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Did Republicans Just Lose the House? · Pod Save America

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• 1:37
  Speaker 4: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: On today's show, we'll talk about the big billionaire welfare
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: bill that just passed the House. Trump turning his meeting
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: with South Africa's president into a white genocide media presentation.
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: The most corrupt dinner in presidential history that's happening Thursday night.
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: And brand new data that finally offers some definitive conclusions
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: about why Democrats came up short in 2024. and who
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: the party has to win back in 2026 and 2028
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: and beyond. Then Dan talks to New Jersey Representative LaMonica
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: McIver about the Trump administration charging her with two felonies
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: while she was conducting congressional oversight at an immigration detention facility.
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  Speaker 4: But let's start briefly with the deeply upsetting news on
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: Wednesday night that two staffers at the Israeli embassy in Washington,
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  Speaker 4: a couple who were just days away from getting engaged,
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  Speaker 4: were shot at close range and killed. in an anti-Semitic
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  Speaker 4: attack outside an event at the Capitol Jewish Museum. The gunman,
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  Speaker 4: born and raised in Chicago, shouted, free Palestine, and posted
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  Speaker 4: a manifesto on Twitter titled, Escalate for Gaza, Bring the
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  Speaker 4: War Home. He has now been charged. The killings were
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  Speaker 4: universally condemned by elected officials and activists across the political spectrum.
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  Speaker 4: Trump posted his condolences and said that, quote, hatred and
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  Speaker 4: radicalism have no place in the USA, though some on
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  Speaker 4: the right, like Stephen Miller- White House aide called it
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  Speaker 4: an example of a, quote, growing cancer of far-left domestic terrorism.
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  Speaker 4: And here's what Republican Congressman Randy Fine said about Gaza
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  Speaker 4: when asked about the shootings on Fox.
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  Speaker 5: The fact of the matter is the Palestinian cause is
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  Speaker 5: an evil one. The only end of the conflict is
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  Speaker 5: complete and total surrender by those who support Muslim terror.
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  Speaker 5: In World War II, we did not negotiate a surrender
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  Speaker 5: with the Nazis. We did not negotiate a surrender with
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  Speaker 5: the Japanese. We nuked the Japanese twice in order to
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: get unconditional surrender.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: That needs to be the same here.
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  Speaker 4: Jesus Christ. So there's still information coming in about the
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: killings since it's early, but What do you think the
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: danger is in this moment beyond some of the gross
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: and offensive takes we have read on the internet and
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  Speaker 4: seen on Fox?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, as you pointed out, it's a deeply disturbing,
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  Speaker 2: horrific example of violent antisemitism in this country. And it's
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  Speaker 2: what we have to unite to stop in this country.
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  Speaker 2: But what is scary about it in this moment with
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  Speaker 2: this president in the White House is that it is
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: things like this. He's sensational, emotionally evocative. violent events that
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: authoritarians and fascists latch onto to use as a pretense
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: for a broad-based oppression or targeting of a certain population.
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  Speaker 2: So you can easily see that it is inherent in
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  Speaker 2: the language that Stephen Miller used that you quoted, that
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  Speaker 2: this can be used as a way to go after,
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  Speaker 2: as the Trump administration has frankly already been doing, the
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  Speaker 2: larger Palestinian rights movement in this country, the larger almost
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: entirely nonviolent, peaceful Palestinian rights movement in this country as
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  Speaker 2: a way to go after, you know, foreign students with
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  Speaker 2: their visas, to target universities, to target organizations, to suppress
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  Speaker 2: people's freedom of speech and their freedom of assembly. And
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  Speaker 2: so that is what, like, this is sort of thing
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  Speaker 2: you can easily see Trump and his minions latching onto
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  Speaker 2: in a very dangerous way.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic attacks have been on
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: the rise for the last decade, especially since October 7th,
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  Speaker 4: not just from the extreme left, like in this instance,
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  Speaker 4: but from the far right as well. It's also true
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  Speaker 4: that people who commit political violence almost always hurt the
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: cause that they purport to care about. That's certainly true
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: for those of us who believe the massacre of innocent
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  Speaker 4: civilians in Gaza is not the answer to the massacre
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  Speaker 4: of innocent civilians in Israel on October 7th. Yair Rosenberg
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  Speaker 4: wrote a piece in the Atlantic about the killings and
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  Speaker 4: had a good line. I thought neither Palestine nor Israel
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  Speaker 4: will ever truly be free until their societies are liberated
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  Speaker 4: from megalomaniacal men who perpetrate demonic acts in their name.
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  Speaker 4: But as you said, aside from all that, the administration
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  Speaker 4: has been cynically exploiting anti-Semitism to further their own authoritarian project.
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  Speaker 4: And as you said, targeting sort of the pro-Palestinian movement nationwide,
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  Speaker 4: but also just anyone who disagrees with them, whether it's
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  Speaker 4: about Gaza or not, about any other issue. And so it's,
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  Speaker 4: you know, it's universities. And sometimes it's about protests. Sometimes
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  Speaker 4: it's not about the protests. Sometimes it's protests about Gaza.
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  Speaker 4: Sometimes it's other protests. It's whatever the protest is at
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  Speaker 4: the moment. They just don't want people who disagree with
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  Speaker 4: the administration to have the freedom to speak out and
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  Speaker 4: to organize in this country. And that is becoming very clear.
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  Speaker 4: It was clear today when the Department of Homeland Security
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  Speaker 4: sent a letter to Harvard revoking their student exchange and
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  Speaker 4: visitor program certification, which means that, to quote DHS in
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  Speaker 4: the letter, Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students and
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  Speaker 4: existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status.
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  Speaker 4: There are 6,800 international students at Harvard. That is roughly
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  Speaker 4: 27% of the student body. And imagine being one of
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  Speaker 4: those students right now, you have to what, transfer schools
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  Speaker 4: or lose your, or worried about losing your legal status.
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  Speaker 4: Now there's a judge in California who issued an injunction
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  Speaker 4: on the administration's attempt to remove legal status from international students.
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  Speaker 4: And it's a nationwide injunction. So unclear if it applies
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  Speaker 4: to this case or not, I imagine Harvard will also
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  Speaker 4: sue in this particular case. And I imagine there'll be
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  Speaker 4: an injunction here as well. Otherwise you're going to have
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  Speaker 4: a could lose their jobs and potentially lose legal status
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  Speaker 4: and be deported. But it's just one example of, you know,
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  Speaker 4: the DHS is using the protests and anti-Semitism, but that's
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  Speaker 4: not what they really want to do. They just don't
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  Speaker 4: like Harvard.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, they want to send a message to people that
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  Speaker 2: they view as their enemies.
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  Speaker 4: It's disgusting. And, you know, for the rest of us,
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  Speaker 4: whether it's a cause you care passionately about, whatever side
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  Speaker 4: of an issue you're on, recognize that the administration does
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  Speaker 4: not want to stop at pro-Palestinian protesters or media people
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  Speaker 4: that they don't like or different colleges that they don't like.
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  Speaker 4: Unless you are completely in agreement with the administration and
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  Speaker 4: never speak out against them, you are at risk from
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  Speaker 4: this administration.
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  Speaker 2: If you're one of those people who believed that freedom
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  Speaker 2: of speech was a real reason to vote for Donald
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  Speaker 2: Trump in 2024, I have some bad news for you.
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  Speaker 4: Right, right. Yeah, what a fucking joke that was. Okay,
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  Speaker 4: biggest news of the week is that in the middle
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  Speaker 4: of the night, House Republicans passed Donald Trump's economic plan
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  Speaker 4: that gives $ 1 trillion in tax cuts to the richest
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  Speaker 4: 1% of Americans. These are Americans who make over $ 1
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  Speaker 4: million a year. Just those trillion dollars in tax cuts
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  Speaker 4: are paid for by kicking 14 million Americans off their
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  Speaker 4: health insurance and cutting food assistance for nearly 11 million people,
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  Speaker 4: mostly children. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which I
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  Speaker 4: regret to inform you is the official name of the legislation.
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  Speaker 4: It's actually, I had to look, it's actually on the paper.
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  Speaker 4: Would also put nearly 700,000 jobs at risk by gutting
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  Speaker 4: clean energy tax credits. And despite all of these cuts,
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  Speaker 4: because there's other tax cuts as well, this whole bill
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  Speaker 4: would still increase the deficit by $ 3 trillion, a little
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  Speaker 4: over $ 3 trillion. The bill passed by a single vote,
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  Speaker 4: 215 to 214. Every single Democrat voted against it. Every
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  Speaker 4: single Republican voted for it. And it passed after Republicans
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  Speaker 4: made even deeper cuts and changes to win the votes
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  Speaker 4: of the hardliners in their caucus, many of whom still
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  Speaker 4: aren't happy, but got to yes after a gentle nudge
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  Speaker 4: from dear leader himself who said that a no vote would, quote,
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  Speaker 4: be the ultimate betrayal. The bill now heads to the Senate,
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  Speaker 4: where Republicans can only afford to lose three votes. You
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  Speaker 4: said last week it's the Republican moderates who always cave
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  Speaker 4: and the hardliners who always win. What'd you think of
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  Speaker 4: how this one ended up?
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  Speaker 2: That's largely how this played out. The moderates who originally
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  Speaker 2: wanted very few Medicaid changes, very little cuts to Medicaid,
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  Speaker 2: now people losing their health coverage through Medicaid, were willing
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  Speaker 2: to trade all of that away in order to get
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  Speaker 2: an increase in the cap for the state and local
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  Speaker 2: tax deduction, which mostly benefits wealthy homeowners up to $ 500, 000
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  Speaker 2: income in their states. So they traded that away for that.
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  Speaker 2: The far right deficit hawks did not get a bill
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  Speaker 2: that reduced the deficit, obviously, since they got one that
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  Speaker 2: massively increased it.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah. They overshot the runway there by a couple trillion dollars.
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  Speaker 2: Horseshoes and hand grenades, Sean. They were almost there. And
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  Speaker 2: the bill moved to the right on both Medicaid, they
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  Speaker 2: moved forward when the work requirements would go into place
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: to the end of 2026 and made more drastic the
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  Speaker 2: cuts to the clean energy tax incentives from the Inflation
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Reduction Act, which is something the moderates almost universally opposed.
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  Speaker 2: So they gave in on that. And we'll see what
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  Speaker 2: the final vote is. We'll talk about what comes next
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  Speaker 2: when the final pass is just vote. But the fact
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  Speaker 2: that it passed by one vote means that every single
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  Speaker 2: vulnerable Republican, every one of those people in a purple
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  Speaker 2: district or the ones who won a district that Kamala
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  Speaker 2: Harris won, or the deciding vote for this bill?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that the conflict between the hardliners and
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  Speaker 4: the moderates is much less important than the role of
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  Speaker 4: Donald Trump here. And I think these Republican politicians, they
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: still have their own views about policy, and they may
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: even vote according to those views when a Democratic president
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: is in office. But when Donald Trump is in office,
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  Speaker 4: the most important policy position that you have as a
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: Republican is is whatever the fuck Donald Trump believes. And
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: the fact that he could go in there and tell
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  Speaker 4: the hardliners, oh, you're all pissed. You're all threatening to,
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: to vote it down. If it doesn't cut the deficit more,
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: if we don't have deeper cuts, fuck you, you're voting
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: for the bill and told the moderates, oh, you're worried
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  Speaker 4: about losing. Yeah, whatever you lose, you lose. But let
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  Speaker 4: me tell you, you're going to have a primary. If
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  Speaker 4: you don't get on board this, like they're, they're all just,
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  Speaker 4: they'll do whatever he says.
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  Speaker 2: The part it's a call. The personality is the party.
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  Speaker 2: And they all bend the knee to one person. And
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  Speaker 2: that person has an entirely incoherent and uneducated set of
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  Speaker 2: policy priorities. He doesn't really know what he wants. He
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  Speaker 2: just wants wins. It doesn't matter what the win is.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter what the cost is. And he believes
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: he can lie about it. He can lie about the deficit.
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  Speaker 2: He can lie about the Medicaid cuts and lie about
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  Speaker 2: all of it and get away with it. So all
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  Speaker 2: he cares about is his win. What it takes to
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  Speaker 2: get there and who gets hurt along the way is
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: of no concern to him. And so these members then
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: go along. And it makes no sense. We talked about
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  Speaker 2: this for weeks. It was impossible to square the circle.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: What people wanted could not happen. Some people wanted Medicaid cuts.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Some people wanted more Medicaid cuts. Some people wanted to
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: reduce deficit. Some people wanted bigger tax cuts. And they
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: all just went in line because that's what Donald Trump wanted.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Not because he cut some deal that met in the
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: middle on various things. They just ended up going where
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: he wanted to go because they were afraid they'd lose
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: their primary. Because the primary comes before the general. If
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  Speaker 2: you lose your primary, you don't even get a chance
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  Speaker 2: to suffer the consequences in the general four-year vote to
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: kick your constituents off healthcare and food assistance to pay
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  Speaker 2: for a tax cut for rich guys.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, in a way, they got the worst of
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  Speaker 4: all worlds. They have a bill that will hugely increase
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  Speaker 4: the deficit, will also deeply cut Medicaid, will also give
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: tax cuts to the richest Americans, will also screw over
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: poorer Americans and much of Trump's base. I don't know
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: who's leaving this with... We'll talk about what happens next,
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: but If the House bill became law, I don't know
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: who wins from that except 1%, top 1%, top 0.1%.
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: That's about it.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, Data for Progress did this polling experiment where
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: they used some modeling. But basically, they modeled support for
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: cuts to Medicaid throughout every congressional district in the country.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: And nowhere was it higher than 15%.
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: 14 million people. And you get 14 million because I
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: think it's around 9 million for the Medicaid cuts. And
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: then they also declined to extend the enhanced subsidies for
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: the Affordable Care Act. What that means is that's where
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: you get up to $ 14 million. When we were debating
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: repealing the Affordable Care Act, we were talking about how
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: 20 million people could lose their health care. Well, now
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: 14 million people could lose their health care. A lot
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: of other people, by the way, that's not even counting
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: the people who are just going to pay more for
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: their health care. Medicare beneficiaries who depend on Medicaid are
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: going to pay more for their health care. A lot
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: of people are going to lose their Medicaid. Other people
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: are going to pay more for their Medicaid. People who
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: were buying their own health insurance on the Affordable Care
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: Act exchanges are going to pay a lot more. Some
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: of them will lose their health care for good. Rural
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: hospitals are going to close because of this. It's probably
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: the biggest assault on health care, on people's health care
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: coverage that we've seen in our lifetime.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: It's one of the greatest transfers of wealth from the
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: poor to the rich in the history of this country.
• 14:59
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: And guess what? We should be going the other way
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: on the transfer of wealth.
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: We should be going. Yes, yes, exactly. Exactly. Any other
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: stuff in the bill worth knowing about?
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, it defunds Planned Parenthood by donating Medicaid funding
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: to any organization who has abortion services as part of
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: their offering, which is intentionally written to target Planned Parenthood.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: There is a massive increase in the defense budget. Good job,
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: Fiscal Hawks. $ 100 billion, I think it is, for Trump's
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: mass deportation plan. At one point, I don't know if
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: it's the end of the final bill, that they were
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: eliminating the excise tax on tanning beds, a huge priority
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: of many people.
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 15:36
  Speaker 7: Jesus.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, the thing is, this bill is so big
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: and so few people have read the whole thing that
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: we're going to be discovering what's in this bill for weeks. Yeah.
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, that brings us to the Senate, which will
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: be taking up this bill.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Before we get to the Senate, can we just for
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: one moment just pause on the fact that they call
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: it the One Big Beautiful Bill Act? I know. I know.
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: Redundancy there.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: It's been a while since Schoolhouse Rocks has been on TV,
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: but it's a bill until it's an act. And it
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: would have been so easy to just do One Big
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Beautiful Act.
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: You know, and I fucking hate all the acronyms on
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: everything related to Congress. And I didn't know it was
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: called this until I saw someone write. I got one
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: of those emails from some group that was giving us,
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: you know, what's going on with the bill. And it's
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: like OBBA. OBBA. I was like, what the fuck is OBBA?
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Reid kept putting that in some of his writing. And
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: I did not know what the OBBB was for a
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: long time.
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: Jesus Christ.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Makes us yearn for the days of the Biff.
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: They have these MAGA accounts that for every child born,
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: they were going to put $ 1, 000 in the stock market.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: Well, now I think they're not putting $ 1, 000 anymore. I
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: think it's just a tax-free savings account now, basically. Right.
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's cool. That's cool.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Basically, they named it the MAGA account. And I was like,
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: they must have made MAGA stand for something, right?
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: And they did.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: It just stands for MAGA, right? No, no.
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: This is a small thing, but this is how they
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: fucked this up. MAGA stood for something. It was like...
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: account or something. I can't remember what it is now.
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: But then in the middle of the night last night,
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: they suddenly changed one change in the bill was changing
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: all the instances of MAGA account in the legislation to
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: the Trump account. They need to change the Trump account.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: But the end result here is, it sounds on paper
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: like something like baby bonds or the child tax credit,
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: but what it really is likely to end up being
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: is a tax haven for wealthy people.
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: Everything else in there.
• 17:40
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• 18:44
  Speaker 4: All right, the Senate. So John Thune said today, oh,
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: the Senate's going to write it. We're going to write
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: our own bill and we're just going to use the
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: House bill as guidance. You got Murkowski and Collins who
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: both said that they are, they don't like the Medicaid cuts.
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: Then you have other people like I think Kevin Cramer
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: was saying, uh, He wants deeper Medicaid cuts. You got
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: Rand Paul saying, I don't want the debt ceiling lifted
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: in this bill.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Ron Johnson's a no on the whole thing.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: Ron Johnson's worried about the debt. He said he wants
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: deeper cuts. So what do you think, what are the
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: opportunities in the Senate here for Democrats to, if not
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: kill the bill, at least improve it?
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: It's interesting because there's no negotiating with Democrats here, right?
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: There's no Joe Manchin or anyone left that you would,
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: that Thune, like so Thune can lose three votes. And
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: he's got all sorts of problems all across the board.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Similar to the House in the sense that he has
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: moderates like Murkowski and Collins who do not want such
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Medicaid cuts and performative populists like Josh Hawley who also
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: said they don't want Medicaid cuts. And then you've got
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: a bunch of people who want more Medicaid cuts. Where
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: is that going to come down? There's some people who
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: are going to care about how the Medicaid cuts are,
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: which Medicaid cuts there are, not just the top line.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: And ultimately, they're going to be forced to pass something
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: pretty close to the House, I think, because otherwise it's
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: not going to pass. And they have a ticking clock
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: here because the debt limit is in this bill, which
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: I did not mention when you asked me this question.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: And the debt limit has to be extended X date.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: The date when we run out of cash is supposed
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: to be in July, I believe is the last time
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Scott Besson said it. So before these folks leave for
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: August recess, they have to pass something to extend the
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: debt limit or we would default or we would mint
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: a $ 1 trillion Trump coin or something to solve the problem.
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: That'll do wonders for the bond markets, I'm sure.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be great. The bond markets are very
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: excited about everything that's been happening these days. The House
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: has done to the Senate what the Senate usually does
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: to the House, which is send them a bill that
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: they can't make a ton of changes to. What I
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: would think about from the perspective of Democrats is put
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: as much pressure as you can on senators, absolutely, including
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: the ones like Tom Tillis who were up in 2026,
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: and use this as an opportunity and try to get
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: some of those Medicaid cuts scaled back in some way, shape,
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: or form. But even absent that, the reason why this
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: fight is worth having and making a big sinking fight
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: is we know these Medicaid cuts are incredibly unpopular. We
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: also know, based on a Navigator research poll that came
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: out this morning, most people do not know about the
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: Medicaid cuts. They ask people, what stories have you been
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: hearing a lot of? And only 27% of respondents said
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: they've been hearing a lot about the Medicaid cuts. That's
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: half what we've been hearing about the tariffs or the
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: new pope and stories like that. So we have some
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: time here, but in every day that this bill is
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: not yet law, we should try to put so much
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: political pressure on them that they scale them back. But
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: failing that, at least we'll be informing people that they exist,
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: that they will pay the price next November.
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: On Tuesday, Trump went to the Hill and told Republicans
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: in a closed-door meeting, quote, don't fuck with Medicaid. But,
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: of course, they fucked with Medicaid.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Boy, did they.
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: And he's thrilled. He's taking a victory lap. He's saying
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: it's amazing. Clearly, you know, you mentioned this. He just
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: thinks he can get away with lying about it, which
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: maybe he can, with his base at least. Because, you know,
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: the way they have set it up, Now they moved
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: up the work requirements, but the cuts to Medicaid and
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: the people losing their health insurance probably won't happen until
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: after the midterms. The work requirements are scheduled to go
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: into effect right after the midterms. I guess if the
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: ACA subsidies don't get extended past this year, then that'll
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: start hitting people soon. But there is a question of,
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: we know that when people actually feel the effects of policy,
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: their political opinions can change. But when they are told
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: the effects of policy... they may either not believe it
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: or just not hear it or believe the lies they're
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: told from the people that they voted for and support.
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: So how do you think about the most effective way
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: to make a political case other than just screaming about
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: Medicaid cuts? And also, sorry, I'm asking you a lot
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: of questions. Medicaid versus 14 million people losing their health care.
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: What do you think about that? Because I never want
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: to leave out the ACA stuff and just talk about
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: Medicaid because then if someone... isn't on Medicaid, they might think, oh,
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: I'll be fine when they may not be fine.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: Right. So I think I do this in the following ways.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: One is it's absolutely essential to tie the cuts to
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Medicaid to pay for the tax cuts for the rich.
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: And the reason why this is important is what we
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: have to do is this is telling a story about
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: who Trump and these House Republicans in particular are fighting for.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: And it's not for you. It's not for working class people.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: It is for the rich. And that was a very
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: effective message in 2018 because Republicans wanted to pay for
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: those tax cuts with cuts to Medicare, Social Security, and
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: repealing the ACA. They're going to lie about it. I mean,
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: remember all the ads in 2018 of Republicans staring into
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: the camera saying, I would never vote to kick people
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: with pre-existing conditions off of health care after they had
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: just voted to kick people with pre-existing conditions off of
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: health care? And so they're going to lie about it.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: That didn't work then, and we can make sure it
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: doesn't work now. The word Medicaid is incredibly powerful. In
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: that same navigator poll, 75% of people, including 62% of Republicans,
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: opposed cuts to Medicaid. When you ask people if they
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: want to cut Medicaid a lot, cut Medicaid a little,
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: keep it the same, or increase it, most people want
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: to increase it, increase funding for Medicaid. And so we
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: shouldn't run away from that. But the broader story here
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: is that the House Republicans want to, and Trump and
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: the House Republicans, want to give huge tax cuts to
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: the ultra-wealthy incorporation. They want to pay for it. by
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: cutting Medicaid, kicking people off their healthcare, and taking food
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: off the table from schoolchildren. 18 million kids' lunches are
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: at risk in the snap cuts in this bill. 3
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: million people losing food assistance. And so the story we're
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: telling is not about the specific policies, not the specific
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: impacts which are going to come down the line. It
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: is a story about who these Republicans are and who
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: they're fighting for.
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah. There's one thing that I think is pretty easy
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: to understand and also just infuriating when it's put like this.
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: If you make over $ 4 million a year, you will
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: get $ 400, 000 in tax cuts. If you are the 40%
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: of Americans making $ 50, 000 and under, your income is going
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: to go down. So working people making under $ 50, 000 are
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: going to lose income so that Fucking people who make
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: over $ 4 million can get $ 400, 000 as a tax cut.
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: That's what our government's spending money on? $ 400, 000 for multimillionaires? Like,
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: I don't know. It just, it seems like that is a,
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: it's a pretty easy thing for people to understand. And
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: if they want to defend that, great, go defend that.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: We have to make them defend it.
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: Yes. All right. Another notable moment from this week took
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: place during Wednesday's Oval Office meeting between Trump and South
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: African President Cyril Ramaphosa, which our president used as an
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: opportunity to spread his favorite new conspiracy theory that there's
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: a genocide against white South Africans. Trump held up a
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: bunch of random press clippings. Then he dimmed the lights
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: for the video portion of the presentation, which was a
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: hard-to-follow montage, both for viewers at home and for President Ramaphosa.
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: Here's a sampling of what it all sounded like.
• 26:13
  Speaker 8: You're taking people's land away from them. And those people,
• 26:18
  Speaker 8: in many cases, are being executed. They're being executed. And
• 26:22
  Speaker 8: they happen to be white. I will say apartheid, terrible.
• 26:25
  Speaker 8: That was the biggest threat. That was reported all the time.
• 26:29
  Speaker 8: This is sort of the opposite of apartheid. What's happening
• 26:32
  Speaker 8: now is never reported. Nobody knows about it. These are
• 26:35
  Speaker 8: articles over the last few days. Death of people.
• 26:42
  Speaker 6: Death. Death. Death. Horrible death. Death. I don't know.
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: Tommy and I watched the whole thing live unfold while
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: we were in the office. And it was just, first
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: of all, it went on forever. And it was the
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: most surreal experience. A lot of the coverage tried to
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: compare it to the Zelensky meeting, which it really was.
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: It was also a completely batshit crazy meeting. But the
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: Zelensky meeting was like really tense and J.D. Vance is yelling.
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: This one was just like it was like he was
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: holding a salon and all of the delegation that came
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: with the South African president, they got involved. They brought
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: some white Afrikaner like professional golfers because I guess the
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: South African, the poor South African president must have thought
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: to himself, oh, I must have the white golfers involved.
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: to potentially communicate with this white golfer who's quite racist.
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: And maybe that, maybe I will be able to break
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: through by bringing my white golfers. Like it was, and then,
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: and then he's, we're going to talk about it. He's
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: screaming at the reporters, yelling at Peter Alexander for asking
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: a question about the Qatari plane. He's holding up the
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: press clippings. President Ramaphosa is like, uh, that video you
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: just showed, I don't know where those crosses are. I
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: don't know who you're talking about. And Trump's like, well,
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: it's in South Africa. He's like, no, I know, I know.
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: Because he was like, where did that all come from?
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: He's like, it came from South Africa. It's like, no, dude.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: The Zelensky meeting was like pretty normal compared to this. Like,
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you put aside the fact that it was,
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: It was angrier and more tense for sure.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: That one felt like, like put aside the fact that
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: the most surreal part of the Zelensky meeting was that
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: you had the United States beating up on the ally
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: we were supporting in the war in service of Vladimir Putin.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Like put that aside for a second. It kind of
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: felt like a meeting that could happen behind closed doors
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: just with people being dicks. It is high stakes. We
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: were sending a lot of money there. They're trying to
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: get– like that's– this was bananas. You just have the
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: South African president just randomly showing up here for a meeting.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Like any normal pro-forma meeting we have with world leaders
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: all the time and the president is– like you use
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: the term press clippings. These are mostly Facebook posts that
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: are printed out.
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: Natalie, Natalie, do you have my clips? That's what he
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: was yelling. And Natalie, who just exists with a printer,
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: I guess. I guess she's a human printer with a
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: real printer, and then she just.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: I think that's her job. She's the one who prints
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: out the posts for him.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I know.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: No, that's literally her job. I read the profile of Natalie, yes.
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: She prints out Facebook posts and hand them over.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: Which makes her one of the top 10 most powerful
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: people in the government right now. Fucking Marco Rubio would
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: love to be able to hand Facebook posts to Donald
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: Trump these days.
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: You can only aspire to that job.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: It's going to.
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: Be Marco's fifth job pretty soon. He's going to be
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: announced as that. But yeah, no, the white genocide conspiracy theory,
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: as much as we were just laughing, is awful. It is... Basically,
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: what's going on here is Trump and before Trump, Elon
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: Musk and before Elon Musk, way before Elon Musk, I
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: don't know, just random 4chan and 8chan trolls on the
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: internet started this, believed that there is a genocide against...
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: South African farmers, most of whom are Afrikaners, white Afrikaners,
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: and they are worried about, they're basically, the theory is
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: that the overwhelming majority black population of South Africa is
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: going after the land of the white farmers because white
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: farmers have most of the land even though they represent
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: a tiny percentage of the population and are murdering white
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: farmers all over the place and committing a genocide against them. Now,
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: white Afrikaners in South Africa are, in the government, do
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: not believe that a white genocide is occurring. And in fact,
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: in the Oval Office, we're like, oh no, there are
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: murders and there is crime in South Africa, but it's
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: nothing like a genocide. And there are stats on this.
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: There were nearly 7,000 people were murdered in South Africa
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: between October and December of 2024. Of these nearly 7,000
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: people murdered, 12 were killed in farm attacks. And some
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: of those people were black. So that's the white genocide theory,
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: the opposite of apartheid, as Trump so beautifully put it.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: The reasons why Trump brought this up, I think, are
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: very telling about his worldview, the central premises of MAGA-ism,
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: and the spread of right-wing nationalism around the world. This
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: is not about what's happening in South Africa. The world
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: is getting more diverse. America is getting more diverse. We
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: are on an inexorable path towards being a majority-minority country.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: And what Trump has always tried to weaponize is this
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: fear that the white, Christian, mostly men are going to
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: lose their political power that they, in his view, believe
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: is their birthright as the country becomes more diverse. That
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: is Stephen Miller. We're losing our American identity. Immigration is
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: diluting who we are and all of that. And so
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: this idea that somewhere across the world, there is an
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: example of a place where whites are the minority and
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: this mythical genocide is happening is a tool to scare
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: people here, to incite people to more racial animus, to
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: be more racially polarized. And that is ultimately, that is
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: how authoritarianism works, is you pick an other, right? It
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: could be Black people, Latinos, immigrants, Jews, and they are
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: threatening the regime. And you should be so scared of
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: this happening that you are willing to voluntarily hand over
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: your rights and freedoms in exchange for safety. And so like,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: that's the core. This is not, this is like, that's old.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: Like when Trump talks about how we go back to
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: the 50s again, it's a very specific reference to a
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: time before the Voting Rights Act, to a time when
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: America was much more white. But you look at what
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: happened in Hungary. Orban has a very similar playbook for
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: how he was able to consolidate power. So this is
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: obviously tied to the fact that the world's richest man
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: hangs out with Donald Trump all the time, and he
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: also happens to be a white South African who pushes
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: this specific conspiracy theory. But the reason why Trump vibes
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: with it is because it's consistent with his worldview.
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: Well, and the key here is grievance politics, which is
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: what Trump practices and what most authoritarians practice, is fueled
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: by a belief that they are the ones, the in-group
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: is the ones being discriminated against, right? And so Trump
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: doesn't say, I don't like diversity. I don't like, you know,
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: their argument is, of course we want everyone to be equal,
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: but we are the ones being discriminated against. It's reverse racism.
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: And so they can point to South Africa where, By
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: the way, there was apartheid until 1996. And the reason
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: there's even conflict about the land there is because this
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: tiny percentage of white South Africans, Afrikaners, own a gigantic
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: percentage of the land. And so they are trying to
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: basically rectify what happened after decades of apartheid in the country.
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: Never mind all that. If they can look at there's
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: one country in the world where, oh, it's the white
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: minority that is being discriminated against, that is being targeted.
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: Then they can say, see, this is what could happen
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: in the United States. This is what could happen in Europe.
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: Maybe not with black people from South Africa, but maybe
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: it's immigrants from the Middle East. Maybe it's immigrants from elsewhere, right?
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: It's just no matter how much power and wealth you have,
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: in order to fuel the grievance politics, you need to
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: be the one who is the persecuted minority somehow.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: Or in this case, the persecuted majority. Right, right.
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: But that's what they don't want. I mean, that's... I
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: follow all these accounts now because of the immigration shit.
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: And they're like, they don't think that we're, they're the majority, right?
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: It's like, it is 20. First it was 5 million
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: immigrants let in and 10 million, then 20 million. And
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: suddenly it's like, it's a trillion. It pretty soon is
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: going to be a trillion immigrants and only 10 Americans.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: On a different date, I'd like to talk to you
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: about the accounts you're following and why you're following them.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: And maybe we should just have like an intervention of sorts.
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: It's, it's, that's our friend, Stephen Miller. It's Mike Davis
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: now because I was arguing with him. I talked about
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: this on, and Emma's nodding, I talked about this on
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: Offline this week, so you can listen to that, but really,
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: I'm exposed to some real bad stuff these days.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: I feel like Max is not doing his job if
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: you're still doing this, so step up, Max.
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: Let me tell you, it's pretty dark. It's pretty dark.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is brought to you by Article. We're
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• 37:04
  Speaker 4: All right, so believe it or not, as I mentioned,
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: the meeting went even further off the rails when NBC's
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: Peter Alexander asked Trump about the $ 400 million Qatari luxury
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: jet that the Department of Defense has now officially accepted
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: as a gift. The president responded to Peter's question by
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: losing his shit. Let's listen.
• 37:30
  Speaker 6: If they weren't fake news like this, jerk that we
• 37:34
  Speaker 6: have here. If we had real reporters, they'd be covering it.
• 37:36
  Speaker 6: But the fake news of this country doesn't talk about that.
• 37:41
  Speaker 6: They'll have him talking about why did a country give
• 37:45
  Speaker 6: a free— think of this— why did a country give
• 37:48
  Speaker 6: an airplane to the United.
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: States Air Force?
• 37:51
  Speaker 6: That's what that idiot talks about after viewing a thing
• 37:54
  Speaker 6: where thousands of people are dead.
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I don't have a plane to give you.
• 37:59
  Speaker 6: I wish you did.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: I would take it.
• 38:02
  Speaker 6: If your country offered the United States Air Force a plane,
• 38:05
  Speaker 6: I would take it.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: Funniest moment of the meeting. Maybe funniest moment of the day.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: And what a funny day it was.
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: I mean, great line there.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: Funniest moment in the meeting that featured a white genocide slideshow.
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, basically. But don't worry, the corrupt date doesn't end there, Dan. Oh, no.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: Corrupt date. Ding, ding, ding. Why do we not have
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: sound for this?
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: Why do we not have a corrupt date sting, Elijah?
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: Anyone. What is happening?
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: This is not Elijah's responsibility. I'm just throwing him under
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: the bus because it's fun to do. On Thursday night,
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: Trump hosted the top 220 investors in his Trump meme
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: coin for a black tie optional. Thanks for letting me
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: know it's optional. Black tie optional dinner at his D.C.
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: golf club. The top 25 buyers also had a private
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: reception with Trump beforehand. NBC reported that the average seat
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: ended up costing around a million dollars, which now they
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: can afford because they just got another tax cut that's
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: worth a million dollars. And that the approximate total those
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: 200 plus investors spent to gain this kind of access
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: to the president adds up to almost $ 400 million, which is.
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: Means they can afford another Qatari jet. This time, not
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: as a gift. Trump can buy his own, or his
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: sons can. White House Press Secretary Caroline Lovett didn't have
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: the easiest time trying to explain all of this on Thursday.
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: Here she is taking a question from NBC. Garrett Haig.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: Garrett, go ahead.
• 39:31
  Speaker 9: Caroline, you guys are very proud of your record on transparency.
• 39:34
  Speaker 9: I have two transparency related questions for you.
• 39:37
  Speaker 6: Sure.
• 39:37
  Speaker 9: On the president's dinner tonight, will the White House commit
• 39:40
  Speaker 9: to making a list of the attendees public so people
• 39:43
  Speaker 9: can see who's paying for that kind of access to
• 39:45
  Speaker 9: the president?
• 39:46
  Speaker 7: Well, as you know, Garrett, this question has been raised
• 39:49
  Speaker 7: with the president. I have also addressed the dinner tonight.
• 39:51
  Speaker 7: The president is attending it in his personal time. It
• 39:55
  Speaker 7: is not a White House dinner. It's not taking place
• 39:57
  Speaker 7: here at the White House. But certainly I can raise
• 40:00
  Speaker 7: that question and try to get you an answer for it.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: I don't think she's going to try very hard.
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: You don't think she's going to get the answer?
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: No, I don't think so.
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: You think it fixes everything now that it's not at
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: the White House?
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's personal capacity. He can do whatever he wants.
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: It's personal capacity.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: You know, someone should tell the Supreme Court who said
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: that Trump only has immunity in his presidential capacity.
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, right. No, well, this is a, oh yeah, what
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: is he going to do here? When he takes bribes,
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: it's personal capacity. Yes. But when he just accepts gifts
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: to the government, and I don't even know what the
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: official capacity for the meme coin is.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: Look, once again, not a constitutional scholar here, but it
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: does seem like he's going to take the money in
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: his personal capacity. He's going to dole out the favors
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: in his official capacity. So it falls into a gray
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: area that probably a majority of the Supreme Court is
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: comfortable with.
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: We talked recently about some data that suggested the corruption
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: message isn't breaking through to key voters yet. I guess
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: we should keep trying harder. What do you think? Yes.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, if one of the central themes of the
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: Trump's presidency is about how he can get richer, and
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: just not to fact check the president of the United States,
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: but The United States Air Force is temporarily holding the
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: plane for him before he gets it in his personal
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: capacity at the end. So not a gift to the government,
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: a gift to Trump that's just being held by the
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: government for a while. Important point here.
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: Also, did you read the New York Times story about
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: the plane being officially accepted? Because they estimate it could
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: cost up to $ 1 billion to retrofit the plane so
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: that it is ready to be used as Air Force One.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: It's never going to be used as Air Force One.
• 41:34
  Speaker 6: Never.
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: Where's that money? Where's the billion dollars coming from?
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: Because the tax bill they just passed.
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: Right. I was going to say, how much should we
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: just cut from Medicaid? How much should we just cut
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: from the ACA?
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: But we jacked up defense spending in that same bill.
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: So a billion dollars.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: It's so stupid. The whole thing is so stupid.
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: The government has already spent $ 3. 9 billion in for the
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: two new Air Force Ones that Boeing has been working on.
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: So we already have a contract that we paid, taxpayers
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: paid $ 3. 9 billion for the two jets that we thought
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: we needed. And that was like the normal course of business.
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: Now we get the $ 400 million temporary gift until Trump
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: leaves office that they're going to spend maybe a billion
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: dollars retrofitting. And the maintenance costs for an Air Force One,
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: which now I guess we'll have three, is $ 135 million
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: per year per plane.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: Just the idea that Trump wanted this plane because he
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: thought it was cool and he thought the Boeing was
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: taking too long for his other new planes because the
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: super cool plane he already had was not apparently cool
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: enough for him. Just there's no way this other plane
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: that they're going to have to basically tear down to
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: the studs, one, to check it for bugs and other
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: listening devices, and then do all the things you have
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: to do to the plane will be ready before the
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: Boeing planes is impossible to fathom. The fact that I
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: would be shocked if he flies one day as president
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: on this plane. My guess is a bunch of taxpayer
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: money goes into making it even cooler, and then he
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: will accept it at the back end in his personal capacity.
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's just his to-go bag.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's his gift bag at the end.
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: That's his gift bag at the end. Yeah, you get
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: to take the plane with you when you leave the
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: White House. Never flown in. So yeah, so he's just,
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: I don't know. I really do think that the stories,
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: we talked about this before, but like we just talked
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: about the tax cuts for the rich people, stealing food
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: off kids' plates and healthcare for millions of Americans. Meanwhile,
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: he's making money at these dinners. He's taking $ 400 million jets.
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: We got to combine the stories. The stories are the
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: same story.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all about him and not about you. And
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: it's going to hurt your life. That's the part that
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: is really important here. The other thing, and this is
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: why Democrats, we talked about this a little bit last week,
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: should be pushing this message, is the problem is not
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: just the message, it's the messenger. It's that we as
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: a party, we actually frankly don't have the credit, we'll
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: get to this in a minute, don't have the credibility
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: to deliver any messages right now with great efficacy. But
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: especially the one we don't is corruption because we are
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: seen as defenders of that same broken system. And I
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: suppose people would actually take it on and fix it.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: There are people within our party who have the credibility
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: to do that. Bernie Sanders, AOC, Elizabeth Warren, I think
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: in some cases. Some people who are outside of government,
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: outside of the federal government probably can. Like Ruben Gallego
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: may have, because he seems new to politics.
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: Some of the younger.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: Younger folks like Wes Moore, some of the governors might
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: be able to do it. But as a party, we
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: have to not just make, we have to show people
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: through our actions and our policies that we would actually
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: take on corruption when we're in charge. And if you
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: want to make the message work, you've got to fix
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: your messenger problem.
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: All right. Speaking of that, one last thing before we
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: get to your interview with Representative Monica McIver. We have
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: been saying since November that we can't draw too many
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: decisive conclusions about what happened in the election based only
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: on the exit polls. We have to wait for the
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: gold standard data, which comes from two places, Catalyst and Pew.
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: We finally got the Catalyst data. And the headlines out
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: of it were as unsurprising as they were depressing. Kamala
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: Harris lost critical ground with young voters and people of color,
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: especially men of color, especially young men of color. In fact,
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: she gained ground only with married white women and not
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: by much.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: One point. White gained one point.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: One point.
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's one point.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: And it's not clear what they rounded up from to
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: get there.
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: And super voters in this report, which are people who
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: voted in the last four elections. She did one point
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: better with Biden among the super voters, but she lost
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: a lot of ground among the irregular voters, people who
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: have voted in just a few of the last four elections.
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: As Amy Walter and Carrie Dan at the Cook Political
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: Report put in their headline, the main conclusion from this
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: report is, quote, the Obama coalition turned into the Trump coalition.
• 46:01
  Speaker 6: Ouch.
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: First off, can you explain for folks how Catalyst does
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: what it does and why this is such good data?
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: This is a very complicated process and I am at
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: great risk of oversimplifying it, but Catalyst is a data firm.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: They ingest all the voter file data around the country.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: And just so people understand, voter data is public in
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: the United States. States keep records of who's registered to vote,
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: if those people voted, which elections they voted, not who
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: they voted for, but if they voted in the election,
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: which primary elections, which general elections, which special elections. Some states,
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: I think it's about seven, have demographic information race and
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: gender information on the voter file. Most states, but not
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: all states, have partisanship. So you know if someone's a
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: Democrat or Republican or either a registered independent or, in
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: some cases, just no party status. And so we have
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: gotten all the precinct-level data from the election. So we
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: know who voted in 2024 all across the country now.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: That's all committed. Catalyst then takes that data. They combine
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: it with their voter file, which includes census data, commercial data,
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: where they will ingest other information so you can get
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: more information about people and parts of the country. Then
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: they will use some modeling to help figure out, you know,
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: it can be based on people's names, where they live,
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: to help people understand demographic information, age, gender, and identify
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: really all the voters in this country. They do this,
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: and then they spend months going through it to compare
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: it to not just the last election, but every election
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: since 2012, which is as long as they've been doing
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: this report, to make an assessment of where Democrats gained
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: and lost, in this case, mostly lost ground, to fully
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: understand who actually voted. In previous elections, the Catalyst report
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: has really upended some immediate post-election takes. There actually is
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: a pretty dramatic shift in 2016 about how women voted
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: based on the exit polls and the Catalyst data. This
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: data gives us much more– this report, which I believe
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: everyone who works in politics at any level should read
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: because it really tells a story of not just how
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris lost but what has happened to the Democratic
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: coalition over the last eight years. But it actually is
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: fairly consistent with a lot of the takes that people
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: had after the election about where Trump gained ground in
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: the Democratic coalition. Not– The numbers are a little different.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: There's a little more precise. But the idea that Trump
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: gained with huge core parts of the Democratic coalition, including
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: Latino voters and young voters, is borne out by this report.
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: To me, the biggest difference in this report when the
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: exit polls is the gender divide. People had thought in
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: the election there was going to be this huge gender divide.
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: Then the exit polls showed it wasn't as big of
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: a divide as maybe polls had suggested. Turns out it was.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: But almost entirely because Trump gained with men.
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: Yes, that's what I'm saying.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: So Trump gained two points with women, but he gained
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: 11 points with men, which is quite a gain.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: And those gains with women were entirely with Latino women
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: because Kamala Harris, she lost ground almost everywhere, but she
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: held ground with all forms of white women and black women.
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: So you wrote a great message box about this. And
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: you noted how since election day, there's been this fierce
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: argument about whether Harris lost because Biden voters didn't turn out,
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: which some people argue means she wasn't progressive enough, or
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: because too many Biden voters switched to Trump, which others
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: argue means that she was too progressive. Of course, you
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: and I have talked about how Biden voters who stayed
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: home aren't necessarily further to the left than Biden voters
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: who switched to Trump. So we're simplifying the argument, but
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: that is the argument that's out there. What was your
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: take on the turnout versus persuasion effect from the Catalyst report?
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: This will be deeply dissatisfying to Benny because it includes nuance,
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: but she lost because of both. It is clear in
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: this data that a significant number of people who voted
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: for Joe Biden in 2020 voted for Donald Trump in 2024.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: It's also true that 30 million voters dropped out of
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: the electorate from 2020 to 2024. Now, some of that
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: is people staying home. Some of it's people not voting intentionally.
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: Some of it's people whose registration gets messed up because
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: they moved or got purged off the rolls. Some of
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: it's because people die in a four-year period.
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we should say that Every election, there's a huge
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: number of people who fall out of the electorate.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: This is a larger than normal drop-off. It's not like
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: twice as many, but I think it was like 26
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: million in the previous election drop-off. But this is a
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: large number. Catalyst estimates that that group is 55% Democrat.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: What this report cannot tell you is that they were
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: 55% progressive. That's the thing. It's just The raw numbers
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: make it clear that to win, she had to do
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: better with the people who didn't vote and stayed home
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: and the people who did vote and switched their votes.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: This report doesn't look at why people– it's not a poll.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: They're not asking all these questions. They're just analyzing existing data.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: So you can't tell you the answer. The thing that
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: is– either way, the way the math works is she
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: has to do better with both indemnities. We are being
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: squeezed as a party. We are losing people in the
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: middle and we are not getting– I guess the way
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: I'd say this is I sort of reject the entire premise,
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: and I think you do as well, that ideology is
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: the way to look at this, that you can assume
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: that being more moderate is going to help you with
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: swing voters in a way that being– and that being
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: more progressive is going to help you with these drop-off
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: voters or these new voters. Like there's not real evidence
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: to prove that. So like I reject the argument on
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: its face. But either way, both sides are wrong and
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: both sides are right. We need to do both.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: I mean, I also think that the drop off in
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: the non battleground states, we've talked about this before, was
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: much larger. But there's a narrative out there after the
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: election that there was like, you know, I forget how
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: many million it was. This many million Biden voters, 19
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: million Biden voters stayed home and she ended the race
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: with Liz Cheney. And so people were, you know, people
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: weren't inspired and they stayed home. And and there's all
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: these reasons that she she moved too much to the center. And,
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: you know, and that's just, that's not true. That narrative
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: is just not true. This report bears it out. Every
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: single piece of data bears that out. That is not
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: to say that there aren't some people who stayed home,
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: but you have to, one way to think about it
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: is a Biden voter, let's say there's a young, a
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: young black man, right? Or young Latino man. That's where,
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: that's where basically she lost the most ground. So there's
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: a young Latino man who decides to stay home and
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: he stays home because he He's pissed about inflation. He
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: thinks that Joe Biden fucked up. He thinks Joe Biden's
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: too old. He thinks that it was too much inflation.
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: Prices were too high. But he doesn't like Donald Trump.
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: So he's going to stay home. Then there's another young
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: Latino man who says, I don't like Joe Biden because
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: of inflation. And I think he's too old. And I
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: don't really like Donald Trump. But maybe he'll bring prices
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: down a little bit. So I'll vote for Donald Trump.
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: Not much difference ideologically between those two voters. But one
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: gets counted as a, I'm staying home, and one gets
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: counted as a switcher, right? So I think that's one
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: way to think about all this. Anything else jump out
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: at you from the report?
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, there are two things. One, the main story
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: of this is that Democrats are in a huge bit
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: of trouble. There's no way to look at this without
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: recognizing the massive scale of our problems. And you can
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: kind of tell yourself that things might be kind of
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: okay by looking at just the shift from 2020 to 2024.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: But if you really want to assess where we are
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: as a party, you have to look at the shift
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: from 2016 to 2024. And this is particularly true with
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: Latino voters. Okay.
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: In 20– Or 2012.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: Even with Latino voters actually is the one group where
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: Hillary Clinton in the– Did better. Did better than Obama.
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: She– two points better. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won 70%
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: of Latino vote. Kamala Harris won 54%. It's a 16-point drop.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: And then you would like to think that gender, this
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: is all about men. It's not all about men. Latinas
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: moved 17 points in eight years. Latino men went 14
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: points in eight years. There is no path to... Latinos
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: are the fastest growing population in the country. They are
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: particularly politically powerful because of how the population is distributed
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: in electoral rich sunbelt states like Texas, Florida, Arizona, Nevada,
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: et cetera. And so they're becoming more of the electorate
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: and we are losing more of them at a very
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: fast rate. Like if that trend continues, there is no
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: path to Democrats winning elections. And so we have to
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: take that, everyone was telling themselves stories about that maybe
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: 2020 was an aberration because Trump made gains there because
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: of COVID. Like there's big talk about COVID. This is
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: something bigger than that. And we have to address that.
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: The second thing in here is that Democrats lost new
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: voters for the first time. Obama got 58% of new
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: voters in 2012. Biden and Clinton got 55%. Kamala Harris
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: only got 49.5% of new voters, which speaks to the
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: gains that Trump made with younger people, and particularly younger
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: people of color, who are coming into the electorate. If
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: that trend continues, we're in huge trouble. The message I
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: take from this is, Anyone who thinks that we can
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: get away with just tinkering around the edges, just hoping
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: that Donald Trump becomes unpopular, they nominate some Yahoo in 2028,
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: or we're going to ride the wave of tariffs and
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: inflation to a narrow house victory, is just rearranging the
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: dictators on the Titanic. We have to be willing to
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: ask very hard questions. We have to be willing to
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: evaluate every premise, look at how we govern campaign message
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: across the board, because right now, and this is where
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: the Obama coalition, the Trump coalition point matters is we
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: are on the wrong side of political history right now.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: We are the party that is hoping for lower turnout,
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: that the fewer people that vote, we have a better
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: chance of winning, that we are losing ground with the
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: fastest growing parts of the population, younger voters and Latinos, uh,
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: And that is a party that can win an election
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: every once in a while if the stars align correctly.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: But that is a party that will look a lot
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: like the Democratic Party from the 60s until the 90s,
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: where we maybe can win when Nixon gets impeached, when
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: Nixon resigns, and we win that election, and then we
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: lose for the next 12 years. There has to be
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: a fundamental change in approach. We just have to really
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: look at it because there is no easy answer here
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: to what's happening.
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: And adding to the challenge is those same voters are
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: the voters most likely to not even hear what we're
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: saying because we're doing poorly with irregular voters, meaning the
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: voters who don't always show up. Irregular voters also tend
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: to be the voters who don't pay close attention to
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: politics or consume a lot of political news. And so
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: what happened with Trump is, and we've talked about this before,
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: but people who follow politics closely, follow the news closely,
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: who vote in all the recent elections, Kamala Harris wins
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: those voters by quite a big margin. All the people
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: we're talking to, we're all talking to each other. And
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: Democrats have those people, have the super voters. But Trump
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: won with people who don't follow politics that closely or
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: people who get most of their political news and information
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: from social media. And they are not necessarily getting their
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: information from social media from political media on social media.
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: It is information and media on social media that may
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: touch on politics once in a while, but it may not.
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: It may be a cultural content, sports content, entertainment, whatever.
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: And they're just getting sort of vibes from the information
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: that they're consuming. And yet they are still showing up
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: in presidential elections, right? So it's not like they are apathetic, disconnected,
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: and then they don't vote. They are voting, but they're
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: voting without fully hearing the democratic message. Yes.
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: That is fair to say. I mean, we could honestly
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: talk about this for literally hours and perhaps probably should.
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: But we know that the answer is just finding a
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: Joe Rogan of the left.
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's exactly right. We are one. I've always said
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: we're one podcaster away from a sustainable governing majority.
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: Isn't it funny? I was like, I thought that the
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: Joe Rogan of the left cliche, like we left it
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: behind a couple of months ago. And then just this week,
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: I'm like on Twitter, I'm looking around, I'm like, why
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: is it back? What happened? Why are we talking about
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: Joe Rogan of the fucking left again?
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: It was that New York Times story.
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: I'm glad we're not talking about that. Go read it
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: if you want. You're not going to hear about it
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: from us. You mentioned talking about this for hours. One
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: way people can listen to you talk about this more
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: is by listening to this week's Polar Coaster.
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad you did this. You did it so
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: smoothly because in our outline, it actually says, insert organic
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: housekeeping here. So we're going to do this as organically
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: and naturally as we possibly can.
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: Speaking of reading the stage directions.
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, like a good Democrat, I am reading the stage directions.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: So on this week's Polar Coaster, Caroline and I dug
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: into the Catalyst report and answered some questions from our
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: Friends of the Pod subscribers. But I also talked to
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: Luxia Jane of Split Ticket, who is one of the
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: smarter people in the data community about how Democrats win
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: the Senate in 2026 and how we can actually run
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: the sort of candidates that can win Senate seats in
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: the red states that Democrats used to have back.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: In the day.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: It's a very smart conversation. I highly recommend it.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I love the split ticket crew. They're doing really,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: really great work. And you've also written about this in
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: the message box as well.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: This is part two of the organic plug. Very important.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: Okay. Do you want to organic this plug? Yeah, I'm
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: going to.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: Organically do this. As I always say, if you like
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America, you'll love the message box, my newsletter.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: See how organic and natural this is? Just today, I
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: wrote about how the passage of the House GOP budget
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: bill is imperiling their chances of holding on to their
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: very narrow majority to subscribe and to get your first
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: 30 days free. I was going to make that 30
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: days free offer only for the first 100 days, but
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: Trump has made things so shit inexpensive. We're going to
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: keep it going. So to do that, to sign up
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: for the message box and get your first 30 days free,
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  Speaker 2: go to America's most cringeworthy website, Crooked.com slash YesWeDan. That
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: is Crooked.com slash YesWeDan.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: And of course, to get access to Polar Coaster, you
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: can subscribe to Friends of the Pod at Crooked.com slash Friends.
• 1:01:06
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  Speaker 4: helping support independent media. which could use some support right
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: now since all the corporate media around us are settling
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: with Trump and paying him money.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: Not great.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: Not great. Not great.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: When we come back, Dan's conversation with New Jersey Representative
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: LaMonica McIver. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Mental health
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: awareness is growing, but there's still progress to be made.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: 26% of Americans who participated in a recent survey said
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: they have avoided seeking mental health support due to fear
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: of judgment. When people hesitate to get help, it doesn't
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: just affect them. It impacts families, workplaces, and entire communities.
• 1:01:59
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• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: care of their well-being and break the stigma. The world
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: is better when people are healthy and happy. Yeah, I
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: used to think that too. I was like, well, I
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: don't want to tell people I was going to therapy.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: Now I tell everyone who listens to this podcast, I
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: don't shut up about it because it's great. And it's
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: not like I went being like, whoa, my mental health
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: is very poor. It's just, you know, you go and
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: you feel better. You talk to someone, whether your mental health,
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• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: Joining me today is Representative LaMonica McIver, who was charged
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: this week with two criminal felony counts of assaulting, resisting, intimidating,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: and interfering with federal officials while conducting an oversight visit
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: at an ICE detention facility in New Jersey. Representative McIver,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: welcome to Pod Save America.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Dan, for having me. It's such
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: a pleasure to be on with you today.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for joining us. And why
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: don't you just start by telling me what happened on
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: that day at the ICE facility in your district?
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: So we were basically there for an oversight visit. Myself,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: along with Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez, both representatives
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: in New Jersey. We were going on an oversight visit.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: We've done this before. We actually visited a location not
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: too far from there, which was another ICE facility in
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: our community. Used to doing this. People know it as
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: congressional members. We have the right to go to an
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: ICE facility without an appointment. and asked for a tour
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: of this facility. This facility has been open since May 1st.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: They've been receiving detainees, but there was a lot of
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: back and forth with the city, the city administration, because
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: they didn't necessarily have the proper permits. They didn't have
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: a CO. It's not a federal jail or prison. It's
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: not a state jail or prison. So they have to
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: abide by local requirements. And so we went there, showed
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: up for our oversight visit, We're waiting. We were immediately,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: you know, greeted with disrespect, confrontation. They were giving us
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: the runaround, telling us, hey, we got to call this person,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: that person. You know, you got to wait. I mean,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: it was like back and forth to, you know, over
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: an hour, you know, plus of waiting. And then, you know,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: obviously the video shows this whole commotion of a situation happening.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: And that is when ICE officials arrived, multiple, you know,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: over a dozen, you know, masked individuals, uniformed, camouflaged. as
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: well as administrators and Homeland Security, arrived and immediately forgot
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: about us who were waiting there for a tour and
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: went to go confront the mayor. It was crazy. It
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: was an intense situation. We were trying to get answers.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: We were trying to speak with them. And they basically
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: disregarded us. They had no regard for us. They did not.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: want to talk with us, explain anything. I mean, let
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: alone address the fact that we are here for an
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: oversight visit. This is what we're here for. Whatever you
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: got going on, we don't know anything about that. We're
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: just trying to go and have our oversight visit. And
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: so it was just super unfortunate. And the chaos that
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: is seen in all of the videos, ICE created that.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: They created the chaos. They created the confrontation. And it
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: didn't have to be like that. Once again, we've done
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: this before. And we were simply there to do our jobs.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: So you're a member of Congress at a facility to
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: do your oversight responsibilities. Coming out of that are criminal
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: charges against you. What is your reaction to those charges
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: and what are the next steps?
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, honestly, it is a very scary moment, I think.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: It's really unfortunate. I'm a mom, I have a family,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: and to have these charges put against me, to see
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: the possibility of being in prison for such a long
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: time for these charges, it's really unfortunate. But at the
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: same time, it's truly sad for America, for something like
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: this to be happening to a person that is not
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: appointed by Donald Trump. I'm not appointed by Alina Haba.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: I am an elected official where thousands of people in
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: New Jersey expect for me to do my job. And
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: so to know that I showed up there to do
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: my job, and then I come out of this situation
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: having felony charges charged against me is crazy. I, you know,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: went to court obviously yesterday via Zoom because I'm here
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: in Washington, D.C.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 5: Working.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: And that was a formality. And now I'm looking forward
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: to my day in court, you know, looking for the
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: next process and the next step of this all. But honestly,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: it's just it's truly a scary time when, you know,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: doing your job, you know, showing up to your job
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: as a member of Congress can land you with felony
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: assault charges.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: You're a new member of Congress. Have you Your colleagues
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: that you're with, the college you've spoken with, have they
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: ever had an experience like the one you guys had
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: where you were denied access to a facility before?
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: Um, not that I know of. I mean, I haven't
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: heard anyone say it. Like I said, me, Representative Bonnie
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: Watson Coleman and Representative Rob Menendez, we've been to a
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: location before where we got a tour, you know, of
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: a facility. It's ran by a different, you know, group,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: a different private group. But, you know, we might have
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: had some delay, but we were able to get a tour.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 3: You know, we've never experienced that before, like the situation
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: that we experienced at Delaney Hall. But at the same time,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: you know, It's just unbelievable that something like that can happen, right?
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: You know, what are we doing? Why is this happening?
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: Why can't we just show up and, you know, do
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: our job, you know, as congressional members? It's just super unfortunate.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: If you can, can you talk a little bit about
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: the specific interaction with the agent that this government has
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: alleged that you pushed? I've seen the video. But if
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: you could just talk a little bit about what happened
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: in that moment, I think it'd be helpful for our listeners.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: Well, it was a very tense situation. So once again,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: this was a situation when you had three members of Congress.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: You had the mayor of the largest city. in New Jersey,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: and you had protesters, which were peaceful protesters. This was something,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: they would have been protesting for days and days at
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: this location, peacefully. To have that interaction happen, I mean, literally,
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: there was a lot of shoving and pushing that was
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: going on, but I have no idea what agent they're
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: talking about or what they're claiming. I mean, we don't
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: know from the complaint that they submitted. I mean, we
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: don't have an agent's name. People did not identify themselves
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: to us where I can, you know, say, oh, this
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: was agent such and such. So I have no idea
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: about the complaint.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit about how you view
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: these charges against you and the larger Trump administration effort
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: to silence critics? Do you see this as part of
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: a larger assault on democracy? I mean, this is a
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: pretty unprecedented situation where you have the federal government, the
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: executive branch from the other party, pressing criminal charges against
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: a member of Congress for something involving their their use
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: of their actual exercise of their duties and free speech
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: and prior to assembly and all of those things. And
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: so can you talk a little bit about that?
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: Well, it's a political intimidation. I mean, we've seen it
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: over and over and over again with this administration since
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: January 20th. We've seen it with judges. We've seen it
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: with other leaders. We see him opening up investigations on
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: people just because these are political figures that he doesn't
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: agree with what they say or they criticize the administration.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: He has literally weaponized every department, especially the DOJ, against
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: people that he disagrees with. And so I'm the latest
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: victim of that. And I am watching this play out.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: And if it can happen to me as a member
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: who's just doing her job, it can happen to any member,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: but specifically just regular individuals who've been expressing their concerns
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 3: with us about how they're being treated by ICE and
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: Homeland Security and We can understand their concerns, you know,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: and their complaints based off what I personally experienced and
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: the other members of Congress that were with me experienced.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: So it's definitely political intimidation. You know, they want to
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: make me, you know, shut me up, you know, stop
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: me from doing my job, put fear in me, scare me.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, I will not waver, Dan.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: You know, I am in this job. I signed up
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: for this. I ran for office. The people of New
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: Jersey elected me, and so I must serve. I must
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: do my job. And they're not going to shut me up.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump is not going to prosecute me because I'm
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: woke or whatever that means, right? He's just not going
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: to do that to me.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: What is the reaction of your colleagues? You've obviously been
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: in Congress all night. for the last uh you know
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: you probably haven't been to bed in a very long
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: time today.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: Dan yeah well.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: At least you woke up for the vote unlike that
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: republican who missed this vote uh but just what have
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: you heard from you know you've been with all of
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: your colleagues have you heard anything uh what's the reaction
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: from democratic colleagues you've heard anything from from republican colleagues
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: uh perhaps.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: Well, my Democratic colleagues have been extremely helpful. I mean,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: the support, just them having my back, it's really been appreciative.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: I think that the caucus understands, the Democratic caucus understands
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 3: that if they can use this new tool to charge
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: Congress members for doing their job or for being a
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 3: critic or speaking out against the administration, they know we
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: are in deeper trouble. We know that our democracy is
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: at stake here. We've seen Trump strip away pieces and
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: pieces of our democracy each and every day. And this
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: is a bigger situation than just me. It's a bigger
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: situation than just the judge in Wisconsin. This is a
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: situation where we have a president who is taking away
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: the basic things that we love about America, the right
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: to due process, the right to freedoms, the right to
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: believe what we want to believe in and do how
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: we want to do in this world that we call America.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: This is why we're here. And to have this president
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: stripping away our democracy every chance he gets, every hour
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: on the hour, sometimes it's dangerous. We're heading down the
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: wrong path. And we have to push back against this.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: I think people need to stay woke, and they need
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: to stay awake, and they need to stay engaged and
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: informed regarding the situation. I think from The Republican caucus, obviously,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: we're seeing exactly what we expect, right? They rather serve
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: Trump than serve their constituents. And so what are they
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: doing to me? They are, you know, putting in resolutions
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: to get me kicked off committees. They're asking for me
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 3: to be censured. Yesterday, Nancy Mays, who's more concerned about
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: me than serving her constituents, you know, asked for me
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: to put in a resolution for me to be expelled
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 3: from Congress, you know, These are the same people who
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: said that January 6th rioters were good people. They supported
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 3: Trump pardoning these individuals who beat police officers, who were
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: hurt very badly, who stormed the Capitol. But today, they
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: want to see me kicked out of Congress for doing
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: my job. So this is what I'm seeing across the board.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: And like I said, Dan, I am committed to this work.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: I'm committed to my job. And None of this will
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: bully me or make me stop doing my job.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: Last question for you. As we mentioned earlier, the House
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: just passed the one big, beautiful bill, as Trump calls it,
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: otherwise known as a bill to cut taxes to the
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: rich and pay for it by taking food and health
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: care away from working class and poor Americans. What's your
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: reaction to that passage of the bill? Where does it
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: go from here?
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: Sad time. You know, I honestly can't believe that Republicans
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 3: are just more concerned and scared of Donald Trump than
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: scared of the voters in their districts to say that
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 3: you're taking food off the table, cutting SNAP benefits, cutting Medicaid.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, people are going to die, Dan. Like hospitals
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: are going to close. Funding is being stripped away from
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: communities and specifically many of these communities that Republicans represent.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: And the fact that they're more scared of Donald Trump
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 3: and they're serving him than serving the people that elected them.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's a sad situation. I mean, it's honestly disgraceful.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 3: And I hope that everything that we're seeing play out
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: right now, today, tomorrow, yesterday, I hope that it really
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: reflects for 2026 midterms. And I hope that voters remember
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: what their members did to them and what they voted on,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 3: what they supported, them serving Donald Trump and serving the people.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: I really hope that they have a good memory on
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 3: this era that we're in.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: Representative McIver, thank you so much for joining us. Good
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: luck with everything that's happening for you. And I hope
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: you get a little rest after this long night you've had.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Dan. I look forward to being
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: on again with you.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: Please. Absolutely. Keep us updated on how it goes. All right.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 3: Take care.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 4: That's our show for today. Hope everyone has a great
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 4: long weekend. Even though Monday is Memorial Day, we will
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 4: have a new show where Dan Lovett, Tommy and I
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 4: will answer all the questions. Some of the questions.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: The best questions.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 4: The best questions that you submitted. So tune in for that.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
• 1:15:33
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