine aid. Ukraine
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 4: was the toughest, obviously. But we got what we wanted
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 4: with that one exception of Ukraine, which, by the way,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 4: Rand Paul was holding up in the Senate as well. So,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 4: you know, I think we have held the line consistently.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 4: And I think we're going to have to continue to
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 4: do that. no matter who the speaker is. And at
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 4: the end of the day, again, unless we've got some
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 4: real power sharing and control over the House with Republicans,
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: which is not unheard of. This is not a crazy idea.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 4: I mean, the Senate had it last year when they
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: were 50-50. Yes, the Republicans have the majority, but they
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 4: don't have a governing majority. They can't govern. They're I
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 4: think you have to look then at the same thing
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 4: that kind of happens with the coalition government, right? When
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 4: you have coalition governments in Europe or elsewhere in the world,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 4: they have to put together a coalition. And in order
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 4: to put that together, they have to give something of
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 4: great significance. And it's usually done through actual rules, not
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 4: like a, Hey, let's, you know, give a pinky swear and, um, and, and,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 4: you know, pick, pick our, fingers for a little bit
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 4: of blood. I mean, that's, it's just, we don't trust
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 4: Kevin McCarthy. We shouldn't.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: Well, you know what, as true today as it has
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: been for the entirety of his speakership, Congresswoman Jivehall, thank
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: you so much for being here.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 5: Thank you, John. Thanks for having me on.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Congresswoman Jayapal for joining us today, and we'll
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: talk to you.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: Later this week. Outro question for you two?
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 7: Sure.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 6: Do you guys think it's weird that we still refer
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 6: to the Hastert rule, knowing all the rules and laws
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 6: that he broke in other parts of his life?
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: Maybe we just get a new term for that. Yeah, sure.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: The pedophile guy.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: It's kind of at the bottom of my list of
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: things that annoy me, but it's a weird one.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: Well, it's an outro. You know, and I agree.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: I didn't say let's make it.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: It's not an A-block question. It's an outro question. We
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: should pitch on it. For God's sake, we should pitch
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: on it. How about we pitch on it? Okay. I'm willing.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: Well, the only reason I would say let's keep it
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: is because it should remind people that their caucus is
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: fucked in the head.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's true. That's true. But then when we're
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: in charge, we try to use it. We're like, oh. Yeah, well,
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: we shouldn't use it.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: Anyway, thanks for bringing that up, Tom.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: You're welcome.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: are Olivia Martinez and David Toledo. Our associate producer is
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: Farrah Safari. Writing support from Hallie Kiefer. Reed Cherlin is
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: David Tolles, Kirill Pelleviv, and Molly Lobel. Subscribe to Pod
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: Save America on YouTube to catch full episodes and extra
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: video content. Find us at youtube.com slash at Pod Save America. Finally,
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: you can join our Friends of the Pod subscription community
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: for ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and a great discussion on Discord. Plus,
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: it's a great way to get involved with Vote Save America.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: Sign up at crooked.com slash friends.