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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems · Pod Save America

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Speaker 1: Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
1:39
Speaker 2: I'm Jon Levitt.
1:40
Speaker 1: Tommy Vitor. On today's show, Donald Trump keeps taking this
1:43
Speaker 1: country to darker places and the Democrats are, per usual,
1:47
Speaker 1: in disarray. We've got an exclusive interview later with Hakeem
1:51
Speaker 1: Jeffries about the fallout from the shutdown fight and his
1:53
Speaker 1: break with Chuck Schumer. The three of us will also
1:56
Speaker 1: debate what could have been and talk about what's next
1:58
Speaker 1: for Democrats. We'll also talk about Trump's claim that Joe
2:01
Speaker 1: Biden's preemptive pardons for January 6th committee are void and vacant.
2:05
Speaker 1: which followed a speech at the Department of Justice where
2:07
Speaker 1: he again threatened government officials and journalists. But first, we
2:12
Speaker 1: have to talk about the biggest and most alarming development
2:15
Speaker 1: from over the weekend, which is that the Trump administration
2:18
Speaker 1: is now rounding up deporting and jailing people in foreign
2:21
Speaker 1: prisons without due process. No evidence, no hearings, no judges.
2:26
Speaker 1: The president has invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a law
2:30
Speaker 1: which was last used to justify the internment of Japanese
2:32
Speaker 1: Americans during World War II. to deport 137 Venezuelans to
2:37
Speaker 1: El Salvador, where they are being held in a mega
2:39
Speaker 1: prison that's been accused of human rights abuses. The Trump
2:43
Speaker 1: administration claims it has the authority to deport these migrants
2:46
Speaker 1: due to their alleged membership in Tren de Aragua, a
2:50
Speaker 1: Venezuela-based gang that Trump's Justice Department has labeled a terrorist organization.
2:54
Speaker 1: But the administration has offered no evidence of this, which
2:57
Speaker 1: is one reason why a U.S. district court judge temporarily
3:00
Speaker 1: blocked the deportations and ordered the flights carrying the migrants
3:04
Speaker 1: to return to the United States. But, and here's the kicker,
3:08
Speaker 1: two senior officials told Axios the Trump administration ignored the
3:11
Speaker 1: judge's order because the flights were already over international waters
3:15
Speaker 1: when the ruling came down. The White House posted footage
3:18
Speaker 1: of the immigrants landing in El Salvador, and the country's
3:21
Speaker 1: president posted a story about the ruling with, quote, oopsie,
3:25
Speaker 1: too late, laughing emoji, which then got an RT from
3:29
Speaker 1: Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Isn't that great? Want to
3:32
Speaker 1: get into all of this, especially the Republicans' roundabout claims
3:36
Speaker 1: that they didn't violate the court's order. But first, general
3:40
Speaker 1: reactions from you guys?
3:41
Speaker 3: What we've learned in the last few weeks is that
3:44
Speaker 3: the executive branch has a tremendous amount of authority to
3:47
Speaker 3: deport people under current law, including ways that seem capricious
3:51
Speaker 3: and cruel, right? We've all been talking about the Immigration
3:53
Speaker 3: Nationality Act of 1952. That's what Marco Rubio used to
3:57
Speaker 3: declare that Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia student, was a threat
4:02
Speaker 3: to the United States and have ICE pick him up.
4:05
Speaker 3: But what they're trying to do here with the Alien
4:07
Speaker 3: Enemies Act is far scarier to me, which is create
4:10
Speaker 3: a process that is essentially outside of all existing immigration
4:14
Speaker 3: law and procedures. I was talking to a very smart
4:17
Speaker 3: immigration expert who compared it to what Trump did with
4:21
Speaker 3: Title 42 during the pandemic. which was basically you just
4:24
Speaker 3: expel people from the country. You didn't give them a
4:26
Speaker 3: case to talk to an immigration judge or have any
4:30
Speaker 3: due process. You just said that because of this old
4:34
Speaker 3: health-related authority, everyone's just immediately out. And so if the
4:39
Speaker 3: courts uphold what Trump is doing here with the Alien
4:42
Speaker 3: Enemies Act, you could see something similar happen, which is
4:44
Speaker 3: the administration can just say that any Venezuelan man over
4:48
Speaker 3: the age of 16 who isn't a citizen or legal
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Speaker 3: resident They can just say, OK, you're actually a member
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Speaker 3: of Trend de Aragua. You're kicked out of the country.
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Speaker 3: And that could include people with visas or people here
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Speaker 3: under temporary protected status. And just like a play that
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Speaker 3: out in your head for a second. You're a Venezuelan kid.
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Speaker 3: You grew up in a neighborhood in Venezuela with a
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Speaker 3: lot of gangs. You fled them because they threatened to
5:07
Speaker 3: harm you. You try to get asylum in the U.S.
5:10
Speaker 3: and you later get picked up by the U.S. and
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Speaker 3: deported back to Venezuela because you sort of had associations
5:18
Speaker 3: with gangs because of where you are from. and get
5:20
Speaker 3: sent back to the place where you were threatened in
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Speaker 3: the first place. I mean, it is really dark, authoritarian,
5:27
Speaker 3: scary stuff.
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Speaker 1: I mean, I would go a step further than that
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Speaker 1: and say, even if you're not Venezuelan, like, I think
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Speaker 1: this should terrify every single person in the country.
5:34
Speaker 4: Oh, absolutely.
5:35
Speaker 3: I'm just talking about the current ego.
5:36
Speaker 4: No, no, no.
5:36
Speaker 1: But I'm saying the reason why I think everyone should
5:39
Speaker 1: be terrified by this. I think when you first hear
5:41
Speaker 1: about it, your reaction, total understandable reaction is, oh, this
5:46
Speaker 1: gang is a violent gang. They've done horrific things. Of
5:50
Speaker 1: course we don't want these people in our country, right? Absolutely.
5:52
Speaker 5: No doubt.
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Speaker 1: But if they are going outside the legal system here
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Speaker 1: and there's no hearings and no judges and no opportunity
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Speaker 1: for evidence, like an ICE agent can come to your door,
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Speaker 1: say you're a citizen. They don't let you prove you're
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Speaker 1: a citizen. You can't contact a lawyer. They take you away.
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Speaker 1: You don't get a hearing. You don't see a judge.
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Speaker 1: No one knows where you are. You end up in
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Speaker 1: El Salvador. the government claims you're a member of a
6:15
Speaker 1: domestic terrorist organization. A lawyer for one of the deported migrants,
6:19
Speaker 1: she posted a thread on Twitter, and she said her
6:22
Speaker 1: client fled Venezuela, sought asylum in the U.S. ICE submitted
6:27
Speaker 1: photos of his tattoos as evidence that he's Tren de Aragua.
6:30
Speaker 1: That was before Trump signed the Alien Enemies Act, so
6:33
Speaker 1: that's when we were still doing hearings. But then he
6:36
Speaker 1: signs it. So the attorney for the migrant planned to
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Speaker 1: introduce evidence at trial that he's not actually a member
6:43
Speaker 1: of Trend de Aragua. Had a whole bunch of evidence
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Speaker 1: of why he's not. Said he's, you know, an LGBT
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Speaker 1: guy who was in the arts in Venezuela and had
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Speaker 1: the tattoo meant something else, whatever. Never got the chance
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Speaker 1: to do this because there was no hearing. Disappeared from
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Speaker 1: the online detainee locator. The lawyer couldn't contact him. Was deported.
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Speaker 1: Now no one can find this person. This person isn't a...
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Speaker 1: You should talk a little bit, Tommy, about the prison
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Speaker 1: in El Salvador because... it is just a huge, huge
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Speaker 1: prison and the conditions there are very bad.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, we're talking about massive 40,000 person super prisons. I mean,
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Speaker 3: so Nayib Bukele is the president of Venezuela. He is
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Speaker 3: a dictator. He's very popular because he made El Salvador
7:25
Speaker 3: much safer. But the way he did that, though, was
7:27
Speaker 3: through mass incarceration. They put 2% of the population of
7:30
Speaker 3: the country in jail. And many of them were arrested
7:33
Speaker 3: after Bukele declared something called a state of exception, which
7:35
Speaker 3: was There was this horrible spate of gang violence in 2022.
7:39
Speaker 3: They declared a state of exception, which suspended due process rights,
7:43
Speaker 3: constitutional rights. And so what happened was Bukele sent his
7:46
Speaker 3: thugs into towns. They swept up all men of a
7:49
Speaker 3: certain age, threw them in jail without any evidence and
7:52
Speaker 3: just declared that they were somehow associated with a gang.
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Speaker 3: And human rights groups have documented torture, execution, horrific things
8:00
Speaker 3: in these massive prisons. And the United States is now
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Speaker 3: going to pay Nayib Bukele's government, I think $ 6 million
8:07
Speaker 3: to take more people and throw them into this nightmare
8:12
Speaker 3: of a system. And in so doing, further prop up
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Speaker 3: the Bukele dictatorship. And to your point earlier, like Bukele
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Speaker 3: literally mocked our courts, literally mocked our system of justice.
8:23
Speaker 3: And the Trump administration's response was to laugh along with him.
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Speaker 3: And he made this like fascist hype video out of
8:28
Speaker 3: the whole thing. Well, to come back to the video,
8:30
Speaker 3: like people like Tucker Carlson have been holding up El
8:33
Speaker 3: Salvador as a model. The far right has been holding
8:36
Speaker 3: up El Salvador as a model. The reason Trump is
8:38
Speaker 3: doing this is because, A, these are people who are
8:44
Speaker 3: the people Trump claims to be targeting are the kind
8:45
Speaker 3: of people that the Republicans view as indefensible. You don't
8:49
Speaker 3: want to be caught defending Venezuelan gang members who are
8:52
Speaker 3: here in this country illegally. And B, they want to
8:55
Speaker 3: hold up El Salvador as an example of what happens
8:57
Speaker 3: when you really bring the hammer down, if you really
8:59
Speaker 3: want to address crime. So they're going to start by
9:01
Speaker 3: eating away at due process for undocumented immigrants, visa holders,
9:05
Speaker 3: and then green card holders, and ultimately citizens.
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Speaker 2: You know, you talked about the Marco Rubio example. Marco
9:11
Speaker 2: Rubio is claiming, oh, I have broad powers. I have
9:13
Speaker 2: broad discretion. Look at what the law says. You got
9:15
Speaker 2: to go in front of a judge and prove that
9:17
Speaker 2: a student protest a year ago is a current threat
9:22
Speaker 2: to the United States, right? You can't just claim it.
9:24
Speaker 2: You have to go in front of a judge and
9:26
Speaker 2: prove it. That's what they're afraid of doing, or when
9:28
Speaker 2: they do it, that's what they're trying to ignore.
9:31
Speaker 1: Also, to the extent that there are criminals in the
9:35
Speaker 1: United States, undocumented criminals, violent criminals, the reason they are
9:38
Speaker 1: here is not because the government is losing in court.
9:41
Speaker 1: These are not even traditional courts. These are immigration courts.
9:44
Speaker 1: And so standard by which you can deport someone is
9:48
Speaker 1: much lower. And the president already has broad, broad powers
9:52
Speaker 1: to deport people in this country. The government could have
9:54
Speaker 1: very easily apprehended, detained, deported these migrants by bringing them
9:59
Speaker 1: before an immigration judge and providing evidence that they are
10:02
Speaker 1: who the government says they are. You could easily do that.
10:06
Speaker 1: There's no public safety rationale for doing what they did.
10:10
Speaker 1: You could keep people safe, keep these people detained, and
10:13
Speaker 1: then deport them without doing it this way. And the
10:16
Speaker 1: problem with doing it this way, again, is We are
10:19
Speaker 1: basically just taking the Trump administration's word for it that
10:22
Speaker 1: these are all members of the Venezuelan gang. We're just
10:25
Speaker 1: taking their word for it with no judges saying anything.
10:28
Speaker 2: And by the way, like even on their own terms, look,
10:31
Speaker 2: we may get to the point where these judges are
10:33
Speaker 2: going to rule and we are so far down the
10:35
Speaker 2: fascist path that they're going to just ignore those rulings
10:38
Speaker 2: and ignore the rulings of the judgments that come after that.
10:41
Speaker 2: But a lot of these people are going to have
10:42
Speaker 2: claims in our courts for being abused, for being mistreated,
10:46
Speaker 2: for being denied their rights. The same thing is happening
10:49
Speaker 2: more broadly with Doge. There's a lot of people who
10:51
Speaker 2: are being unlawfully fired, unlawfully removed from their jobs. Their
10:56
Speaker 2: First Amendment rights are being.
10:59
Speaker 2: Normally, they would come up with some pretense for why
11:01
Speaker 2: they're kicking people out of the country. They're just outright saying,
11:03
Speaker 2: we're doing it based on their expression. And these people
11:06
Speaker 2: are going to have claims in the future. So Doge
11:08
Speaker 2: is going to cost the country money. If you do it,
11:11
Speaker 2: if you follow the rules, even in their own terms,
11:14
Speaker 2: they would be able to deport a lot of these
11:16
Speaker 2: people without having to claim... They have some extra judicial,
11:20
Speaker 2: extra legal authority to do so.
11:21
Speaker 3: It's just a little bit of media criticism. I think
11:23
Speaker 3: people are doing a good job covering this, but I've
11:24
Speaker 3: seen a lot of stories just state as fact that
11:26
Speaker 3: the people deported were Venezuelan gang members when there's.
11:29
Speaker 1: Just absolutely no evidence of it.
11:31
Speaker 3: So literally no evidence, none has been presented.
11:33
Speaker 1: And this is, but one of you said it, this
11:35
Speaker 1: is the whole strategy of the Trump's immigration policy this
11:39
Speaker 1: time around, right? Which is to try to hold up
11:42
Speaker 1: the most indefensible examples and then make, like, And by
11:45
Speaker 1: the way, this is happening not just with the Venezuelan gang.
11:48
Speaker 1: This is happening now. There's a whole bunch of these
11:49
Speaker 1: cases popping up. There's a New Hampshire man who has
11:53
Speaker 1: a valid green card from Germany. He's just a German citizen.
11:57
Speaker 1: Violently interrogated at Logan Airport, stripped naked, put in a
12:00
Speaker 1: cold shower, denied access to his medication, food, water, all
12:04
Speaker 1: because he had a misdemeanor charge for marijuana possession from 2015,
12:09
Speaker 1: which had since been dismissed. Mother of five from Milwaukee
12:13
Speaker 1: who has lived here in the United States Since she
12:16
Speaker 1: was eight months old, she was deported to Laos, where
12:19
Speaker 1: she's never been. And now she's stranded in a house
12:23
Speaker 1: surrounded by military guards, again, because of a marijuana-related conviction.
12:28
Speaker 1: There was also a kidney transplant specialist and a professor
12:31
Speaker 1: at Brown Medical School with a valid visa who was
12:33
Speaker 1: deported back to Lebanon because she had attended the funeral
12:36
Speaker 1: of the Hezbollah leader. who she said she's not into politics,
12:39
Speaker 1: but it was a spiritual leader. I don't know if
12:41
Speaker 1: you want to explain more about that.
12:42
Speaker 3: That's a weird move. Great.
12:43
Speaker 5: Yeah.
12:44
Speaker 6: I don't know.
12:44
Speaker 5: Yeah.
12:44
Speaker 3: I was sort of a, I was like, well, I
12:46
Speaker 3: was not a big fan myself.
12:48
Speaker 2: Sort of a, sort of a, I'd say a weird
12:50
Speaker 2: way to spend your break.
12:52
Speaker 3: I'm not, I'm not in favor of deporting her, but I,
12:55
Speaker 3: you know, wouldn't attend.
12:56
Speaker 1: Here's the problem with that one is like, you can
12:59
Speaker 1: take away her visa if you want for attending that funeral. Again,
13:02
Speaker 1: you can argue if that's fair or not, but the
13:04
Speaker 1: judge said, no, I want a hearing first. They said, no,
13:08
Speaker 1: The plane already left. And that was that.
13:10
Speaker 2: But even that one, too, they're they're they're claiming, oh, like, yeah,
13:14
Speaker 2: you would rule. But we couldn't get it to that.
13:16
Speaker 2: It was it was too late. The plane was already going.
13:18
Speaker 2: And it's like it's it's very, by the way, one
13:20
Speaker 2: thing that's just happening right now. And I just it's
13:22
Speaker 2: worth saying, like, we'll talk about it. But like, they
13:25
Speaker 2: just are trying stuff.
13:27
Speaker 4: Right.
13:27
Speaker 2: Because they don't care about the rules. They don't care
13:28
Speaker 2: about the law. And what happens? The people that do
13:30
Speaker 2: care about the rules that do care about the law
13:32
Speaker 2: are left scrambling to figure out even what the facts are.
13:34
Speaker 4: Right.
13:35
Speaker 2: So did the Trump administration know? when this person was
13:39
Speaker 2: on the plane that they were already under order to
13:40
Speaker 2: not allow them to leave. We don't totally know. It
13:43
Speaker 2: seems like they probably did. I'm not totally sure because
13:45
Speaker 2: what's happening is they don't care, right? They're just moving
13:48
Speaker 2: on to the next thing. They're pulling this all over
13:50
Speaker 2: the place. And the people that care about the rules,
13:52
Speaker 2: they care about the facts are left kind of crawling
13:54
Speaker 2: behind trying to sort through what's going on. You know,
13:56
Speaker 2: did Joe Biden sign this with an auto pen? What
13:59
Speaker 2: was the cause of the, you know, like all these,
14:01
Speaker 2: like all of these ways in which Trump is stretching
14:04
Speaker 2: his authority is they really are also stretching our ability
14:07
Speaker 2: kind of collectively to keep up with what he's doing.
14:09
Speaker 3: Very much so. And with this German green card holder
14:11
Speaker 3: who was detained at Logan Airport, like whether or not
14:14
Speaker 3: he had missed a hearing and his green card should
14:17
Speaker 3: have been revoked, his treatment was indefensible. I mean, they
14:20
Speaker 3: tortured him. This guy was just tortured. And I think
14:23
Speaker 3: what's happening in practice is you have a lot of
14:26
Speaker 3: green card holders who are scared to death about whether
14:29
Speaker 3: they should travel. Like, should I travel internationally?
14:31
Speaker 4: Should I travel within the country?
14:31
Speaker 3: They should be. Well, in some cases, yes. I mean,
14:34
Speaker 3: there are capricious, like awful sects of ICE. And apparently
14:39
Speaker 3: this person I was talking to was saying that the
14:41
Speaker 3: CBP office at Logan is a bit notorious and people
14:44
Speaker 3: were not that surprised that it happened there. But I
14:47
Speaker 3: think what you could imagine happening is Trump came in
14:50
Speaker 3: pledging mass deportation. Things are going slower than he thought.
14:53
Speaker 3: And in a weird way, the people who have tried
14:56
Speaker 3: to go through the process, tried to get green cards,
14:58
Speaker 3: had visas, are easier to pick up because they're less
15:01
Speaker 3: nervous and they're willing to travel and they're willing to
15:02
Speaker 3: like leave the country and come back. And now those
15:05
Speaker 3: people are getting swept up.
15:05
Speaker 2: I mean, they're scared to death.
15:07
Speaker 1: Brown University has since told all their international students, like,
15:10
Speaker 1: don't travel. You know, and like, look, I remember when
15:12
Speaker 1: Trump won again and I talked to some people who
15:15
Speaker 1: are legal residents but not citizens who were very worried, like,
15:18
Speaker 1: should we be worried? And I was like, oh, no. Like,
15:20
Speaker 1: if you have, if you're a legal resident, if you
15:22
Speaker 1: have a green card, if you have a visa, like,
15:24
Speaker 1: That's not who they're going after. They're going after undocumented immigrants.
15:26
Speaker 1: I don't think that's true anymore. Again, there's 17 million
15:29
Speaker 1: people in this country who are legal residents but not
15:31
Speaker 1: citizens who have gone through the whole process. And I
15:33
Speaker 1: think that what the Trump administration has been doing right
15:35
Speaker 1: now is like saying that none of those people are safe.
15:38
Speaker 1: And they are– by the way, they are within– the
15:42
Speaker 1: laws give the administration enough power to take away a
15:47
Speaker 1: green card or a visa. But again, through a hearing–
15:50
Speaker 1: They didn't give the hearing to, you know, the woman
15:53
Speaker 1: from Brown. They didn't give a hearing to any of
15:56
Speaker 1: these people that went to El Salvador. And then the
15:58
Speaker 1: White House now is going back and forth on whether
16:02
Speaker 1: they actually defied a court order or not. Attorney General
16:05
Speaker 1: Pam Bondi put out a statement accusing the judge who
16:08
Speaker 1: tried to turn the plane around of siding with the
16:11
Speaker 1: terrorists over the safety of the American people. Terrorists, that's
16:14
Speaker 1: what the attorney general said. The White House press secretary,
16:17
Speaker 1: Caroline Leavitt, said the federal judges, quote, have no jurisdiction.
16:20
Speaker 1: over these deportations. And here's how Borders R. Tom Homan
16:24
Speaker 1: reacted on Fox News.
16:26
Speaker 7: I wake up every morning loving my job because I
16:28
Speaker 7: work for the greatest president in the history of my life.
16:30
Speaker 4: We're not stopping. I don't care what the judges think.
16:33
Speaker 4: I don't care what the left thinks.
16:34
Speaker 3: We're coming.
16:36
Speaker 1: It seems like the administration's response amounts to, we didn't
16:39
Speaker 1: ignore the courts, but the courts have no right to
16:41
Speaker 1: stop us.
16:42
Speaker 2: Well, also, it's like, what does he mean there?
16:44
Speaker 3: Right.
16:44
Speaker 2: The courts can't stop us as in what we're doing
16:46
Speaker 2: is legal.
16:47
Speaker 3: Right.
16:47
Speaker 2: The courts can't stop us because the courts don't have jurisdiction.
16:49
Speaker 2: The courts can't stop us because we're going to ignore
16:51
Speaker 2: their rulings where we don't believe we have to follow
16:53
Speaker 2: them or there's no way to stop us if if
16:55
Speaker 2: we don't. I think part of this is like it's
16:57
Speaker 2: worth separating out. There's where they're taking the law, the
17:01
Speaker 2: letter of the law and using it in in novel
17:04
Speaker 2: or kind of aggressive ways that haven't been used before,
17:07
Speaker 2: the ways in which they're just breaking the law.
17:09
Speaker 4: Right.
17:09
Speaker 2: But fundamentally, this is about intent. Right. Right. Like there
17:13
Speaker 2: was a lot a lot of what we have in
17:15
Speaker 2: our immigration system. It's a lot of a lot of
17:17
Speaker 2: people who have skirted the law or ignored the brokenness
17:20
Speaker 2: of the system. But there was an understanding on green
17:23
Speaker 2: card holders that like, yeah, there are certainly everyone knows
17:25
Speaker 2: that they are not citizens and their ways in which
17:26
Speaker 2: they can lose their right to be in this country.
17:28
Speaker 2: But for the most part, if you had a green
17:29
Speaker 2: card in this country, no, you can't be on a jury. No,
17:32
Speaker 2: you can't vote. You can't run for office. But other
17:34
Speaker 2: than that, you can work. You can apply for jobs.
17:36
Speaker 2: You're protected by the First Amendment. You're you're you're living
17:39
Speaker 2: here on the path to becoming a citizen. And we
17:41
Speaker 2: all collectively respect that. If you were born here. Right.
17:44
Speaker 2: Even if your parents weren't from here, you were you
17:46
Speaker 2: had the protections of citizenship. And what they are trying
17:49
Speaker 2: to do is slowly undermine that basic assumption.
17:53
Speaker 6: Right.
17:53
Speaker 2: Like my my friend is there. They have relatives from
17:57
Speaker 2: the Middle East that are here on a green card.
18:00
Speaker 2: And they were going to go home to this because
18:02
Speaker 2: they have life there and they're only here part of
18:04
Speaker 2: the year. And they're just like, no, they're going to
18:06
Speaker 2: have to stay. They're afraid because they're afraid that if
18:08
Speaker 2: they go to the airport, they're going to touch that system, right?
18:11
Speaker 2: That system that nobody has any confidence in. I think
18:13
Speaker 2: they're right. And that's already happened. We're already through whatever
18:16
Speaker 2: the legal justification, whatever the case is where they're going
18:19
Speaker 2: to follow the law or not follow the law. You
18:21
Speaker 2: can no longer trust that the government will respect that
18:24
Speaker 2: you have a green card.
18:25
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, I don't know what advice to give people,
18:27
Speaker 3: but I understand the fear and I empathize with the fear.
18:29
Speaker 3: And also Tom Holman, I think specifically threatened Boston as
18:32
Speaker 3: part of their attempt to intimidate so-called sanctuary cities. It
18:36
Speaker 3: also seems like there could be a bit of a
18:38
Speaker 3: split on policy in the White House. Like there's part
18:41
Speaker 3: of the White House that doesn't want to completely give
18:43
Speaker 3: the finger to the lower courts because they know that
18:46
Speaker 3: can piss off the Supreme Court. And therefore they're making
18:49
Speaker 3: these legalistic arguments. Oh, we're in compliance with the law
18:51
Speaker 3: because technically speaking, if you look at the timeline of
18:54
Speaker 3: the flights, we were over international waters. when the written
18:57
Speaker 3: order came down, and this is just a good faith
18:59
Speaker 3: agreement of whether a verbal order came to the security
19:02
Speaker 3: is the same force as a written one, blah, blah, blah, right?
19:05
Speaker 3: And then there's another part of the White House, probably
19:07
Speaker 3: like the Stephen Miller wing, that's like, fuck this, let's
19:10
Speaker 3: get to the Supreme Court, let's have this fight. And
19:12
Speaker 3: what we want is a ruling that says lower courts
19:15
Speaker 3: cannot issue nationwide injunctions anymore. And then they are off
19:18
Speaker 3: to the races. And that is scary. And it seems
19:21
Speaker 3: like Pam Bondi is in the Stephen Miller camp. Otherwise,
19:23
Speaker 3: it's hard to understand why you'd call a judge terrorist
19:26
Speaker 3: sympathizer because that's pretty crazy if you care about what
19:30
Speaker 3: like judges in the legal process thinks of you.
19:32
Speaker 1: Or they're trying to get a case to the Supreme
19:34
Speaker 1: Court that is the best possible case for them in
19:37
Speaker 1: front of the Supreme Court, right? Because there's varying degrees
19:39
Speaker 1: of this. So the hearing today, we're recording this Monday afternoon,
19:42
Speaker 1: Judge Boasberg, who is the judge involved in the Venezuelan
19:47
Speaker 1: gang case, basically said to the government, to the DA, like,
19:51
Speaker 1: isn't the better course to just return the planes to
19:53
Speaker 1: the US and then figure out what to do? And
19:55
Speaker 1: if you don't like my order, you can challenge my
19:57
Speaker 1: order and it can either be amended or changed or
20:01
Speaker 1: whatever else. By the way, the DOJ before the hearing
20:04
Speaker 1: or during the hearing tried to have him removed from
20:06
Speaker 1: the case. They asked the DC Circuit to have him
20:08
Speaker 1: removed from the case. And then the judge asked the
20:12
Speaker 1: government details about the flights. How many flights left? When
20:14
Speaker 1: did they leave? And the DOJ response was, those are
20:17
Speaker 1: operational issues and I am not at liberty to provide information.
20:20
Speaker 1: So the judge was like so exasperated at the end
20:22
Speaker 1: of the hearing. He said, I want a written, like,
20:25
Speaker 1: I want information immediately. I want you to tell me
20:28
Speaker 1: information about all this. And so I'm guessing that that's
20:30
Speaker 1: going to get now, you know, appealed up the chain.
20:33
Speaker 2: Two other moments from what that judge said is one,
20:36
Speaker 2: he said, I'm sorry, are the words I say out loud?
20:39
Speaker 2: less impactful to you? Do you have to follow them?
20:41
Speaker 2: Because I didn't write it down. And the lawyer to their,
20:45
Speaker 2: I guess, credit or detriment said, I'm not willing to
20:47
Speaker 2: say what our position is. I'm not quite yet because
20:48
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm over my skis. And then the
20:50
Speaker 2: other part of it- Which is.
20:51
Speaker 1: Happening, by the way, to some of these lawyers, and
20:52
Speaker 1: you're seeing this in some of these cases, in some
20:53
Speaker 1: of the Doge cases too, the judge is getting like
20:56
Speaker 1: exasperated at the government and the government's like, I'm just
20:59
Speaker 1: trying to do my job here.
21:00
Speaker 3: They have a different standard when they say in the courtroom.
21:02
Speaker 3: Caroline Leavitt at the White House briefing, I think, would
21:04
Speaker 3: have made exactly that point, which is that a verbal
21:06
Speaker 3: order is different than a written order.
21:07
Speaker 2: Which I would just surprise a lot of judges who
21:10
Speaker 2: treat their courtroom like a place where they are fucking God.
21:13
Speaker 2: And the other part of it is just the lawyer saying, well,
21:16
Speaker 2: we were over international waters. And so the judge is like,
21:19
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, can you explain that to me? Does the
21:20
Speaker 2: president have extreme other powers over international waters? And they're like, oh, no,
21:26
Speaker 2: we're not.
21:27
Speaker 1: Prepared to say that. Can the president just put a
21:28
Speaker 1: bunch of people on planes, put them over international waters
21:30
Speaker 1: and then have them executed? Is that that's the new
21:33
Speaker 1: thing now? Also, you can track all these flights.
21:35
Speaker 3: Like all of this, the specific timelines for when these
21:38
Speaker 3: planes took off and landed have been published in a
21:40
Speaker 3: number of news outlets. Like I'm not sure what the
21:43
Speaker 3: play is here by the government lawyers that they think
21:45
Speaker 3: they can hide this data from the judge.
21:47
Speaker 1: So last thing before we move off this, I saw
21:49
Speaker 1: a lot of MAGA pundits on social media like CNN's
21:52
Speaker 1: Scott Jennings gloating that Trump has once again goaded Democrats
21:56
Speaker 1: into taking the losing side of an 80-20 issue. You
21:59
Speaker 1: guys think that's right?
22:01
Speaker 2: Look, I think more I'm like, so I guess due
22:04
Speaker 2: process is a 2080 issue now. It's probably a big
22:06
Speaker 2: fucking problem for us.
22:07
Speaker 5: Right.
22:08
Speaker 2: Like the they're just sort of this is indefensible. It's
22:12
Speaker 2: indefensible to not put this before a judge. If you
22:14
Speaker 2: believe in sort of the basic tenets of the American
22:18
Speaker 2: judicial system of the Constitution, you understand that. Yeah, of course,
22:21
Speaker 2: you have the right to deport members of a dangerous
22:24
Speaker 2: Venezuelan gang back to where they come from.
22:26
Speaker 1: Fine.
22:27
Speaker 2: But you have to go through a judge. You have
22:28
Speaker 2: to go through the courts. They don't want to make
22:29
Speaker 2: the argument that the president is a dictator. So they're like,
22:32
Speaker 2: this is this is the hill you're going to die on.
22:35
Speaker 2: And it's like, well, you know what? If maybe we'd
22:37
Speaker 2: like to live on it, maybe we'll go up top
22:39
Speaker 2: of the hill and see if we can survive up here.
22:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually think Scott Jennings, well, he's an insufferable idiot.
22:46
Speaker 3: Anyone who's watching CNN knows that. But I don't think
22:47
Speaker 3: he's right here because it's a question of framing. Like,
22:49
Speaker 3: I think the Democratic Party's position should be, of course,
22:51
Speaker 3: we should deport terrorists and murderers. Full stop. But there
22:54
Speaker 3: has to be a legal process to make those determinations.
22:57
Speaker 3: and creating a system where any White House can just say,
22:59
Speaker 3: you're a terrorist, you're a terrorist, you're a gang member,
23:03
Speaker 3: and then deport you, that's un-American. And this is not
23:06
Speaker 3: like an unfamiliar argument because our country has lost its
23:09
Speaker 3: mind before. It was called the War on Terror. Before that,
23:11
Speaker 3: it was called the Red Scare and efforts to prevent
23:15
Speaker 3: people with so-called communist ties or sympathies from coming back
23:19
Speaker 3: to the United States. So I think it's an argument
23:22
Speaker 3: we have to make. And I feel far better about
23:24
Speaker 3: the due process argument than holding up some specific scary
23:28
Speaker 3: individual that did something awful, which is what the White
23:30
Speaker 3: House is going to do.
23:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what? They're going to do a bunch
23:33
Speaker 1: of polls. You can show me all the polls with,
23:35
Speaker 1: do you support deporting violent criminals? Do you support deporting
23:39
Speaker 1: gang members, blah, blah, blah, and it's going to be
23:41
Speaker 1: an 80-20, 90-10 issue, whatever. I support that too, right?
23:44
Speaker 1: Let me write the poll question. Like any of us
23:46
Speaker 1: could write a poll question that would get a different result, right?
23:48
Speaker 1: Which is like, do you support the U.S. government rounding
23:51
Speaker 1: up people and jailing them in foreign countries without a hearing?
23:56
Speaker 1: I bet that's an 80-20 issue. I bet that's a
23:58
Speaker 1: 90-10 issue.
23:58
Speaker 2: Yeah. The other part of it is, too, is, you know,
24:03
Speaker 2: they're just deporting criminal aliens. And I do think they
24:07
Speaker 2: are relying on the fact that when most Americans imagine,
24:11
Speaker 2: they imagine people who don't speak English. They imagine people
24:14
Speaker 2: who look like immigrants.
24:16
Speaker 5: Right.
24:16
Speaker 2: They're not picturing a Norman Rockwell painting.
24:18
Speaker 4: Right.
24:18
Speaker 2: There's a lot of American citizens that don't look like
24:20
Speaker 2: a Norman Rockwell painting.
24:21
Speaker 1: That's why I mentioned the German guy, the German citizen
24:24
Speaker 1: who looks just like Tommy.
24:25
Speaker 2: And by the way, there's a lot of people that
24:34
Speaker 2: vote over Donald Trump that don't look like a Norman
24:37
Speaker 2: Rockwell painting that didn't think this would apply to them.
24:39
Speaker 2: There have been stories already. We were like, wait a second.
24:41
Speaker 2: When he said he was going to go after undocumented people,
24:44
Speaker 2: I didn't think they would come for my.
24:46
Speaker 4: Wife, for my husband.
24:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, Trump voter. I think he was also in Wisconsin
24:49
Speaker 1: and he's marrying... a woman who was going through the
24:53
Speaker 1: process to get legalized. Like literally like had the papers
24:57
Speaker 1: going through the whole process and then they just took
24:59
Speaker 1: her away and that's it.
25:00
Speaker 3: There was a great piece in Politico, I believe, about
25:03
Speaker 3: the Immigration Nationality Act of 1952, which is the law
25:06
Speaker 3: that's currently being used to expel Mahmoud Khalil for alleged
25:10
Speaker 3: Hamas sympathies or whatever, anti-Semitism. And if you look at
25:14
Speaker 3: the history of how that law came to be and
25:17
Speaker 3: whom it was written by, it was written by a
25:19
Speaker 3: senator named Pat McCarron who was just a virulent anti-Semite.
25:23
Speaker 3: And the law was used to keep Jews out of
25:24
Speaker 3: the United States, even after the Holocaust. So it's just
25:27
Speaker 3: a good reminder that the history of these kind of
25:30
Speaker 3: tactics and legal strategies will come back to bite everybody
25:34
Speaker 3: in the ass. And you should not support them.
25:36
Speaker 2: And even despite all that, we got a Senate minority
25:38
Speaker 2: leader that everybody hates.
25:50
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Speaker 1: Uplift Desk. Lest you think Trump is only going after immigrants,
28:19
Speaker 1: consider his late Sunday night Truth Social post where the
28:22
Speaker 1: president declared that the preemptive pardons Joe Biden gave to
28:25
Speaker 1: the members of the House Select January 6th Committee are, quote, void,
28:29
Speaker 1: vacant and of no further force or effect. because of
28:32
Speaker 1: the fact that they were done by auto pen. Joe
28:35
Speaker 1: Biden did not sign them, but more importantly, he did
28:38
Speaker 1: not know anything about them, end quote.
28:40
Speaker 2: I'm glad that more importantly is there, to be honest.
28:41
Speaker 2: That's going to actually be quite important later, I think.
28:43
Speaker 1: Trump went on to say that the J6 committee members
28:45
Speaker 1: are now, quote, subject to investigation at the highest level,
28:49
Speaker 1: end quote. Those claims followed a vengeful speech delivered at
28:52
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice on Friday. Here's a clip.
28:55
Speaker 6: The American people have given us a mandate and just
28:58
Speaker 6: a far-reaching investigation is what they are demanding into the
29:02
Speaker 6: corruption of our system. And that's exactly, I'm sure, what
29:06
Speaker 6: Pam and Cash and everyone else mentioned here and not
29:10
Speaker 6: mentioned is going to be doing. We will expel the
29:13
Speaker 6: rogue actors and corrupt forces from our government. It's going
29:17
Speaker 6: to be legendary. And I believe that CNN and MSDNC,
29:22
Speaker 6: who literally... Right. 97.6% bad about me are political arms
29:27
Speaker 6: of the Democrat Party. And in my opinion, they're really
29:31
Speaker 6: corrupt and they're illegal. What they do is illegal. 97.6%.
29:37
Speaker 1: Very specific. Let's start with the pardons. What do you
29:39
Speaker 1: guys think? Did Trump figure out a way to prosecute
29:41
Speaker 1: Liz Cheney by discovering the classic auto pen loophole in
29:44
Speaker 1: the president's pardon power?
29:45
Speaker 2: Because first of all, I first saw, you know, Trump
29:48
Speaker 2: posted something on one of his various platforms that had
29:52
Speaker 2: the three previous presidents and it showed his portrait from 2017,
29:55
Speaker 2: then showed a picture of an auto pen, and then
29:58
Speaker 2: it showed Trump in 2025. And when I saw that,
30:01
Speaker 2: I really saw, I saw, and I went, huh, he,
30:03
Speaker 2: Joe Biden was so old. It was an auto pen
30:05
Speaker 2: that was president. And I was like, and I saw
30:08
Speaker 2: that and I thought, oh, you know, I want to
30:10
Speaker 2: laugh at this, but I bet this portends something fucking awful.
30:13
Speaker 2: You know, I really did. I was like, what is
30:15
Speaker 2: this going to be about? And sure enough, and sure enough,
30:18
Speaker 2: the next day it was that, uh, Joe Biden used
30:20
Speaker 2: the auto pen, uh, to sign these pardons and didn't
30:24
Speaker 2: know about them. And Ultimately will not stand up as
30:29
Speaker 2: long as somebody get Joe Biden in front of a
30:30
Speaker 2: fucking camera or microphone in the next couple of days.
30:33
Speaker 1: So he tweeted about St. Patrick's Day today. So great.
30:37
Speaker 2: Hope in history rhyme. But the the real issue is
30:40
Speaker 2: what this is going to do is force a bunch
30:42
Speaker 2: of people who receive lawful, legitimate pardons to defend themselves
30:46
Speaker 2: in court. This is about wasting the time and scaring
30:50
Speaker 2: a bunch of people that Donald Trump considers enemies.
30:53
Speaker 3: There's an OLC opinion sitting on justice.gov from 2005 that
30:57
Speaker 3: says the president doesn't actually have to sign a bill
31:00
Speaker 3: for it to become law. They can instead direct a
31:03
Speaker 3: subordinate to, quote, affix the president's signature to such a bill,
31:06
Speaker 3: for example, by auto pen. Couldn't be more clear.
31:09
Speaker 5: U.S.
31:10
Speaker 1: Government.
31:10
Speaker 3: Thomas Jefferson.
31:11
Speaker 1: Given because you know who asked for that opinion. George W.
31:14
Speaker 1: Bush asked his DOJ for that, and it has remained
31:16
Speaker 1: ever since 2005. Yeah.
31:18
Speaker 3: Apparently, according to something I was reading, Thomas Jefferson used
31:22
Speaker 3: something called a polygraph, an auto pen-like device as far
31:25
Speaker 3: back as 1804. You can visit it if you go
31:27
Speaker 3: to Monticello. And the idea that these pardons were done
31:30
Speaker 3: in secret when they were like the biggest story in
31:32
Speaker 3: the US political media at the time, so Biden didn't
31:34
Speaker 3: know about them, it's like self-evidently stupid. And he's on
31:38
Speaker 3: camera talking about them. And no one knows what Biden
31:41
Speaker 3: did or didn't sign. Like the point of a signature
31:44
Speaker 3: is it looks the same.
31:45
Speaker 2: Well, and they also, by the way, they, they've the, the,
31:47
Speaker 2: they've been claiming, Oh, if you look, all the signatures
31:49
Speaker 2: are identical. Therefore they're from an auto pen. But actually
31:52
Speaker 2: it turns out that the way these things are uploaded
31:54
Speaker 2: into the library of Congress, it may automatically put the
31:57
Speaker 2: auto pen version of the signature in the signature position.
32:00
Speaker 2: So we actually, we don't even know, right. They're assuming because,
32:02
Speaker 2: because I believe Trump and somebody in the Trump white
32:04
Speaker 2: house saw that the heritage foundation was has something called
32:06
Speaker 2: the Oversight Project. That pulled up all the signatures. They
32:09
Speaker 2: did a kind of red string kind of, it's all
32:13
Speaker 2: the same signature.
32:13
Speaker 3: There's chum in the water for the MAGA media.
32:15
Speaker 1: The National Archives came out and said that the digitized
32:18
Speaker 1: version of official documents in the archives use the same
32:21
Speaker 1: image of the president's signature, regardless of who's in office.
32:24
Speaker 1: So at the beginning of every term, they get a
32:26
Speaker 1: digitized version of the president's signature and the archives that
32:29
Speaker 1: you go online to see, they put that on every
32:31
Speaker 1: single document, whether that's the actual signature or not. So
32:34
Speaker 1: that's So they're just looking at the wrong thing. And
32:37
Speaker 1: also there's plenty of photos of Biden signing laws by
32:40
Speaker 1: hand in person. Executive orders, laws, the whole thing.
32:44
Speaker 2: There was a controversy about this. Remember Obama when he
32:47
Speaker 2: was in Europe and they used an auto pen to
32:49
Speaker 2: sign a law.
32:50
Speaker 3: An extension of the Patriot Act, unfortunately. Yeah.
32:52
Speaker 1: I remember that. Yeah.
32:53
Speaker 2: And I remember at the time, just to be honest,
32:55
Speaker 2: I was like, eh, I kind of want the president
32:57
Speaker 2: to get that, to get, to get his hands on
32:58
Speaker 2: that pen for laws. I do think that like the,
33:01
Speaker 2: this is all obviously ridiculous. Now, Everybody, everybody took that
33:06
Speaker 2: memo as being correct. Presidents can affix their signature. By
33:09
Speaker 2: the way, like, there's nothing magical if a president uses
33:12
Speaker 2: a pen or a president... Like, let's say a president
33:15
Speaker 2: uses a pen or a president uses a device that
33:17
Speaker 2: has a pen. They're still signing the fucking document. But,
33:21
Speaker 2: you know, I would like Joe Biden to come out there.
33:24
Speaker 3: Why are we using signatures at all?
33:25
Speaker 4: It's 2025.
33:26
Speaker 1: Now that we've dug into the calligraphy, just, like, zooming
33:29
Speaker 1: out on this, DOJ speech, this thing, it does... you know,
33:33
Speaker 1: Trump said America's success will be my retribution. It feels
33:36
Speaker 1: like that might not be the case. It seems like
33:38
Speaker 1: that was a little in joke for them. Yeah.
33:41
Speaker 2: Just to be clear, like, yes, we are focused again
33:43
Speaker 2: that Donald Trump introduces the auto pen thing and everyone's like, well,
33:48
Speaker 2: who did sign it? How did they send it? You
33:49
Speaker 2: have to kind of chase all these things down. But
33:51
Speaker 2: if they didn't have the auto pen nonsense, they'd find
33:54
Speaker 2: some other fig leaf to go after these people some
33:56
Speaker 2: way outside of the pardon to go after Donald Trump's enemy.
33:59
Speaker 2: This speech was a speech about targeting all of these
34:02
Speaker 2: people who, regardless of what their pardon says. And by
34:04
Speaker 2: the way, they will find.
34:05
Speaker 1: Presidents don't give political speeches at the Department of Justice.
34:09
Speaker 1: Presidents don't give many speeches at all at the Department
34:10
Speaker 1: of Justice. I think Obama went at the very end
34:13
Speaker 1: of his term, but you don't give a speech at
34:15
Speaker 1: the DOJ that's about like targeting your enemies unless you're
34:18
Speaker 1: trying to send a signal.
34:19
Speaker 3: This is one of those moments where if any other
34:21
Speaker 3: president in history had done this, it would be a
34:23
Speaker 3: five alarm fire. It would be the only thing anyone
34:25
Speaker 3: is talking about because it is incredibly dangerous and frightening
34:28
Speaker 3: sign that Trump is primarily motivated by the desire to
34:32
Speaker 3: punish his enemies. And it's not just this speech. He's
34:36
Speaker 3: doing this in the context of having a completely pliant
34:39
Speaker 3: attorney general, Pam Bondi, who like pays fealty to him.
34:42
Speaker 3: We got Kash Patel and Dan Bongino now installed at
34:46
Speaker 3: the FBI office. The Wall Street Journal reported that Patel
34:51
Speaker 3: was trying to get a direct line into the Oval
34:53
Speaker 3: Office so he could talk to Trump more easily. Like
34:56
Speaker 3: the deputy FBI director is a right wing podcaster with
35:00
Speaker 3: anger management problems. Trump's floating alien cannon talking about her.
35:04
Speaker 3: She's going to be on the Supreme Court soon. We're
35:06
Speaker 3: threatening the media as all these corporations are preemptively caving
35:11
Speaker 3: and cutting settlements with Trump to pay him off so
35:14
Speaker 3: that their corporate mergers can go through. Like things are dark.
35:17
Speaker 1: Well, you know what? That's a good segue to the Democrats.
35:21
Speaker 6: Nice.
35:22
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, the Democrats.
35:23
Speaker 3: I didn't mean to segue there, but boy, that's sad.
35:24
Speaker 1: We're absolutely crushing it, guys.
35:26
Speaker 8: Fuck.
35:27
Speaker 1: So after Dan and I last spoke on Thursday, 10
35:31
Speaker 1: Senate Democrats led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer voted
35:34
Speaker 1: to break the filibuster and allow Republicans to pass their
35:37
Speaker 1: six-month spending bill to keep the government open. Schumer's decision
35:41
Speaker 1: to let the bill pass came after a week where
35:43
Speaker 1: just about every Senate Democrat voiced opposition to the legislation.
35:47
Speaker 1: which boosts defense spending and makes cuts to programs like
35:51
Speaker 1: Head Start, community health centers, and after nearly every House
35:55
Speaker 1: Democrat had voted against it. All but one, in fact.
36:00
Speaker 1: As you might imagine, the backlash has been fierce. It's
36:03
Speaker 1: come from elected and non-elected Democrats across the ideological spectrum, moderates, progressives,
36:09
Speaker 1: the whole group, including Democratic leaders like Hakeem Jeffries and
36:13
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi, and it's mostly been directed towards Schumer. We've
36:16
Speaker 1: been going back and forth here for weeks on the
36:19
Speaker 1: right shutdown strategy. Dan has written several message boxes about it,
36:23
Speaker 1: which is why you know it's both important and tricky.
36:27
Speaker 1: So we thought just as an exercise, just as an
36:31
Speaker 1: intellectual exercise for all you listeners, we'd kick off the
36:33
Speaker 1: conversation about this by presenting the best argument in favor
36:38
Speaker 1: of what Schumer did and the best argument against what
36:41
Speaker 1: Schumer did. And then we can all get into how
36:43
Speaker 1: we really feel and where we ultimately come down. So
36:47
Speaker 1: Tommy's going to take the pro-Schumer argument. Lovett's going to
36:49
Speaker 1: take the anti-Schumer argument. I'm going to play moderator and
36:52
Speaker 1: give each of you guys follow-ups.
36:54
Speaker 2: And again.
36:55
Speaker 1: A disclaimer for anyone who wasn't paying attention or may
36:58
Speaker 1: see these clips out of context on the internet. These
37:02
Speaker 1: roles were assigned in advance and do not necessarily reflect
37:06
Speaker 1: the views of the people making the arguments.
37:08
Speaker 3: It's funny you think that will help. We'll just cut that.
37:11
Speaker 1: Tommy, take us away.
37:12
Speaker 3: Pro Schumer?
37:13
Speaker 1: Why are you so happy with Chuck Schumer? Here's the
37:15
Speaker 1: Pro Schumer straw man.
37:17
Speaker 3: The big picture is, realistically speaking, Chuck Schumer's choice was
37:21
Speaker 3: vote for this bill. or force what could likely be
37:24
Speaker 3: an indefinite government shutdown. Now, during a shutdown, what would
37:27
Speaker 3: happen is Trump would get to unilaterally decide what staff
37:30
Speaker 3: is essential or not essential. He could furlough people and
37:34
Speaker 3: essentially de facto fire them. So if you think Doge
37:36
Speaker 3: is bad, this is Doge on steroids. And we know
37:39
Speaker 3: that the Doge gang liked this because Wired reported that
37:43
Speaker 3: Elon Musk wanted a shutdown for exactly this reason, to
37:46
Speaker 3: supercharge Doge. Now, if we had a shutdown, what would
37:48
Speaker 3: have happened was There would be huge cuts to services
37:51
Speaker 3: people need, like veterans benefits. Republicans in Congress would then
37:54
Speaker 3: get to force a bunch of very politically difficult votes
37:58
Speaker 3: on reopening some parts of the government, but not others.
38:01
Speaker 3: You need Democrats to hang together on all of those.
38:03
Speaker 3: And voters would almost certainly blame Democrats for this whole
38:06
Speaker 3: disaster until they finally caved. So this would have ended
38:10
Speaker 3: up being like Ted Cruz's disastrous government shutdown, temper tantrum
38:14
Speaker 3: in 2013, which did real harm to the Republican Party.
38:17
Speaker 3: And in this case, it was even worse because at
38:19
Speaker 3: least At least Ted Cruz had like a point. He
38:21
Speaker 3: was trying to get rid of Obamacare. Democrats hadn't decided
38:24
Speaker 3: on a clear policy goal or outcome or message. And
38:28
Speaker 3: so what ultimately happened is Democrats vote for a bill
38:31
Speaker 3: that is basically a continuation of the government funding for
38:35
Speaker 3: another six months. There are some cuts, like you said,
38:37
Speaker 3: but they're not drastic. And the alternative was letting people
38:42
Speaker 3: who want to destroy the government destroy it a lot faster.
38:44
Speaker 3: And for those who say Chuck Schumer screwed up the
38:47
Speaker 3: messaging by saying he was for a filibuster, before voting
38:50
Speaker 3: to keep the government open. His public posture had to
38:53
Speaker 3: be that he was shut down the government because in cards,
38:56
Speaker 3: sometimes you got to bluff even when you know you're
38:58
Speaker 3: going to fold or else you don't have any levers there.
39:00
Speaker 3: So what people are really mad about is not what
39:03
Speaker 3: Chuck Schumer did or even this votes. It's the fact
39:05
Speaker 3: that Democrats have no power. And going forward, the worst
39:08
Speaker 3: thing we can do is convince our base that we've
39:11
Speaker 3: got magical powers to fight Republicans that we don't actually have.
39:15
Speaker 3: And that what the problem is, is the will is
39:17
Speaker 3: lacking Not the leverage, because then we could get into
39:20
Speaker 3: an endless cycle of shutdowns like Republicans once did.
39:24
Speaker 2: So here's the problem. And I think you are. I
39:26
Speaker 2: think that is accurately characterizing the argument that we heard.
39:30
Speaker 2: in favor of voting for this. But I think embedded
39:32
Speaker 2: in that argument, like I didn't understand why voting for
39:36
Speaker 2: the CR was so wrong until I heard these arguments
39:39
Speaker 2: in favor of it. And the argument you heard from
39:41
Speaker 2: Chuck Schumer is basically there is no off ramp, that
39:44
Speaker 2: there could be a prolonged shutdown that lasts between six
39:46
Speaker 2: and eight months. and it will allow Trump and Doge
39:51
Speaker 2: to accelerate the lawless cuts that they're already making. It
39:55
Speaker 2: is a way for Trump and Musk to kind of
39:57
Speaker 2: complete their Doge agenda without the protection of the courts,
40:00
Speaker 2: without the protection of Congress deciding how the money is spent.
40:05
Speaker 2: And to me, the problem with that is it basically,
40:08
Speaker 2: it shows two things. It says, one, the Republicans do
40:13
Speaker 2: not need to negotiate with Democrats because they know that
40:16
Speaker 2: Democrats are so afraid of the consequences of a shutdown
40:21
Speaker 2: that they will vote for something even though they had
40:23
Speaker 2: no say in what it was.
40:24
Speaker 6: Right.
40:24
Speaker 2: What you're talking about, the reason Chuck Schumer was bluffing
40:26
Speaker 2: is that he was hoping that there would be some
40:28
Speaker 2: resolution of a bipartisan process. There wasn't. That came to nothing.
40:32
Speaker 2: So what they were hoping.
40:33
Speaker 6: Right.
40:33
Speaker 2: They were as they were observers hoping that the Republican
40:37
Speaker 2: only bill wouldn't be able to get through the House.
40:38
Speaker 2: That ended up not being the case. and that something
40:40
Speaker 2: would come of these bipartisan negotiations. That was not the case.
40:43
Speaker 2: And so what happened? Democrats had to choose at the
40:45
Speaker 2: end of this process between basically voting for a bill
40:50
Speaker 2: that was negotiated without them, for which they got nothing, right?
40:52
Speaker 2: They had demands. I mean, I don't think they were
40:54
Speaker 2: clear about them, but they had demands, right? First of all,
40:56
Speaker 2: clean CR, which this wasn't, right? This increased defense spending
40:59
Speaker 2: and cut a bunch of programs, cut funding for DC,
41:02
Speaker 2: and that Congress does something to reassert its supremacy over
41:07
Speaker 2: spending in this country, right? Over the basic constitutional principle
41:10
Speaker 2: that Congress controls the purse. And what Republicans were counting
41:12
Speaker 2: on was that Democrats would cave and that they were
41:15
Speaker 2: so afraid of Elon Musk and Donald Trump that they
41:17
Speaker 2: wouldn't be willing to endure a shutdown. Why is it
41:19
Speaker 2: that Chuck Schumer is afraid a shutdown could last six months?
41:22
Speaker 2: It's because he believes that Republicans will not care about
41:25
Speaker 2: the consequences. And he believes Republicans will not worry about
41:28
Speaker 2: the political fallout of those consequences. So they don't care
41:31
Speaker 2: about hurting people and they don't think they'll pay any price,
41:34
Speaker 2: even though the polls, I don't disagree with you, Tommy,
41:36
Speaker 2: that over time, Republicans might be able to successfully blame Democrats.
41:39
Speaker 2: But at the outset of this fight, Republicans who control
41:42
Speaker 2: the Senate, control the House, control the White House, were
41:44
Speaker 2: the ones voters were more likely to blame. They were
41:45
Speaker 2: more likely to blame Trump and Republicans than they were
41:48
Speaker 2: to blame the Democrats. Stepping all the way back. The
41:50
Speaker 2: fundamental challenge of fighting Democratic backsliding is Donald Trump has
41:54
Speaker 2: the power of lawlessness, and he has the power of institutions.
41:57
Speaker 2: In this case, what Chuck Schumer is explicitly saying is,
42:00
Speaker 2: my fear of the way Donald Trump abuses his power
42:03
Speaker 2: in this arena actually makes him even more powerful, gives
42:07
Speaker 2: him even more leverage in the legitimate institutional arena where
42:11
Speaker 2: he has constitutional authority. That is incredibly dangerous. There's an
42:15
Speaker 2: opening scene in the movie Lethal Weapon where a man
42:19
Speaker 2: is threatening to jump off of a building and Mel
42:22
Speaker 2: Gibson is trying to negotiate out of it. And he
42:25
Speaker 2: realizes there's no way to do it. He has to
42:28
Speaker 2: throw his handcuffs on the guy and jump with him
42:31
Speaker 2: and aim him toward a soft landing. That the only
42:35
Speaker 2: way to fight someone that is crazier than you, that
42:38
Speaker 2: cares about the consequences less than you, is to show
42:41
Speaker 2: that you're a little bit crazy too. And until we
42:43
Speaker 2: figure out how to, like Republicans count on Democrats to
42:45
Speaker 2: be responsible. And until we're willing to show that we
42:48
Speaker 2: can take some pain that we're as tough as they are,
42:52
Speaker 2: that they don't get to count on us to protect
42:54
Speaker 2: them from their own decisions, we will constantly, constantly lose
42:58
Speaker 2: these fights.
42:58
Speaker 3: Some evil South Africans in Lethal Weapon 2. They are.
43:01
Speaker 2: Diplomatic immunity.
43:13
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Speaker 1: H-E-L-P dot com slash PSA. I have been thinking about
44:29
Speaker 1: this a lot because when the election first happened and
44:34
Speaker 1: we knew there was going to be a government funding
44:36
Speaker 1: fight after it was punted the first time in like
44:38
Speaker 1: December or whatever. I was like, this is it. This
44:41
Speaker 1: is the only leverage Democrats are going to have because
44:44
Speaker 1: we're not going to be able to stop reconciliation, right?
44:46
Speaker 1: Because they have the votes. We're not going to be
44:47
Speaker 1: able to stop everything else. We're going to have to
44:49
Speaker 1: rely on the courts. And this is it. This is
44:52
Speaker 1: the big one. So obviously we have to use our
44:54
Speaker 1: leverage here. And yet the arguments that Tommy was making,
44:59
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about because I'm like, all right, let's
45:01
Speaker 1: say that Schumer says, let's go for it. Let's shut
45:04
Speaker 1: this thing down. What is the ultimate goal of a shutdown?
45:10
Speaker 1: And then what makes us think that Trump will cave
45:17
Speaker 1: to any kind of public pressure or sort of political
45:21
Speaker 1: pressure at this point when he– we just spent quite
45:24
Speaker 1: a bit talking about how he is defying court orders,
45:28
Speaker 1: rounding up people and sending them to El Salvador and
45:31
Speaker 1: all the other shit that he's done and all the
45:33
Speaker 1: stuff that Doge has done. And I think that– I
45:36
Speaker 1: would bet that there's a pretty good chance that Trump
45:39
Speaker 1: and Elon– and Elon is excited about the shutdown, that
45:43
Speaker 1: they supercharge everything. They start firing a bunch of people.
45:46
Speaker 1: They keep a whole bunch of agencies closed. Where there
45:49
Speaker 1: is potential for political pain in some agencies, they send
45:52
Speaker 1: out payments and they keep those agencies running and they
45:56
Speaker 1: keep those people on staff. And then all the other
45:58
Speaker 1: stuff that Democrats want, they just shut down indefinitely. And legally,
46:03
Speaker 1: then you have much less leverage in court because during
46:06
Speaker 1: a shutdown, the executive branch basically has all the power
46:10
Speaker 1: and can do whatever they want, which is what Donald
46:13
Speaker 1: Trump and Elon Musk really want. And so then I
46:16
Speaker 1: don't know what makes them actually open the government again.
46:19
Speaker 1: And by the way, Democrats at that point could say,
46:22
Speaker 1: all right, we're going to cave. We'll open the government
46:25
Speaker 1: again because, you know, 800,000 people are without pay right now.
46:30
Speaker 1: Probably half of them are working, which is what happened
46:31
Speaker 1: in the last shutdown. There was 400,000 working without pay
46:34
Speaker 1: and 400,000 that just weren't working and still didn't get paid.
46:37
Speaker 1: And so Democrats... try to cave, and then Republicans could say, no,
46:41
Speaker 1: we actually, you can't decide that the government's back open.
46:44
Speaker 1: We decide when the government's back open, and now Donald
46:47
Speaker 1: Trump just sort of runs the government. Now, so I
46:49
Speaker 1: think about that, and then I'm like, but to your point, Lovett, like, okay,
46:54
Speaker 1: are we in an emergency, or are we not in
46:55
Speaker 1: an emergency? And if we're in an emergency, then maybe
46:58
Speaker 1: we think, okay, that's all gonna happen, what I just
47:01
Speaker 1: laid out, and that they don't want to open the
47:03
Speaker 1: government again, but we have to do something to grab
47:07
Speaker 1: people's attention, and grab the country's attention and say, like,
47:10
Speaker 1: this is an emergency and this person is seizing control
47:14
Speaker 1: of the government and destroying democracy. And then that's the
47:17
Speaker 1: only way to do it. But we should be clear-eyed
47:19
Speaker 1: that I do not– I would not expect Republicans to
47:23
Speaker 1: cave very easily or maybe at all if we went
47:27
Speaker 1: into a shutdown.
47:28
Speaker 2: But see, to me– and I want to also say that, like,
47:31
Speaker 2: we live– in the luxury of the timeline when Chuck
47:34
Speaker 2: Schumer did this, right? And for a lot of, and for,
47:38
Speaker 2: it is probably the easiest politics to say Chuck Schumer
47:41
Speaker 2: was wrong, to be a fighting Democrat and say, Chuck
47:45
Speaker 2: Schumer sold us out. I would have gone all the way.
47:48
Speaker 1: I would love to have just been able to come
47:50
Speaker 1: on and just say that and that's it.
47:52
Speaker 3: Right, like that.
47:52
Speaker 1: And I still think that's where I probably come down,
47:55
Speaker 1: but I just don't think it's as easy.
47:57
Speaker 2: But I don't, and I don't think it's as easy,
47:59
Speaker 2: but where I finally land is like, all of the
48:02
Speaker 2: arguments to me against, right, like are basically arguments that
48:05
Speaker 2: we're already in some kind of a dictatorship, right? That
48:08
Speaker 2: either democratic accountability is not possible, that not enough people
48:12
Speaker 2: care about having a functioning federal government on everything from
48:14
Speaker 2: veterans affairs to TSA, or that the law is so
48:18
Speaker 2: weak and the courts are so weak and Congress so
48:21
Speaker 2: weak that Donald Trump will be able to do whatever
48:23
Speaker 2: he wants during a shutdown, however long it lasts. Like
48:25
Speaker 2: all of these are arguments for saying, well, hold on
48:27
Speaker 2: a second. So then we just turnover. That's the only
48:31
Speaker 2: option we have. If we are signaling to Republicans that
48:35
Speaker 2: we are so afraid of the consequences of what happens
48:38
Speaker 2: during a shutdown because we don't trust the American people
48:41
Speaker 2: to figure out who's responsible, we don't trust the American
48:43
Speaker 2: people to care enough to take their country back. That
48:46
Speaker 2: like we've kind of given up. We've given up the game.
48:49
Speaker 2: And by the way, even if that is what we
48:51
Speaker 2: were afraid of, even if we were completely correct in
48:54
Speaker 2: that fear, all of that, I'm not sure that's the
48:56
Speaker 2: right message that Chuck Schumer should have been saying.
48:58
Speaker 3: Right.
48:58
Speaker 2: But like just admitting that, like, I'm sorry, Trump is
49:00
Speaker 2: too powerful. He's going to do too much damage. Therefore,
49:03
Speaker 2: we're just going to capitulate and roll and we're never
49:05
Speaker 2: going to make a clear set of demands and we're
49:07
Speaker 2: not going to make those demands our vote contingent on
49:09
Speaker 2: those demands.
49:10
Speaker 6: Yeah.
49:10
Speaker 3: So like what I really, I mean, my honest opinion
49:13
Speaker 3: here is there's no good options by the time we
49:15
Speaker 3: got to last week, but Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries
49:19
Speaker 3: created a huge. expectations management problem. Like I'm looking at
49:22
Speaker 3: a political story with a photo of the two of
49:24
Speaker 3: them with the headline, Democrats are serious about a shutdown.
49:26
Speaker 3: And they also had a lack of strategy. We didn't
49:29
Speaker 3: know what we wanted. We didn't have a core demand.
49:31
Speaker 3: We didn't have a legislative imperative or a thing we
49:34
Speaker 3: were fighting for.
49:34
Speaker 1: This is where they totally deserve the blame, I think.
49:37
Speaker 1: And also we have a responsibility, Gene. We care about government.
49:40
Speaker 3: We believe it does good things and helps people, which
49:43
Speaker 3: means Republicans know we will always fold. And if not now, well, then,
49:47
Speaker 3: you know, we're certainly not going to vote against a
49:50
Speaker 3: debt ceiling increase. And so what I found particularly frustrating
49:54
Speaker 3: was Schumer's New York Times interview where he suggested that
49:57
Speaker 3: Republicans will eventually come around.
49:59
Speaker 1: Should we play a clip of that? Yeah, let's play
50:00
Speaker 1: a clip of that.
50:01
Speaker 5: Do Democrats have an authenticity problem?
50:04
Speaker 8: I don't think we have an authenticity problem. We have
50:07
Speaker 8: a real direction now. I feel good about it. And
50:10
Speaker 8: when he went below 40% in the polls, the Republican
50:14
Speaker 8: legislators started working with us. We're going to keep at it,
50:17
Speaker 8: keep at it, keep at it until he goes below 40.
50:20
Speaker 8: When it happens, I am hopeful that our Republican colleagues
50:24
Speaker 8: will resume working with us.
50:25
Speaker 4: And I talked to them.
50:26
Speaker 5: You know, I've covered a lot of countries going through
50:29
Speaker 5: Democratic backsliding. And I've seen how often opposition parties fail
50:36
Speaker 5: to recognize until it's too late. that they might have
50:39
Speaker 5: been made irrelevant. And I wonder if you think that
50:43
Speaker 5: the Democratic Party might be making that mistake.
50:45
Speaker 6: No.
50:46
Speaker 8: I think we're fighting very hard on every front. And
50:50
Speaker 8: initially we've had some successes, but we got to keep
50:53
Speaker 8: at it and we got to be open to new
50:55
Speaker 8: suggestions and ways to do it. But I think what
50:57
Speaker 8: we're doing is working so far.
51:00
Speaker 2: I just want to note for the producers of the interview,
51:02
Speaker 2: that music cue was fucked up.
51:04
Speaker 3: All right.
51:05
Speaker 2: It came in way too early. It was way too soft.
51:07
Speaker 2: It was weird. I paused and rewound it. I thought
51:08
Speaker 2: there was something wrong. I was in my kitchen. I
51:10
Speaker 2: thought there was like an alarm.
51:11
Speaker 4: Yeah.
51:11
Speaker 3: I almost threw my phone out of the window of
51:13
Speaker 3: an Uber as I was riding home from the airport.
51:15
Speaker 6: Yeah.
51:15
Speaker 3: I mean, if that's our strategy is helping Republicans come around,
51:18
Speaker 3: we are donezo. And so, again, like I don't know
51:21
Speaker 3: that this is a good strategy, but here's an alternative,
51:23
Speaker 3: which is basically an accelerationist approach, which is to say
51:26
Speaker 3: Doge is going to destroy the government in the long term.
51:29
Speaker 3: So let's speed it up. Let's shut down the government.
51:31
Speaker 3: Let's do it at a time when the markets are
51:33
Speaker 3: freaking out about tariffs. It's maximize the impact, maximize the pain.
51:37
Speaker 3: That's a totally irresponsible, destructive.
51:39
Speaker 1: Thing to do.
51:39
Speaker 3: But maybe a 20% drop in the S & P,
51:42
Speaker 3: 30% drop in the S & P wakes people the
51:44
Speaker 3: fuck up and leads to a political course correction by Trump.
51:47
Speaker 3: Like I actually, I do think he cares about headlines
51:50
Speaker 3: and markets and what business people say to him. And
51:53
Speaker 3: I don't know, I think the markets were like flat today,
51:55
Speaker 3: but like I think you could feel some weakness for
51:58
Speaker 3: a minute.
51:59
Speaker 1: I think part of the challenge, too, is maybe the
52:03
Speaker 1: biggest that I've been thinking about is Democrats didn't know
52:06
Speaker 1: what to ask for. And we've all kind of allied
52:09
Speaker 1: at this when I say we, I don't just mean
52:10
Speaker 1: the three of us, like everyone, because everyone's like, well,
52:12
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things we could have asked for.
52:14
Speaker 1: It's like, no, no, let's go through them.
52:15
Speaker 4: Right.
52:15
Speaker 1: Because it's what we're saying. It's not we could ask
52:18
Speaker 1: for a clean CR.
52:19
Speaker 4: Right.
52:19
Speaker 1: Dan and I talked about this a little bit. And
52:20
Speaker 1: then you go around and say, no, no, no. We
52:22
Speaker 1: will only keep the government open if you reverse the
52:26
Speaker 1: cuts directly. to, I guess it's community health centers and
52:29
Speaker 1: Head Start, which are popular things. But in the context
52:32
Speaker 1: of all we're talking about, right, it's like the end
52:34
Speaker 1: of democracy, everything Trump's doing seems a little small, right?
52:38
Speaker 1: The DC cuts, there's like a billion dollars from the
52:39
Speaker 1: DC budget is horrible. That's already getting fixed. And it
52:42
Speaker 1: looks like the House is now they're saying the House
52:44
Speaker 1: is likely to take that up. The Senate has already
52:45
Speaker 1: did a standalone vote to fix that and to restore
52:48
Speaker 1: the DC budget cuts. So once that's gone, and then
52:51
Speaker 1: I saw Dan say this, that there was like a,
52:53
Speaker 1: it basically Congress now can't even vote on the tariffs,
52:57
Speaker 1: on Trump's tariffs. But it's like, they weren't going to
52:58
Speaker 1: do that anyway. It's a Republican controlled Congress. They were
53:01
Speaker 1: going to let him do whatever the fuck he wanted
53:02
Speaker 1: on tariffs. So that doesn't really make it for me.
53:04
Speaker 1: And then there was the, oh, we should ask for
53:07
Speaker 1: guardrails around Doge. And I never really got that either
53:09
Speaker 1: because it's like Elon Musk and Doge right now is
53:13
Speaker 1: all over the place, illegally cutting government. And now you're
53:16
Speaker 1: going to say, here's another law that you can break
53:19
Speaker 1: by putting some Doge handcuffs on it. So I don't
53:22
Speaker 1: know that anything, any of the specifics we're asking for
53:24
Speaker 1: would have worked unless I've come back to the accelerationist argument, unless,
53:29
Speaker 1: or you're just saying like, no, no, no, it's not
53:30
Speaker 1: about anything. It's about the fact that since he has
53:32
Speaker 1: taken office in the second term, he has broken the law.
53:36
Speaker 1: He has taken our tax dollars and done whatever he
53:38
Speaker 1: want with them. We did not vote for this. Half
53:39
Speaker 1: the country didn't vote for this. We're not being represented
53:42
Speaker 1: in this government. He's breaking the law. He's just trampling
53:44
Speaker 1: on our rights. He is destroying like cancer research and
53:49
Speaker 1: healthcare and all that. And then just make it a
53:52
Speaker 1: huge fight about everything. Like that's the only thing I
53:53
Speaker 1: can think of because I do think making a shutdown
53:56
Speaker 1: about a specific issue here or there is just not
53:59
Speaker 1: really going to work. I also think you could imagine
54:01
Speaker 1: two scenarios that are completely different that would have been
54:04
Speaker 1: better than where we're at. One scenario is Hakeem Jeffries
54:07
Speaker 1: and Chuck Schumer early on say, you know what? Like
54:10
Speaker 1: weeks ago, maybe months ago said, Elon Musk right now,
54:14
Speaker 1: And Donald Trump, they want nothing more than a government
54:16
Speaker 1: shutdown and we're not going to give it to him.
54:17
Speaker 1: So we're just going to pass. We're going to keep
54:20
Speaker 1: the government funded and we're just going to keep fighting whatever. Right.
54:22
Speaker 3: I don't think it wouldn't be his head.
54:24
Speaker 6: Right.
54:25
Speaker 1: Or they could have joined together in the same press
54:27
Speaker 1: conference months ago and said, you know what? Watching what
54:30
Speaker 1: Elon Musk is doing right now, watching what Donald Trump's
54:32
Speaker 1: doing right now. Democrats are not going to give one
54:35
Speaker 1: vote ever to fund a government that is doing this
54:38
Speaker 1: kind of damage to the country. And again, prepped everyone
54:40
Speaker 1: in advance. The head spinning shit. was the worst.
54:43
Speaker 2: The other, so I think this too, yes, I don't
54:46
Speaker 2: even think you need to go that far, right? You
54:48
Speaker 2: say like, we will support funding the government, the whole government.
54:51
Speaker 2: That means restoring the social security offices. You make a
54:53
Speaker 2: whole list of the things, right? And the democratic goal
54:56
Speaker 2: right now isn't to prevent short-term pain. It's just not.
54:59
Speaker 2: The stakes are too high. We're not getting to the
55:01
Speaker 2: end of this with a lot of terrible pain. Like
55:04
Speaker 2: we are not getting out of what is a fascistic
55:07
Speaker 2: right-wing authoritarian government and a pliant Republican Congress without a
55:11
Speaker 2: lot of pain. It's coming one way or the other.
55:13
Speaker 2: And so the goal is to preserve these institutions. Right now,
55:17
Speaker 2: one of our great challenges is waking people up to
55:19
Speaker 2: the threat. We had an opportunity to wake people up
55:21
Speaker 2: to the threat. And it says something about the politics
55:23
Speaker 2: of this moment that a lot of Republicans, even when
55:26
Speaker 2: they're trying to be at their most craven, say we
55:28
Speaker 2: would rather a fight over reconciliation where we're powerless than
55:32
Speaker 2: a fight over the CR where we actually have power.
55:35
Speaker 2: And I just like if that is what we're saying,
55:37
Speaker 2: that we would rather just kind of be yelling passengers
55:40
Speaker 2: because I think that's going to put us in a
55:41
Speaker 2: better position for 2026. I think that's pretty dangerous, especially
55:44
Speaker 2: when there's no guarantee we're going to get another reconciliation.
55:47
Speaker 2: There may be another CR fight down the road. We
55:49
Speaker 2: may like we don't know what the future holds.
55:51
Speaker 1: So, well, I mean, this is we should talk about
55:53
Speaker 1: moving forward. So there's a couple of things moving forward.
55:54
Speaker 1: There is what happens to Chuck Schumer, his position. There
55:58
Speaker 1: is what happens in the next time we're here, the
56:01
Speaker 1: next funding fight, which is the end of September. And
56:03
Speaker 1: then there's the debt ceiling, which we don't know how
56:05
Speaker 1: that's going to come because they could either try to
56:08
Speaker 1: do the debt ceiling in reconciliation, which means they wouldn't
56:10
Speaker 1: need Democrats, or if they can't get the Freedom Caucus
56:14
Speaker 1: to agree to that, they would need Democrats for a
56:18
Speaker 1: standalone vote on the debt ceiling. I should just say,
56:21
Speaker 1: by the way, because we haven't covered this, the hope
56:23
Speaker 1: that Democrats wouldn't be in this position that we were
56:26
Speaker 1: just in because the hardline Republicans in the House wouldn't
56:30
Speaker 1: pass a CR was always a little crazy to me.
56:33
Speaker 1: Because we are in this scenario where people do whatever
56:37
Speaker 1: Donald Trump says and the idea and like, yes, the
56:40
Speaker 1: hardliners have caused trouble before, but that's when Joe Biden
56:42
Speaker 1: was president.
56:44
Speaker 2: By the way, OK, I hope that, too. I hope
56:47
Speaker 2: the hard choice isn't coming. Let's assume it is.
56:50
Speaker 1: I know it is. But so let's start with Schumer.
56:53
Speaker 4: Right.
56:53
Speaker 1: Like, what do you got? Do you think do we
56:55
Speaker 1: think his position as a leader is safe and should
56:57
Speaker 1: it be?
56:58
Speaker 3: I mean, judging by the commentary you've heard from his
57:01
Speaker 3: Senate colleagues so far, it does seem like he's safe.
57:04
Speaker 3: I don't like to make predictions. Regardless, we're not a
57:08
Speaker 3: perfect Senate minority leader away from success. I don't think
57:13
Speaker 3: he handled this well. I actually think he handled it
57:14
Speaker 3: quite badly. But there have been other situations he handled well.
57:17
Speaker 3: He got a lot of legislation passed in the past.
57:19
Speaker 3: He's done some good things. There were moments in the
57:21
Speaker 3: New York Times interview where That made me cringe really
57:24
Speaker 3: hard when he was talking about inviting influencers to the
57:27
Speaker 3: State of the Union and getting reports about social media
57:30
Speaker 3: impressions that he didn't really understand. But he reads them
57:32
Speaker 3: and you're like, OK, it's good that he's outsourcing that
57:35
Speaker 3: to like Brian Schatz and Chris Murphy and Cory Booker
57:38
Speaker 3: and younger members. We need more of that. We need
57:40
Speaker 3: more younger members out like being the lead messengers. But
57:45
Speaker 3: they did not have a strategy. And I think that's
57:48
Speaker 3: inexcusable for a leader.
57:51
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that Chuck Schumer was about to supposedly
57:53
Speaker 2: go on a book tour. That this was a vote
57:55
Speaker 2: that was going to lead into his book tour on
57:57
Speaker 2: his anti-Semitism book, which is now put on hold. It's
58:01
Speaker 2: just a little business as usual. They are unilaterally dismantling
58:08
Speaker 2: federal agencies. We are in a crisis. By the way,
58:12
Speaker 2: even if you say they fucked up by not having
58:13
Speaker 2: a message leading all the way up until 48 hours
58:17
Speaker 2: before the vote, there's a lot that could have happened
58:18
Speaker 2: in that 48 hours. They could have taken a stand.
58:21
Speaker 2: They could have they could have held the floor for
58:24
Speaker 2: Social Security offices. And we are we are we are
58:26
Speaker 2: filibustering this vote. And we're going to make you all
58:29
Speaker 2: stay here all night and all day tomorrow because we
58:31
Speaker 2: don't think it's right that seniors can't get a hold
58:33
Speaker 2: of their Social Security officials. And we don't want to
58:35
Speaker 2: and we don't want to shut down. We don't want this.
58:37
Speaker 2: But like, this is wrong.
58:39
Speaker 1: I'll also say, I think the House Democrats are genuinely
58:43
Speaker 1: outraged at the Senate Democrats.
58:45
Speaker 3: They have every right to be.
58:46
Speaker 1: And I say this not to either absolve Chuck Schumer
58:50
Speaker 1: or to blame other Senate Democrats, but this was more
58:53
Speaker 1: of a group decision than it appears in a lot
58:56
Speaker 1: of the coverage. And you can tell that by the
58:58
Speaker 1: votes and who broke. The people who voted with Schumer
59:02
Speaker 1: were people in leadership and people who are retiring and
59:06
Speaker 1: don't have to face the anger of voters. And some
59:08
Speaker 1: of the members who were in the toughest states and
59:11
Speaker 1: the purple states who have to face another election, like
59:13
Speaker 1: they came out in opposition to the bill, but like
59:15
Speaker 1: they didn't really want to shut down. And I think
59:17
Speaker 1: it was more of a group thing. And I only
59:19
Speaker 1: say that because as people start talking about, oh, should
59:22
Speaker 1: we have another leader? I think one of the reasons
59:24
Speaker 1: that you're hearing from Senate Democrats who voted a different
59:29
Speaker 1: way than Schumer is that they still respect him is
59:31
Speaker 1: because they know that in the, they all thought about this,
59:34
Speaker 1: but they all kind of decided to jump together on
59:36
Speaker 1: this one.
59:36
Speaker 2: And I, but I do think that points to like,
59:38
Speaker 2: they all came to a decision. Let's say most of
59:40
Speaker 2: them came to a decision that this was the right
59:42
Speaker 2: thing to do, even though the politics were kind of shitty.
59:44
Speaker 2: But part of the reason the politics weren't, were shitty
59:46
Speaker 2: is that nobody really made a good argument for any
59:49
Speaker 2: of this.
59:49
Speaker 3: Did not set ourselves up for success.
59:51
Speaker 1: I also think like they just, they can't, they've got
59:54
Speaker 1: to be honest with us. Like part of this is,
59:57
Speaker 1: They meet behind closed doors. They're like, oh, God, we
1:00:00
Speaker 1: know that the base is going to be angry with us,
1:00:02
Speaker 1: but we also know that a shutdown is bad. So
1:00:04
Speaker 1: we got to go out there and get on our
1:00:06
Speaker 1: do our videos where we say this is a horrible CR.
1:00:09
Speaker 1: And then suddenly we can just and then Chuck will
1:00:11
Speaker 1: take all the bullets for us, you know, and I
1:00:12
Speaker 1: like I get the strategy there. But if you don't
1:00:15
Speaker 1: want the backlash that's happening right now. just talk to
1:00:18
Speaker 1: us all like we're adults and be honest with us
1:00:20
Speaker 1: and be transparent about what's happening because people could still
1:00:23
Speaker 1: be disappointed, but it will be a lot better than
1:00:25
Speaker 1: what people are feeling now, which is that they were, like,
1:00:28
Speaker 1: they were hiding the ball the whole time.
1:00:29
Speaker 2: I found that when there was all these, when they
1:00:31
Speaker 2: were putting out these videos that were like, this is
1:00:32
Speaker 2: a terrible CR and we're voting no. It's like, well, okay,
1:00:36
Speaker 2: on cloture?
1:00:36
Speaker 1: It fooled me for a while. I had this, I
1:00:39
Speaker 1: was writing the script when I was going with Dan
1:00:40
Speaker 1: that I'm like, it looks like we're heading for a shutdown.
1:00:42
Speaker 1: And then Schumer came out and I was like, oh,
1:00:44
Speaker 1: it was all bullshit?
1:00:45
Speaker 2: And it just feels like, like, I'm sorry, like, The
1:00:48
Speaker 2: videos about cloture versus– that is not for the– that
1:00:52
Speaker 2: is for the 500,000 freaks. For nobody, yeah. Who are
1:00:54
Speaker 2: the people that– like the five.
1:00:56
Speaker 1: You know what's– That is– that's for the freaks.
1:00:58
Speaker 2: When we were coming up in Politics Boys, there was
1:01:01
Speaker 2: something called The Note. Remember The Note? And there was
1:01:04
Speaker 2: something called– what was it called? The Gang of 500.
1:01:05
Speaker 2: Remember that? And the note would always- Big Mark Halpern
1:01:08
Speaker 2: fan over here.
1:01:09
Speaker 3: I'm just, but they- I'm kidding.
1:01:10
Speaker 2: I know, I know. But they would talk about the
1:01:12
Speaker 2: Gang of 500, that basically politics was this insular discussion
1:01:15
Speaker 2: amongst these 500 people that all made the decisions or
1:01:17
Speaker 2: like got the, they were the ones that mattered. And
1:01:20
Speaker 2: obviously now we've moved beyond that. But like, I do
1:01:22
Speaker 2: think now there is this hyper-engaged group of 500,000 that
1:01:26
Speaker 2: are the people that are gonna understand what's happening, really
1:01:29
Speaker 2: paying close attention.
1:01:30
Speaker 1: And I feel like they're- We're all a pain in
1:01:32
Speaker 1: the ass too.
1:01:33
Speaker 7: For sure.
1:01:33
Speaker 1: And like, it is a real bitch to govern- where 500,000
1:01:37
Speaker 1: people are always on your ass.
1:01:39
Speaker 2: There's a lot of board members.
1:01:40
Speaker 1: Yelling about everything.
1:01:40
Speaker 3: There's a lot of shareholders.
1:01:41
Speaker 1: I get that completely.
1:01:43
Speaker 2: It's tough. But like, I would like just, I just
1:01:45
Speaker 2: think like as an experiment, like, you know, talk about
1:01:49
Speaker 2: it in front of us the way you talked about
1:01:50
Speaker 2: it behind closed doors. I think people can fucking handle it.
1:01:53
Speaker 3: Yeah. Look, I agree with that. I do think the
1:01:54
Speaker 3: challenge was probably that they were bluffing a little bit
1:01:58
Speaker 3: in trying to get this other track going, trying to
1:02:00
Speaker 3: get a one month CR extension, trying to help Patty
1:02:02
Speaker 3: Murray negotiate whatever with Republicans. We just all have to
1:02:05
Speaker 3: assume that No Republican is going to work with a
1:02:08
Speaker 3: Democrat for a very long time. There's a long profile
1:02:11
Speaker 3: in Politico people should read about John Thune, who sounds
1:02:14
Speaker 3: like a pretty decent guy who is just kind of
1:02:17
Speaker 3: caved at every step along the way to Donald Trump
1:02:20
Speaker 3: and changed who he is pretty fundamentally.
1:02:23
Speaker 1: Well, I do think now that we know the end
1:02:24
Speaker 1: of September is coming up for a where we're going
1:02:28
Speaker 1: to be in this position again. Maybe they should figure
1:02:30
Speaker 1: it out now and maybe make some– decide now and
1:02:34
Speaker 1: talk about now what the strategy is going to be
1:02:36
Speaker 1: and whether they're going to– because look, I'm sure Republicans
1:02:39
Speaker 1: right now are like, oh, they're going to fold again.
1:02:40
Speaker 1: So maybe they come out right now and say, guess what?
1:02:42
Speaker 1: We're not voting on this again. We're not voting to
1:02:44
Speaker 1: fund the government again. The other part of this too
1:02:46
Speaker 1: is– And the debt ceiling. I don't even want to
1:02:48
Speaker 1: start on that.
1:02:49
Speaker 2: We keep discovering we're further down the kind of– the
1:02:56
Speaker 2: authoritarian track every single time. Every single time. If Democrats
1:03:00
Speaker 2: knew how bad things were right now, in September or
1:03:03
Speaker 2: October of last year, the election would have felt different.
1:03:06
Speaker 2: People would have talked about it differently. Then imagine where
1:03:09
Speaker 2: we will be in a year, right? Like the point
1:03:11
Speaker 2: that the Times reporter made about by the time you
1:03:15
Speaker 2: realize you've done this authoritarian side, you realize you're irrelevant.
1:03:21
Speaker 2: We are headed in that direction. It's happening. It's happening
1:03:25
Speaker 2: right in front of our eyes. And six months from now,
1:03:27
Speaker 2: I don't know how much power Congress is going to
1:03:30
Speaker 2: have as Donald Trump is slowly dismantling the government and
1:03:34
Speaker 2: ignoring court orders. But I don't want us to look
1:03:38
Speaker 2: back and wish we had fought harder now.
1:03:40
Speaker 3: Real quick, just saw the tweet that Donald Trump has
1:03:43
Speaker 3: pulled Secret Service details from Hunter Biden and Ashley Biden.
1:03:46
Speaker 3: So something to know, effective immediately, apparently. It even says
1:03:50
Speaker 3: Hunter Biden, it mentioned that Hunter Biden is currently vacationing
1:03:53
Speaker 3: in South Africa. So he's pulling his Secret Service detail
1:03:57
Speaker 3: while telling the world that Hunter is abroad, which seems
1:04:00
Speaker 3: pretty dark.
1:04:01
Speaker 1: Don't they pull Secret Service from president's kids after they're
1:04:04
Speaker 1: out of office?
1:04:05
Speaker 2: I think there's a grace period.
1:04:08
Speaker 1: I think we're not going to get out of this
1:04:09
Speaker 1: without some kind of like mass mobilization.
1:04:12
Speaker 6: Yeah.
1:04:12
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, I saw a quick preview
1:04:15
Speaker 1: of Dan's conversation with Hakeem Jeffries, and he sort of
1:04:17
Speaker 1: talked about people protesting peacefully, of course. But I do think, and,
1:04:22
Speaker 1: you know, as Democrats think about their strategy going forward,
1:04:24
Speaker 1: like they need to ask people to like get involved too, right?
1:04:27
Speaker 1: It's not just them. Like we can't, we're not gonna
1:04:30
Speaker 1: get out of this with, even if there are great
1:04:32
Speaker 1: press conferences in front of buildings and just in the
1:04:34
Speaker 1: best videos that go so viral, like we're not getting
1:04:37
Speaker 1: out of this with that, right? And I do think
1:04:40
Speaker 1: if you're gonna build a move, like this is why
1:04:41
Speaker 1: I like the town halls. I like this idea. If
1:04:43
Speaker 1: you're gonna build a movement and a real opposition, like
1:04:47
Speaker 1: you need more people than just elected Democrats anyway.
1:04:50
Speaker 2: And by the way, that also I think does argue
1:04:53
Speaker 2: for the more accelerationist position, which is the base of
1:04:58
Speaker 2: your party, the people that you need to knock on
1:05:00
Speaker 2: doors to be, forget even knock on doors, the people
1:05:03
Speaker 2: that you count on, like you're kind of the people
1:05:05
Speaker 2: that are going to march with you. They're the people
1:05:07
Speaker 2: clamoring for more fight.
1:05:09
Speaker 1: They are.
1:05:09
Speaker 2: And they'll be the ones that will talk to their
1:05:10
Speaker 2: friends and neighbors. Like they are going to be the
1:05:12
Speaker 2: ones having these arguments in their homes, with their colleagues,
1:05:15
Speaker 2: with their friends, with their family. And they're begging you
1:05:18
Speaker 2: to fight harder. And like, I agree, like I have
1:05:20
Speaker 2: this I don't even know whether it's something to hope
1:05:23
Speaker 2: for or worry about, but I do see this. We
1:05:26
Speaker 2: are heading towards millions of people having to be in
1:05:29
Speaker 2: the streets. That, to me, is one of the ways
1:05:30
Speaker 2: that this all comes to a head. And sometimes I
1:05:33
Speaker 2: worry about how soon that will be, and then sometimes
1:05:36
Speaker 2: I worry that people aren't going to show up. And
1:05:37
Speaker 2: I think, what is a democratic politics that slowly builds
1:05:40
Speaker 2: the momentum for that kind of a mass mobilization? And
1:05:43
Speaker 2: it is certainly not approving this CR the way that
1:05:47
Speaker 2: they did.
1:05:47
Speaker 1: And I think that's why you've got to fight on
1:05:48
Speaker 1: every front. And I get that we all know the polls, right?
1:05:53
Speaker 1: I get that like protecting Medicare and Social Security, the
1:05:56
Speaker 1: most popular things. But, you know, when the government is
1:06:00
Speaker 1: now rounding up people and then deporting them without a hearing,
1:06:04
Speaker 1: I realize that immigration is not our best issue. And
1:06:06
Speaker 1: right now it's his best approval, right? If any issue,
1:06:08
Speaker 1: it's immigration. But that's also because people aren't making noise
1:06:12
Speaker 1: about what's really happening. And they're not just, you know,
1:06:14
Speaker 1: deporting the worst criminals. Numbers can move. Numbers can move.
1:06:18
Speaker 1: And we have to fight on every issue that's going
1:06:20
Speaker 1: to get people organized and out into the streets.
1:06:23
Speaker 4: You just have to.
1:06:23
Speaker 1: All right. To continue the conversation about the fallout from
1:06:26
Speaker 1: the government shutdown, Dan sat down with Minority Leader Hakeem
1:06:29
Speaker 1: Jeffries on Monday morning. We're going to get to that.
1:06:32
Speaker 1: Before we do, some quick news from Crooked Media. The
1:06:35
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Speaker 2: first starting, I think, today when you're hearing this.
1:07:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, Tuesday, March 18th, 12 p.m.
1:07:30
Speaker 4: Eastern.
1:07:31
Speaker 2: The presale is for Friends of the Pod. You can
1:07:32
Speaker 2: get that if you're a subscriber. That's where you can
1:07:34
Speaker 2: get the code. It'll be in the Discord. It'll be
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Speaker 1: As always, go to cricket.com slash friends to join, become
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Speaker 1: a friend to the pod. And you can get tickets
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Speaker 1: for Love It or Leave It starting on Wednesday, cricket.com
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Speaker 1: slash events. When we come back, Hakeem Jeffries. Pod Save
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Speaker 7: Joining us today is House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Leader Jeffries,
1:09:41
Speaker 7: welcome to Ponce of America.
1:09:42
Speaker 4: Great to be with you.
1:09:43
Speaker 7: Okay, I want to start, as you can imagine, with
1:09:45
Speaker 7: the budget vote that happened this Friday. House Democrats almost
1:09:50
Speaker 7: unanimously voted against the bill. A handful of Senate Democrats,
1:09:53
Speaker 7: including Leader Schumer, voted for the bill. This was obvious.
1:09:57
Speaker 7: It seemed to be, at least from the press conference
1:09:59
Speaker 7: your leadership gave afterwards, to be a point of contention
1:10:02
Speaker 7: between the House and the Senate. I understand that you,
1:10:05
Speaker 7: according to some reports, that you and Senator Schumer met
1:10:07
Speaker 7: in Brooklyn yesterday. Is that report correct? And what can
1:10:11
Speaker 7: you tell us about the status of the relationship and
1:10:13
Speaker 7: the conversation you guys had?
1:10:14
Speaker 2: It's correct.
1:10:15
Speaker 4: We had an opportunity... Yesterday was a very good meeting
1:10:18
Speaker 4: where we talked about how we move forward, House Democrats
1:10:22
Speaker 4: and Senate Democrats working together to strongly oppose the extreme
1:10:27
Speaker 4: things that Donald Trump and his administration are trying to
1:10:30
Speaker 4: jam down the throats of the American people. In particular,
1:10:34
Speaker 4: our immediate focus is going to be on pushing back
1:10:37
Speaker 4: aggressively against the Republican efforts to enact the largest Medicaid
1:10:44
Speaker 4: cut in American history that of course will hurt children
1:10:49
Speaker 4: and families and women and people with disabilities. And certainly
1:10:53
Speaker 4: it will devastate older Americans in nursing homes all across America.
1:10:59
Speaker 4: On Tuesday, House Democrats are holding a Medicaid Day of Action.
1:11:04
Speaker 4: We'll have town halls and site visits and rallies and
1:11:08
Speaker 4: roundtables all across America. in blue states, purple states, and
1:11:13
Speaker 4: red states to lay out our defense of the healthcare
1:11:18
Speaker 4: of the American people and contrast that with what Republicans
1:11:21
Speaker 4: are trying to do in taking away Medicaid and ending
1:11:26
Speaker 4: it as we know it in this country.
1:11:29
Speaker 7: I don't want to keep looking backwards and I don't
1:11:31
Speaker 7: want to harple things that have happened, but I think
1:11:33
Speaker 7: it's somewhat instructive for the fights to come. Heading into
1:11:36
Speaker 7: that budget fight, did you and Senator Schumer have a
1:11:39
Speaker 7: plan about how this was going to go and he
1:11:41
Speaker 7: changed the plan or was there not an agreement headed
1:11:43
Speaker 7: into the vote?
1:11:44
Speaker 4: Our view as House Democrats was that we were not
1:11:48
Speaker 4: going to support any partisan Republican spending bill that visited
1:11:55
Speaker 4: devastating cuts on families, on veterans, and on everyday Americans
1:12:03
Speaker 4: across the country, including older Americans who rely upon a
1:12:09
Speaker 4: variety of different health care programs that they've earned as
1:12:13
Speaker 4: a result of their work throughout their journey in this country.
1:12:19
Speaker 4: And so once the partisan Republican spending bill was released,
1:12:24
Speaker 4: we as House Democrats made the decision that we were
1:12:26
Speaker 4: going to strongly oppose it, whip hard against it, and
1:12:30
Speaker 4: do everything that we could to stop it in the
1:12:34
Speaker 4: House of Representatives. because substantively, it was not something that
1:12:39
Speaker 4: we could ever support. In addition, we came to the
1:12:43
Speaker 4: conclusion that one of the problems with the spending bill
1:12:47
Speaker 4: was that it could open the door by providing a
1:12:50
Speaker 4: possible blank check to Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the
1:12:53
Speaker 4: purveyors of the extreme Project 2025 agenda and give them
1:12:59
Speaker 4: a blank check to continue to devastate the American people. Now,
1:13:05
Speaker 4: We were in agreement that the best alternative was a
1:13:10
Speaker 4: four-week spending agreement that would allow for continued discussions led
1:13:17
Speaker 4: by the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee in the House,
1:13:20
Speaker 4: Rosa DeLauro on our side, and Patty Murray on the
1:13:25
Speaker 4: Senate Democratic side to try to see if we can
1:13:28
Speaker 4: actually arrive at a place where there was an actual
1:13:33
Speaker 4: permanent spending agreement that met the needs of the American
1:13:36
Speaker 4: people in terms of their health, their safety, our national security,
1:13:40
Speaker 4: and our economic wellbeing. And so the Senate Democrats met
1:13:46
Speaker 4: with each other, you know, based on the public timeline,
1:13:50
Speaker 4: of course, on Wednesday. And the position that was articulated
1:13:54
Speaker 4: on Wednesday was that the votes don't exist in order
1:13:58
Speaker 4: to break the filibuster related to the partisan Republican spending bill.
1:14:03
Speaker 4: That was on Wednesday. And on Thursday, obviously, there was
1:14:05
Speaker 4: a change in position amongst some.
1:14:08
Speaker 7: Now, six months from now, you're going to be right
1:14:11
Speaker 7: back in the same situation. I assume, and you correct
1:14:14
Speaker 7: me if I'm wrong, that ideally you would use that
1:14:17
Speaker 7: period of time to get to some sort of permanent
1:14:19
Speaker 7: spending agreement that you could agree to, Senator Schumer could
1:14:21
Speaker 7: agree to, everyone would agree to. Now, the history, as
1:14:24
Speaker 7: you know better than I, of the House Republicans coming
1:14:27
Speaker 7: to a budget agreement is not great. How are you
1:14:31
Speaker 7: sort of thinking about the coming budget fight and how
1:14:33
Speaker 7: you're preparing for that?
1:14:35
Speaker 4: There's sort of what's in front of us in the
1:14:37
Speaker 4: immediate term, stopping the Republican budget that is designed to
1:14:42
Speaker 4: really accomplish two things. Enact the largest Medicaid cut in
1:14:46
Speaker 4: American history in order to fund massive tax cuts for
1:14:52
Speaker 4: Republican MAGA billionaire donors and wealthy and well-off and well-connected
1:14:57
Speaker 4: corporations in I mean, it is a toxic scheme that
1:15:02
Speaker 4: the Republicans are trying to visit upon the American people,
1:15:04
Speaker 4: and we've got to stop it and work hard against
1:15:08
Speaker 4: it with everything that we have. And that, of course,
1:15:11
Speaker 4: includes House Democrats, Senate Democrats, governors whose states will be devastated, and,
1:15:17
Speaker 4: of course, advocacy groups and concerned citizens. Now, we have
1:15:22
Speaker 4: the Republicans on the run, in my view, on three issues.
1:15:28
Speaker 4: the economy, health care, and taxes. And we have to
1:15:32
Speaker 4: continue over the next several weeks and next several months,
1:15:36
Speaker 4: press our advantage in those three areas. Donald Trump and
1:15:41
Speaker 4: Republicans last year promised to lower the high cost of
1:15:45
Speaker 4: living and create an affordable economy. We as Democrats believe
1:15:50
Speaker 4: that the cost of living for far too many Americans
1:15:53
Speaker 4: is too high. And there are too many people who
1:15:55
Speaker 4: are struggling to live paycheck to paycheck in this country,
1:15:59
Speaker 4: of every race, in every region. And that's unacceptable in
1:16:04
Speaker 4: the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Now,
1:16:07
Speaker 4: instead of costs going down under Donald Trump and complete
1:16:13
Speaker 4: control of government that the Republicans now have, it's going up.
1:16:17
Speaker 4: Inflation is going up. What's going down is the stock market.
1:16:20
Speaker 4: What's going down is consumer confidence. What's going down are
1:16:24
Speaker 4: the retirement savings accounts of everyday people. Americans, and it's
1:16:29
Speaker 4: all because despite these promises made by Donald Trump and
1:16:34
Speaker 4: Republicans to focus on the cost of living, they're doing
1:16:37
Speaker 4: the exact opposite. Not a single bill has been introduced
1:16:41
Speaker 4: with respect to lowering costs, not a single administrative action,
1:16:45
Speaker 4: and not a single executive order issued by Donald Trump. Instead,
1:16:49
Speaker 4: they're focused on this budget scheme, the GOP tax scam,
1:16:55
Speaker 4: to enact massive tax cuts for their billionaire donors. We
1:16:57
Speaker 4: have to press our advantage on that issue. The economy,
1:17:03
Speaker 4: which also relates to their efforts to cut health care,
1:17:06
Speaker 4: which also relates to their efforts to pass these massive
1:17:09
Speaker 4: tax cuts, all of which are unpopular with the American people.
1:17:15
Speaker 4: And in the context of the end of the fiscal year, which,
1:17:20
Speaker 4: as you pointed out, will approach on September 30th, I
1:17:24
Speaker 4: think we just have to be very clear from the outset,
1:17:29
Speaker 4: we are not going to support a partisan Republican spending bill, period,
1:17:36
Speaker 4: full stop.
1:17:37
Speaker 7: So ultimately, because the House Republican, because of the process,
1:17:42
Speaker 7: the state of the power in Congress and the process
1:17:45
Speaker 7: the Republicans are going to use, Democrats don't have the
1:17:48
Speaker 7: votes and so to stop the tax scam, whatever you
1:17:51
Speaker 7: want to call it, the effort to cut Medicaid to
1:17:52
Speaker 7: pay for these tax cuts. I take it that your
1:17:54
Speaker 7: plan here is just to raise public awareness to the
1:17:57
Speaker 7: point that it becomes politically toxic for the Republicans?
1:17:59
Speaker 4: I think that that is an important objective, but substantively,
1:18:04
Speaker 4: we can't give up the fight as it relates to
1:18:07
Speaker 4: actually trying to stop this budget from ever becoming law.
1:18:11
Speaker 4: And if we take a step back, when Donald Trump
1:18:14
Speaker 4: took office in 2017, he had lost the popular vote,
1:18:19
Speaker 4: but there were 241 Republicans in in the House of
1:18:23
Speaker 4: Representatives and only 194 Democrats. This time around, he won
1:18:28
Speaker 4: the popular vote, but at the moment, there are 218 Republicans,
1:18:34
Speaker 4: and when we're at full strength, there will be 215 Democrats. Now,
1:18:40
Speaker 4: in the prior term, their chief objective was to repeal
1:18:45
Speaker 4: the Affordable Care Act. And as you recall, the Affordable
1:18:48
Speaker 4: Care Act wasn't even popular at the time. They had
1:18:51
Speaker 4: a 241 vote majority. And because of public sentiment, initially
1:18:58
Speaker 4: in the House and then finally with John McCain joining
1:19:02
Speaker 4: Democrats in the Senate, we were able to stop them
1:19:05
Speaker 4: from repealing the Affordable Care Act. Now, things changed. are
1:19:09
Speaker 4: a bit different in this particular instance. They are much
1:19:12
Speaker 4: more cult-like in their behavior this time around, but their
1:19:18
Speaker 4: margins are also much narrower. This is the smallest majority
1:19:21
Speaker 4: that any party has had since the Great Depression. And
1:19:25
Speaker 4: because we are on the right side of these issues,
1:19:28
Speaker 4: the economy, healthcare, taxes, and making sure that the wealthy,
1:19:33
Speaker 4: the well-off, and the well-connected pay their fair share. That's
1:19:35
Speaker 4: our position. Pay your fair share. They don't need a
1:19:38
Speaker 4: tax cut Elon Musk doesn't need a tax cut. I
1:19:42
Speaker 4: think we have to substantively try to make our case
1:19:45
Speaker 4: to the American people and do everything we can to
1:19:47
Speaker 4: stop them. But as you point out, to the extent
1:19:51
Speaker 4: that they ram the budget through the Congress, either in
1:19:56
Speaker 4: the House or the Senate, and sign it into law,
1:19:58
Speaker 4: just like the GOP tax scam that they passed in
1:20:01
Speaker 4: 2017 was unpopular and helped to cost them the majority,
1:20:07
Speaker 4: the same thing could happen this time around.
1:20:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
1:20:12
Speaker 7: I sort of met in the view that if you
1:20:14
Speaker 7: can make it unpopular, you can make it so that
1:20:17
Speaker 7: enough of the Republicans who may be in these purple
1:20:20
Speaker 7: districts or the handful of them are in the districts
1:20:22
Speaker 7: that Kamala Harris won would not vote for it because
1:20:25
Speaker 7: the margins.
1:20:25
Speaker 4: Are so narrow.
1:20:26
Speaker 7: So it was sort of both at the same time.
1:20:28
Speaker 7: One of the ways in which you're trying to stop
1:20:29
Speaker 7: it is to raise awareness so people understand the political
1:20:32
Speaker 7: consequences of voting for it. I want to shift gears
1:20:35
Speaker 7: here for a second. Um, Over the weekend, the Trump
1:20:39
Speaker 7: administration appears to have defied at least one and maybe
1:20:41
Speaker 7: two court orders involving their mass deportation efforts. This has
1:20:45
Speaker 7: sort of been the nightmare scenario that, you know, where
1:20:48
Speaker 7: the Trump administration starts just telling courts, we don't care
1:20:51
Speaker 7: what you have to say, telling judges we don't care
1:20:52
Speaker 7: what you have to say. This is what sort of
1:20:54
Speaker 7: when we talk about what a constitutional crisis could look
1:20:56
Speaker 7: like under this president, it would be something like this.
1:20:58
Speaker 7: What's your reaction to what's happening and how dire do
1:21:01
Speaker 7: you think the situation is right now?
1:21:04
Speaker 4: Thank you for raising this issue. It's been One of
1:21:06
Speaker 4: the conversations that we've had both internally in the context
1:21:10
Speaker 4: of our rapid response and litigation working group that we
1:21:13
Speaker 4: stood up a few weeks ago, led by Congressman Joe Neguse,
1:21:17
Speaker 4: the assistant Democratic leader, and co-chaired by Jamie Raskin, a
1:21:20
Speaker 4: brilliant lawyer, brilliant constitutional scholar. And we've charged them with
1:21:27
Speaker 4: coming up with a forceful response to the possibility that
1:21:33
Speaker 4: the Trump administration would skirt and or outwardly defy court orders.
1:21:40
Speaker 4: And to make sure that we are in close coordination
1:21:44
Speaker 4: with a lot of the democracy reform groups that have
1:21:48
Speaker 4: been litigating these cases to make sure that there is
1:21:51
Speaker 4: both a judicial strategy, that's important, but also a public strategy.
1:21:58
Speaker 4: And as we've seen in other democracies across the country,
1:22:02
Speaker 4: across the world, I should say, When you actually start
1:22:06
Speaker 4: to see defiance of court orders, then the public uproar
1:22:12
Speaker 4: has to be intense, immediate, and impactful in terms of
1:22:20
Speaker 4: the forcefulness by which the disagreement is communicated around the
1:22:27
Speaker 4: constitutional issues. That's nonviolent, of course, but it also requires
1:22:35
Speaker 4: a significant presence to make it clear that this is unacceptable,
1:22:41
Speaker 4: that we are a nation anchored in the rule of law.
1:22:47
Speaker 4: And we expect that the president and we expect that
1:22:50
Speaker 4: his administration will comply with the law at all times,
1:22:55
Speaker 4: particularly when there are court orders. And to the extent
1:22:59
Speaker 4: that that does not occur, that the public interest outcry
1:23:04
Speaker 4: has to reflect the manner of the constitutional crisis that
1:23:11
Speaker 4: such defiance would provoke.
1:23:14
Speaker 7: You guys were kind enough to invite me to your
1:23:16
Speaker 7: house retreat in Virginia last week, both in the program
1:23:19
Speaker 7: you guys put together, the folks you invited, the conversations
1:23:22
Speaker 7: I had with your members. It seems like you guys
1:23:24
Speaker 7: were really trying, and I've been to a bunch of
1:23:25
Speaker 7: these over the years, but it seems like you were
1:23:27
Speaker 7: really trying to legitimately wrestle with some of the lessons
1:23:30
Speaker 7: of 2024 and how politics have changed, how media has changed.
1:23:34
Speaker 7: Can you just tell me a little bit about what
1:23:36
Speaker 7: that process is like and what you guys have learned
1:23:38
Speaker 7: thus far?
1:23:39
Speaker 4: You know, it was a really strong few days together
1:23:43
Speaker 4: where we were able to look back and look forward
1:23:46
Speaker 4: at the same time. I think it's important for us
1:23:48
Speaker 4: to look back so that we can draw lessons from
1:23:52
Speaker 4: what happened in November of 2024, figure out why some
1:23:56
Speaker 4: of those things happened and how do we put Democrats
1:24:00
Speaker 4: in the best possible position moving forward. We have an
1:24:03
Speaker 4: all-important midterm election next year laying the foundation to end
1:24:09
Speaker 4: this national nightmare that Donald Trump is visiting upon the
1:24:12
Speaker 4: American people and bring the American dream to life for everyone. So,
1:24:17
Speaker 4: you know, there's the substance of it. Okay, why were
1:24:20
Speaker 4: we unable to connect with certain Americans on issues largely,
1:24:27
Speaker 4: I think, around the economy and the high cost of
1:24:30
Speaker 4: living and the view amongst many working class Americans throughout
1:24:34
Speaker 4: the country that Donald Trump was better positioned on the
1:24:38
Speaker 4: economy to turn things around than Democrat. We can never
1:24:42
Speaker 4: allow that to happen again. When at the end of
1:24:44
Speaker 4: the day, really authentic to us as Democrats, we want
1:24:48
Speaker 4: to make life better for everyone across the country. That's
1:24:51
Speaker 4: who we are. And the fact that there was a
1:24:55
Speaker 4: disconnect in that regard is deeply important. troubling. And we've
1:24:58
Speaker 4: got to figure out how we regain the narrative on
1:25:03
Speaker 4: the economy and on driving down the high cost of
1:25:05
Speaker 4: living and other issues like, of course, securing the border
1:25:08
Speaker 4: while defending dreamers and farm workers and keeping law-abiding immigrant
1:25:13
Speaker 4: families together. And of course, making sure that the American
1:25:17
Speaker 4: people are clear that we want to keep them safe.
1:25:21
Speaker 4: I grew up in central Brooklyn in the late 80s,
1:25:25
Speaker 4: early 90s. Things were dangerous. I understand that the American
1:25:28
Speaker 4: people want safety in every community. And, you know, Democrats
1:25:34
Speaker 4: need to make it clear that we're strong in those areas.
1:25:37
Speaker 4: It's Donald Trump and the Republicans who have become the
1:25:39
Speaker 4: party of lawlessness and disorder, particularly as it relates to
1:25:44
Speaker 4: pardoning violent felons who brutally beat police officers and then
1:25:48
Speaker 4: unleashing these people all across the country to make communities
1:25:52
Speaker 4: less safe. So we have to make clear that we
1:25:58
Speaker 4: are connected with the American people on these core issues.
1:26:02
Speaker 4: And then of course, make sure that we are communicating
1:26:07
Speaker 4: through new media platforms like this. Pod Save America, all
1:26:12
Speaker 4: of you, the network do a tremendous job. And one
1:26:15
Speaker 4: of the clear lessons for us is that you have
1:26:18
Speaker 4: legacy media and that will still have a role to play.
1:26:24
Speaker 4: But so many everyday Americans actually get their news Through
1:26:28
Speaker 4: the new forms of media, whether that's social media or podcasts,
1:26:34
Speaker 4: YouTube shows, messaging apps, chat groups, we have to be
1:26:40
Speaker 4: present in those spaces, authentically communicating with the American people.
1:26:47
Speaker 4: And we have launched a massive effort to do just that.
1:26:51
Speaker 7: Leader Jeffries, thank you so much for joining us and
1:26:52
Speaker 7: good luck out there. Hope to talk to you again soon.
1:26:54
Speaker 4: Too much.
1:27:00
Speaker 1: Thanks to Hakeem Jeffries for joining us today. Everyone have
1:27:03
Speaker 1: a great day, and we will be back in your
1:27:06
Speaker 1: feed with a new episode on Friday.
1:27:08
Speaker 2: And tell us what you thought of the new studio setup.
1:27:11
Speaker 1: Look at this.
1:27:11
Speaker 2: We moved some things around.
1:27:13
Speaker 3: Quite a housekeeping riddle there.
1:27:14
Speaker 1: My God.
1:27:15
Speaker 6: Yeah.
1:27:16
Speaker 3: It'll be embedded within the secret show on us.
1:27:21
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