Latest / Pod Save America / Two Strikes. Is Hegseth Out?

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Two Strikes. Is Hegseth Out? · Pod Save America

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• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: On today's show, we'll talk about the latest drama with
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Mike Johnson and House Republicans after their way-too-close-for-comfort win in
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Tuesday's Tennessee special election, as well as Donald Trump's promise
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: to come to their rescue with a nationwide messaging blitz
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: on affordability, the issue he calls a con job. We'll
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: also talk about Trump's especially disgusting, even for him, comments
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: about Somali immigrants and how the Pentagon Press Corps has
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: now officially been replaced with intrepid journalists. like Laura Loomer
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: and Matt Gaetz. Then Dan talks to Democratic leader Hakeem
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Jeffries about Trump's pardon of Congressman Henry Cuellar, Mike Johnson's headaches,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: and lots more. But let's start with the new developments
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: and what is still the biggest political story of the week.
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  Speaker 2: Had to do it. Had to do it. Because he is.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Because he is. Hegseth continues to live up to the song,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: A new independent investigation of Signalgate from his own Department
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: of Defense found that his actions put American troops at risk.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: We'll talk more about that in a bit. And he
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: was defiant this week about the Pentagon's decision to murder
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: the survivors of a September strike on an alleged Venezuelan
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: drug boat. Here's Hegseth during one of those 24-hour cabinet
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: meetings where everyone takes turns glazing Trump while he catches
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: a few winks.
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  Speaker 3: Got another use of glazing, huh?
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  Speaker 4: We've only just begun striking narco boats and putting narco
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: terrorists at the bottom of the ocean. I did not
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: personally see survivors, but I stand, because the thing was
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: on fire.
• 2:59
  Speaker 5: It was exploded in fire and smoke. You can't see anything.
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: You got digital. This is called the fog of war.
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: This is what you and the press... don't understand.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: You sit in your air-conditioned offices or up on Capitol
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: Hill and you nitpick and you plant fake stories in
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: the Washington Post about kill everybody. I watched that first
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: strike live. As you can imagine at the Department of
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: War we got a lot of things to do. So
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: I didn't stick around for the hour and two hours
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: whatever where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs.
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: So I moved on to my next meeting. And by
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: the way.
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: Admiral Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: boat and eliminate the threat.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: I didn't stick around for that second strike because I
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: had to go back to my air-conditioned office, which is
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: much like the air-conditioned set on Fox News, where I
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: was previously employed before this job. Like, what the fuck
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: is that guy doing? It's his first strike on a boat,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: on a Venezuelan boat, and he had to go somewhere else?
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: What was he doing? Was he going to fucking take
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: some kind of Department of Defense nameplate off a door
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: so he could put Secretary of War back on there?
• 4:03
  Speaker 6: Like, what the fuck?
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: I assume that in the room in which you watch
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: these strikes live, you can't bring your phone. As we know,
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: this guy's got a lot of group chats happening, and
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: so he had to go back and check in.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Other meetings, okay. On Thursday, Admiral Frank Bradley, who gave
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: the order to kill the survivors, and Chairman of the
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Joint Chiefs Dan Raisincane, briefed members of Congress about their
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: rationale for the second strike in a classified closed-door session
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: that included video footage of the attack. Republicans left the
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: meeting largely satisfied. Tom Cotton called the strikes, quote, righteous
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: and entirely lawful. He also said, quote, I saw two
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: survivors trying to flip a boat loaded with drugs bound
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: for the United States back over so they could stay
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: in the fight. Democrats, unsurprisingly, had a completely different take.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: told Greg Sargent at the New Republic, quote, This did
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: not reduce my concerns at all. or anyone else's, calling
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: it a, quote, highly questionable decision that these two people
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: on that obviously incapacitated vessel were still in any kind
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: of fight. And here's Jim Himes, the top Democrat on
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: the House Intelligence Committee, speaking to reporters after the meeting.
• 5:14
  Speaker 7: What I saw in that room was one of the
• 5:16
  Speaker 7: most troubling things I've seen in my time in public service.
• 5:20
  Speaker 7: You have two individuals in clear distress without any means
• 5:25
  Speaker 7: of locomotion. with a destroyed vessel, who were killed by
• 5:32
  Speaker 7: the United States.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: So we have moved from fake news, it didn't happen,
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: to where we always seem to end up with Trump,
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: which is we did it and we're proud of it.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Now that Republicans in Congress seem satisfied, because it did
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: seem like there were some cracks in the support among
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Republicans and some questions that Republicans in Congress had about this,
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: but now Tom Cotton and the rest of them seem
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: like they are on board again with the administration's explanation.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Where does this story go from here?
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: I think the question is going to be if and
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: when the video is released, because based on what Congressman
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Himes and others have said about the video, it is
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: quite disturbing. It seems very... Based only on the description, obviously,
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: we haven't seen it, of course. But It seems to
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: completely undermine what Hexeth has said, the argument here, because
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: the rationale, and this is important, the rationale is that
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: this lethal strike was necessary because these two people on
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: a destroyed boat were either going to reenter the fight,
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: we don't know what fight that is or how they
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: were conducted, or more ridiculously, continue the effort to deliver
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: the drugs. Were they going to paddle with their hands? Like,
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: how are they going to get it? It is absolutely absurd.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: If the video says what these Democrats say it says,
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: it completely exposes the fallacy at the heart of the
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: entire Republican argument here of Trump's defense, of Hex's defense,
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: of the military's defense.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they were trying to say that they were going
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: to radio or somehow call for help to other, you know,
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: quote unquote, enemy combatants, part of this drug smuggling ring
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: that's heading to the United States. Though they, at least
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Adam Smith told Greg Sargent that in the briefing, the
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: official said there were no records of any kind of communication.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: So this is just a guess on their part. And
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: he also said that from what he saw in the video,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: that it was just like two shirtless men sitting on
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: a capsized boat. He's like, what you would expect from
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: survivors of wreckage like that. And even though Adam Smith
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: said he believed them that there were drugs originally on
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: the boat. He said once it was hit, there was
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: no proof that the drugs were still on the boat. But, like,
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: that aside... Even if.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: They were, what were they going to do with the drugs?
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: I thought about this when we first started talking about
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: this story about the second strike. Like, the focus on
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: the second strike, which is completely understandable because that's been
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: the big story of the week, it's making the first
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: strike somehow seem like less of a war crime by comparison...
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: But it's just as horrifying and likely just as illegal
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: because the administration has offered no justification that the people
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: they are murdering because they say they're part of a
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: foreign terrorist organization that threatens the United States... They have
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: no evidence that they are other than the existence of
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: cocaine on their boats. So you are part of a
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: foreign terrorist organization that is threatening the United States, the
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: safety and security of the United States, because you happen
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: to be on a boat with drugs. That is what
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: the U.S. government has decided now, with cocaine. And that
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: is insane. It is insane to say that people who
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: are on boats with cocaine are enemy combatants who can
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: be murdered by the U.S. military with no arrest whatsoever.
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  Speaker 2: No trial, no conviction, no due process. It's like, it's insane.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: It is insane. And that boat, even if you, that
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: boat wasn't even headed to the fucking United States. It
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: started to turn around when the strike hit. It had
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: already started to turn around.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: You raise a really good point here, which is it's
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: easy to get, like once you start talking about war crimes,
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: you start talking about this from the context of this
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: happening within a lawful war.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: This is not a lawful war. There is, there is no, justification.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: There is no congressional authorization. There is no evidence. It
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: is just murder, right? It is pure murder under the
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: argument of self-defense. But the argument for self-defense seems absurd.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: These are not people taking bombs to the United States
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: or anything like that. There is not an imminent threat
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: to the United States that would require these people to
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: be killed. Why couldn't they be arrested? Why couldn't we
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: stop the boat.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: How come– like, when Hegseth ever testifies or any of
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: them testify in open– before Congress and it's public, like,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: I want someone to answer the fucking question. why the
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Coast Guard can't do what they always have done in
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: the past and interdict these ships and arrest these people.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: And the military could do it because they're in international waters.
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: Of course.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: But yeah, that's what we've always done to stop drug
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: trafficking is you have stopped the people, seized the drugs,
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: arrested the people, sent them back to where they came
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: to be prosecuted, brought them to the United States to
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: be prosecuted. And none of that is even on the table.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: And it is, the whole thing is so bizarre because
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: it's not even clear what the end game is other
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: than just death for the sake of death.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: I think they probably believe that it is all much
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: like their immigration policy and the horrors they're carrying out there,
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: that it's all about deterrence. And that if people in
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Central and South America who are smuggling drugs hear that
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: boats are getting blown up by the United States, they
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: won't even try. And so they think this is some
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: kind of deterrent. And because they think it's a deterrent,
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: they feel like it's completely justified just murdering people left
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: and right who they happen to believe are on boats
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: with drugs. That's it.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: If there's one thing the war on drugs has taught us,
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: it's that harsh penalties and deterrents work.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: Oh, wait, no, no, no. That is the opposite of
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: what has happened. And the other thing on this, on
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: the call, I think this is also just notable because
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: the original order that Hegseth signed off on said that
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: essentially there could be a second strike if there was
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: some sort of hostile act. And included, according to the
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: story in the Wall Street Journal, among things that include
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: a hostile act is calling back to the cartels, which
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: is why they cited that here, even though there was
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: no evidence of it. A call for help being the
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: equivalent of shooting at American troops or an act of
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: war is an absurd proposition. I do understand that if
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: these people were called back to the cartel and you
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: had reason to believe that other members of the cartel
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: were coming to the scene of the wreck by a
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: boat with weapons or whatever else that you would not then,
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: it would be risky to send American troops to rescue
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: those shipwrecked traffickers. But there's no evidence of that. And
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: also we had full surveillance on the area. So you
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: would know where, whether there was other people coming or not.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: It's just, this was, this was just to kill people
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: for the sake of killing people.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: It is also worth repeating that as we have said
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: a couple times in talking about this story, that this
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: was the first strike on September 2nd. There have been
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: many strikes since then. There have been about 80 people
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: that we know of killed. And in a subsequent strike,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: when the first strike did not kill everyone on the boat,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: the survivors were picked up by the Coast Guard, not tried,
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: not arrested, sent back to their countries where they were
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: just let free. So these enemy combatant terrorists who pose...
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: such a grave threat to the United States, were just
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: freed and sent back, which shows you how dangerous they
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: really are.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: Or how little evidence we had to prosecute them if
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: we wanted to.
• 12:50
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: And obviously, the president cares a great deal about drug trafficking,
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: which is why he pardoned the former president of Honduras,
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: who was involved in one of the biggest drug trafficking
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: rings in modern history. So he cares a lot about that.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: There's a story in the New York Post before we
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: started recording, that there's a Long Island drug dealer who
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: was freed by Trump because, of course, had connections with
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: the family, I think with Kushner's dad, who was freed
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: by Trump.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: They met in prison.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, probably. Freed by Trump, now convicted again of molesting
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: his kid's nanny and threatening a synagogue congregant. That's the
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: headline in the New York Post. So again, this is
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: an administration that cares deeply about prosecuting drug crimes. We
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: know that. We know that. Did you see the reporting
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: from the Wall Street Journal on Hegseth forcing out the
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: commander of U.S. Southern Command back in October?
• 13:44
  Speaker 8: I did.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: There's an anecdote at the beginning of that story that
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: talks about Hegseth's first conversation with this commander and where
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: Hegseth basically says on the secure call, basically, when I
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: give you an order, you do it fast and you
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: don't ask questions.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: This guy is a four-star head of the military operations
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: in the Caribbean. Less than a year into his tenure,
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: he leaves. It's from the Journal. because they say he
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: had concerns about the legality of the strikes. And this
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: is someone who, during his Senate confirmation hearing in September,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: argued for a more muscular approach to dismantling drug cartels
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: and talked about how, you know, when he first started
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: his career, he started doing sort of anti-drug trafficking operations.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: So this is not like someone who wanted to crack
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: down on the drug cartels, but for him, who was
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: like going to be confirmed to work in the Trump administration,
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: once he got there and heard from Hegseth, thought it
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: was too much and was worried about it.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: And the fact that he left at the height of
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: the military buildup in a lot of military experts say
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: is very, that's highly unusual and very telling. And imagine
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: this guy, I mean, also this guy served his country
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: for his entire life. His first job is to get,
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: his first interaction in this job is to get yelled
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: at by a cable news host. And then his second
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: task is to devise war plans for seizing the Panama Canal.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's right. And he wasn't working. He wasn't
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: moving fast enough on that. So that was one of
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: the early strikes against him, according to Hegseth.
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  Speaker 9: more than a million kids and parents love are now
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• 16:59
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• 17:02
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• 17:06
  Speaker 6: Spoiler.
• 17:06
  Speaker 9: And we worked out a special deal with Hyah for
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• 17:24
  Speaker 9: healthy adults.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: So in some really exquisite timing for Pete, the Pentagon
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Inspector General's report on Signalgate went public just as the
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: commanders were on the hill trying to explain away the
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: double tap strike. Hegseth tweeted, total exoneration case closed, which
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: of course is not true. The report actually said, quote,
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: using a personal cell phone to conduct official business and
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: send non-public DOD information through Signal risks potential compromise of
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: sensitive DOD information, which could cause harm to DOD personnel
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: and mission objectives. In other words, Pete Hegseth, by running
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: his mouth too much on Signal with all of his
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: buddies in the administration, put American troops at risk in
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: that operation when they were bombing the Houthis. So in
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: one week, we have learned that the guy who runs
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: our military may be responsible for war crimes and put
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: American troops in jeopardy by talking about sensitive information on
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: an unsecured device, which, of course, a mistake that we
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: know our president cares about deeply. Again, it was, you know,
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: back in 2016, cared about it deeply. Do you think
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: that Hegseth's job is still safe because Trump just... doesn't
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: want to show weakness, doesn't want to give, doesn't want
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: to be seen giving his opponents a win.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: I do think his job is safe because in Trump world,
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: the only mortal sin is disloyalty. So you can be corrupt,
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: you can be incompetent, you can be a anti-vax wackadoodle,
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: you can be all of those things as long as
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: you are loyal to Trump.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: And so this will just, I mean, I guess you're right.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Like if the video is released and that causes more
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: of an uproar, maybe there's more pressure, but I don't know.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: It's like every other- The pressure will be on the admiral, right?
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: It's like every other scandal, they just weather it and
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: they don't care. They figure everyone's attention is going to
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: go somewhere else. And so Pete Hegseth continues to just
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: fuck up his job as the top official overseeing the
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: most powerful military on earth.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: And also, I think Trump likes it when his staff members,
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: his cabinet members feel like their job is at risk
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: or they're in trouble. because that's more leverage. Because what
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: Trump wants is someone who's going to do whatever they
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: say and not disagree at all, not push back at all.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: And Pete's in no position to push back on anything.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: So no matter how illegal the order, no matter how
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: absurd the request, he will do what Trump says. And
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: that's what Trump wants at the end of the day,
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: above all else.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can be as incompetent as you want. And
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: plenty of his cabinet officials have taken him up on that.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Pam Bondi, for example, over at DOJ, I don't know
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: if you saw just before we started recording, the brilliant
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: legal minds at the Department of Justice have failed to
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: secure an indictment of Tish James 10 days after a
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: judge threw out their first indictment. Just absolute confidence. They're
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: 0 for 2 on trying to indict Tish James for
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: mortgage fraud. They are 0 and 1 on trying to
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: indict James Comey for mortgage fraud. And wouldn't you know,
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: We also learned today that the Government Accountability Office, which
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: is a independent organization, but under the purview of Congress,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: has opened an investigation into Bill Pulte, the federal housing
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: official who spends most of his days, I guess, accusing
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: politicians the president doesn't like of mortgage fraud, so far unsuccessfully.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: So they're crushing it.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: It's, I mean, it's, you always just have to say
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: it again, that's the easiest thing to do in our
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: criminal justice system is to indict someone. It's a, it's,
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: I think it's a flaw in our system, but like
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: the saying is you can indict a ham sandwich and
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: they cannot, these guys cannot indict a ham sandwich. The
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: cases are, they're too dumb. The cases are too spurious.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: Their evidence is too thin and they keep failing, falling
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: flat on their face.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Do you think they try again? I guess they can
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: try again. How many times, can you just keep trying
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: to indict someone over and over?
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you are, you are, it's, you only get, you're
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: only freed of this when you get acquitted.
• 21:37
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I was.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Going to say something. Man, they are. I'm starting to
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: think that maybe these charges aren't on the level about
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: the mortgage fraud.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, it seems possible.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: All right. You and Lovett already did some reaction to
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: Tuesday's special election in Tennessee 7, where Afton Bain didn't
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: pull off the upset, but did hold Matt Van Epps
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: to single digits. What was it, like nine? Nine points?
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: Nine.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: Nine at the end.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: But we now have some more reaction from Republicans. They
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: aren't encouraged, to say the least. Here's Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett,
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: who's About as conservative as they come.
• 22:11
  Speaker 8: Evangelical Christians, which I associate with, 45% of them don't
• 22:16
  Speaker 8: go to the polls. 30% of gun owners don't go
• 22:18
  Speaker 8: to the polls. Yeah, we got a real problem and
• 22:20
  Speaker 8: we better wake up.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: What do you think? You think he's speaking some wisdom there?
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: I listened to the full clip and I don't think
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: he fully understands the scope of the problem, but he
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: is correct that there is a problem.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: So give him credit for that.
• 22:34
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: You've written a couple of message boxes about this now.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: What are your big takeaways from Tuesday night, now that
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: we've all had a few days to process?
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: So throughout the course of the year, Republicans have dismissed
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: the previous special elections by pointing out, somewhat correctly, that
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: Democrats always do well because it's a low turnout special election.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: So it's not really indicative of things. And we know
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: that because we did well in special elections in 23
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: and 24, and we did not win the presidency. Then
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: they sort of dismissed the victories in Virginia and New
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: Jersey and elsewhere, saying these are taking place in largely
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: blue states. Here you have an election that took place
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: in a deep red district, and it was not low turnout.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: The turnout on Tuesday night was just as high as
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: it was on election day 2022 in the last midterm.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: So this is as good a dry run as we're
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: going to get to understand how voters are interpreting the economy, Trump,
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: backlash to the extremism, all of the above. And so
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: this is very hard to– you can't dismiss this. And
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: so I think the main takeaways are the Democratic base
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: is fired up. Afton Bain received 20% more votes than
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: the Democrat who ran in 2022. While Republican turnout was
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: high for a special election, Matt Van Epps, the Republican
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: who won, received about 9,000 less votes than Mark Green,
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: who was the incumbent in 2022. So Democrat turnout was
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: way up, Republican turnout not the same. We don't have
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: exit polls here. So we can't know for sure, like
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: we did in Virginia and New Jersey, about how many
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: Trump voters or Republicans voted for a Democrat. But the
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: math in a district this red suggests that certainly a
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: lot of this has turned out, but some of it
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: is also persuasion. So there are some people who, probably
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: similar to New Jersey and Virginia, who are soft Republican
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: voters who voted for Trump because of prices or whatever else,
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: voted for a Democrat this time. That's a very positive sign.
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: The other thing that I think is really interesting here
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: is the absence of Trump. Trump did a couple like
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: fake teletown halls, which is always what they do to
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: let him say he did something. His only other appearance
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: in the race was he happened to call Mike Johnson
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: while Mike Johnson was at a press conference and Mike
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: Johnson put him on speaker.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Classic.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: But interestingly enough, Trump showed up in no ads, not
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: even like GOTV stuff down the stretch. And that's really,
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: really interesting because in a– like if this was a
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: swing district, you understand that decision because Trump will gin
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: up Democratic turnout more. But here's a race in a
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: district so Republican that if you turn out every single voter,
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: you gin up everyone, Republicans win by a lot. And
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: so they made a decision that– they decided not to
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: use Trump. That was a conscious decision. They did it
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: for either one of two reasons. The first being they
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: thought he wouldn't turn out voters that much. It's interesting.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: And the second is that he was so toxic to
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: swing voters to independence that it would push more people
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: into Baines camp. And there's reason to believe the latter
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: one is certainly true because in the Gallup poll that
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: came out recently, Trump's approval rating among independents is 25%.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: On every single issue, a majority disapprove of what he
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: is doing. And, you know, independents tend to make up,
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: in the 2022 midterms, they made up basically a third
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: of voters. And so if you are losing three of
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: every four independent voters, you don't want Trump anywhere near
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: the race. I think that has real implications for what
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: the midterms look like and how Democrats can use Trump
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: and how Republicans can't.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Do we know that it was the Van Epps campaign's
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: decision not to have Trump come? Or could it also
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: have been the case that Trump was just lazy and
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: didn't care.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: I think Trump visiting would be a relatively extreme measure
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: for a special election. But they didn't even use him
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: in ads. He didn't record one of those weird videos
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: that you put out. I've seen no reports of Trump
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: robocalls at the end. He just was.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: For some reason.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Maybe he posted. Yeah, I think he posted.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: But he posted on Twitter. That's a fake thing to do.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: It doesn't really affect... What percentage of people in the
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: 7th District of Tennessee are seeing his tweets on the
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: 9th most trafficked social media site?
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: That's where he calls for Democrats to be hanged.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes. I mean, not that his tweets don't matter.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: They do matter, but it's not a particularly effective or
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: efficient GOTV tool.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Have you... So obviously this is like a rough calculation,
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: but what? It was a Trump 22 district. She lost
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: by nine. So that's like a 13 point swing. Have
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: you done the math where like if in the midterms
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: it was a, I don't know, 10 plus point swing, like,
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: you know, 10 and change if you're sort of approximating it,
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: how many seats we'd win?
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: So there are four Republicans in seats Kamala Harris won
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: right now. There are, I think, 10 Republicans in seats
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: that Trump won by five or less. And then there's
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: another 14 or so that are in seats that Trump
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: won between five and 10 points. And so that gets
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: you to 28 seats. Now, there are some Democrats in
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: seats that.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: Are- Jared Golden's seat.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: Jared Golden.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Who's not running again.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: Henry Cuellar, Don Davis in North Carolina who are a
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: handful of people who are in very gerrymandered seats who
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: have– they're Democrats who are in either lean or solid
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: Republican seats according to the Cook Political Report ratings. But
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: the question.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Here– None of them are in Trump– like over Trump
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: plus 10 seats, right?
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, no. But they're– No, I think they're
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: all under Trump plus 10. The question– and then you
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: have Don Bacon who is one of those four who's
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: in actually a lead Democratic seat in Nebraska too. The
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: question will be about the size of the Democratic majority
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: to get to something that looks like a 2018-style majority.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: You're going to be able to get to those districts
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: who are between Trump 10– and Trump 15. You have
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: to put some of those in play because you're not
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: going to win all of the Trump plus 10 ones,
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: you know, just because of their, you know, it depends
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: on who our candidate is, depends on who their candidate,
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: like we actually only won, this is political report data
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: that Amy Walter and I talked about on last Sunday's pod,
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: but I think we won like a third of the
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: Trump five to 10 districts in 2018. There just were
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: so many more, there were 19 Republicans in districts that
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: Hillary Clinton won that time around. And so there's just,
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: it was a wider playing field, but With a plus 13,
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: plus 10, you can have a majority much larger than
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: what the Republicans have.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: So you mentioned that that certainly depends on the candidates
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: that run in each party. After the results came in
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: on Tuesday, since the results have come in on Tuesday,
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: I should say, there's been a lot of conversation online
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: about whether Afton Bain was the right candidate for the
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: district and candidate quality generally as we head into the midterms.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: Would you like to weigh in? Yeah, I think this
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: is a really hard- Here, instead of just posting on
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Twitter like Elijah, I know Elijah's weighed in. Elijah is
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: very- He's having a great time on Twitter.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: He's doing it. I have a hundred retweets on that
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: last time I looked. That's a lot of engagement for
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: an Elijah tweet. He hasn't gotten that much engagement since
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: he got to a Twitter fight with Jamie Harrison. It
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: is hard to- There's a counterfactual here, right? Which is,
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: to her credit, Afton Bayne drove up Democratic turnout in
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: Davidson County, which has Nashville in it. She won Davidson
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: County by 58 points, which is 20 points better than
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: Kamala Harris did in 2024. So that's a significant gain.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: That's obviously a significant gain. It's probably fair to say
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: that she is not the best ideological fit for a
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: district that Trump won by 22. She had a lot
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: of positions on defunding the police, a lot of video
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: about how much she hates Nashville. She was a very
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: prominent organizer with a robust social media history. and endorsed
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: by the DSA in the primary when she ran for
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: state rep, that's easily weaponizable against the Republicans. And when
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: you have to do the math and you have to
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: win a significant number of Trump voters, that's probably not
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: your candidate. Would someone else have won the seat? Probably not.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: I haven't looked at the other– there were four people
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: in that primary. Hard to know that someone else would
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: have won. I think this debate is really hard because, yes,
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: of course you want candidates who are good fits for
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: ideologically and culturally for the district. That seems obvious, right?
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: Even though he didn't win, you want someone like Jon
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: Tester running in.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Montana.
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: Jared Golden, who's obviously retiring, was an excellent fit for
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: his district. But the question is, how do you execute that?
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: Do we really want folks in DC to decide who
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: the most electable candidate is. You're having this, we're having
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: the same conversation because it seems like Jasmine Crockett's going
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: to throw her hat in the ring in the Texas
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: Senate race in the coming days. And a lot of
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: people are saying, well, she's the least electable of the
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: three candidates. And so do you want the DSCC or
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: the DCCC to come in and say, no, this is
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: the most electable candidate? Which is the exact thing that
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: we're very pissed about happening in Maine and Michigan.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Well, it's not just do you want them to do it,
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: it's do you think that will be effective?
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: Well, that's my point.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of like, oh, we can
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: just move around pieces on a chessboard, those of us
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: who play pundits on Twitter. And it's like, yeah, I
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: totally agree that you want a candidate who fits the
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: district for sure. But what, five people ran in that primary?
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: Or four people?
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: I think four, yeah.
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: Four?
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: Four or five, yeah. And she won. So she ran.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: took a chance. She ran for office. She beat everyone
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: else in the primary. The voters decided, the Democratic primary
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: voters decided they wanted her over the other candidates. And
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: then she went on and, and so, yeah, was she
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: the strongest candidate? Maybe not, but like that was democracy.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: It played out. So like, you can talk to all
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: the candidates who ran against her in the primary and
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: ask them like, why, why did you fuck up and
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: not beat her? If you were a more electable, more
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: moderate candidate. And I realized that, you know, some of
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: the discussion online is like, well, you know, Republicans in
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: 2010 nominated a bunch of, like, Tea Party doofuses and
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: that's what cost them the Senate. It's like, yeah, they did,
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: but I don't know that the NRSC could have really
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: done much about that.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: Well, they have.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: You can try, right? Like, someone can, if people think
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: that Colin Allred is the best candidate, say, in Texas,
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: people can, you know, party leaders can call James Tallarico
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: and call Jasmine Crockett and try to tell them, hey,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: look at the polling. This is it. You shouldn't run.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: They can try to do that, but they can't force
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: them to do anything. They can try to put their
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: thumb on the scale like they're doing in some other races.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: And that could easily backfire as we predicted it might
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: in some of those other races. So you can try
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: to do that stuff. But at the end of the day,
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: it's like it's up to the voters in the district
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: and the candidates running. And as much as I understand
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: the concern among more moderate-minded strategists and pundits that you
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: need a candidate to fit the district and that some
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: candidates are either and i would say either too progressive
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: or it's always like talked about in terms of ideology
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: but i don't even know if it was her ideology
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: as much as some of the some of the things
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: she said in the past and then chose not to
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: really explain like it's not this wasn't this wasn't a
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: race that was based on her positions necessarily like When
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: I saw the clip of Catherine Rampell of MSNBC interviewing
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: Afton Bain and asking her about some of her tweets
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: from 2020 when she said that the Nashville Police Department
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: should be dissolved and that, you know, good morning, especially
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: to the 54% of Americans that believe burning down a
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: police station is justified. So it's like, whatever. You have tweets.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Everyone has tweets they don't like. And then she didn't
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: explain them. And she's like, I don't remember those tweets.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: And she's like, all right, what do you think about those?
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Do you have a position on that? And she's like, well,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: I'm not really focused on that. And I'm like, you know,
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Zoran Mamdani, DSA, socialist, right, had some positions and tweets
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: in the past that he and his campaign decided that
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: they were going to clean up, that they were going
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: to say, no, this is the position I hold now.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: I am strongly in favor of X, Y, and Z,
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: even though I said that in the past, you know.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: So some of this is ideology. Some of it is
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: just like how you decide to campaign. And so I
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: think like that's a big thing. But regardless, I also
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: think that moderate candidates, candidates that do fit the district,
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: have a responsibility to figure out how to beat some
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: of these other candidates who they think are too progressive
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: or too far to the left or not good fits
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: for whatever reason. And if the moderate candidates are either
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: too bland or boring to gain any traction or to
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: beat these candidates, then who the fuck's fault is that?
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's... I mean... There is a world where you
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: can– if this party apparatus were to choose, decide that
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: they knew who the best candidate was, they can play
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: a real role here. The Republicans lost the Senate in
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: 2010 because they nominated a bunch of knuckleheads, lost the
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: Senate in 2012 because they lost a bunch of knuckleheads,
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: even lost Indiana and Missouri in that cycle because they
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: had terrible candidates, Todd Akin included there. By 2014, they
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: decided we're not doing that again. The Republican version of
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: the Senate majority pack, Republican super PACs, basically nuked anyone
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: who was not– they did not think was electable. They
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: shut off their access to money. They would run ads
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: against them. They would put pressure on them to drop out.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: They would play with the field. So like what happened
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: in– as I understand it, what happened in Tennessee 7–
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: now obviously no one thought this was going to be
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: a real race, so it's not like anyone should have
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: been involved here. But as you had a progressive and
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: a handful of moderates– what the NRSC and the Republicans
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: have done in the past is they've tried to get
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: out the other moderate so that it's moderate versus progressive. Now,
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: the problem with that is I don't really trust the
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: people in charge to do that correctly. And so it's
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: sort of as we live where we live. I think
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: the responsibility all of us have to talk about and
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: write about politics is to be as honest as we
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: can be about our assessments of the candidates and what
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: it takes to win and have humility about what makes
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: someone electable in 2025.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Yes. And also, I just think it's the responsibility of
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: both sides of this debate to field candidates and support
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: candidates that they think can win. And it's the candidates
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: in those campaigns' responsibility to win in these primaries.
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah. There's this assumption that there's a bunch of people
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: on the left in the middle who are like their
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: puppet strings picking the people. It's really just a bunch
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: of local candidates deciding to run. And then maybe some
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: DC groups get involved and support them. But It's a
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: much more organic process than I think the conversation about
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: Tennessee 7 allows.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: We should say that there's some breaking news before we
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: leave the midterm map here. The Supreme Court has permitted
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: Texas to keep its newly redistricted GOP-favorable congressional map in 2026.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: Kyle Chaney from Politico just tweeted this. 6-3 decision. Kagan, Sotomayor,
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: and Jackson dissent. Although Kyle also points out that it's notable...
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: that Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch say they view California's new
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: map is indisputably driven by the pursuit of partisan advantage
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: as opposed to impermissible race-based goals, which bodes very well
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: for Newsom and California in that legal challenge.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: Because partisan gerrymandering is allowed by the Supreme Court.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: Of course. But it's also interesting, though, that they're saying,
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: as opposed to impermissible race-based goals, when we know that
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: the Section 2 of the VRA is very much up
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: for grabs. So I don't know what that says about that,
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: but that's what we got. Yeah.
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: And they had to make this decision now because the
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: filing deadline's in five days, I think.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: Right. Now, I think, I don't know, with everything we've seen,
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: I still think, and I know you talked to Amy
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: Walter about this on Sunday's episode, but even with Texas
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: keeping their gerrymandered plus five map, I don't think Democrats
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: are in terrible shape.
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, the Speaker of the Virginia House just said
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: that he was contemplating a 10-1 Democratic-Republican map in Virginia.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: How many seats does that net us?
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: I think the map of Virginia is like 6-5 right now.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. Look at that.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Pods of America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Tommy,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: what's your favorite holiday movie?
• 39:27
  Speaker 6: Saw.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Saw?
• 39:28
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 39:28
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: You know, it's about a person who hides a present
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: inside a stomach of someone, in a sense. That's something
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: that happens in there. And then also, spoiler for Saw,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: it looks like somebody is dead. And then Have you
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: heard the good news? He is risen. So that's also
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: that's a good idea to say that. But here's the thing, Tommy,
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• 40:48
  Speaker 1: Could have said Miracle on 34th Street. That's a good one.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Could have said Die Hard.
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: Wicker Man.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Could have said Wicker Man. Wicker Man is really a
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: very pagan. It's just sort of a pagan worship ceremony.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: In a sense.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: But that is also a holiday. We're saying.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: We're saying Merry Wicker Man again. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash crooked. ZipRecruiter,
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• 41:17
  Speaker 2: So Republicans aren't waiting for the midterms to knife Mike Johnson,
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: Speaker of the House, who's becoming less and less popular
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: with some of his MAGA members. Elise Stefanik, who's been
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: performing the role of MAGA attack dog so she can
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: get a better job. She's currently gunning for governor of
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: New York. Good luck with that. is, uh, out there
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: calling Johnson a serial liar who's in league with the
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: deep state, uh, and said that he wouldn't win the
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: speakership again if the election were held today. Nancy Mace,
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: who seems perpetually unwell, told the New York Times, quote,
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: I stand with Elise and is reportedly considering following Marjorie
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: Taylor Greene into early retirement because of her anger at
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: Johnson's treatment of Republican women. Um, What is all this about?
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: Can you tell us what all the anger at Johnson
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: is about lately?
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: Well, I talked to Leader Jeffries about this and you'll
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: hear his comments on it. But I think there are
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: a couple of things going on here. One is Mike
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: Johnson's a doofus. I mean, he just is. He just
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: happened to be the least defensive person when they desperately
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: needed to get to 218. And so he got the job.
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: He is not a policy wonk. He's not a strategist.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: He's just a guy. And being just a guy in
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: charge of the narrowest majority since the Great Depression... is
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: probably– he's punching above his weight. He's not doing it well.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: The second thing is he owes his entire job to
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump. And so he's always one Trump truth away
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: from being ousted. And so he has put Trump's interests
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: in his own job security over the interests of the caucus.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: And I think you saw that most vividly during the
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: Epstein files thing. Basically, he made these Republicans go months
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: of asking– answering awkward questions, being on the outs with
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: the base, because that's what Trump wanted, even though it
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: was bad for the members themselves. It was bad for
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: the caucus. It's probably bad for their attempt to actually
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: have the majority. And then I think the last thing
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: here is just they're all feeling the pressure. They see
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: these results in the elections. They see the poll numbers.
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: They see that Trump's numbers are in the toilet. And
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: they're all starting to look for the exits. They figure
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: out what's going on.
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: They're nervous.
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: They don't want to lose. And so they're starting to
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: act out.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: It seems like with Elise Stefanik, she's just pissed that,
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: remember she was up for the UN job.
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: And then Trump and Johnson basically told her, no, you
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: got to stay in Congress because the number, the margin
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: is so slim. And so we need you in Congress.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: So she loses that job. And then she's running for governor.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: And her whole gubernatorial campaign is that, you know, Hochul
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: is too tied to Mamdani. And then Trump yucks it
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: up with Mamdani in the Oval. So it's possible that
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: she's just pretty pissed at Mike Johnson. She's taken out
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: her anger at Donald Trump on Mike Johnson because obviously
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: she can't be angry at Donald Trump. I see.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: I think it's more political calculation than pure anger.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: You think she just looks like a– what is the
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: political calculation there that just helps her with the base?
• 44:17
  Speaker 6: Well, no.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: I think it is. So just– I don't think she
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: has any sincere moments in her life. She was anti-Trump
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: and that was good. She was pro-Trump and that was good.
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: And now she wants to be governor of New York.
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: And so she has to seem, and she is in
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: the worst position possible. She is in the leadership of
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: a Congress that is at its second least popular time
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: in the history of Gallup polling. And so she's trying
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: to separate herself, seem like an outsider, but do it
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: without actually pissing off Trump or the base. And this
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: is a way to do it.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess. Because the actual substance of what she's
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: pissed about is supposedly this provision that would force the
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: FBI to notify Congress if they ever opened another investigation
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: of a political candidate. And so she's alleging that Mike
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: Johnson is in league with Jamie Raskin in the deep state.
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, like it's absurd, but I think she is
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: looking for places to distance herself from her own party
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: without upsetting the base before a primary.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: Now, I mean, it makes for interesting conversation about the
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: drama with Mike Johnson, but he doesn't seem like he's
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: in any real trouble. Like it's a, It's a year
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: to the midterms. What, are they going to hold a
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: new vote for Speaker and someone else is going to
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: get the votes? I mean, I could see him exiting
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: after 2026, but I can't see him getting ousted before then.
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: Can you?
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: No, I would be shocked if he was ousted before that.
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: It just seems no one wants the job. The process
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: before was so painful. They've tolerated having this duvis in
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: charge for years now because they don't want to revisit
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: that process. I think it's highly likely if they lose
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: the majority, which I also think is pretty likely, that
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: he will get tossed aside then. He doesn't even really
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: want the job. I can't believe I did this, but
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: I watched several minutes of his and his wife's interview
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: with Katie Miller.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: Because you're a big Katie Miller fan.
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: Well, it's like I'm always looking for content out here, right?
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: Just to try to help Elijah in his job. And
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: the whole thing is a sob story about how hard
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: the job is and how he doesn't like it.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: So sad for you.
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so hard.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: Well, luckily for Johnson and all of these very anxious Republicans,
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: Trump is reportedly planning to tear himself away from ballroom
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: renovations and midday naps long enough to hit the road
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: for the next year so he can sell Americans on
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: everything he hasn't done to bring down the cost of living.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: We're already getting a preview of how that's going to go.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: Take a listen.
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: It's a conjunct. They say affordability. They don't say anything else.
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: Everyone says, oh, it's a fake narrative that the Democrats
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: talk about affordability. The word affordability is a con job
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: by the Democrats. Affordability, affordability, affordability. She had no idea.
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: Their prices were much higher.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: You think that was on the message calendar for that day?
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: No, I don't think so. I think that is possibly
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: the worst message you could possibly design ever.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: A new Politico poll has 46% of Americans and a slim.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: A plurality of Trump voters saying the cost of living
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: is the worst they can remember where they live. Asked
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: whether Trump bears full responsibility for today's economy. Almost 20%
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: of Trump voters said yes. Obviously, a big majority of
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: all voters said yes. What are your thoughts on the
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: affordability pivot? Will we even get one?
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: I don't think we're going to get one because when
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: Trump hits, if you read the Axios story that previewed
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: his upcoming event, and Trump has been so I don't
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: say lazy is the right word. He really hasn't done
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: any domestic travel at all as president. He really just–
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: he does foreign trips and he renovates ballrooms. That's like
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: the full extent of his duties. But if you read
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: the story preview, it says that Trump is going to
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: hit the road to talk about his economic accomplishments, which
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: is the exact wrong thing to do.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: You're going to call it Trumponomics? Trumponomics.
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: Exactly. I mean it is– I mean we talked about this.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: There are parallels to Biden, but it's like 100 times
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: worse than Biden at this. Trump is going to fail
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: at this because– To admit that prices are still high
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: is to admit that he failed. And he can't admit failure.
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: He's never done it in his eight decades on the planet,
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: so he's not going to do it then. So instead,
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: he's going to go out and do what he did
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: in those clips we just listened to, which is poke
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: voters in the eye every single moment. It has to
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: make as it being an absolute political disaster, which I
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: plan on enjoying.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: The other big difference is Trump has at least two
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: very easily doable options in front of him to help
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: with the cost of living. He could get rid of
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: the tariffs that everyone knows he put in place on
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: his own and have hurt the economy and have made
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: things in their lives more expensive. Or he could do
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: something about the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are about
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: to expire and the premium hikes that are coming for
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: 20 million Americans. And he is thus far refusing to
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: do anything about that. So people are going to know
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: that there are just options that he is just saying, no,
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: thank you. And he's just going to go around talking
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: about the tax cuts that he passed from the big,
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: beautiful bill. And then talk about how he lowered drug
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: prices 5,000%. Now he's paying people to take their drugs.
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: Yes. Mike Johnson went out and said, he was trying
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: to put a brave face on everything that happened on Tuesday,
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: and he said, well, when the Big Beautiful Bill kicks in,
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: people are going to feel better. They're not. He's just
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: extending tax cuts that people already had. They're not going to.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: I know. I guess that some of the smaller tax cuts,
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: like the no tax on tips, are going to affect
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: some people and maybe it's a small percentage.
• 49:41
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: Maybe a small percentage of people will maybe see a
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: slightly higher tax refund, uh, in the spring. But I
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: don't know when you've got the, the tariffs hitting the economy,
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: like they have been the premium hikes, everything else. I
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: don't really, I wouldn't count on that if I were
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: the white house. No, I would not. One tried and
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: true option for Trump is to, uh, just tell everyone
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: that the real blame for all their problems lies with immigrants.
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: Certain he'll do that. He's already doing it. Uh, this
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: week he put a, really disgusting new spin on this
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: while talking about enforcement operations in Minnesota, which is home
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: to a large population of Somali Americans. Let's listen.
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: We're going to go the wrong way if we keep
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: taking in garbage into our country. Ilhan Omar is garbage.
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: She's garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren't people that work.
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: These aren't people that say, let's go, come on, let's
• 50:33
  Speaker 5: make this place great. These are people that do nothing
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: but complain. They come from hell. and they complain and
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: do nothing but bitch, we don't want them in our country.
• 50:46
  Speaker 5: Let them go back to where they came from and
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: fix it. Thank you very much.
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: Just really sick stuff. For people who don't know, the
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: reason he was even talking about the Somali community in
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: Minnesota is because there was a fraud charges brought against
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: an organization, a couple organizations, I think, that were basically,
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: you know, stealing taxpayer money. And I think a lot
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: of Somali Americans in Minnesota were charged, though the ringleader,
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: the person who ran the whole scam was a white person.
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: So Republicans, right-wing media, everyone is using that case as
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: a reason to say, you know, we've got to kick
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: all of the Somali Americans out. Uh, nevermind the fact
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: that the vast majority, so Minnesota has the largest Somali
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: community in the United States. The vast majority of Somalis
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: in Minnesota are us citizens who've been here for over
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: a decade who have jobs just so everyone knows there's
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: only a small percentage that have temporary protected status or
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: are refugees or, you know, applying for asylum or whatever
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: it may be. Um, and I don't know, what do you,
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: what do you think of, uh, the tried and true
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: tactic from Trump on this one.
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: Just so people know, that sound you heard at the
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: end of the clip was J.D. Vance banging on the
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: table in support.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: Was that J.D.
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: Vance?
• 52:14
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: In the past, Trump has somewhat effectively changed the subject
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: by making these outrageous sort of statements. This is, they're
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: eating the dogs, they're eating the cats from 2024. Various
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: attempts during.
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: His first term where he was able to just focus
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: people on something else through offensive, jingoistic, racist remarks. And,
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: you know, sometimes that would be effective. I don't, I
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: think that is doomed to fail this time around because
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: every single, now there is, unlike in Trump's first term
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: where things were kind of just like proceeding at pace
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: in life. Now there is one central issue that everyone
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: cares about and everyone's mad about and it's cost of living.
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: So every time Trump is doing something that's not affecting
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: the cost of living, He is not helping himself. You
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: can't really distract people from the price of groceries, utilities,
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: and housing. You're not going to convince them that that's
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: not a big deal and a big problem. So when
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: you're trying to distract them, they can see the cards
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: up your sleeve. They know what you're doing. And I
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: think it's going to be incredibly ineffective.
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The big problem for him here is that he's
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: in charge. You could imagine a scenario where Biden was president,
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: Trump's running against Biden, And he's saying, oh, you know,
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: the reason that we still have high prices and inflation
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: is because all these immigrants are stealing government benefits. And
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: Biden's letting them because he let them all into the country.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: And you could say, OK, I could see that, unfortunately,
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: being politically effective. But in this instance, it's like, OK,
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: you're complaining about Somali immigrants who the authorities in Minnesota,
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: a state mostly run by Democrats, are they've been charged.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: Governor Walz was like, good people who are criminals should
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: go to jail. I don't care. what nationality they are.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: I don't care where they come from. If you commit
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: a crime, you go to jail. And so I don't
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: really understand the argument there that like, oh yeah, prices
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: are high, costs are high. You're having a tough time. Also,
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: I'm in charge. I'm going to blame immigrants. I am
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: deporting immigrants. I am cracking down on them. But like,
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: what's his excuse? You know, it's just not a, it
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: just doesn't, it doesn't work as well. Okay. One last
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: thing before we get to your conversation with Hakeem Jeffries.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: You may remember that back in October, Basically, the entire
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: Pentagon press corps, including Fox News and Newsmax, gave up
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: their badges and walked out of the building rather than
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: agree to a list of new rules from Hegseth that
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: basically amounted to a ban on real reporting. The Times
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: announced on Thursday they're suing Hegseth over the policy. But
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: fear not, we've got a new crop of defense reporters
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: on the beat, including 9-11 truther Laura Loomer, ladies' man
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: Matt Gaetz, the National Pulse, the Postmillennial, Turning Point USA,
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: Tim Kast, and the Gateway Pundit, all of whom agreed
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: to the reporting restrictions and they're already hard at work
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: holding DOD accountable. Sorry, D-O-W. Here's conservative influencer Cam Higby
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: just grilling Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson, who no one
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: even knew existed until this week. Let's listen.
• 55:08
  Speaker 10: What was the environment like here with the old press corps?
• 55:12
  Speaker 10: There's a lot of talk online about us and our
• 55:15
  Speaker 10: level of professionalism. I'm interested to hear what the level
• 55:18
  Speaker 10: of professionalism was like before. I've heard stories about ambushing
• 55:21
  Speaker 10: people outside their offices, making a hostile work environment for
• 55:24
  Speaker 10: everyone who works in the DOW.
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: What was that like?
• 55:26
  Speaker 11: Oh, it was absolutely crazy. My first weeks here, they
• 55:29
  Speaker 11: just waltzed in my office, rang my doorbell literally nonstop.
• 55:32
  Speaker 11: My doorbell was going off probably every single second. There
• 55:35
  Speaker 11: were instances where they were hanging outside of the secretary's
• 55:38
  Speaker 11: office trying to see who he was meeting with.
• 55:41
  Speaker 10: In your mind, what is the purpose of the Pentagon
• 55:45
  Speaker 10: press corps? Because It seems to be that a lot
• 55:47
  Speaker 10: of people online, including the former press corps who have
• 55:49
  Speaker 10: been tweeting at me, that the purpose of the press
• 55:52
  Speaker 10: corps is just to gather classified information and release it
• 55:55
  Speaker 10: to the public. It seems like that's, if you're an
• 55:57
  Speaker 10: American journalist, I mean, you're not a Chinese spy.
• 56:00
  Speaker 11: Holding us accountable, I think, is very important, but also
• 56:03
  Speaker 11: communicating to the American people all of the work we're
• 56:05
  Speaker 11: doing and all of the work that our warfighters are
• 56:07
  Speaker 11: doing every single day.
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: That is, that is... That is the role of the
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: press corps is to communicate to the American people all
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: the wonderful things that the government is doing.
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: One of the most honest things any Trump flack has
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: ever said.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: I just like, thank God, her poor ears having to
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: hear her doorbell ring from these reporters that just, they
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: were trying to reach her. She is the press secretary.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: That is the job of the press secretary to talk
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: to reporters. Am I right?
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: Those reporters hanging outside trying to See who Pete Hegseth
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: is meeting with in public spaces in the Pentagon?
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: Bunch of fucking Chinese spies right there trying to suss
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: out a meeting at the Pentagon.
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: And this whole thing was so comical. These people were
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: so embarrassing. I think it was Camp Pegby, one of
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: them tweeted, I just had a great off-the-record conversation.
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: With- John Conrad.
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: John Conrad, right? Great off-the-record conversation with Pete Hegseth. He
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: said great things.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: He says, Hegseth answered my questions. It's off the record,
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: so no details, but I am very pleased with his leadership.
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: It's so good.
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: He works for the world's top maritime news website. And
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: then in his bio, it says blacklisted by Wikipedia. So
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: you know it's good.
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: And then they all took, everyone's mad at the Washington
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: Post because they wrote the original story about the second strike.
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: All these people took pictures at different desks saying that
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: they were at the Washington Post desk. But they couldn't
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: even figure– they couldn't even suss that out. So it's
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: like Dan Lamothe, the Pentagon reporter for The Post who
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: wrote the original story, he tweeted out pictures of all
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: of them at the various desks saying, I'm at the
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: Washington Post desk saying, you have to figure this out
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: amongst yourselves.
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: This isn't really important, but do you think there are
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: other maritime news websites that aren't the top maritime news website? Oh, absolutely.
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Do you think there's a number two, number three,
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: number four?
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: I think you are dramatically underestimating the vibrant maritime press
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: that exists.
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, to be honest, there's a lot going on
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: in the Caribbean right now that someone could be. Maybe
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: Cricket should have a maritime reporter.
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: You know what? Let's send Elijah. Put Elijah on a boat.
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: Get him off Twitter for a little bit. Get him
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: on a boat. Get him doing some real reporting.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: Honestly, this is a great idea. Elijah, you're going to
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: the Caribbean. Okay, when we come back from the break,
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: you'll hear Dan's conversation with Leader Jeffries, but two quick
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: things before we get to that. Strict scrutiny is coming
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: to the West Coast. Join Kate, Melissa, and Leah in
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: San Francisco on March 6th at the Herbst Theater and
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: in Los Angeles on March 7th at the Palace Theater.
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: Grab your tickets before they sell out at crooked.com slash events. Also,
• 58:44
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• 58:46
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• 58:49
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• 58:54
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• 58:57
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• 59:00
  Speaker 2: the Naughty List sweatshirt. We got ornaments, too.
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: Uh we decorated our christmas tree this weekend and we
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: were unpacking the boxes and i found the offline ornament from.
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: A few years ago that's a good one i like
• 59:16
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• 59:19
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• 59:22
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• 59:41
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  Speaker 3: Joining us now is House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Leader Jeffries,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: welcome back to Positive America.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 6: Great to be with you.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: Let's start with some good news because that's what we
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: need these days. So on Tuesday night, Democrats, although we
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: didn't win, had a very good night in the special
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: election in the Tennessee's 7th District where Democrats outperformed Kamala
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: Harris's performance there by 13 points. I take it you
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: see that election as a positive sign in your quest
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: to retake the majority? And why do you think the
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: Democrats did so well?
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 12: Well, I think It's another positive sign on the trajectory
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 12: that we've seen from the very beginning of this year.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 12: The first special election of this year took place in
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 12: late January, a state Senate seat in Iowa that Donald
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 12: Trump had just won the previous November by 21 points.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 12: Democrats won it by four. That was a 25 point
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 12: over performance. We flipped that state Senate seat and we've
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 12: been winning special election after special election after special election
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 12: ever since. And if we've failed to win, we've overperformed dramatically,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 12: as we just saw in Tennessee. And of course, during
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 12: the off-year elections that occurred in early November, we saw
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 12: decisive Democratic victories all across the country, in New Jersey,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 12: in New York, in Virginia, in Pennsylvania, in Georgia, in Mississippi,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 12: and of course, in California, with Prop 50 up and
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 12: down the ballot, at all points in between. I think
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 12: that the thing that unites these consistent Democratic victories, or
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 12: if we fall just short, our dramatic overperformance numbers, are
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 12: that the American people are tired of the extremism that
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 12: they've seen from Donald Trump, the failure to do anything
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 12: meaningful to make their life better, and Democrats, of course,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 12: leaning in aggressively and consistently on two messages, affordability, we're
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 12: working hard to drive down the high cost of living,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 12: which is out of control, and health care. We want
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 12: to fix our broken healthcare system and, of course, deal
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 12: with the Republican healthcare crisis that's crushing the American people.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: So affordability was a big part of this campaign. It
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: was the central focus of Afton Bain's message to the
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: Democrat in that race. In New Jersey and Virginia, where
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: Democrats did well earlier this month, the Democrats not just
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: ran on saying prices were too high, but because they
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: were governors, had specific proposals about what they would do
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: to lower prices and you know, Mikey Sherrill, the governor-elect
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: of New Jersey, talked about freezing utility rates. As you
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: think about 2026 and the midterms, do Democrats need to
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: have some specific proposals about what we would do to
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: lower costs, not just what Trump has failed to do
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: to lower costs?
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 12: Yeah, I think that is going to be important as
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 12: we pivot from 2025 to 2026. And listen, there are
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 12: a variety of different ideas that we've already begun to articulate.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 6: We need to repeal the Trump tariffs.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 12: These tariffs have actually increased costs on everyday Americans, buy
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 12: thousands of dollars per year. That's both groceries and its goods.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 12: And the American people are feeling it right now in
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 12: a significant way. Congress needs to reassert its authority in
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 12: this area because Donald Trump has usurped the congressional power
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 12: over tariffs, claimed some emergency authority, and as a result,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 12: he's adversely impacting the American people. So one of the
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 12: first things that Congress can do is to repeal the
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 12: Trump tariffs. Absolutely essential if the Supreme Court doesn't beat
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 12: us to it. I think with respect to healthcare, and
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 12: when people talk about the affordability crisis, the three things
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 12: that I hear the most from folks as I travel
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 12: across the country, it's housing, it's healthcare, and of course,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 12: it's groceries, goods, utilities. And in terms of healthcare, one
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 12: of the more immediate things that we need to do
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 12: right now is to extend the Affordable Care Act tax
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 12: credits because the failure to renew them is actually going
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 12: to result in tens of millions of people experiencing dramatically
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 12: increased health care costs. We're talking about $ 1, 000 or.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 6: $ 2, 000 per month in some instances.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 12: This is unaffordable for working class Americans, middle class Americans,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 12: and everyday Americans. It's a big difference between what Democrats
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 12: are all about and what Republicans are all about. I
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 12: think on housing, we need to use the tax code
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 12: to both incentivize increased production to deal with the supply
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 12: problem that we have, And if you increase the supply
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 12: of housing, you bring down housing costs, both on the
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 12: rental side and on the homeownership side. But also, I think,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 12: use the tax code to incentivize and make it easier
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 12: for first-time homebuyers to be able to purchase a home
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 12: and get their piece of the American dream. This was
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 12: done previously under President Barack Obama, as you know, in
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 12: the aftermath of the Great Recession.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 6: And it was successful. I think we need to look
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 6: at that type of initiative.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 12: What Republicans have done is use the tax code to
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 12: provide massive tax breaks to their billionaire donors while leaving
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 12: everyday Americans behind.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: Could you see the Democratic leadership putting together an equivalent
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: of what the Democrats did in 2006, which was a
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: six for six, like a set of policy ideas that
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: would be that most Democratic candidates, whether incumbents or challengers,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: could run on? Is that one of the things you
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: guys in your leadership team are thinking about?
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 12: Yeah, it's definitely under discussion, and we've been in conversation
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 12: about that. Initially, we wanted to make sure that we
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 12: just articulated a framework around three different issues. The economy affordability,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 12: issue one. Issue two, health care. And issue three, corruption.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 12: And to make clear to the American people, listen, what
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 12: we'll focus on as House Democrats are driving down the
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 12: high cost of living because America's too expensive. We're focused
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 12: on fixing our broken health care system, which Republicans are destroying.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 12: Largest cut to Medicaid in American history. Hospitals, nursing homes,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 12: community-based health clinics closing all across America because of their
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 12: one big ugly bill. Their refusal to extend the Affordable
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 12: Care Act tax credits. That's a disaster. They're attacking the
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 12: Centers for Disease Control, the National Institute of Health, making
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 12: it harder for people to get vaccines, including children. It's
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 12: an all-out assault on the health care of the American people.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 12: We need to fix our broken health care system. And
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 12: then third, deal with the corruption that exists in the Congress,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 12: in the courts, and of course with the administration, the
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 12: most corrupt presidential administration in American history. Now that we've
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 12: got a framework of the issues that we want to
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 12: work on, economy, health care, corruption, I think the logical
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 12: next step for us is to begin to articulate to
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 12: the American people some more concrete ideas as to what
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 12: a Democratic majority in the House would look like.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: On the Obamacare tax credits, Senator Schumer is reportedly going
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: to propose a three-year clean extension and try to force
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: a vote on that. You guys have been pushing that.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: Where does that stand, and are you open to negotiating
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: with the Republicans on it, or is the three-year clean
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: extension your bottom line?
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 12: Well, our view is that the most urgent and important
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 12: thing that we can do right now is to extend
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 12: the Affordable Care Act tax credits and the legislation and
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 12: the path to getting something toward an up or down
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 12: vote in the House right now runs through the House
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 12: Democratic proposal in our discharge petition. All 214 Democrats support
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 12: that discharge petition, which means, as you know, Dan, that
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 12: all we need are four Republicans. There are 219 of them.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 12: Dozens of them have said that they know we need
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 12: to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. All we
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 12: need are four to join us. And then, of course,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 12: in the Senate, let's see what happens next week. Now,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 12: Months have gone by, and we've repeatedly said to our
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 12: Republican colleagues, we are willing to work together to find
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 12: a bipartisan path forward, find some common ground, but we
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 12: have to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits on
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 12: a multi-year basis. And Republicans have talked a lot and
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 12: done nothing. So, I think time is running out to
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 12: do anything other than a straight extension, but You know,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 12: when we return to Washington next week, if there are
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 12: traditional Republicans who put a proposal forward in good faith,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 12: we'll certainly evaluate it.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 6: But their leadership.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 12: Has shown no interest in doing anything, which is why
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 12: we launched a discharge petition and are working hard to
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 12: get four House Republicans to join us.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: The other big news happening on Capitol Hill today is
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: the Trump administration briefed senior members of Congress, Intel, the
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: Armed Services Committee leaders about this very controversial boat strike
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: in Venezuela that involved a second strike that killed two survivors.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: I understand they showed the video. Have you been briefed
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: on that by your team? And what's your reaction to
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: where this stands right now?
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 12: Yeah, I haven't had the opportunity to go down to
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 12: the SCIF to view the video during the time. that
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 12: the admiral was there, but individuals who have seen the
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 12: video have made clear it's very disturbing and certainly demands
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 12: further investigation, which is what I expect will take place.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 12: Pete Hegseth clearly is a disgrace, called for his resignation
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 12: months ago, and the sooner he's gone, the better off
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 12: for the American people. And I think the American people
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 12: increasingly know that. The question for us is, You know,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 12: why is it that we have a president who claims
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 12: to want to stop the flow of narcotics into this country,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 12: is engaging in what appears to be extrajudicial killings? We've
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 12: yet to see any authority or evidence presented to the Congress,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 12: either in a public way or in a secure location,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 12: to justify the strikes that have taken place, including this
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 12: horrific one, And yet, same period of time, Donald Trump
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 12: pardons one of the biggest narco traffickers, narco terrorists, the
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 12: former Honduran president, in the world. And so it's very
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 12: unfortunate that the administration can't really be taken seriously here.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 12: And now we've seen efforts by them to obfuscate the
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 12: fact that.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 6: The buck should stop with the leadership.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 12: And that certainly means the so-called Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: Earlier in this sort of as reporting came out about
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: this with the big Washington Post story and some subsequent reporting,
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 3: there seemed to be an appetite, at least in the Senate,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: but maybe in the House too, for bipartisan investigations into
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: this bipartisan oversight and the way in which Congress used
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: to operate before these Republicans got in charge. Do you
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: see any chance of that in the House? Or was
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: this briefing probably enough to get sort of the lemmings
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: back in line?
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 12: You know, well, I got to be honest that I'm
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 12: very skeptical of the Republican willingness to actually act like
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 12: a separate and co-equal branch of government. Because what we've
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 12: seen from the very beginning of Donald Trump's time in
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 12: office is that they're just sycophants. And when he says jump,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 12: they say how high. They're nothing more than reckless rubber
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 12: stamps for his extreme agenda. But it has been interesting
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 12: to see Republicans, certainly in the Senate, and even Mike Rogers,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 12: who issued a strong statement calling for an investigation and
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 12: then followed it up by opening up the investigation and
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 12: demanding that the admiral come to Capitol Hill as part
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 12: of the process of that ongoing investigation. So now it
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 12: remains to be seen when Donald Trump cracks the whip,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 12: what's going to happen But this issue is now broken
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 12: into the public domain. And it's going to be hard
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 12: for them to try to misdirect the attention of the
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 12: American people at this point because it's horrific what has occurred.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 12: And as you know, the American people overwhelmingly are not
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 12: interested in another foreign war. It's deeply unpopular, including with
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 12: elements of Donald Trump's MAGA base. So I think it
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 12: may be the case that some Republicans are both repulsed
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 12: by Pete Hegseth and also understand that parts of their
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 12: base aren't necessarily interested in the path that Donald Trump
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 12: seems to be dragging us down as it relates to
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 12: Venezuela and the possibility of another failed foreign war.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: I assume that if the Republicans, if there's no bipartisan
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: oversight of this, the Republicans do not do their duty here,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: that this would be a ripe line of investigation for
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: a Democratic majority in 2027.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 6: Yeah, there's no doubt about it. But listen, the line
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 6: is also very long.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 12: We've got an out-of-control Homeland Security Secretary, an out-of-control Attorney General,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 12: an out-of-control Secretary of Health and Human Services, all doing
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 12: great harm to the American people, to due process, to
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 12: the rule of law, to law-abiding immigrant families and communities
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 12: because of what has been unleashed by ICE and the
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 12: Department of Homeland Security in ways that are turning off
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 12: the American people significantly. And then, of course, we've got
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 12: the most unqualified so-called Secretary of Defense in American history.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 12: And so from an oversight standpoint, there's going to be
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 12: a lot to do.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 3: Yes, I can imagine.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 6: And we are prepared to do it all.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 3: Going back to the Tennessee election for a second, the
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 3: Democrat did overperform by 13 points. That's a few points
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: less than Democrats have traditionally have been performing in these
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: congressional special elections this year, about five points. Part of
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 3: the discourse that happened afterwards among a lot of sort
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: of political strategists and pundits was the candidate, the nominee,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 3: who I think ran a vigorous race in terms of
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 3: turning out the base, particularly in Davidson County where Nashville is,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 3: but was probably not the best ideological fit for the district.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: She was quite liberal. endorsed by the DSA, had been
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 3: a very active organizer who had a lot of videos
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: of the Republicans sort of weaponized. I don't know that
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 3: another candidate would have won that race. I'm not arguing that.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: But as you think about 2026, to win the majority,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: and especially win a sustainable majority where you actually have
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 3: a margin for error, you're going to have to win
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: districts that Trump won by five, six, seven, eight, nine,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 3: sometimes more than 10 points. How are you thinking about
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: candidate selection there? And are you and the DCCC planning
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 3: on getting involved to sort of ensure that the candidates
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: that you think are the best fit would be nominated?
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 12: Well, it's certainly the case that we want to make
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 12: sure that there are Democrats whose life experiences and whose
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 12: perspectives match the districts that they're hoping to represent. That's
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 12: the reality all across the country. And that will differ
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 12: from place to place. In the Deep South, It differs
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 12: from the Midwest. In the Midwest, it may differ from
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 12: the coast in terms of the type of candidate, the
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 12: type of life experiences, the type of perspective. We've got
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 12: to make sure that they're authentic, of course, that they're
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 12: communicating on the issues that matter, as was done in
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 12: Tennessee in terms of speaking aggressively to the issue of affordability,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 12: but that there's a sense that they can connect to
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 12: the broadest possible swath of the electorate. And there are
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 12: always two things that have to be done, as you know,
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 12: to win these elections. Energize the base and then move
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 12: swing voters who can go either way in your direction.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 12: And we certainly, I think, are going to make sure
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 12: that there are as many candidates who are able to
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 12: do both as possible. Everybody on Capitol Hill, whether you're
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 12: a progressive or a blue dog or a new damn nose,
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 12: To win these tough seats, you got to do both things.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 12: Energize the base and move swing voters in your direction. Now,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 12: a lot of that has to do with speaking to
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 12: the issues that matter authentically around driving down the high
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 12: cost of living and, of course, addressing the healthcare crisis
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 12: that exists in America and just generally wanting to make
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 12: life better for the American people. But, you know, I
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 12: think what was successful for us in 2018 was And
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 12: there were New Dems and there were Blue Dogs and
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 12: there were progressives like Katie Porter who won swing districts.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 12: But what they had in common was that they spoke authentically.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 12: They were from their communities. They had a real close, authentic,
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 12: affectionate relationship that was developed with the people that they
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 12: were hoping to represent. And they had life experiences that
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 12: made clear to folks that, you know what? I'm not
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 12: a career politician. I'm interested in serving the people.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: Your counterpart, Speaker Mike Johnson, has been having a tough week.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: It seems like chaos is breaking out across the Capitol.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 3: You have members of his own leadership team attacking him.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: There were brief fears that there was going to be
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 3: members just retiring left and right, even further narrowing his
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 3: incredibly narrow majority. I don't know how much scuttlebutt you're
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 3: picking up or what you're able to observe on the floor,
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 3: but what is happening over there in the Republican caucus
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: right now?
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 12: Yeah, I mean, it's the GOP civil war that is raging.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 12: The bottom line is they can't stand each other. And
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 12: a lot of them hate Mike Johnson.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 2: We have that in common.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 12: Well, this is somebody who apparently has repeatedly lied to them,
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 12: And we know he's repeatedly lied to the American people.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 12: And they're falling apart over there. They have no affirmative agenda.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 12: They've done nothing to make life better for the American people.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 12: And I think we kind of reached a boiling point
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 12: to some degree this week because, again, you've got them
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 12: not doing a damn thing to even pretend like they
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 12: care about dealing with the high cost of living or
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 12: addressing the fact that the Affordable Care Act tax credits
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 12: are going to expire this In just a few weeks.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 12: And I think a lot of Republicans like Elise Stefanik,
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 12: who I've never really agreed with on any other issue before,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 12: but clearly she can't stand him at this point and,
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 12: you know, believes.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 6: That they're rudderless.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 12: And then you've got a group of other people who
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 12: are like, why have we continued to castrate our majority
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 12: and not even pretend as if we are a separate
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 12: and co-equal branch of government? And I think as Donald
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 12: Trump's approval ratings continue to speed rapidly toward the basement,
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 12: he's at 36 in Gallup, maybe it in fact is
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 12: the case that some House Republicans are like, yeah, do
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 12: we have to agree with him on every single thing?
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 12: Can't we find some space, particularly now that we're heading
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 12: into an election cycle that looks increasingly difficult for us?
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 12: So it's going to be very interesting to see how
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 12: things unfold. in the next week or so, they already
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 12: have such a narrow majority. And this I think was
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 12: underappreciated heading into this year, that it was a tough
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 12: cycle and it's very bitter for all of us to
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 12: have to absorb that we're dealing with this guy at
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 12: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue again. And that of course we fell
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 12: just short in the House of Representatives. But the reality
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 12: is that when Donald Trump came into office, in 2017,
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 12: he just lost the popular vote, but he walked into
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 12: a Congress with a majority of 241 House Republicans and
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 12: only 194 Democrats. This time around, Donald Trump wins the
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 12: popular vote and unfortunately does better directionally in every single
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 12: state in the union, and yet he doesn't walk into
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 12: Congress with a big majority He walks into Congress with
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 12: the narrowest majority that any party has had since the
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 12: Great Depression. 220 House Republicans, 215 Democrats. And so things
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 12: are very fragile for them. And that is also why
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 12: we're starting to see the cracks really emerge, because just
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 12: a handful of Republicans who express dissent can collapse the
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 12: whole situation.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 3: Last question for you, Leader Jeffries. You brought up, you
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 3: talked about how corruption is part of the message. You
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 3: brought up Trump's pardon of the drug trafficker. I want
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 3: to talk to you a little bit about Trump's pardon
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 3: of your Democratic colleague, Congressman Cuellar, who serves in one
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 3: of the most endangered districts in the country. You told
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 3: CNN you thought that was probably the right outcome. Is
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 3: that really the right outcome here, or would it have
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 3: been better to go through the actual court process?
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 6: Yeah, here's what I thought.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 12: You know, what Donald Trump has done in other instances
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 12: is actually pardon people after the fact who've already been
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 12: convicted by a jury of his or her peers in
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 12: a court of law. That's completely and totally unacceptable. Now,
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 12: I don't know why Donald Trump actually decided to go
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 12: down this road, but it is my view that the
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 12: charges that have been brought against Cuellar, and he's innocent
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 12: until proven guilty, and whether you're a member of Congress,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 12: or an everyday American taxpayer, hardworking American taxpayer, you're entitled
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 12: to that presumption that the charges that had been filed,
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 12: to me, read as very thin. Now, there may be
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 12: members of the Department of Justice who brought this case,
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 12: who take a different perspective, and that's certainly fair for
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 12: them to take that perspective.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 6: But what we've also.
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 12: Seen is that these type of cases have repeatedly been
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 12: thrown out by the Supreme Court. Now this has happened
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 12: over and over and over again by people on the
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 12: Supreme Court who don't otherwise agree with each other. Literally
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 12: 8090 decisions. Everyone from Ketanji Brown Jackson to Elena Kagan
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 12: to Sonia Sotomayor joining with John Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 12: and others. throwing out these very cases. And so that's
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 12: the perspective that I articulated. And it wasn't just based
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 12: on the specific facts connected to that case that was brought,
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 12: but the pattern that has repeatedly appeared over and over
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 12: and over again, ultimately resulting in public servants being exonerated
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 12: by the Supreme Court, whether they were Democrats or Republicans.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 3: But I mean, so I'd say a couple of things here.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 3: One is, yeah, everyone, you're exactly right, is presumed innocent
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 3: until proven guilty. There will never be an opportunity to
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 3: prove someone guilty here. But it's also in many of
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 3: these cases, and as you say, he's presumed innocent right now.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 3: But many of these cases, it's not that the conduct
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 3: was actually not corrupt. I'm not talking about this specific
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 3: case involving Representative Acquiar, but in the cases that have
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 3: been thrown out by the Supreme Court and other courts,
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 3: It's that the Supreme Court has just raised the threshold
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: of what an actual crime of bribery is. It's so
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 3: high that it's hard to meet. And so under this
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 3: current threshold, you're getting– there's a lot of corruption that's
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 3: happening that is not criminal. Having said that, I think
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 3: the question here is– I'm not a legal scholar. I
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 3: can't argue that case, so I won't. But from the
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 3: political perspective here, corruption is one of your– the three pillars,
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 3: as it absolutely should be. I 100% agree this is
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 3: the most corrupt– administration in history, more corrupt than Nixon.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 3: And there's nothing that better embodies that corruption than Trump's
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 3: pardon process, where he's just doling out pardons to crypto
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 3: people who have given his family money, to people doing
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 3: business deals with his son, to these drug traffickers. Do
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 3: you think it makes it harder for Democrats to run
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 3: against those pardons or criticize those pardons when the one
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 3: pardon we're okay with is the one that happens to
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 3: be for someone on our side?
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 12: Well, there actually, I think, have probably been a few
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 12: other pardons that he's issued in the criminal justice area
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 12: related to people, African-Americans largely. And a lot of this
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 12: happened during the first Trump administration. And I, of course,
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 12: worked with some parts of the administration to enact the
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 12: First Step Act, the largest, most successful criminal justice reform
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 12: legislation to merge through Congress in a century. And it,
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 12: in fact, has resulted in tens of thousands of people
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 12: being released from incarceration because of the failed war on
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 12: drugs that we've finally begun to turn around in some way, shape,
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 12: or form. We've still got a lot of work to
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 12: do to deal with mass incarceration and particularly its impact
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 12: on black and brown communities. So I take your point
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 12: more broadly on the corruption issue. I think that our
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 12: view on corruption is that we've got to clean up
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 12: the mess in every single institution. So that means the Congress,
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 12: that means the courts, and that certainly means the administration. Now,
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 12: in that vein, I think the one piece of legislation
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 12: that we've united behind as House Democrats and Senate Democrats
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 12: is that we have to prohibit congressional stock trading. And that,
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 12: you're right, if we're gonna go after corruption, we should
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 12: go after it wherever we find it, which is why,
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 12: Out of the gate, our view is we need to
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 12: ban congressional stock trading.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 6: It should not happen. There's no justification for it.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 12: It also shouldn't happen in terms of judges or justices
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 12: who get to decide cases before them where they may
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 12: actually have a financial interest connected to stock that they own.
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 12: And it also should never happen with the administration. Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, president,
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 12: vice president, cabinet secretaries. It's insane that Donald Trump has
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 12: actually most recently purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars, if
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 12: not millions of dollars, in Warner Brothers stock at the
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 12: same time his administration is deciding on a potential merger
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 12: that would be a financial boon to the company and
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 12: therefore any stockholders. But on this issue, the corruption issue,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 12: we've intentionally decided to start by addressing the mess that
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 12: exists in our own house. And that's why we've led,
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 12: to your point, to make sure that we maintain the
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 12: high ground on banning congressional stock trading.
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 3: And will you guys sign the discharge petition that a
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 3: Republican representative has put forward to try to bring this
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 3: to a vote?
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 12: So I am scheduled to talk with a few of
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 12: the leaders on that issue over the weekend. And that
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 12: includes you know, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of course, Pramila Jayapal,
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 12: Joe Morelli, Seth Magaziner, whose legislation is connected to the
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 12: bill that may be discharged, to figure out what path
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 12: we want to take and whether Republicans are serious. Part
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 12: of the challenge that we have here is Mike Johnson
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 12: immediately said, we're not bringing that bill to the floor
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 12: of the House of Representatives.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 6: And so.
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 12: We haven't had the opportunity to even talk to our
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 12: Republican colleagues about, okay, what's the strategy? We can try
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 12: to discharge this bill, but then are they going to
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 12: stick with us when Mike Johnson erects these other procedural
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 12: obstacles that he could erect to try to prevent the
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 12: bill from getting an up or down vote? So we
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 12: just want to make sure that we've got reliable, at
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 12: least I want to make sure we've got reliable partners
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 12: on the other side of the aisle so we can
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 12: see this through. and make a clear promise to the
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 12: American people that we're going to deliver it. Now, I
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 12: can guarantee you, when House Democrats take back control of
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 12: the majority, if this issue is not resolved, we are
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 12: going to resolve it and make sure that we ban
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 12: congressional stock trading and then move on to the other
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 12: aspects of corruption that exist in the other branches of government.
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 12: But we're going to start by making sure we address
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 12: the challenges that we have in our own house.
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 3: Leader Jeffries, thank you so much for joining us, and
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 3: we'll talk to you again soon.
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 6: Thanks so much, man.
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 2: That's our show for today. Thanks to Hakeem Jeffries for
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 2: coming on. Alex Wagner will be back in the feed
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: on Sunday with a discussion with The Atlantic's Michael Scherer
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 2: about the rise of RFK Jr. Check it out. Bye, everyone.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 3: Bye, everyone.
• 1:30:16
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