Latest / Pod Save America / “Do us a favor, though.” (LIVE from San Jose)

Transcript

“Do us a favor, though.” (LIVE from San Jose) · Pod Save America

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: What's up San Jose?
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: I'm Jessica Yellen.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: Later in the show, we'll talk to the founder and
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: CEO of the East Oakland Collective, housing activist Candace Elders here.
• 0:53
  Speaker 5: Uh.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: But first we got some news. We have some news
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: to talk about tonight.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: You know, there's some days.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: What's that?
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: There's some days.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Some days.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Some days. We don't know what we're going to cover.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: We shall see. This week, Donald Trump has become the
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: fourth president in history to face impeachment. It's going to
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: take a while. Hasn't happened yet.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: We've got some work to do, guys. We got some
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: work to do.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: Jessica, this has never happened.
• 1:55
  Speaker 6: Is it always like this?
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: No, it's not always like this. You have come at
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: just the right time.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: Peak excitement.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: So, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the inquiry based on a
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: whistleblower complaint that was made public earlier today and begins
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: like this. I have received information from multiple U.S. government
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: officials that the President of the United States is using
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: the power of his office to solicit interference from a
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: foreign country in the 2020 election. That includes pressuring a
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: foreign country to investigate one of the President's main domestic
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: political rivals. The President's personal lawyer, Mr. Rudolph W. Giuliani,
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: is a central figure in this effort. Attorney General Barr
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: appears to be involved as well. This allegation has been
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: corroborated by a White House call summary, Rudy Giuliani and
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: the president himself, who responded today by threatening the White
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: House officials who spoke to the whistleblower with execution. Giuliani,
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: on the other hand, was last heard screaming on the
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: phone to a reporter, these morons, when this is over,
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: I will be the hero. I will be the hero.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: You can't make it up.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: You can't make it up. You can't make it up. Jessica,
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: let's start with today's news, which was the release of
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: the full whistleblower complaint and the testimony of Joseph McGuire,
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: who's the Director of National Intelligence. What was the most
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: important new information we learned from these big two developments today?
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: There's a lot.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: I'd say, first of all, the Director of National Intelligence
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: said that the whistleblower did the right thing. So that
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: takes us out of the realm of partisanship. We could
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: spend all night talking about the details of that report.
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: I guess there are three big things in the complaint.
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: One is that Giuliani was all over it, doing follow-up meetings,
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: according to the complaint, and the State Department was so
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: concerned that it was compromising national security, they were contacting
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: Ukraine to help them figure out how to work around
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: all of this.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Not according to Giuliani's screenshotted text.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: They were into it.
• 3:58
  Speaker 7: They were into it?
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're super into it. Sorry, continue. That.
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: that there were ongoing contacts to encourage them to play ball.
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: And then the big thing is that it alleges that
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: the president, that White House aides tried to cover up
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: the president's phone call by hiding the transcript in a
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: super classified server, which I think Tommy can do a
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: better job explaining than I could.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, tell us what's going on there with stashing all
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: the call transcript in the classified server.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: So there's like levels of classification. There's secret, there's top secret. Um, and,
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: and you actually email systems that can handle secret and
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: top secret information, but then there's some stuff that's called
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: like code word information that is so sensitive and so
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: secretive that it's given a special name. That's literally a
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: code word to learn about that information. You get read.
• 4:46
  Speaker 7: Into it under crime.
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: No.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: So to learn about that information, you have to get
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: read into it where it's like read a document and
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: sign it. Right. So it's a compartmented information. And so there's.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: an intelligence directorate that works over in the EEOB. And
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: when there's a national security council meeting, when you're going
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: to talk about some covert action program or something like
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: really sensitive, they will bring in paper into that meeting
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: and they will table drop it and put it in
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: front of you because nobody, it doesn't get disseminated. Otherwise
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: they were taking like mundane call transcripts of Trump with
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: foreign leaders. And they were so worried about those things
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: getting pushed around. They were putting them up on this
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: secret server and, which means that no one will ever
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: see them, which is a total abuse of the classification
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: authority to hide embarrassing or damaging information.
• 5:32
  Speaker 7: A violation of the Presidential Records Act?
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: It is a violation of an executive order that oversees
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: when and how you can classify information, so it's against
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: the law as well.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, when did classified server mishaps ever get anyone involved?
• 5:46
  Speaker 7: It's the unclassified servers that'll get you.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: It's all full circle.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: Dan, one of the responses we're seeing from Republicans, from
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: some Republicans is in Congress has been, you know, what
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: the president did was wrong, but this doesn't rise to
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: the level of impeachment. What I think it's good for
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: all of us to sort of take a second. Like,
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: why is this an impeachable offense? What the president did
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: with Ukraine?
• 6:14
  Speaker 7: The most impeachable action a president can have is abusing
• 6:19
  Speaker 7: their power. for their personal political gain. And that is
• 6:22
  Speaker 7: exactly what Trump did here. He dangled, in some way, shape,
• 6:26
  Speaker 7: or form, critical US aid to a country that is
• 6:29
  Speaker 7: under threat from Putin on the condition that, as alleged
• 6:34
  Speaker 7: in the call, that Ukraine conduct a politically beneficial investigation
• 6:39
  Speaker 7: into one of Trump's most likely political rivals. It is
• 6:43
  Speaker 7: a textbook definition. It's the answer to a political science
• 6:47
  Speaker 7: class essay question on what is an impeachable offense. It
• 6:51
  Speaker 7: is an absolute abuse of his office. And what is
• 6:53
  Speaker 7: important about it is it's not even subtle. He very
• 6:57
  Speaker 7: explicitly asked for it out in the open, which is
• 7:02
  Speaker 7: why there was no option for the Democrats other than
• 7:04
  Speaker 7: what they're doing here because it is an absolute abuse
• 7:07
  Speaker 7: of office. You cannot use the power of the presidency
• 7:09
  Speaker 7: to help yourself politically or help yourself financially Trump is
• 7:12
  Speaker 7: doing both. This one is the former, not the latter, though.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: Tommy, from a national security perspective, why has this whole
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: episode been so troubling?
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, look, withholding nearly $ 400 million in military
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: aid from a country where you have a brand new
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: president who is running on this anti-corruption platform, who is
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: sitting on the border of Russia... where the Russians as
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: recently as 2014 invaded their fucking country and annexed part
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: of it and still hold like seven to 10% of
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: their territory. He is signaling to this new president Zelensky
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: in Ukraine and to all these other foreign leaders that
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: the way you get whatever you need from the United
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: States is to take care of Donald Trump personally. You
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: grease him, you grease his guy Rudy Giuliani, the weird
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: drunk guy who keeps like banging around in your capital. Right?
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: There's going to be a bunch of other countries that think, okay,
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: Donald wants election interference. What do we got? Let's make
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: something up. Let's hack someone. There's a million different ways
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: this could go south. Trump is just inviting all these
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: people to muck around in our elections. Hello, it is me,
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: President of Ukraine. Mr. President Trump, I have two quick flags.
• 8:33
  Speaker 6: Number one, Rudy Giuliani seems to be asking me for...
• 8:36
  Speaker 6: favors to help you win re-election. Also, I don't know
• 8:41
  Speaker 6: how to handle, he is crying about his divorce.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Guidance. Appreciate it.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: Jessica, obviously....
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: I missed Joe America.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: We haven't heard that in a while.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: That's Sam Ukraine.
• 8:59
  Speaker 7: That's Sam Ukraine.
• 9:00
  Speaker 8: Um.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: So obviously Nancy Pelosi and a lot of House Democrats
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: have been reluctant up until this point to sort of
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: come out in favor of an impeachment inquiry. This is
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: after Robert Mueller found many instances of the president obstructing
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: justice along with plenty of evidence. There's all kinds of
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: allegations that Donald Trump has been funneling thousands and thousands
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: of taxpayer dollars into the Trump organization by trying to
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: pressure people to stay in Trump hotels. There's all this
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: kind of stuff. What do you think it was about
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: this incident that sort of pushed the Democrats that were
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: hauled out over the edge?
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: It 100% happened while he was president. It wasn't a
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: campaign time event. He admitted to it. He himself explained
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: what happened. So there's no confusion.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: I did the crime.
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: That it has the appearance, it's very plain to see
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: what happened there. And so it's not as, confusing and
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: convoluted as what the Mueller report was. There's also this
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: sense that the Mueller report was about the election, so
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: it was in itself partisan. And so that divided the public.
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: And this doesn't have the taint of partisanship in the
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: same way.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I also noticed like some Republicans, their first
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: statement was, oh, this is the Democrats trying to nullify
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: the 2016 election.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: You're like, what the fuck are you talking about? Yeah.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: But no, it's actually, it's election interference with the 2020 election.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: He sought foreign assistance. He did it again. He committed
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: the crime again.
• 10:30
  Speaker 7: The day after Mueller testified.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: The day after Mueller testified.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: He encouraged and then welcomed foreign assistance in the 2016 election.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: He got away with it.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: And then the day after Bob Mueller testified- And you
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: see this in the call summary, right? He calls President
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: Zelensky and he was like, yeah, so there's this whole thing,
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: this guy named Robert Mueller, he did a terrible job,
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: bad performance. Anyway, I got a favor to ask.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: But the other piece of this that is so weird, though,
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: is he asked President Zelensky to... touch base with the
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Attorney General of the United States because he still thinks
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: that Hillary Clinton's secret server is just like on the
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: lam in Ukraine. You know what I mean? They just
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: gotta find the right fake name at a hotel and
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: that bad boy's sitting there ripping a cig and he
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: can be absolved. Like he's... He is mentally unwell. He
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: is so concerned about how we view the legitimacy of
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: the 2016 election that he is getting himself impeached.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: I try to sometimes step into the MAGA mind.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Don't do it.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: What does he think he's going to find if Hillary's
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: server was in Ukraine somewhere? What is he going to find?
• 11:43
  Speaker 6: He's going to find validation. Because I'm telling you, there's
• 11:47
  Speaker 6: something on that server that he wants more than anything,
• 11:50
  Speaker 6: which is a video of his father saying, Donnie, I
• 11:52
  Speaker 6: love you. That's what he's looking for. And all of
• 11:59
  Speaker 6: us are part of the search.
• 12:03
  Speaker 7: Yeah. But there's this other element, I think, about this
• 12:07
  Speaker 7: scandal thing. that has helped propel this forward politically, which
• 12:11
  Speaker 7: is it feels like an old scandal.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: You have a whistleblower.
• 12:16
  Speaker 7: There was a secret thing that Trump did not, he
• 12:18
  Speaker 7: did not announce the crime on Twitter in advance, which
• 12:21
  Speaker 7: is his MO, which is really, it seems absurd, but
• 12:24
  Speaker 7: that has confounded Democratic politicians in the press for two
• 12:28
  Speaker 7: years now, which is he commits all his crimes in
• 12:30
  Speaker 7: the open. And so we don't have this Watergate-esque scenario of,
• 12:34
  Speaker 7: Reporters digging around in government and secret sources telling you
• 12:37
  Speaker 7: things and then popping a big story that exposes information.
• 12:40
  Speaker 7: Like this one happened according to the old rules. And
• 12:43
  Speaker 7: so Democrats and the press treated it like an old scandal.
• 12:47
  Speaker 7: The problem with the Mueller thing is he did all
• 12:48
  Speaker 7: this witness intimidation on Twitter.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 12:51
  Speaker 7: And so we don't know how to deal with crimes
• 12:54
  Speaker 7: committed in front of us. But crimes committed in secret
• 12:56
  Speaker 7: is something that we have a plan for in politics.
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: They also released documents in this case, which is old style.
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: And in the past, they haven't.
• 13:03
  Speaker 7: Yeah, it's under pressure. They had to do it.
• 13:05
  Speaker 6: Well, that said, the other thing, too, it's just worth,
• 13:07
  Speaker 6: it's been quite a week. This week began with, we're
• 13:12
  Speaker 6: going to release that transcript. And once you guys see it, boys,
• 13:15
  Speaker 6: they're going to be egg on your faces.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: That is the funniest part of this whole thing.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: It's amazing.
• 13:19
  Speaker 6: But it's worth remembering that, okay, so we hear that
• 13:22
  Speaker 6: there's this whistleblower.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: We hear that there's this transcript. We hear this complaint.
• 13:25
  Speaker 6: And the administration is signaling to all of its Republican
• 13:29
  Speaker 6: allies and the media types– You know, the goons, you know,
• 13:33
  Speaker 6: don't worry. Once you see the words on the page,
• 13:35
  Speaker 6: it's another Mueller report.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: We'll put it behind us. We'll be fine. And we
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: were worried about that, too. We're like, well, hold on, guys.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Let's not forget. It's not just about the transcript. It's
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: about the complaint.
• 13:45
  Speaker 6: It's about the larger effort to corrupt the government and
• 13:49
  Speaker 6: its work in Ukraine. And then the transcript turned out
• 13:52
  Speaker 6: to be far more damaging than I think anyone imagined.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: I was fucking gobsmacked when I read that. I was like.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: And then I realized, you know what I forgot?
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: That they are too morally bankrupt and ignorant to know
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: that the crimes they did are crimes.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: And so they didn't, they weren't trying to pull one
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: over on us. Donald Trump genuinely believed, now the people
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: who work around him clearly didn't believe this because they
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: tried to cover up the abuse of power. But Donald
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: Trump clearly believed that what he said on that transcript
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: was AOC.
• 14:27
  Speaker 7: Well, he believes he's above the law.
• 14:29
  Speaker 6: Well, he began the day by saying, you're going to
• 14:32
  Speaker 6: see it's a beautiful call.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Surprise.
• 14:35
  Speaker 6: And then inside of the, of the transcript, it is
• 14:38
  Speaker 6: an explicit quid pro quo. The exact thing they, the
• 14:41
  Speaker 6: exact thing they promised there wouldn't be in the transcript.
• 14:44
  Speaker 6: We thought we were going to spend a week saying, Hey, Hey, Hey,
• 14:47
  Speaker 6: it's not about quid pro quo. It's illegal to get
• 14:50
  Speaker 6: foreign assistance, even if there wasn't a shakedown, but the
• 14:53
  Speaker 6: shakedown was in the text and it did change everything.
• 14:56
  Speaker 7: I mean, the best part.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: No, the, the, The things that are said in the
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: call explain why they released the call, right? It's because
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: he lives in a world of conspiracy theories where he
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: reads the crazy article in The Hill because Rudy Giuliani
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: figured out how to forward it to him on his phone.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: And he believes that the server is on the lam.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: And then he's surrounded by people who are stupid enough
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: to read that transcript and be like, oh, yeah, boss.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: This shows that you're a genius, that you are... Lindsey
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Graham calls him and says, the transcript shows that I
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: couldn't believe that you were that nice to your friends.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: You can be that nice.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: It's shocking to me. So he is surrounded by the
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: D team, the people who forward... The people who would
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: forward their internal talking points to every Democratic office... That
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: was funny. In Congress... Are the same people advising him
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: about whether he should release this call log in the
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: first place, Jessica?
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: I mean, there's also a level of cynicism around him
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: where the people who are his allies defending him now
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: say what he did is no worse than what Joe
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: Biden did. Even though there's no there there, the appearance
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: of impropriety because Joe Biden's son was working at this firm, blah, blah, blah,
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: makes sense. It's just politics as usual. So they play
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: this game of politics as usual. And so within that context,
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: the argument is that what Trump did is no worse
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: than what most politicians do.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: Well, that's their whole.
• 16:20
  Speaker 7: That's their whole.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: That's their whole thing. It's like, well, you think I'm bad.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: The other guy's bad, too. So fuck off.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: How many shirts do you think Eric Trump has sweat
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: through this week as his dad pushes around oppo research
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: on a candidate's son? He's like, chill with that shit.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: If you don't think Don Jr.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Is sweating, you think he's sweating.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: Rumors of.
• 16:40
  Speaker 6: I also think one of the unsung heroes of all
• 16:43
  Speaker 6: of this is it's very clear that Rudy Giuliani's font
• 16:45
  Speaker 6: size on his phone is absolutely extraordinary. He has to
• 16:51
  Speaker 6: scroll to get through so... His font is so big
• 16:54
  Speaker 6: at this point, he's not able to process the information
• 16:57
  Speaker 6: that he needs to process before he takes, you know,
• 16:59
  Speaker 6: three fingers of scotch and says whatever the fuck on
• 17:01
  Speaker 6: Laura Ingraham.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: LAUGHTER Dan, what do we still need to find out?
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: What other witnesses are we looking for here? In this investigation,
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: what do we need to know? So much.
• 17:14
  Speaker 7: I mean, some of the things that I'm most interested
• 17:15
  Speaker 7: in hearing is who in the White House made the
• 17:18
  Speaker 7: decision to put these calls in the secret system? Next,
• 17:21
  Speaker 7: what other calls are in the secret system that don't
• 17:23
  Speaker 7: belong there? Because the implication is, like, I want to
• 17:26
  Speaker 7: know what Trump said to Putin. Or to MBS, when
• 17:30
  Speaker 7: talking about Saudi Arabia, what are the other things he's done?
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: His best friend Kim Jong-un, who knows what he's saying.
• 17:34
  Speaker 7: I want to know what conversations Rudy Giuliani and the
• 17:37
  Speaker 7: president had right before this call to Zelensky. I want
• 17:41
  Speaker 7: to know what conversations anyone in the White House has
• 17:43
  Speaker 7: had with Bill Barr about the forthcoming whistleblower complaint, the
• 17:49
  Speaker 7: Justice Department's decision not to investigate, the Justice Department's decision
• 17:52
  Speaker 7: to offer a legal opinion saying that Shall did not
• 17:56
  Speaker 7: mean shall in terms of the obligation to Congress to
• 17:58
  Speaker 7: turn this over.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: Or the fact, by the way, that the whistleblower puts
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: in his complaint, I believe there was a campaign finance violation,
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: that the president committed a campaign finance violation. The intelligence
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: community inspector general and the DNI forward a criminal complaint
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: to the Department of Justice about the president potentially violating
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: a campaign finance law. And Barr is implicated in this
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: criminal complaint. And Barr's DOJ is just like, nah, no,
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: it's fine. It's good.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: It's not a crime at all.
• 18:24
  Speaker 7: Barr is in the call. He's the lead of the
• 18:27
  Speaker 7: complaint as a criminal co-conspirator in a series of crimes,
• 18:31
  Speaker 7: and the Justice Department doesn't do anything about it. They
• 18:33
  Speaker 7: let him be in charge of the decision whether to
• 18:35
  Speaker 7: investigate or not, what legal opinion should be offered, or
• 18:38
  Speaker 7: whether the complaint could be turned over. And so I
• 18:40
  Speaker 7: also want to know what conversations happened between the White
• 18:42
  Speaker 7: House and Barr about that and what happened within the
• 18:44
  Speaker 7: Justice Department about his decision not to recuse. There is
• 18:47
  Speaker 7: a larger web here that needs to be looked at.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just want to add to that.
• 18:51
  Speaker 6: So I think you divided into the, you know, you
• 18:53
  Speaker 6: divided into the crime and the cover up, but focusing
• 18:56
  Speaker 6: on the crime for a second, now that we have
• 18:58
  Speaker 6: the complaint, what you realize when you read this complaint
• 19:02
  Speaker 6: is just how much of our government was subverted toward
• 19:08
  Speaker 6: Donald Trump's sort of venal purpose, that he was pushing
• 19:12
  Speaker 6: the Justice Department, that we know that he's infected the
• 19:16
  Speaker 6: Justice Department, but the scale of what had to happen here.
• 19:20
  Speaker 6: It's not just Rudy Giuliani. It's not even just the
• 19:22
  Speaker 6: White House. We don't know Pompeo's involvement, right? We don't
• 19:25
  Speaker 6: know what else happened at the State Department. We don't
• 19:27
  Speaker 6: know what other parts of the intelligence community were sort
• 19:29
  Speaker 6: of embroiled in this. So you realize just how much
• 19:33
  Speaker 6: power Donald Trump was wielding and how much of that
• 19:36
  Speaker 6: power he was using towards his personal partisan goals. And
• 19:40
  Speaker 6: that is a historic and enormous scandal. And we've only
• 19:43
  Speaker 6: known about it for five days, and it's already transformed
• 19:47
  Speaker 6: our politics. So I just think it's worth stepping back
• 19:49
  Speaker 6: and just seeing the scope of it because that's what
• 19:51
  Speaker 6: i was sort of struck by in reading the whistleblower
• 19:54
  Speaker 6: complaint and one other just small thing about the whistleblower
• 19:56
  Speaker 6: complaint inside of it the whistleblower makes a note of
• 20:00
  Speaker 6: saying i believe what i'm saying inside of this report
• 20:03
  Speaker 6: is unclassified but If someone goes back and classifies this,
• 20:07
  Speaker 6: they should have to explain, et cetera, et cetera. You
• 20:09
  Speaker 6: see inside of the complaint the paranoia of someone working
• 20:13
  Speaker 6: inside of a government that he no longer trusts to
• 20:17
  Speaker 6: follow the law, to do the proper procedures, to be
• 20:20
  Speaker 6: a place where he knows he can turn to his
• 20:23
  Speaker 6: inspector general or his justice department or his boss.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: And you realize that the reason there haven't been more
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: whistleblowers about more things is because because of how Trump
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: reacted today by saying that they should be executed. We
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: should treat them like we used to treat spies.
• 20:38
  Speaker 6: Tim Murphy had one of the funniest tweets I've ever seen,
• 20:41
  Speaker 6: which was just, I didn't do it, I'm innocent, and
• 20:43
  Speaker 6: all the witnesses should die. Yeah.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: It's also clear that there's a whole bunch of people
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: that staff Trump on the most serious matters that a
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: president deals with, national security, relations with foreign heads of state, etc.,
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: who have or desperately afraid of what he might do
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: or say at any moment, and then spend most of
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: their time in government scrambling to clean it up and
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: hide it from us and prevent it from ever getting out. Like,
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: it does not seem like a coincidence to me that
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: John Bolton left the White House as National Security Advisor
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: very recently. And there's a mustachioed man on background in
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: a lot of stories.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: I was going to say, now he's in the fucking
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: witness protection program. We haven't heard from the stash in
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: a while.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: No, we have not.
• 21:29
  Speaker 7: A senior administration walrus.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: He shaved the stash and I was working out of Kinko's.
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: Tommy, it was interesting in the whistleblower complaint. The person
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: who wrote the complaint wasn't on the call. He got
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: the information because he said so many people on the
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: call were so upset and concerned. They kept talking about it.
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: So that is a sign that there are people around
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: in the White House who have a true north, know
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: what's right, and are still tacking to it. This is
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: the one person who had the courage to write the report.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: Because that's been the story of the White House for
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: the last couple of years. How many people have... tried
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: to be the adults in the room, or told reporters
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: on background that they were the adults in the room
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: in the White House. And then they leave the administration,
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: and we don't hear from them again.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: The national security staff is like 300 to 500 people.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: I don't really know what it is anymore. But the
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: majority of them are not directly hired by the administration.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: They're detailed from other agencies.
• 22:24
  Speaker 7: They're career bureaucrats.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: You're a career person who works at CIA or the
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Department of State or Department of Defense, and you get
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: sent over for a 12- to 18-month detailee, and they fucking...
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: hate it. None of them want to go there. It
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: should be this crowning achievement, but they feel like this
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: is a political thing. I'm just going to get caught
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: up in some shit. And we're like, you were right.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: But so that I think is why on the national
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: security side, you can have a half a dozen people
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: talk to a whistleblower about concerns they have. And then
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: that gets written up and becomes part of the public record.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: Whereas in the White House proper side, all those goons
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: were hired by Donald Trump because they worked in like
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: you know, some, the dregs of his golf operation back
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: in 1999.
• 23:06
  Speaker 7: I mean, Jessica made an interesting point, which is, and
• 23:11
  Speaker 7: this has become the key talking point for the president
• 23:13
  Speaker 7: of the Republicans is the whistleblower was not on the call.
• 23:16
  Speaker 7: And that talking point is so stupid because everything the
• 23:21
  Speaker 7: whistleblower said was in the call, right?
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah. The reason we know the whistleblower was credible and
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: correct is because of the President of the United States.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: He confirmed it all. It doesn't matter if he was
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: on the call anymore. We read the call now. What
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: are you talking about? What are you talking about? We
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: have it.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: He wasn't on the call, but he nailed the call
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: summary exactly in his complaint.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter how good of a weather person he is.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: It's raining. Ridiculous. All right. Let's play a game. Now
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: it's time for OK Stop. We'll roll a clip.
• 24:03
  Speaker 6: We can say OK Stop at any point to comment.
• 24:05
  Speaker 6: On Tuesday, Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry, and
• 24:08
  Speaker 6: the White House hadn't yet disseminated talking points. So for
• 24:10
  Speaker 6: a few glorious hours, Republicans were on television like Maria,
• 24:14
  Speaker 6: were on television like Marina Abramovich at MoMA, creating art
• 24:16
  Speaker 6: through public debate.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: I'll get it.
• 24:21
  Speaker 6: So for a few glorious hours, Republicans were on television
• 24:25
  Speaker 6: like Marina Abramovich at MoMA, creating art through public, through, fuck.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: Shut up. Shut up. If you applause, if you applaud,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: can't do the edit. Thank you.
• 24:45
  Speaker 6: Through public displays of endless self-flagellation. See, the joke was
• 24:49
  Speaker 6: 40 fucking minutes.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: Whatever.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was their fault. Fuck you guys. That joke
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: was great. Pearls before swine. All right. I don't mean it.
• 25:06
  Speaker 6: It's great to be here in the Houston of California.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Yes! I welcome it. All right. I'm just kidding. I'm
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: just kidding! I take it back, I take it back,
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: I take it back.
• 25:28
  Speaker 6: This death by cable hit was on full display when
• 25:32
  Speaker 6: Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, or what would happen
• 25:35
  Speaker 6: if a gazebo became a senator who wanted to take
• 25:37
  Speaker 6: health care away from people, went on Chuck Todd to
• 25:41
  Speaker 6: discuss the Pelosi presser.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: Let's watch.
• 25:43
  Speaker 9: What we do know is this. A Russian oligarch.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: hired Hunter Biden.
• 25:50
  Speaker 9: Paid him $ 50, 000 a month, gave a bucket load of
• 25:54
  Speaker 9: money to his law firm. It may turn out that the,
• 25:59
  Speaker 9: I said Russian, I meant Ukrainian oligarch. It may turn
• 26:03
  Speaker 9: out that the Ukrainian oligarch got Mr. Biden's name off ZipRecruiter.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Now a word from our sponsor. It's an okay joke.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: It's an okay joke. Let's face it.
• 26:20
  Speaker 10: All right.
• 26:20
  Speaker 9: But I doubt it. And if you go to Mr.
• 26:24
  Speaker 9: Biden's Wikipedia page, there are other similar allegations.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Okay, stop.
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: You are a United States senator. You cannot use Wikipedia
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: as your source. You can't do that in 11th grade history.
• 26:39
  Speaker 5: You certainly shouldn't be able to do it if you
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: represent a state in the Senate.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, maybe clean up his Wikipedia page, though. Yeah.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Who's monitoring that?
• 26:51
  Speaker 9: I'm not making an allegation of impropriety.
• 26:53
  Speaker 10: A lot of people have attempted to look into this,
• 26:56
  Speaker 10: and they haven't found a there there to look into it. Who?
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: Who has? And that's the point here. You brought up
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: the FBI.
• 27:04
  Speaker 9: Who's looked into it, Chuck?
• 27:05
  Speaker 10: Apparently the Ukrainian government. Apparently every mainstream Ukrainian journalist. Plenty
• 27:11
  Speaker 10: of people here. We've all looked into it. There have
• 27:14
  Speaker 10: been four or five different entities that have found nothing here.
• 27:17
  Speaker 11: Who?
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: I just told you.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: Isn't it interesting, though, that it feels like Chuck has
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: finally had enough. Have you ever seen Chuck like that?
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: That's real Rod Chuck.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: No. I'm done.
• 27:37
  Speaker 7: That's why he grew the beard. I do think right now,
• 27:42
  Speaker 7: Senator John Kennedy, oddly named, I would say, is... Mentally
• 27:47
  Speaker 7: composing a note to his staff to say, I thought
• 27:50
  Speaker 7: this was going to be Fox News. I thought it
• 27:51
  Speaker 7: was going to be Sean Hannity.
• 27:55
  Speaker 10: But you also seem to think that it is OK
• 27:58
  Speaker 10: for what Rudy Giuliani and the president did.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: And I don't know.
• 28:01
  Speaker 10: What part of that is OK.
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 28:03
  Speaker 9: I can't speak for Mr.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Giuliani. He's wild. I've ruined it. You've ruined it. I
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: do not speak for Mr.
• 28:11
  Speaker 7: Giuliani.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: You're a fine American and pay your taxes. Can you
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: roll it back 10 seconds? Shut up, it's fine. Can
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: you roll it back 10 seconds? Can we do it?
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Do you say no? No? That seems impossible. Isn't it digital?
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Isn't it digital? It's a keynote.
• 28:38
  Speaker 6: Ruined my keynote.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Listen, we are in Silicon Valley.
• 28:46
  Speaker 6: And I can't rewind 10 seconds.
• 28:49
  Speaker 7: I stepped on the joke.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: Keep rolling the clip. I always do. Too much of it.
• 28:55
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: Thank you, sir.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: With me now.
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 28:59
  Speaker 10: I have to digest that.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: With me now.
• 29:01
  Speaker 10: Let me check in with the Joe Biden campaign.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: And that's okay, stop. All right.
• 29:14
  Speaker 7: Fair, that's fair.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: So we talked about the crimes. Let's talk about the punishment.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: The impeachment inquiry that was initially launched by the Judiciary
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: Committee has now been blessed by Nancy Pelosi and a
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: majority of the House of Representatives. Yeah. I think we
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: have like 223 Democrats and one former Republican that are
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: on board here. Six different House committees will investigate the
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: Trump administration's potential crimes and corruption, and the Judiciary Committee
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: will then write up articles of impeachment for the full
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: House floor to vote on. Jessica, what are some of
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: the political risks for Democrats as they head into impeachment?
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: Well, the reason that the Mueller investigation became so unpopular
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: is because it was perceived as a partisan inquiry. So
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: for them, the goal is to try to make this
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: as not partisan as possible while having no Republicans on board.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: Seems challenging.
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: So the questions they have to deliberate over are, do
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: they keep it narrow and limited to the Ukraine issue?
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: Or do you go wide and bring in old Mueller
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: stuff or anything else they find? how long do they
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: let it go? I mean, there's all this talk on
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: the Hill now that they're going to be quick, quick, quick,
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: which seems counterintuitive. Like if you've opened this process that
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: lets you get whatever you want almost from the White House,
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: why not let that go through the campaign as both
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: like a way to get material and counter-programming to whatever
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: the president's doing? So those are like some of the
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: issues they have to deal with right now.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Dan, what do you.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: Think on both the question of time, like how long
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: should it go, and the question of focus, where it
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: should focus?
• 30:53
  Speaker 7: Well, starting on focus, so there's some reporting tonight that
• 30:56
  Speaker 7: Pelosi wants to keep this narrowly focused on Ukraine. And
• 31:00
  Speaker 7: I understand the impulse to not appear like you're going
• 31:05
  Speaker 7: on a fishing expedition, except for the fact that this
• 31:09
  Speaker 7: is a pond stocked with crimes. So fish all you want.
• 31:13
  Speaker 7: And I think that's an important... The upside of a
• 31:18
  Speaker 7: narrower focus is... It's very specific. You have one story
• 31:22
  Speaker 7: to tell. You can tell it relentlessly for a period
• 31:24
  Speaker 7: of time. It's a very obvious impeachable offense. There's not
• 31:27
  Speaker 7: a lot of question around what it is Trump did.
• 31:30
  Speaker 7: The danger of it is that the way in which
• 31:33
  Speaker 7: this crime was committed suggests that this is not an
• 31:36
  Speaker 7: isolated incident. This is not a case of Trump's lifelong
• 31:39
  Speaker 7: passion for eliminating corruption in Eastern Europe getting the best
• 31:42
  Speaker 7: of him. This is just one of many examples of
• 31:47
  Speaker 7: Trump using his office for personal and political gain. And
• 31:49
  Speaker 7: if we start looking, we're going to find those. And
• 31:52
  Speaker 7: so I worry a little bit about narrowing it. In
• 31:55
  Speaker 7: terms of timing, I think it should be spread out
• 31:59
  Speaker 7: over a significant period of time. It should be sort
• 32:01
  Speaker 7: of storyboarded out so that every time it feels like
• 32:03
  Speaker 7: the story is about to peter out, we have another
• 32:06
  Speaker 7: you know, rock star witness. So it's the whistleblower at
• 32:08
  Speaker 7: one point. And then 10 to 14 days later, it's Giuliani.
• 32:11
  Speaker 7: And then it's Mick Mulvaney about how the calls got classified.
• 32:15
  Speaker 7: And then it's Pompeo. And so you do it that way.
• 32:17
  Speaker 7: And I, you know, I've said this to you guys before,
• 32:19
  Speaker 7: but I would, I would do it so that if
• 32:21
  Speaker 7: you're going to have the vote, you have it right
• 32:24
  Speaker 7: before or right around Trump's State of the Union.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Like, let's make him do that for him. Yeah.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Lovett, what do you think? very excited for Rudy Giuliani
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: to testify. Amazing.
• 32:36
  Speaker 6: He's a bit like Sean Connery when he's in the
• 32:38
  Speaker 6: plane in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. You know,
• 32:40
  Speaker 6: he's like manning the gun and trying to fire it
• 32:42
  Speaker 6: at the enemies and he catches that, catches, you get it.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: He shoots his own plane. There was a little debate
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: about this. Do we all think Rudy should testify and
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: people like Rudy? Because we all saw the Corey Lewandowski hearing.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: It was a fucking circus. Rudy's going to be, you know,
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: we've seen him all over Fox. He's going to be
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: very Rudy. He's going to show up.
• 33:01
  Speaker 7: You know, That's why we should schedule a hearing at 7pm.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Rudy should be scheduled at his favorite bar during happy hour.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: I think that every time Rudy Giuliani's gone on Fox News,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: he's coughed up a new piece of information. The fact
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: that he's going on Fox as of tonight, holding up
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: his old man's cell phone with a giant font and
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: showing texts from senior State Department officials means that those
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: officials in the entire State Department are now implicated. My
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: concern would be If I'm in the House, I want
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: to figure out how to drag out their end of
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: the process for as long as humanly possible, because our
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: goal here is to make sure that every single person
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: in the country understands what the president did, all the
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: abuses of power, all the way that he's wasting their
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: taxpayer dollars manipulating our foreign policy for personal gain. But
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: then I'm very concerned that the minute this thing gets
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: to the Senate, Mitch McConnell calls a vote, shuts it down,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: ends it. There's no trial. There's no process over there. Like, I...
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: think that McConnell will try to Merrick Garland this thing
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: and just make it go away. Yeah, I think in
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: terms of also focus, I think.
• 34:11
  Speaker 6: It's worth thinking of the Ukraine story as a kind
• 34:14
  Speaker 6: of super crime, like a Gundam wing of crimes that
• 34:17
  Speaker 6: Trump has committed in that it has it all. You know,
• 34:21
  Speaker 6: there's foreign interference. And if you want to talk about
• 34:23
  Speaker 6: foreign interference, there's a pattern involving Mueller. It has corruption
• 34:28
  Speaker 6: and the corruption of the government because he's illegally using
• 34:31
  Speaker 6: You know the State Department and other organs of foreign
• 34:34
  Speaker 6: policy for his own personal ends It has obstruction and
• 34:38
  Speaker 6: the cover-up of these documents. It sort of captures its anti-democratic.
• 34:41
  Speaker 6: It has all the elements and by the way in
• 34:44
  Speaker 6: the reference to Zelensky staying at Trump's hotel you have
• 34:48
  Speaker 6: emoluments like the this somehow manages to capture all the
• 34:53
  Speaker 6: various in ways in which Donald Trump has been a
• 34:54
  Speaker 6: corrupt and and criminal president and so Whether it's focused
• 34:59
  Speaker 6: on Ukraine or not, the goal to me is to
• 35:01
  Speaker 6: make sure in how we describe it, we capture it
• 35:04
  Speaker 6: in the bigness and scale of what it is, the
• 35:06
  Speaker 6: subversion of American democracy and the corruption of our institutions.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: So I think as Democrats, our dream for impeachment has
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: been you know, wall-to-wall televised hearings for as long as
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: possible about Trump's crimes. From a media perspective, as someone
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: who has covered politics for a long time at CNN,
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: you should follow her now, at Jessica Yellen on Instagram.
• 35:33
  Speaker 7: Thank you, John.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Where you continue to do a lot of news there.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: Like, what would the news, like, when would the news
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: get bored?
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: When would the media get bored with impeachment hearings?
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: Or as long as there are hearings, would they cover
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: it nonstop for like the next five, six, seven months?
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: They have to keep changing the topic. I think that
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: they'd get bored within three weeks, depending how you'd need
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: Dan's communication strategy.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: We look for a fucking plane for like three months.
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: Well, you have to introduce some mystery element. Just add
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: a missing plane. But there's no reason this couldn't, in theory,
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: start with Ukraine and then end up in an investigation
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: of the Middle East or an investigation of other contacts.
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: And if you keep changing the topic and the focus,
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: I think you could re-engage media interest. I think, though,
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: if it stays on one topic for a while, in
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: this kind of short attention span universe, people.
• 36:26
  Speaker 7: I think that's exactly right, which is why you've got
• 36:29
  Speaker 7: to sort of storyboard this out in a way that
• 36:31
  Speaker 7: continues to keep the audience interested. The thing is, though.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: No, this is right.
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: This is a show.
• 36:37
  Speaker 7: It's like you need the writers from The Wire to
• 36:39
  Speaker 7: come work for the Democrats in Congress.
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: It's counter-programming.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: It's counter-programming.
• 36:44
  Speaker 6: And like most prestige dramas, there will be a bit
• 36:47
  Speaker 6: of a kind of lag in the middle.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: And will they stick the finale?
• 36:52
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: You don't know.
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: But there's an argument for letting it go till October.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: October 2020. That's quite an impeachment hearing.
• 37:01
  Speaker 7: But like what is different, like in the old pre-Trump world, right,
• 37:05
  Speaker 7: where Cable was constantly changing topics. Like, yes, Tommy's right.
• 37:09
  Speaker 7: They covered the missing plane forever. And then that came
• 37:12
  Speaker 7: to an end, so they needed a new missing plane
• 37:13
  Speaker 7: or something like that. The thing is, for four years now,
• 37:16
  Speaker 7: we've been covering the Trump story nonstop. That is the
• 37:20
  Speaker 7: primary thing on cable news in America. And because it's
• 37:22
  Speaker 7: the primary thing on cable news, it's also the primary
• 37:24
  Speaker 7: thing that is shaping the social media conversation. And this
• 37:28
  Speaker 7: would be the first opportunities for Democrats to dictate the
• 37:30
  Speaker 7: terms of that conversation. It's not going to be necessarily
• 37:33
  Speaker 7: about what Trump tweeted or what crazy thing he said
• 37:35
  Speaker 7: or who he promised to execute. It'll be about how
• 37:38
  Speaker 7: Democrats tell the story about his crime and corruption. And
• 37:42
  Speaker 7: so we at least would get a chance to become
• 37:45
  Speaker 7: America's assignment editor for some period of months.
• 37:49
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: What were you going to say?
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: Well, I still think that within the one story that's Trump,
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: there's still shiny object coverage. And so you need to
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: keep changing what the shiny object is. And the Democrats
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: did not do a very good job in that Corey
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: Lewandowski hearing.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: No, that got me nervous about impeachment overall. I think today,
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: you know, so Adam Schiff is going to be running
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: the impeachment process, at least at the outset, on Ukraine.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: I think he did a great job today. And so,
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: you know, we'll see what he does. But look, I think.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: The goal here, right? Like the Democrats should act like
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: the goal is of course, to get enough Senate Republicans
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: to vote, to convict the president, right? Like we don't
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: think it's going to happen, but we should, we should
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: go for that. But the real, the jurors are not
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: just the senators. The jurors here are the American people
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: who get to vote in November of 2020. And the,
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: the reason that we have been pushing for impeachment hearings
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: for so long is because this is an opportunity to
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: get the attention of the nation focused on Trump's crimes
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: and corruption and criminality and everything he's done wrong because
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: he is able to take the microphone so often with
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: his tweets, with everything else he does, he's able to
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: capture media attention. This is the one way, possibly the
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: only way, that the Democratic Party, other than our presidential candidate,
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: who's going to have challenges on her or his own,
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: to grab the microphone and the media spotlight for an
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: extended period of time. So the hope would be, that
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: if there are months and months of impeachment hearings that
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: are driving Trump fucking crazy, and there is witness after
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: witness telling a story, not only of him you know
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: promoting his own personal and financial gain with the ukraine
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: scandal but with emoluments with his hotels with the muller
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: with the obstruction stuff if we tell this story over
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: and over again then the impeachment hearings are carrying the
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: negative story about trump and our candidate who's running for
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: president is carrying the positive story about their vision that's
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: how we can win in 2020 like and i And.
• 39:47
  Speaker 7: We have to be crystal fucking clear about what WID means, right?
• 39:51
  Speaker 7: There are all these polls out today which show impeachment's
• 39:53
  Speaker 7: becoming more popular, which is great. I feel good about that.
• 39:56
  Speaker 7: But honestly, we shouldn't give a shit. Those polls are
• 40:00
  Speaker 7: more favorable to impeachment now because Democrats who were playing
• 40:04
  Speaker 7: the role of self-appointed pundits have now come around to
• 40:07
  Speaker 7: the idea that impeaching Trump.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: Is good politics.
• 40:10
  Speaker 7: We do not care what the people in the MAGA
• 40:13
  Speaker 7: hats at the New York Times favorite bar in Pennsylvania
• 40:17
  Speaker 7: think about this.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: We don't care what the big polls say.
• 40:20
  Speaker 7: We care ultimately about what 10 to 15% of the
• 40:22
  Speaker 7: electorate in three to six states care about.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: That is it.
• 40:27
  Speaker 7: That is how we should judge success. That's how we
• 40:28
  Speaker 7: should think it. The filter through which we should think
• 40:30
  Speaker 7: about it. Everything else, the liberals who are angry that
• 40:34
  Speaker 7: we're not doing enough, the moderates who are shaking in
• 40:36
  Speaker 7: their boots, none of that matters. We care about whether
• 40:39
  Speaker 7: we are Taking information that can change someone's vote and
• 40:42
  Speaker 7: putting it that they would not otherwise get and putting
• 40:44
  Speaker 7: it in front of them. We know this from the
• 40:45
  Speaker 7: poll we did in Wisconsin last month, which is voters
• 40:49
  Speaker 7: actually know a lot about Trump, but they know very
• 40:51
  Speaker 7: little about the things that affect their decision. If you
• 40:53
  Speaker 7: tell them about how he's funneling taxpayer dollars into his pocket,
• 40:57
  Speaker 7: they are 30 points less likely to support him. If
• 40:59
  Speaker 7: you tell them about how he wants to cut Medicare,
• 41:01
  Speaker 7: they're 30 points less to support him. So this is
• 41:03
  Speaker 7: an opportunity to put that information in front of the
• 41:05
  Speaker 7: voters that matter. And that's all we care about.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: The complicating factor, obviously, is that we have this Democratic
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: primary happening right now. And if there is a big, splashy,
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: all-consuming set of impeachment hearings, it will be very challenging
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: for them to navigate this. I mean, you might wonder
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: if this will kind of freeze the race where it
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: is because no one can get oxygen anymore. And if
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: you're Elizabeth Warren, you're now kind of in the lead.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Or if you're Joe Biden, you're feeling pretty good about it. Okay.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: There's always the Biden stands or the Warren stands to
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: come out for that. But yeah, I mean, like they're
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: all going to the people who are not that top
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: tier now have an even harder job of breaking through
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: and making news and getting noticed and covered. So there's,
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: you know, you're not going to hear from them until
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: the next debate. Probably.
• 41:52
  Speaker 6: Yeah. I also just one other small thing, which is
• 41:55
  Speaker 6: I have actually been surprised just the past couple of
• 41:57
  Speaker 6: days about just how uncomfortable a lot of Republicans are
• 42:01
  Speaker 6: talking about this. You have your stone cold creeps, your
• 42:06
  Speaker 6: cruises and your cottons, and they'll say whatever.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: But even in that, your Rubios.
• 42:11
  Speaker 6: But even Rubio, he's hiding from the news.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: He said more questions than answers.
• 42:16
  Speaker 7: Which is what it says on the Rubio family crest.
• 42:23
  Speaker 6: But even Kennedy in that clip, right, he's on television
• 42:28
  Speaker 6: to defend the president. He's attacking all the Democrats and
• 42:30
  Speaker 6: all the rest. But when he's asked about Rudy Giuliani,
• 42:32
  Speaker 6: he's like, I'm not defending Rudy Giuliani. He's not fucking
• 42:34
  Speaker 6: with Rudy. And you see a lot of Republicans, even
• 42:36
  Speaker 6: on the Intelligence Committee, saying, I'm reserving judgment.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: I'm holding back.
• 42:39
  Speaker 6: A bunch of people, a bunch of senators found themselves
• 42:42
  Speaker 6: unable to find the time to read the eight-page complaint.
• 42:45
  Speaker 6: I mean, this isn't the Mueller report, which was hundreds
• 42:47
  Speaker 6: of pages and very dense and pretty obtuse.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: Big footnotes, too.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: Come on. Come on, Bob.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: But.
• 42:51
  Speaker 6: This is eight pages of clearly digestible information that they
• 42:55
  Speaker 6: know they cannot allow into their brains.
• 42:59
  Speaker 7: I would say one more thing on this, which is important,
• 43:01
  Speaker 7: which is this is probably the tip of the iceberg.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Right?
• 43:05
  Speaker 7: There's a lot more to learn about Ukraine, but there's
• 43:08
  Speaker 7: this other secret thing that's taking time out that's happening
• 43:11
  Speaker 7: in Washington, which is this is not the only whistleblower.
• 43:15
  Speaker 7: There is a whistleblower from the IRS who claims to
• 43:19
  Speaker 7: have evidence of Trump interfering into the quote-unquote audit into
• 43:23
  Speaker 7: his taxes. And that person has been at the Ways
• 43:26
  Speaker 7: and Means Committee for months now. But we have heard
• 43:29
  Speaker 7: nothing from that person yet. And so you do want
• 43:32
  Speaker 7: to know what this person thinks because the president messing
• 43:35
  Speaker 7: with the IRS would be exactly what happened in Watergate
• 43:40
  Speaker 7: and what other things there are in the government because
• 43:42
  Speaker 7: just the way this crime was committed and the way
• 43:44
  Speaker 7: it was done so in the open suggests that there's
• 43:47
  Speaker 7: so much more like this. and it's gonna take time
• 43:50
  Speaker 7: to find it, but when we show that information to people,
• 43:53
  Speaker 7: it could have a very devastating effect both for Trump
• 43:56
  Speaker 7: in 2020 and the endangered Republican senators who are gonna
• 43:59
  Speaker 7: be forced to decide between voting against the base of
• 44:04
  Speaker 7: their party or joining a political protection racket for a
• 44:07
  Speaker 7: corrupt president.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: That is such an important point. It is not just
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: Susan Collins, Cory Gardner, did you vote to impeach Trump
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: or not? It's Susan Collins, are you running for re-election saying,
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: that you think it's okay for the President of the
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: United States to trade arms for election assistance with a
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: foreign government. Because if you think that's okay, great. Then
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: you can vote against impeachment and that's how you're gonna run.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: You stand with the President and you think it's fine
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: to trade arms for election assistance. But if you don't,
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: then you can vote for impeachment, right? And I think
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: she has to make that decision. Cory Gardner has to
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: make that decision. Martha McSally has to make that decision.
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: Tom Tillis seems like he's already made the decision because
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: he was like, it's a fucking witch hunt, whatever. So
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: he's made his calculation.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: Joni Ernst?
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: Joni Ernst in Iowa.
• 44:50
  Speaker 7: Who has made that decision as well?
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: No, she is doing the full-on duck and cover. She's like,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: if you want to ask me about ethanol, I'd love
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: to talk about that. That's a direct quote.
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: No, I think it is a... I realize none of
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: us really expect a lot of Republican senators to stand
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: up and be courageous and take the right vote here.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: But.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: I think we should make the case to them as
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: if we're trying to get them on board. And I
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: don't think you go to the American people with an
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: impeachment hearing and be like, we know it's a lost cause,
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: but we're just running through the traps anyway. I think
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: you go to it being like, we are going to
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: make a case to every American and every politician, Democrat
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: and Republican, that the president has betrayed the country. That's
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: the case we're making.
• 45:29
  Speaker 6: And I think that there's an impulse to punditry, which is, Yeah,
• 45:33
  Speaker 6: the Senate's never going to convict. The Senate's never going
• 45:35
  Speaker 6: to be convicted. Maybe it is unlikely. Maybe it is unlikely.
• 45:38
  Speaker 6: But that's doing their work for them. Taking away the
• 45:41
  Speaker 6: surprise of them having to vote for or against this
• 45:45
  Speaker 6: helps them. It helps them get away with siding with Trump,
• 45:49
  Speaker 6: which is the easier thing for them to do.
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: Elizabeth Warren said this a long time ago when she
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: talked about impeachment. She's like, I want them all on record.
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: Where do you stand? In history, where are you going
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: to stand on this? Get on record now.
• 46:00
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: Last, last point on this. Last, last point on this.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: If all of this stresses you out and makes you
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: more anxious about the 2020 election, go to votesaveamerica.com slash
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: fair fight. We have raised, you guys have raised, the
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: listeners of the show have raised $ 850, 000 for Stacey Abrams,
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: the baddest motherfucker in the Democratic Party, who is working
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: to fight voter suppression and make sure that everybody can
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: get to the polls. So we got to hit a million.
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: We're close. We're close.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: Ten bucks.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: Everyone here.
• 46:34
  Speaker 6: Ten bucks.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: Ten bucks tonight.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: Come on.
• 46:39
  Speaker 6: I'd like to see your phones lighting up your goddamn faces.
• 46:43
  Speaker 6: Take out your phones.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: I did this. I still see a lot of dark faces.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you. Oh, look at the graphic. There
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: it is.
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: Oh, nice. Do it.
• 46:56
  Speaker 11: Okay.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: When we come back, less browbeating. When we come back.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: We'll have Tommy's interview with Candace Elder.
• 47:13
  Speaker 7: Hey, we're back.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: Our guest tonight is a housing activist, the founder and
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: CEO of the East Oakland Collective, and she was just
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: named to the Roots 2019 list of the 100 most
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: influential African Americans in the country Candice Elder. Thank you
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: so much for being here.
• 47:47
  Speaker 8: Thank you. It's my pleasure.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: So I was doing some research tonight and I saw
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: a 2018 HUD report that said On any given night
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: in 2018, about a half a million people were homeless
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: in the United States. A third of them were unsheltered,
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: meaning that they lived on the streets in an abandoned building,
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: but not in some sort of facility that was designed
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: to take care of folks. And that a quarter of
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: the homeless population in the country is here in California,
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: especially in cities like LA, San Diego, the Bay Area.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: So I know we're talking about hundreds of thousands of people.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: They have unique stories and circumstances, but Are there main
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: drivers or causes of homelessness and reasons why the crisis
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: is so acute here in California?
• 48:33
  Speaker 11: The crisis is really acute here in California because of
• 48:36
  Speaker 11: the cost of living. It is one of the expensive
• 48:39
  Speaker 11: states in the United States to live. So the cost
• 48:42
  Speaker 11: of living is increasing. The cost of housing is increasing.
• 48:47
  Speaker 11: And what we're seeing is, but the minimum wage is,
• 48:52
  Speaker 11: you know, barely moving. You know, people actually need a
• 48:56
  Speaker 11: living wage in order to be able to afford a studio,
• 48:59
  Speaker 11: you know, in California. So that is driving. People are
• 49:06
  Speaker 11: losing their homes. You know, they are being evicted out
• 49:09
  Speaker 11: of their apartment buildings and they're forced to live on
• 49:12
  Speaker 11: the street. We're also seeing an increased number of people
• 49:15
  Speaker 11: living in their cars and people living in their RVs.
• 49:19
  Speaker 11: We're seeing whole institutions. families, you know, who are forced
• 49:22
  Speaker 11: to live in their vans. Many of those folks actually,
• 49:25
  Speaker 11: you know, reside on my street. I wake up every
• 49:27
  Speaker 11: day and go outside to at least five vehicle dwellers
• 49:31
  Speaker 11: every morning.
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: So I do want to talk about the Trump administration's
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: policies and some of the things the federal government's doing,
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: but You know, we live in California. This is a
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: state run by Democrats, right? The governor's a Democrat, the legislature,
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: most of the mayors. I don't think they're bad people.
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: I think they care about helping people, but clearly their
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: policies have failed. And I mean, there was a recent
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: United Nations report that specifically called out San Francisco and
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: Oakland for human rights abuses because of the way the
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: homeless population was treated. Why are the current policies failing
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: under liberal administrations? And what do you think cities should
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: be doing differently?
• 50:14
  Speaker 11: So the UN called out the Bay Area as being
• 50:18
  Speaker 11: human rights violators for the condition that people are living in.
• 50:22
  Speaker 11: So California elected officials have been slow to address the problem.
• 50:27
  Speaker 8: We are in a crisis. Governor Newsom just today.
• 50:32
  Speaker 11: Passed a package of bills that sound very promising and
• 50:36
  Speaker 11: that will help, but where were these bills, you know, under,
• 50:40
  Speaker 11: you know, different leaders a while ago? You know, we
• 50:44
  Speaker 11: are extremely behind the curve. We're paying catch up to
• 50:47
  Speaker 11: the policies. We need to pass renter's protection. You know,
• 50:50
  Speaker 11: because we can't also forget about preventing homelessness. You know,
• 50:54
  Speaker 11: making sure that the 47 increase in Oakland since 2017
• 50:59
  Speaker 11: does not balloon and explode even more than that. So
• 51:03
  Speaker 11: what we're seeing on both sides, whether they're Democrat, whether
• 51:06
  Speaker 11: they're Republican, we know whether you're liberal or conservative, is
• 51:10
  Speaker 11: that we need more compassion. We need to treat this
• 51:13
  Speaker 11: like urgency and we need to treat it as a
• 51:15
  Speaker 11: human's right issue.
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: So our president made a visit to California recently and
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: made clear that his administration is waging war on the
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: homeless population. I mean, the Council of Economic Advisers proposed
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: deregulation and more policing as their solution to homelessness. Trump,
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: the kind-hearted man that he is, said, quote, We have
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: people living in our best highways, our best streets, our
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: best entrances to buildings where people in those buildings pay
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: tremendous taxes, clearly showing that he cares more about these
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: objects than the people. How worried are you that there
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: might be an intervention by the federal government that could
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: make the work you do even harder?
• 52:06
  Speaker 11: Very worried, especially when you have rhetoric coming like that,
• 52:08
  Speaker 11: you know, from not my president, right? We, you know,
• 52:16
  Speaker 11: from what he's been saying, he wants to, like, put
• 52:19
  Speaker 11: everybody into these, you know, mega, you know, facilities, and
• 52:24
  Speaker 11: we know his track record of that, right? So we
• 52:27
  Speaker 11: definitely don't want any more, like, huge federal facilities, you know?
• 52:32
  Speaker 11: We actually need to follow the UN recommendation as to
• 52:35
  Speaker 11: You upgrade the environment and the circumstances of people now
• 52:40
  Speaker 11: until you're able as a government to offer them adequate housing.
• 52:44
  Speaker 11: If you're not able to do that, then you need
• 52:46
  Speaker 11: to protect the folks while they're on the street before
• 52:49
  Speaker 11: they suffer anymore. So I don't trust Trump at all.
• 52:54
  Speaker 11: But what he can do is give more federal funding
• 52:57
  Speaker 11: to states like California and leave it up to the
• 53:02
  Speaker 11: counties to actually implement housing programs. Because what he really
• 53:07
  Speaker 11: wants to do is, and what he has been doing,
• 53:09
  Speaker 11: is showing that he's cutting social services, he's cutting housing programs,
• 53:14
  Speaker 11: because a lot of people who are homeless, they have
• 53:16
  Speaker 11: housing vouchers.
• 53:19
  Speaker 8: They are on waiting lists.
• 53:20
  Speaker 11: They've been on waiting lists for housing for years, but
• 53:22
  Speaker 11: there is not enough deeply affordable housing.
• 53:24
  Speaker 8: So put that money into affordable housing.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: So obviously, the problem of increased housing costs doesn't just
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: lead to homelessness. It can drive people out of the
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: homes they live in for years. It can lead to gentrification.
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: Folks living in the Bay Area in particular have seen
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: housing prices skyrocket in the last decade plus. What do
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: you think that the local governments can do to sort
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: of help deal with these skyrocketing prices? And what do
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: you think that some of the companies, in particular technology
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: companies in the Bay Area, what can they do to
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: help solve a problem that many would argue they helped create?
• 54:06
  Speaker 11: So on a local level, we can have the government
• 54:12
  Speaker 11: should build deeply affordable housing. And I really want to
• 54:15
  Speaker 11: stress that distinction of deeply affordable because because the cost
• 54:19
  Speaker 11: of living is so high, affordable is it's a larger
• 54:23
  Speaker 11: range now. So affordable could be in some Bay Area cities,
• 54:27
  Speaker 11: you know, over $ 150, 000. But so it still pushes out
• 54:31
  Speaker 11: the extremely, extremely low income or no to low income residents.
• 54:36
  Speaker 11: So we need to build deeply affordable housing. We need
• 54:38
  Speaker 11: to look at non-traditional housing. We want to put people
• 54:41
  Speaker 11: into these cookie cutter models of everyone needs a studio
• 54:46
  Speaker 11: or an apartment. But it takes like five to 10
• 54:49
  Speaker 11: years to build one affordable housing unit. So while we
• 54:53
  Speaker 11: were waiting for zoning and to get permits and to
• 54:58
  Speaker 11: get funding for affordable housing, People are still dying on
• 55:01
  Speaker 11: the streets. So why not look at tiny homes? Why
• 55:04
  Speaker 11: not look at container homes? Look at stuff that we
• 55:06
  Speaker 11: can house people in right now. My organization and my colleagues,
• 55:13
  Speaker 11: we try to build tiny homes and then the city
• 55:15
  Speaker 11: tears them down because they're not built to code regulations.
• 55:20
  Speaker 11: So I'm glad Governor Newsom passed today one of his
• 55:25
  Speaker 11: bills is actually will lessen those regulations while we're in
• 55:31
  Speaker 11: this crisis. So some of that code doesn't have to
• 55:35
  Speaker 11: apply to these tiny homes or to these container homes
• 55:37
  Speaker 11: because we need housing now. Oh, and the last part
• 55:42
  Speaker 11: of your question about tech companies. Yeah, tech companies are
• 55:47
  Speaker 11: part of the reason, you know, why we're in this crisis.
• 55:51
  Speaker 11: other than being mean and kind of being like, don't
• 55:53
  Speaker 11: move here. But we tech companies, I think, can invest in,
• 56:00
  Speaker 11: you know, more pipelines to STEM jobs, invest in more
• 56:06
  Speaker 11: working class jobs, you know, even outside of STEM. So,
• 56:10
  Speaker 11: and also invest in, like I said, once again, the
• 56:13
  Speaker 11: recurring theme of deeply affordable housing, you know, like kind
• 56:16
  Speaker 11: of put your money where your mouth is.
• 56:17
  Speaker 8: Let's do it, folks.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: Agreed. So I bet that everybody in this room has
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: walked by someone living on the street. Maybe you see
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: the same folks every day and you feel gutted by
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: what you can see that that person is going through,
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: but you don't know what to do. You should give
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: someone money. You should get food. I mean, are there
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: things you think that people can do day to day
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: in their own lives to help folks who are experiencing homelessness?
• 56:50
  Speaker 8: Definitely.
• 56:51
  Speaker 11: So folks, I know sometimes are apprehensive to give change,
• 56:55
  Speaker 11: but if you do give change, give it freely, no
• 56:57
  Speaker 11: matter what the person is actually going to do with it.
• 56:59
  Speaker 8: Like that doesn't matter. The point is like for.
• 57:01
  Speaker 11: This temporary moment, you are giving them something that they
• 57:05
  Speaker 11: are going to use to their benefit. And I always
• 57:08
  Speaker 11: encourage people, even the most, the stuff that we take
• 57:11
  Speaker 11: for granted, toilet tissue and lotion and toothbrushes carried in
• 57:14
  Speaker 11: your car. you know, carry granola bars, carry water. You know,
• 57:19
  Speaker 11: it's been extremely hot in the Bay Area recently. You know,
• 57:22
  Speaker 11: pass out water to people. So the person that you
• 57:24
  Speaker 11: see on the median in the street, the person you
• 57:28
  Speaker 11: see on the sidewalk or the bus stop, you can
• 57:30
  Speaker 11: easily just hand them a bottle of water, a granola bar.
• 57:32
  Speaker 11: You can make hygiene kits, keep them in your car
• 57:34
  Speaker 11: and hand them out. And support organizations who are in
• 57:39
  Speaker 11: the trenches and who are making a difference. Like, we help,
• 57:42
  Speaker 11: you know, coordinate building tiny homes. It's like, sponsor a
• 57:45
  Speaker 11: tiny home, you know, come out to a build day,
• 57:49
  Speaker 11: you know, and put some sweat equity in.
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: So that's my last question. Tell us, tell us about
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: the East Oakland Collective. What is it that you guys
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: do and how can folks here and listening back home
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: help out?
• 58:02
  Speaker 11: So the East Oakland Collective, we do racial and economic
• 58:05
  Speaker 11: equity work in East Oakland. We are most known for
• 58:09
  Speaker 11: the work that we do with and on behalf of
• 58:11
  Speaker 11: the unhoused.
• 58:12
  Speaker 8: We do advocacy policy and organizing work. We are in
• 58:15
  Speaker 8: the trenches.
• 58:15
  Speaker 11: Sometimes when other larger nonprofits have a lot of red tape,
• 58:19
  Speaker 11: we don't. So we are in the homeless encampments three
• 58:25
  Speaker 11: to four times a week. We are empowering, actually, people
• 58:29
  Speaker 11: who are unhoused I use the term on house because
• 58:32
  Speaker 11: that covers the wide spectrum of people who are suffering
• 58:35
  Speaker 11: from housing insecurity. empowering them to be able to advocate
• 58:39
  Speaker 11: on behalf of themselves, you know, in their family, and
• 58:41
  Speaker 11: to upgrade their environment and their living situation.
• 58:45
  Speaker 8: A lot of times.
• 58:46
  Speaker 11: People just need help, people just need the resources. We
• 58:50
  Speaker 11: have a large-scale feeding program called Feed the Hood, and
• 58:53
  Speaker 11: since September 2017, we have distributed 30,000 lunches and 30,000
• 58:58
  Speaker 11: hygiene kits to every single encampment across Oakland, and sometimes
• 59:03
  Speaker 11: we go into Berkeley and San Francisco. because there are
• 59:07
  Speaker 11: 90 to 100 encampments.
• 59:10
  Speaker 8: In Oakland.
• 59:11
  Speaker 11: So we are actually on an on-call, cell phone basis
• 59:16
  Speaker 11: with our encampment leaders, and we really make sure that
• 59:20
  Speaker 11: their voice is heard while we are working on those long-term,
• 59:25
  Speaker 11: even short-term, immediate solutions.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: Wow, that's amazing. Candice Elder, thank you so much for
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: the work you're doing. Thank you for being here tonight.
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: Really appreciate it. Thank you so.
• 59:40
  Speaker 5: Much.
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: And we're back! You guys want to play a game?
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: Silicon Valley. You gotta let it go. They will not forget.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 6: It was 20 minutes ago, it is in the past.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 6: Silicon Valley, the wellspring of a technological revolution that has
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 6: transformed our society, a place where the best and brightest
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 6: men who skip their proms to write code for an
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 6: app that sweeps porn sites for the most symmetrical faces.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: Microdose LSD.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 6: And ponder the big questions like, what if everyone on
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 6: Earth was connected to one another? And what if I
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 6: had all the money? But as the power of the
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 6: tech industry has grown, Americans have begun to ask their
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 6: representatives in state houses and Congress to hold these companies accountable,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 6: whether it's Uber defining its drivers as independent contractors, Facebook's
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 6: failure to protect user privacy, or the monopolistic behavior of
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 6: companies like Amazon and Google. But there's one challenge legislatures
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 6: There's one challenge legislators aren't always the most, shall we say,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 6: there's one challenge. Listen, I'm a gay person who did
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 6: a show.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: At the Castro. I had a night. Fine. But there's
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: one challenge. Are you kidding? I did have a night.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 6: Shut up.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: Shut up.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 6: They believed for a second that I had a knife.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 6: I watched two episodes of The Great British Baking Show.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: Did that have the ring of truth? The baking part, though? Yeah,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: that had a lot of truth.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 6: Legislators aren't always the most, shall we say, tech savvy.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 6: I'm not calling anyone old, and age is just a number,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 6: but let's just say their eyes are exploding. Regardless of age,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 6: many members of Congress have no idea how technology works,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 6: and when it comes time to tackle the complex, important
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 6: issues involving regulation, it can be hard to watch, like
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 6: the episode of NCIS Uncle Richard can't get to play
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 6: on his Microsoft Surface with the password taped to the front.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 6: That's why tonight we're going to play Can You Please
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 6: Print the Internet for Me So I Can Read It
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 6: Before the Hearing.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: Would anyone out there like to play? Hi, what's your name? Jason.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 7: Jason.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: Are you in the tech industry, sir? I am. Is
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: that a problem?
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 7: Let's not boo him.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: Come on, people. What? What do you got in your pocket?
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: The typewriter? We're all in the tech industry. You guys
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: going to mimeograph? What are you talking about?
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 6: I'm sorry.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: What's your name?
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: Jason.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: Jason.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: You ready to play?
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: I'm ready.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: All right. Here's how it works. We're going to read quotes.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 6: Three of those quotes will be real quotes from politicians
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 6: about the internet.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: One will be fake. Pick the fake one. Yeah, pick
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: the fake one. Yeah, yeah. Crushing it.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 6: Good, good.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: Question one. Which of the following is a fake quote?
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: The following quote is from President Donald Trump. We're losing
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: a lot of people because of the internet. We have
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: to do something. We have to go see Bill Gates
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: and a lot of different people that really understand what's happening.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: We have to talk to them maybe in certain areas
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: Closing that internet up in some way.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: Or is it B?
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: The following quote is from Senator Orrin Hatch. When it
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: comes to computer, I'm team printer.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: Or is it C? These are all so believable. The
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: following quote is from President George W. Bush. Will the
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: highways on the internet become more few? Or is it D?
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 7: The following quote is from Vice President Joe Biden. If
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 7: you agree with me, go to Joe 30330 and help
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 7: me in this fight.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: What do you think?
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 7: I'm going with Dan.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: No, that was Joe Biden. It was B.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 6: They're all ridiculous though.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: What?
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 7: You're looking for the fake quote.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: You're looking for the fake one.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: They're all ridiculous. Benefit of the doubt.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 6: Question two. Which of the following is a fake quote?
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: The following quote is from Senator Ted Stevens. The internet
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: is all around us. It's in wires, but it's in
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: the air. Data flying through this chamber. Whoosh. But can
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: we grab it from the air?
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Or is it B?
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: The following quote is from Senator Ted Stevens. They want
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: the Internet is not something you just dump something on.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: It's not a truck.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: It's a series of tubes. Or is it C? The
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: following quote is from Senator Ted Stevens. I just the
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: other day got an internet, was sent by my staff
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday. I just
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: got it at yesterday.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 11: Why?
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: Because it got tangled up with all these things going
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: on the internet commercially. Or is it D?
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 7: The following quote is from Senator Ted Stevens. What you
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 7: do is you just go to a place on the
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 7: internet and you order your movie. And guess what? You
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 7: can order 10 of them delivered to you and the
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 7: delivery charge is free. 10 of them streaming across the internet.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 7: And what happens to your own personal internet?
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: Which is the fake quote? What do you think? Tommy.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: I'm going with Tommy. No, it was John's. It was A.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: It was A. That's real? The A was the fake one. Yeah. No,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: he didn't know about the internet. Did you know that Ted.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 7: Stevens was the senator in charge of the internet?
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: I did. I remember. Then he passed away.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: He's dead, right?
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 11: R.I.P.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: R.I.P.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 6: That's why I put that question in the middle.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: It seemed wrong to end on it because he's dead.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 6: Question three. I don't know why it did, though. It
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 6: feels like it needs to be in the middle.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: Question three. Which of the following is fake? Is it A?
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: Representative Louie Gohmert said the following to the CEO of Google. Quote,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: we do a search and we get Wikipedia. My chief
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: of staff went on, she told me, every night for
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: two weeks and put proper, honest information with proper annotations
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: and Wikipedia's liberal editors around the world would knock it
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: out every day. Again, he said this to the CEO
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: of Google, a company that has nothing to do with Wikipedia.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: Or as it be.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 4: Representative Steve Chabot said the following to Google's CEO. I
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: do a weekly blog, and a while back, Republicans in
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 4: the House passed legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare. When
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 4: I was writing my blog about that, I Googled American
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: Health Care Act, and virtually every article was an attack
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: on our bill. It wasn't until you got to the
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: third or fourth page of search results before you found
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: anything remotely positive about our bill. How do you explain
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: this apparent bias on Google's part against conservative policies?
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: Or is it C? Representative Steve King, prominent incest offender,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: said the following to the CEO of Google. I have
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: a seven-year-old granddaughter who picked up her phone before the
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: election and she's playing a little game. And up on
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: there pops a picture of her grandfather. And I'm not
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: going to say into the record what kind of language
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: disease were on that picture, but I ask you, how
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: does that show up on a seven-year-old's iPhone? Or is
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: it D?
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 7: Representative Kevin McCarthy said the following to Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 7: I understand you have an incognito mode, but can we
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 7: trust it?
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 6: Is it really private?
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: That's my question.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 7: When you close that window, what folks were looking at,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 7: is it really gone? Because I'm worried about, let's say, terrorism.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: What do you think? I'm going with Dan. You got it.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: You've won the game.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: You really sold it.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 6: And a parachute gift card. Thank you for playing.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: What's it called? Thank you for playing the game.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: Thank you to Candice Elder. Thank you to Jessica Yellen.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: Thank you, San Jose.