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“A contest of sick burns.” · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:23
Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett.
0:24
Speaker 1: Here on the Thursday Pod, mixing it up a little bit.
0:27
Speaker 3: Jets and Splinstones.
0:28
Speaker 1: That's right, it's Jets and Splinstones.
0:30
Speaker 2: Very current pop culture reference.
0:34
Speaker 1: Young hip vibe here at Crooked Media. All right. Later
0:36
Speaker 1: in the pod, you'll hear Dan's interview with one of
0:38
Speaker 1: our very favorite people in all of politics, Stacey Abrams.
0:42
Speaker 1: But first, we're going to talk about Donald Trump going
0:44
Speaker 1: full Nixon by obstructing Congress's obstruction investigation, the New York
0:47
Speaker 1: Times story about how the president scammed the tax system
0:50
Speaker 1: while his business has lost more than a billion dollars, and...
0:53
Speaker 1: all the latest 2020 news. New episode of Pod Save
0:56
Speaker 1: the World dropped on Wednesday. Tommy and Ben talked about
0:58
Speaker 1: our challenges with Iran, escalations in Gaza and Venezuela, the
1:02
Speaker 1: new royal baby, and why Ben will be living down
1:04
Speaker 1: a very particular interaction he once had with the Queen
1:07
Speaker 1: of England for the rest of his life.
1:09
Speaker 2: That episode description took a real twist when it got
1:11
Speaker 2: to the reaction to the royal baby.
1:13
Speaker 1: How about Ben and the Queen of England? I feel
1:16
Speaker 1: like I know all of his Queen of England stories,
1:18
Speaker 1: so I'm interested to hear this one. Also, tomorrow, Friday...
1:23
Speaker 1: We will be going live on YouTube to take some
1:26
Speaker 1: of your questions. But this time we have a very
1:28
Speaker 1: special guest that will be doing it with us. Senator
1:30
Speaker 1: Brian Schatz. So check it out. Go to YouTube.com slash
1:35
Speaker 1: Crooked Media. And it will be at 10 a.m. Pacific,
1:37
Speaker 1: 1 p.m. Eastern. And it will be me and John
1:41
Speaker 1: and Tommy and Brian Schatz taking your questions. Schatz. Schatz.
1:46
Speaker 3: Schatz.
1:46
Speaker 4: Schatz. Schatz.
1:47
Speaker 1: Just like the song. Finally, we are on the road
1:50
Speaker 1: next week in New York. In Washington, D.C., we have
1:53
Speaker 1: a show Thursday night in Brooklyn, Sunday night in D.C.
1:57
Speaker 1: The Keep It crew will be in Los Angeles at
1:59
Speaker 1: the Regent Theater on May 14th. Pod Save the People
2:01
Speaker 1: just announced shows in Chicago and Minneapolis in June. For
2:05
Speaker 1: more details and tickets for all of our shows, head
2:07
Speaker 1: to crooked.com slash events. All right, let's get to the news.
2:12
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's attempt to cover up his various crimes and
2:14
Speaker 1: abuses of power have plunged the country into what House
2:17
Speaker 1: Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler and now Speaker Nancy Pelosi have
2:21
Speaker 1: have called a constitutional crisis. After promising that his administration
2:25
Speaker 1: will defy all congressional subpoenas for testimony and documents related
2:29
Speaker 1: to any scandal or investigation, Trump asserted executive privilege for
2:33
Speaker 1: the first time in his presidency on Wednesday to block
2:36
Speaker 1: the full release of the same Mueller report that he's
2:38
Speaker 1: claimed totally exonerates him. Hours later, the Judiciary Committee voted
2:43
Speaker 1: to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress. Dan,
2:47
Speaker 1: let's start with the claim of executive privilege. What is
2:50
Speaker 1: executive privilege and what is Trump's explanation for asserting it?
2:55
Speaker 2: Well, executive privilege is traditionally a right of a president
3:01
Speaker 2: to protect a certain set of documents from Congress. And
3:07
Speaker 2: that can include, it often includes presidential correspondence, their own letters.
3:13
Speaker 2: It includes deliberations with their aides. And the idea being
3:17
Speaker 2: that president, which is a good one actually, is that
3:19
Speaker 2: president should be able to have confidence that their discussions
3:24
Speaker 2: with their aides as they make, as they work through
3:26
Speaker 2: decisions are confidential. So anything that involves the decision-making process
3:30
Speaker 2: is usually subject to executive privilege. And therefore Congress does
3:34
Speaker 2: not have a right to that. That is not what
3:37
Speaker 2: Trump is doing here. This is something very different. He
3:40
Speaker 2: is asking for a blanket election. set of executive privilege
3:45
Speaker 2: over a wide array of things that do not fall
3:48
Speaker 2: anywhere within 100 miles of the traditional set of documents
3:52
Speaker 2: that the courts have upheld as worthy of executive privilege.
3:57
Speaker 1: Lovett, is it odd for Trump to claim executive privilege
4:00
Speaker 1: on a report that he claims exonerated him?
4:02
Speaker 3: Well, it's odd, obviously.
4:05
Speaker 1: Right.
4:05
Speaker 3: He's hiding something that is supposedly good for him. Obviously,
4:08
Speaker 3: that's not true. It's also hard to justify claiming executive privilege,
4:12
Speaker 3: which is, you know, inherently about the president's own deliberations
4:15
Speaker 3: about a report that investigated him, right? It's about something
4:19
Speaker 3: that they, that was happening to the president. It's not
4:21
Speaker 3: something he did. So it doesn't really make sense. Um,
4:24
Speaker 3: I also, I will say though, I am a little,
4:27
Speaker 3: I'm a little frustrated by, like I, so Nancy Pelosi
4:32
Speaker 3: just agreed that Gerald with, with Jerry Nadler's claim that
4:35
Speaker 3: this is a constitutional crisis. And I find it a little,
4:39
Speaker 3: it's a, it's like, Things are very bad, but how
4:43
Speaker 3: we describe them does matter. And it is, to me,
4:46
Speaker 3: a little bit premature to call this a constitutional crisis,
4:49
Speaker 3: as if there's no constitutional remedy when we know some
4:52
Speaker 3: of the remedies that could come in forms of, you know,
4:54
Speaker 3: there's contempt, there's contempt that can play out in the courts,
4:58
Speaker 3: it can play out in the Department of Justice, it
5:00
Speaker 3: can play out through the Sergeant at Arms, what have you.
5:02
Speaker 3: But I find it a bit strange to, as you're
5:05
Speaker 3: taking the first step toward discovering the as to whether
5:08
Speaker 3: or not the Trump administration is going to comply with
5:10
Speaker 3: the law and comply with maybe future judicial requirements to
5:14
Speaker 3: call it a constitutional crisis, like right out the bat.
5:16
Speaker 1: Dan, what do you think about this? Because I took
5:18
Speaker 1: constitutional crisis to mean that there's quite literally a crisis in, like,
5:26
Speaker 1: the executive branch is basically telling the legislative branch, we're
5:31
Speaker 1: not going to comply with any oversight, even though the
5:34
Speaker 1: Constitution says that the Congress has power of oversight. And
5:38
Speaker 1: so when the executive branch and the congressional and the
5:41
Speaker 1: legislative branch are just not in agreement and not willing
5:45
Speaker 1: to abide by, you know, if the executive branch isn't
5:47
Speaker 1: willing to abide by the constitution, then what do we do?
5:51
Speaker 2: I think that's right. I mean, it is, this is
5:53
Speaker 2: different than any other situation in the sense that Trump
5:57
Speaker 2: has said explicitly that he will not cooperate with any oversight.
6:02
Speaker 2: He is basically saying, I do not feel an obligation
6:05
Speaker 2: to be checked or balanced. And even on basic things
6:08
Speaker 2: involving the testimony of a Senate-confirmed cabinet officer in William
6:14
Speaker 2: Barr is something that he will not allow. The idea
6:18
Speaker 2: that he might prevent Bob Mueller from testifying. So that,
6:21
Speaker 2: you know, whether you want to use the term that
6:23
Speaker 2: we are currently in the crisis or we're barreling towards
6:25
Speaker 2: a crisis, we are in a very precarious position right
6:29
Speaker 2: now because how this plays itself out, both in terms
6:31
Speaker 2: of how Trump reacts how Congress reacts and how the courts,
6:35
Speaker 2: which are now stacked with political hacks, reacts will define
6:40
Speaker 2: the congressional presidential relationship for decades going forward. And so
6:44
Speaker 2: whatever terminology you want to use, I think there is
6:46
Speaker 2: cause for significant concern.
6:51
Speaker 1: And I think no president in history has ever sort
6:55
Speaker 1: of defied all oversight completely. Like, that's unprecedented as well.
7:00
Speaker 1: I know people are using the word unprecedented quite a
7:02
Speaker 1: bit over the last couple days and throughout this presidency.
7:05
Speaker 1: But it does seem like... I mean, we should add
7:08
Speaker 1: that one of the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon
7:12
Speaker 1: was Nixon obstructing Congress, much like Trump is doing. But
7:17
Speaker 1: it seems like even Nixon didn't have sort of a
7:20
Speaker 1: blanket refusal to cooperate with any congressional oversight whatsoever, right?
7:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, he provided... There were witnesses and documents in
7:27
Speaker 2: the initial... The huge court battle around executive privilege was
7:32
Speaker 2: Nixon's attempts to keep the tapes from the taping system
7:36
Speaker 2: in the White House from Congress. And what the Supreme
7:39
Speaker 2: Court ruled was executive privilege cannot be used to prevent
7:42
Speaker 2: Congress from having access to potentially criminal conduct. You can't
7:47
Speaker 2: hide evidence through executive privilege. And there is some evidence,
7:51
Speaker 2: if you will, that that is what is happening here.
7:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting. It really is. You know, Nancy Pelosi
7:58
Speaker 3: said this thing about Donald Trump self-impeaching, which is hilarious,
8:02
Speaker 3: but it really does.
8:04
Speaker 1: I don't get it still.
8:06
Speaker 3: I think it means that he is.
8:07
Speaker 1: I read it a couple different times. I know.
8:09
Speaker 3: I was thinking about it, and I really think what
8:11
Speaker 3: she means is he is... he is putting himself in
8:15
Speaker 3: a position, he is taking steps to make it impossible
8:18
Speaker 3: not to impeach him, that he is basically impeaching himself.
8:20
Speaker 1: I saw her earlier say he's goading us into impeaching him.
8:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, I think it's both, right? He's goading, whatever
8:27
Speaker 3: that means, whether he's doing it because he thinks impeachment's
8:29
Speaker 3: good for him or because he simply enjoys flouting the law,
8:32
Speaker 3: he is pushing Congress to impeach him in one way
8:34
Speaker 3: or another. But it is interesting how impeachment would play
8:39
Speaker 3: into this because it does seem as though one of
8:42
Speaker 3: the that, that being in the midst of an impeachment
8:45
Speaker 3: proceeding will make Congress's hands stronger in trying to get
8:48
Speaker 3: these documents because it's no longer just about proving that
8:51
Speaker 3: Congress has the right to do oversight or some legislative purpose,
8:53
Speaker 3: but actually, uh, needs to investigate the conduct of the president,
8:57
Speaker 3: which is unassailably Congress's say like solemn responsibility.
9:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, because we should say that, um, You know, one
9:06
Speaker 1: avenue here for the Democrats is to throw it to
9:09
Speaker 1: the third branch of government, the judiciary, and say, okay,
9:11
Speaker 1: you settle who's right, the executive or the legislative branch here.
9:14
Speaker 1: The problem with that is, and what the Trump administration
9:17
Speaker 1: knows full well, is that some of these cases individually,
9:21
Speaker 1: because there's so many different investigations and so many different
9:24
Speaker 1: administration officials defying subpoenas, that this could just wind up
9:29
Speaker 1: in the courts and it could take quite a while.
9:31
Speaker 1: In fact, it could take beyond days. 2020 or even
9:34
Speaker 1: beyond Trump's, you know, beyond Trump's term in office, um,
9:37
Speaker 1: for the, for the courts to settle this. And I
9:39
Speaker 1: think what you just said, love it is in the
9:40
Speaker 1: case of impeachment, if they start an impeachment proceeding, um,
9:43
Speaker 1: and they try to defy subpoenas, I guess it would
9:46
Speaker 1: get decided much quicker because they're opening an impeachment proceeding.
9:49
Speaker 1: This is into, you know, this is a proceeding that's
9:52
Speaker 1: investigating the president's corrupt behavior. And I guess that gives
9:56
Speaker 1: them a stronger hand. Is that what, you took from
9:58
Speaker 1: this too, Dan?
9:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think there is an element of running
10:05
Speaker 2: out the clock here that is very critical to the
10:07
Speaker 2: Trump strategy. For example, just yesterday, the courts finally settled
10:13
Speaker 2: a case involving a dispute over access to documents between
10:17
Speaker 2: the Obama administration and Republicans in Congress that began in 2012.
10:21
Speaker 2: So it was a seven-year process to work that way
10:24
Speaker 2: through the courts. So we could be well into Don Jr.
10:27
Speaker 2: 's first term before we even resolve some of these issues.
10:31
Speaker 1: So let me ask, is a protracted fight over the
10:35
Speaker 1: Mueller investigation, is that advantageous to Trump? Like, what if
10:40
Speaker 1: he just said, you know, let's just give them the
10:43
Speaker 1: unredacted report? let's move on, focus on other shit that
10:48
Speaker 1: Trump wants to focus on. Immigrants at the border, all
10:54
Speaker 1: his favorite hits. So then he doesn't have to focus
10:56
Speaker 1: on this at all. Why is he engaging in this
11:00
Speaker 1: protracted fight over oversight and accountability?
11:05
Speaker 2: Some things are just instinctual for Trump, and Trump's instinct
11:08
Speaker 2: is to fight. He always wants to be fighting.
11:10
Speaker 1: He needs... enemies.
11:12
Speaker 2: He needs a grievance. It's how he gets out of
11:14
Speaker 2: bed in the morning. I think that's both a personal
11:18
Speaker 2: psychological thing, but also a political strategy. With all things
11:23
Speaker 2: with Trump, I think his strategies, even though they're effective sometimes,
11:26
Speaker 2: are instinctual, not intellectual. And he just wants to be
11:31
Speaker 2: fighting Democrats. I also think he has a fear about
11:35
Speaker 2: the deeper people dig, the more crimes they will find.
11:39
Speaker 2: But I think it's a little more on the surface, then,
11:44
Speaker 2: then there's this very specific thing he's trying to hide.
11:47
Speaker 1: Yeah.
11:48
Speaker 3: This is why the, the, the calling it a constitutional
11:50
Speaker 3: crisis sort of bugged me. And I, I'm like having
11:52
Speaker 3: trouble articulating it, but there is this feeling that what
11:55
Speaker 3: we're in is this very complicated process argument in which
12:01
Speaker 3: you have the white house, you know, Sarah Huckabee Sanders
12:03
Speaker 3: goes out there and says, Jerry, Jerry Nadler's ridiculous. He's
12:06
Speaker 3: trying to issue a subpoena and hold a the attorney
12:09
Speaker 3: general in contempt for not breaking the law, right, because
12:12
Speaker 3: they claim that it would be breaking the law to
12:14
Speaker 3: turn over the grand jury testimony, then the Democrats go
12:16
Speaker 3: out there and say, this is unprecedented. The Republicans go
12:19
Speaker 3: out there and say, this is unprecedented. And as strong
12:20
Speaker 3: as we believe our argument is, and as unprecedented as
12:23
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's behavior is, we end up in a situation
12:25
Speaker 3: in which we are arguing in these stark and grand
12:28
Speaker 3: terms about fundamental questions about the Constitution while nothing's actually happening.
12:33
Speaker 3: And it just feels like a lot of noise where,
12:36
Speaker 3: and I guess I just wish that I understood better
12:39
Speaker 3: the strategy of Democrats to get something out of this argument.
12:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, I think one of the problems
12:50
Speaker 1: is this is why Democrats should have taken it up
12:52
Speaker 1: to an 11 when the Mueller report was released. Because
12:55
Speaker 1: the problem with not saying, yes, these are impeachable offenses
12:59
Speaker 1: and now we're going to hold investigations, but impeachment's absolutely
13:01
Speaker 1: on the table at the end of these investigations, is
13:04
Speaker 1: And that could have been an easy message, even though
13:06
Speaker 1: that's not what they did. A lot of them said, well,
13:08
Speaker 1: impeachment's too good for him, and blah, blah, blah, you know,
13:10
Speaker 1: all this other bullshit. The problem is, if you start
13:12
Speaker 1: with that message, and then you find yourself moving towards
13:16
Speaker 1: impeachment because the administration is basically saying, fuck off to
13:20
Speaker 1: every single subpoena that they get, then you look like,
13:23
Speaker 1: then it starts looking like you said, which is this
13:26
Speaker 1: protracted battle over process. I mean, and I think the
13:29
Speaker 1: reason that you use the term constitutional crisis is, they
13:32
Speaker 1: have to now... convey the urgency of the situation because
13:37
Speaker 1: it is an urgent situation because like why should an
13:38
Speaker 1: average person care about what's happening in Congress right now
13:41
Speaker 1: well if you have a president an administration that's saying
13:45
Speaker 1: we can do whatever the fuck we want we can
13:47
Speaker 1: abuse power in any way we want have any kind
13:51
Speaker 1: of scandal we want and no one's going to do
13:53
Speaker 1: anything to us because we're not going to comply with
13:55
Speaker 1: congressional oversight and we don't think you're going to impeach
13:58
Speaker 1: us anyway because we have senate republicans who aren't going
14:01
Speaker 1: to break from us And by the way, we feel
14:03
Speaker 1: pretty good about our chances on the Supreme Court because
14:05
Speaker 1: we have a bunch of Republicans on there. So we
14:07
Speaker 1: can do whatever the fuck we want.
14:08
Speaker 3: And one of them is a goon who literally threatened
14:10
Speaker 3: Democrats during the hearings.
14:11
Speaker 1: Right.
14:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, it feels a little bit like there was a
14:14
Speaker 3: fire and it was burning and Democrats collectively made a
14:17
Speaker 3: decision to let it burn out. And now they're trying
14:19
Speaker 3: to start the fire again. Yeah. And it's just, you know,
14:22
Speaker 3: it's frustrating.
14:23
Speaker 2: I think that's right. But I do believe we are
14:25
Speaker 2: in a constitutional crisis because I think this is different.
14:29
Speaker 2: Like previous presidents have had, with the possible exception of Nixon,
14:33
Speaker 2: but this is worse than Nixon in some ways, but
14:35
Speaker 2: previous presidents have tried to push the envelopes within the
14:38
Speaker 2: confines of the constitutional system. Trump is saying the constitutional
14:42
Speaker 2: system does not apply to him because he doesn't want
14:44
Speaker 2: it to. And like whether Democrats are handling that correctly
14:48
Speaker 2: or not, or describing it correctly, or having the appropriate
14:50
Speaker 2: proportionate actions to it is an open question and worthy
14:54
Speaker 2: of discussion. But Where we are right now is basically
14:59
Speaker 2: Trump is, like I said, Trump has decided that Congress
15:01
Speaker 2: has no role in providing accountability to him and he
15:03
Speaker 2: will not agree to the strictures put forward by the Constitution.
15:07
Speaker 2: And now this will eventually go to a court that
15:11
Speaker 2: we know is stacked with Republican political operatives. That sort
15:14
Speaker 2: of means the guardrails of government are off. I think
15:17
Speaker 2: the question for Democrats, to go to the Johnny original question,
15:20
Speaker 2: which is, is this fight good for Trump? The fight
15:23
Speaker 2: is only good for Trump if Democrats let it be.
15:26
Speaker 2: So we have to use this. This is what's happening.
15:30
Speaker 2: We have to use it in an argument that's not
15:32
Speaker 2: about process. It's not about subpoenas. It may not even
15:34
Speaker 2: be about the Constitution, but it is about people's lives.
15:37
Speaker 2: And I think that goes to that Trump is a
15:39
Speaker 2: chaos agent, but that chaos has consequences for all the
15:42
Speaker 2: things we are not doing that are affecting your lives.
15:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right. How does the contempt vote
15:49
Speaker 1: against Barr get Democrats closer to what they want and
15:52
Speaker 1: what comes next there. They've held this guy. So the
15:54
Speaker 1: judiciary committee has voted to hold them in contempt of Congress.
15:57
Speaker 1: Obviously it's got to go to a full house for
15:59
Speaker 1: a vote, but let's say Democrats prevail and he's held
16:02
Speaker 1: in contempt of Congress. What happens next?
16:04
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know that it gets us any
16:06
Speaker 2: closer than we want. It's just, we're basically going to
16:09
Speaker 2: make bill bar where a Scarlet C is. He eats
16:12
Speaker 2: dinner at a cafe Milano. I don't like, I think
16:15
Speaker 2: it's an important, like we have to set, like you have,
16:17
Speaker 2: there have to be some sort of consequences because, And
16:19
Speaker 2: he will go down in history as someone who was
16:22
Speaker 2: held in contempt, presuming Democrats go forward with this. But
16:25
Speaker 2: I don't think it gives us any more access to documents.
16:27
Speaker 2: It doesn't change the dynamics of power. I mean, I'm
16:30
Speaker 2: for doing it, but we should be realistic about the
16:32
Speaker 2: effects of it.
16:34
Speaker 3: So, but Dan, to me, this is, look.
16:37
Speaker 1: All roads lead to impeachment, people. This is the problem.
16:41
Speaker 1: You can hold them in contempt. You can then sue.
16:43
Speaker 1: You can go to court. You can do this every
16:46
Speaker 1: avenue possible. There's something blocking it at the end. With
16:49
Speaker 1: the courts, it's time. They can run out the clock.
16:51
Speaker 1: With contempt votes, it's like no one's thrown Bill Barr
16:53
Speaker 1: in jail. It's like the only... It seems like the only...
16:57
Speaker 1: The Democrats have two choices. One, forget about everything. Don't
17:01
Speaker 1: conduct oversight. Move on with their business and just decide
17:04
Speaker 1: that this is a lawless president who can do whatever
17:05
Speaker 1: the fuck he wants. Or conduct impeachment proceedings. Because it
17:09
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like the middle-of-the-road investigation strategy where they subpoena
17:12
Speaker 1: people and hold investigations on a whole bunch of different
17:14
Speaker 1: issues is going to work for them.
17:16
Speaker 3: Right, but this is... This is why, Dan, I agree
17:18
Speaker 3: with you. Donald Trump is refusing to comply with the
17:22
Speaker 3: basic tenets of oversight. He is refusing to participate in
17:28
Speaker 3: the kind of basic rules of how our government is
17:31
Speaker 3: supposed to function. But in some sense, that is predicted.
17:35
Speaker 3: The assumption is that at some point there will be
17:37
Speaker 3: a president who refuses to obey the Constitution. And to me,
17:41
Speaker 3: right now, we're in this nether space where Donald Trump
17:44
Speaker 3: is refusing to comply. Democrats are kind of, I don't know,
17:49
Speaker 3: in some senses going to where they need to go
17:52
Speaker 3: for subpoenas, holding people in contempt, and others being a
17:55
Speaker 3: bit feckless, saying, oh, you know, impeachment's too good for him,
17:57
Speaker 3: we're not sure what to do. To me, the threshold
18:00
Speaker 3: we haven't hit, in part because Democrats haven't pushed it there,
18:03
Speaker 3: is what happens when Donald Trump is either refusing to
18:05
Speaker 3: obey court orders, refusing to, you know, if we get
18:10
Speaker 3: to the point where the sergeant at arms is involved,
18:12
Speaker 3: what have you, but we're not at the point right
18:14
Speaker 3: now where Donald- Well, when the impeachment eagle has been
18:18
Speaker 3: let loose by the by the marshal, by the Supreme
18:21
Speaker 3: Court marshal. But, you know, look, these are we're talking
18:24
Speaker 3: about like fundamental notions of power and where it flows from.
18:27
Speaker 3: And right at a certain point, it is going to
18:29
Speaker 3: come down to whether or not Donald Trump refuses to
18:30
Speaker 3: obey the courts because he says, how can you enforce it?
18:33
Speaker 3: Or it comes it becomes Congress's responsibility to start using
18:36
Speaker 3: some of those inherent powers of Congress to enforce its subpoenas.
18:39
Speaker 3: To me, that is the kind of nightmare endgame that
18:42
Speaker 3: we're not at, at which point we truly would be
18:44
Speaker 3: in a genuine crisis in which the Constitution does not
18:47
Speaker 3: afford us the remedies we need to protect ourselves from
18:50
Speaker 3: Donald Trump.
18:52
Speaker 2: I guess the open question will be whether those remedies
18:55
Speaker 2: still exist. Right.
18:57
Speaker 4: Yeah.
18:58
Speaker 1: What do we think that the Senate wants with Don Jr.
19:01
Speaker 2: In a bipartisan way.
19:03
Speaker 1: Bipartisan. Bipartisan. Republicans are not very happy with Senator Richard
19:08
Speaker 1: Burr right now, who is the chairman of the Intel
19:13
Speaker 1: Committee in the Senate because he has signed on to
19:15
Speaker 1: the subpoena along with Mark Warner for Don Jr. And,
19:20
Speaker 1: you know, Don Jr. is attacking Burr. like Cornyn basically
19:24
Speaker 1: was saying, I don't know why this isn't case closed.
19:26
Speaker 1: I don't know why we're still doing this. So he's
19:28
Speaker 1: not even getting support from his Republican colleagues.
19:30
Speaker 2: Not John Cornyn.
19:32
Speaker 1: Fucking Twitter troll. Yeah. So what do we think that
19:36
Speaker 1: the Senate wants with Don Jr., Dan?
19:38
Speaker 2: I mean, I presume it is about whether he lied
19:41
Speaker 2: to the Senate about the Trump Tower deal, which has been,
19:46
Speaker 2: something Adam Schiff has hinted about in the context of
19:49
Speaker 2: Trump Jr. 's testimony to the House Intel Committee. And
19:53
Speaker 2: if that is the case, that does, I think, explain
19:56
Speaker 2: why Burr would do this, because it gets buried down
20:00
Speaker 2: deep somewhere. There are still some institutional prerogatives within the
20:04
Speaker 2: Senate that they frown on being lied to, even by
20:08
Speaker 2: the president's son. Now, the challenge of this is, is
20:11
Speaker 2: if they find that the person who will decide whether
20:15
Speaker 2: Donald Trump Jr. should be. So the way this would
20:19
Speaker 2: play out is if the Senate were to believe that
20:21
Speaker 2: they would make a referral to the Department of Justice
20:24
Speaker 2: about Trump lying and the person who would make the
20:27
Speaker 2: decision as to whether that was a chargeable offense would
20:30
Speaker 2: be none other than Bill Barr.
20:34
Speaker 1: Telling you all roads.
20:36
Speaker 3: There's got to be a road that goes somewhere else somewhere.
20:41
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess impeachment or beating him in 2020
20:43
Speaker 1: seem like the two roads here, and maybe both.
20:47
Speaker 3: That road's got a lot of... We'll talk about that.
20:50
Speaker 3: There's some predators on that road, too.
20:53
Speaker 1: I should say that we also still don't know whether
20:55
Speaker 1: Democrats are going to be able to successfully compel testimony
20:57
Speaker 1: from Robert Mueller himself. Nadler said this week in an
21:00
Speaker 1: interview that Trump's use of executive privilege could delay Mueller's
21:03
Speaker 1: appearance for weeks. because he's still technically an employee of
21:06
Speaker 1: the Justice Department. And of course, you know, Trump no
21:09
Speaker 1: longer wants Mueller to testify. He flip-flopped on that one. Originally,
21:13
Speaker 1: he said he didn't care. Now he doesn't want it
21:15
Speaker 1: to happen. They're trying to get Mueller to testify on
21:18
Speaker 1: May 15th. Can Trump and the Republicans stop Mueller from testifying, Dan?
21:22
Speaker 1: And what should we expect from a Mueller hearing? Any
21:25
Speaker 1: bombshells or should we keep our expectations in check?
21:29
Speaker 2: Never allow yourself to have hope.
21:35
Speaker 1: Dan Piper, Barack Obama staffer, 2007 on.
21:39
Speaker 2: I've been dark since the Yes Weekend days. I think
21:43
Speaker 2: I want to make one point about Trump's executive privilege
21:47
Speaker 2: claim that I think is important as it relates to
21:48
Speaker 2: Mueller himself, which is the claim that Trump filed is
21:53
Speaker 2: what is called a protective claim, not a conclusive claim,
21:56
Speaker 2: which means what he's saying is he may claim executive
22:00
Speaker 2: privilege on either all of or portions of the Mueller report,
22:05
Speaker 2: but they haven't gone through it to do that yet.
22:08
Speaker 2: So this is actually a very clever delaying tactic, which
22:10
Speaker 2: means now I think there's something like a million pieces
22:13
Speaker 2: of paper that make up all the underlying evidence and
22:16
Speaker 2: pendants of that report. So normally what happens is when
22:19
Speaker 2: you file an executive privilege claim, you're very specific about
22:23
Speaker 2: the documents you are not providing and why, right? And
22:26
Speaker 2: you say this is deliberative evidence. content involving discussion between
22:30
Speaker 2: the president and their advisors or whatever the traditional acceptable
22:33
Speaker 2: legal standards of executive privilege are. And so what he's
22:39
Speaker 2: potentially doing here is delaying Mueller for a very long
22:43
Speaker 2: time as one person in the White House counsel's office
22:47
Speaker 2: goes page by page through all one million documents. And
22:50
Speaker 2: there's a world in which the courts give them some
22:52
Speaker 2: leeway to come back and argue about a specific document
22:57
Speaker 2: as opposed to all of them. Just sort of the
23:00
Speaker 2: court saying, you must release it right now. Now, can
23:04
Speaker 2: they stop Mueller? Only Bob Mueller will decide that. It's
23:08
Speaker 2: like if he decides he wants to testify, is he
23:12
Speaker 2: going to be arrested on his way to the Senate?
23:16
Speaker 2: There's no real way to stop him if he really
23:17
Speaker 2: wants to do it. The problem is Bob Mueller... is
23:20
Speaker 2: a institutionalist through and through and has been unwilling to
23:22
Speaker 2: date to do anything other than write sternly worded, mostly
23:25
Speaker 2: secret letters about his concerns about how things are going.
23:28
Speaker 2: So we'd put that on him.
23:30
Speaker 3: Yeah. Dan, can I ask you something? There's this feeling
23:35
Speaker 3: to me right now that Democrats are, they're screaming to
23:38
Speaker 3: the bloody rafters, but nothing's happening. Do you see, it
23:42
Speaker 3: almost feels as though what we need is something to
23:44
Speaker 3: get the ball rolling, something to get an avalanche started
23:48
Speaker 3: that's not just begging Trump officials to be decent. Do
23:52
Speaker 3: you see any way through hearings, through congressional action, to
23:58
Speaker 3: use congressional power in a way that doesn't require Trump
24:01
Speaker 3: administration compliance to start getting attention on these hearings and
24:05
Speaker 3: on these issues in a way that would build a
24:07
Speaker 3: kind of drumbeat to create pressure on Trump officials to participate?
24:11
Speaker 2: I think Trump officials are immune to political pressure. And
24:15
Speaker 2: Trump is immune to political pressure because he.
24:20
Speaker 2: Everyone takes their cue from Trump, and that's everyone from
24:23
Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell to Kevin McCarthy. And it's just the most
24:31
Speaker 2: important factor in a Republican's mind as they think about
24:35
Speaker 2: their politics is the Trump base, right? So you have
24:38
Speaker 2: to look at this in terms of what's their incentive structure.
24:40
Speaker 2: As long as the Trump base is behind Trump, there's
24:42
Speaker 2: no incentive for Republicans to do anything because they're much
24:45
Speaker 2: more afraid of being primaried or Trump endorsing their opponent. Like,
24:49
Speaker 2: look at you know, Mark Sanford and the congressman from
24:52
Speaker 2: South Carolina who Trump endorsed his opponent, he lost, although
24:56
Speaker 2: he did eventually win that seat. You know, all the candidates,
25:00
Speaker 2: establishment candidates who bucked Trump and then he endorsed their opponent, lost.
25:04
Speaker 2: So they, like, I don't think there's anything that will
25:08
Speaker 2: come of a hearing that will either move Trump officials
25:11
Speaker 2: to act differently or frankly, dramatically move public opinion on
25:16
Speaker 2: this matter. And I think that is one of the
25:17
Speaker 2: things that, the factors that underlie Nancy Pelosi's reticence to
25:23
Speaker 2: aggressively go down this path?
25:26
Speaker 1: I do think, if Mueller testifies, I don't think that
25:30
Speaker 1: Mueller is going to say anything all that different than
25:34
Speaker 1: what he put in the 400-page report that he worked
25:38
Speaker 1: on for quite some time. But I do think that
25:41
Speaker 1: from a political perspective and a moving public opinion perspective,
25:46
Speaker 1: having Mueller talk about what is already in the report,
25:49
Speaker 1: but saying it out loud and maybe answering questions about it,
25:53
Speaker 1: I think it would at least put the spotlight on
25:56
Speaker 1: Trump's wrongdoing and the fact that Mueller clearly believes there's
25:59
Speaker 1: evidence that he committed obstruction of justice. And seeing that
26:03
Speaker 1: on your TV, I do think is a little different
26:05
Speaker 1: than reading it in a report. And we know that
26:07
Speaker 1: something like 97% of Americans haven't looked at the Mueller
26:10
Speaker 1: report at all, of course. So, you know, Do I
26:14
Speaker 1: think that's going to move public opinion a lot? Probably not,
26:17
Speaker 1: but that could be a little bit of the drumbeat
26:19
Speaker 1: that you're talking about. But Mueller's the only one I
26:21
Speaker 1: can see doing that, because like Dan said, I think
26:23
Speaker 1: all the rest of the officials are going to say,
26:25
Speaker 1: fuck off, I'm defying a subpoena. And their tactic, the
26:28
Speaker 1: reason we're not going to get to the constitutional crisis
26:30
Speaker 1: that you talked about, Lovett, which is, you know, what
26:33
Speaker 1: happens when Trump ignores a ruling from the courts, is
26:37
Speaker 1: because delay is the tactic here. They're thinking, you heard
26:40
Speaker 1: what Jan just said about the Eric Holder case that
26:43
Speaker 1: started in 2012 and here we are in 2019 and
26:45
Speaker 1: it's just wrapping up. So the Trump administration is thinking
26:48
Speaker 1: to themselves, we're not going to have to get to
26:49
Speaker 1: a point where Trump says, no, I defy a court
26:51
Speaker 1: order because we can tie this up in the courts
26:53
Speaker 1: for years.
26:54
Speaker 3: Yeah. These court cases are like Avatar movies.
26:58
Speaker 2: Specific reference.
27:08
Speaker 1: All right, let's move on to the stuff that the
27:10
Speaker 1: president might be working really hard to cover up. The
27:12
Speaker 1: New York Times published a story on Tuesday about how
27:14
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's businesses lost more than a billion dollars between
27:18
Speaker 1: 1985 and the mid-90s, more money than nearly any other
27:21
Speaker 1: individual American taxpayer. This helped him pay no federal income
27:26
Speaker 1: taxes in eight of the ten years the reporter studied.
27:29
Speaker 1: The president defended himself on Twitter on Wednesday, saying, quote,
27:32
Speaker 1: You always wanted to show losses for tax purposes, almost
27:36
Speaker 1: all real estate developers did, and often renegotiate with banks.
27:39
Speaker 1: It was sport. Guys, any surprises in this story?
27:44
Speaker 2: I'm personally surprised that the Chinese intelligence agency is watching Maddow.
27:49
Speaker 1: Hey, listen to Hillary Clinton. It happened.
27:54
Speaker 2: What a dream.
27:54
Speaker 1: From Hillary Clinton's lips to the Chinese ears.
27:58
Speaker 3: Usually she does that at private speeches.
28:03
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I don't think anyone is surprised to
28:05
Speaker 2: find out that Trump is a fraud. The degree of
28:08
Speaker 2: that fraud where he is, you know, love it as
28:12
Speaker 2: you always say, America elected its worst person. It turns
28:14
Speaker 2: out we also elected our worst business person since he
28:17
Speaker 2: lost more money than any other taxpayer in most years
28:20
Speaker 2: that were in the information provided to the Times. Yeah.
28:23
Speaker 1: I mean, how, if at all, should Democrats talk about
28:27
Speaker 1: Trump and his taxes and what's in his story? I mean,
28:29
Speaker 1: is it possible to undermine the image of Trump as
28:32
Speaker 1: a successful businessman, with the fact that he was actually
28:35
Speaker 1: America's least successful businessman. We have gotten a taste of
28:40
Speaker 1: how conservatives are going to respond to this from our
28:45
Speaker 1: pals at Fox & Friends, and I think we do
28:47
Speaker 1: have a clip of that that we can play.
28:49
Speaker 4: If anything, you read this and you're like, wow, it's
28:52
Speaker 4: pretty impressive, all the things that he's done in his life.
28:54
Speaker 1: It's beyond what most of us could ever achieve. I
28:57
Speaker 1: don't know that there's any suggestion that he broke the law.
28:59
Speaker 5: I think the suggestion is simply that he used the
29:02
Speaker 5: tax laws to his benefit. As if if you buy
29:05
Speaker 5: something and it doesn't pan out right away or ever,
29:07
Speaker 5: you're a loser. No, you take shots. You have an
29:10
Speaker 5: opportunity to do things. That's the way he lived. The
29:13
Speaker 5: reason why we all knew Donald Trump's name is for
29:16
Speaker 5: 30 years, that's what he did. He bought towers, hotels,
29:18
Speaker 5: golf courses. He did it in other countries. What do
29:22
Speaker 5: people not understand about these a little bit different than
29:25
Speaker 5: most people?
29:26
Speaker 1: You know what? In full agreement that he is a
29:28
Speaker 1: little bit different than most people.
29:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely different. It's, you know, again, like this, this
29:36
Speaker 3: reminds me of the Mueller letter saying how mad he
29:39
Speaker 3: is at Barr. It does feel like a deleted scene
29:42
Speaker 3: from an old episode.
29:43
Speaker 2: Like, OK, great.
29:46
Speaker 3: I do believe a lot of people decided to just
29:48
Speaker 3: sort of say, fuck it and vote Donald Trump because
29:50
Speaker 3: they believe this reputation that he was a businessman. I
29:52
Speaker 3: think now he's been president for three years. We get
29:55
Speaker 3: to judge him on his actual conduct in the actual job.
29:59
Speaker 3: which matters so much more than what his reputation was.
30:02
Speaker 3: So I'm not really interested in hashtags like billion-dollar loser.
30:05
Speaker 3: I'm generally not interested in hashtags at all. But I
30:09
Speaker 3: do think....
30:10
Speaker 1: Send love at your best hashtags.
30:12
Speaker 3: It does, to me, matter insofar as it's part of
30:15
Speaker 3: a larger case against the way Donald Trump conducted himself
30:18
Speaker 3: as president in that for all his talk about being
30:23
Speaker 3: so wealthy, he couldn't be bought. He has spent most
30:27
Speaker 3: of the time in office... seeking out personal gain, in
30:30
Speaker 3: part because he's clearly been in so much debt and
30:33
Speaker 3: had so many entangling foreign financial interests that he is
30:36
Speaker 3: beholden to all kinds of private companies and foreign governments
30:41
Speaker 3: in ways we don't fully understand. And, you know, something
30:44
Speaker 3: that John said all the time, which is true in
30:45
Speaker 3: this case, is that he is not looking out for
30:47
Speaker 3: the American people. He is not looking out for anyone
30:50
Speaker 3: but himself and his own bottom line.
30:51
Speaker 1: Dan, let's say that Lovett is right, that people care
30:54
Speaker 1: less about how he got rich or didn't get rich.
30:58
Speaker 1: and care more about his conduct as president. Is it
31:02
Speaker 1: possible to still use these stories about taking advantage of
31:08
Speaker 1: tax loopholes at best, at worst, possibly committing tax fraud?
31:14
Speaker 1: Is it possible to use these stories in a message
31:16
Speaker 1: about Trump as we move towards 2020? Yes.
31:20
Speaker 2: Donald Trump was an incredibly rich person who paid zero
31:22
Speaker 2: in taxes for a decade. Donald Trump then won the
31:25
Speaker 2: presidency and passed a law to make it so that
31:27
Speaker 2: More rich people and more corporations pay zero in taxes.
31:31
Speaker 2: The people who clean the rooms at the Trump Hotel
31:35
Speaker 2: paid more in taxes than Donald Trump, a multimillionaire, did.
31:39
Speaker 2: You pay more for your Amazon Prime subscription than Amazon,
31:42
Speaker 2: a $ 900 billion company, pays in federal taxes. Donald Trump
31:46
Speaker 2: thinks that system is right. We think it's wrong. Elect
31:49
Speaker 2: Democrats and we'll change it.
31:51
Speaker 1: Put that in a fucking ad. Yeah.
31:54
Speaker 3: Right. It just seems like it needs to be part of, like,
31:56
Speaker 3: An argument against the Republican policies that make someone like
31:59
Speaker 3: Donald Trump rich.
32:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you've got to tie him to very
32:03
Speaker 1: unpopular Republican policies, which, by the way, I mean, we've
32:06
Speaker 1: talked about this a lot, is different than saying, maybe
32:09
Speaker 1: it's not in conflict, but it's different than saying Trump
32:12
Speaker 1: is some unique emergency. He's so much different than the Republicans.
32:16
Speaker 1: He's worse than the Republicans. Let's remember that the most
32:19
Speaker 1: unpopular policies don't necessarily just come from Donald Trump, but
32:23
Speaker 1: they came from Paul Ryan and a lot of the
32:25
Speaker 1: Republicans in Washington, which are tax cuts for the rich
32:28
Speaker 1: and then paid for by gutting Medicare, gutting Medicaid and
32:32
Speaker 1: trying to take away your health care. I mean, that
32:34
Speaker 1: that's a core message that you could have used in 2012, 2016.
32:38
Speaker 1: It's been true for a long time. It worked. And
32:41
Speaker 1: do we still have Dan?
32:42
Speaker 3: I'm here.
32:43
Speaker 4: I'm right here.
32:43
Speaker 1: Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. And look, it worked in 2012,
32:46
Speaker 1: especially when Barack Obama talked about Mitt Romney. is one
32:50
Speaker 1: of these rich guys who wanted to pass a bunch
32:52
Speaker 1: of tax cuts for rich people because he himself was
32:54
Speaker 1: rich and took advantage of all kinds of tax loopholes.
32:57
Speaker 2: I love that you had to ask if I was
32:58
Speaker 2: still in the line because you said Paul Ryan's name
33:00
Speaker 2: and I didn't immediately start screaming. So you thought it
33:02
Speaker 2: must have been a difficulty.
33:05
Speaker 3: It was weird.
33:06
Speaker 1: Testing, one, two, Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan is back.
33:13
Speaker 3: It's funny too because it's like, at least, you know, look,
33:15
Speaker 3: Bain Capital was mercenary and vicious and sociopathic and undermining
33:19
Speaker 3: you know, the ability of working people to kind of
33:21
Speaker 3: have a living wage.
33:23
Speaker 1: But at least they made a profit. So let's talk
33:27
Speaker 1: about trying to get the rest of Trump's tax returns.
33:30
Speaker 1: Treasury Secretary Steve Mnookin continued his effort this week to
33:32
Speaker 1: block Congress from obtaining access to the tax returns. He
33:35
Speaker 1: said on Monday that a request from House Ways and
33:38
Speaker 1: Means lacks a legitimate legislative purpose. Richard Neal, who's the
33:42
Speaker 1: chairman of Ways and Means, said he would let us
33:45
Speaker 1: know on Thursday if what steps he's going to take next,
33:48
Speaker 1: some of which could involve going to court. What's going
33:52
Speaker 1: on here? Like what other options do Democrats have to
33:54
Speaker 1: get these tax returns? Is this just the same position
33:57
Speaker 1: we were just talking about with oversight writ large, which is,
34:01
Speaker 1: you know, the Trump administration's betting it gets tied up
34:03
Speaker 1: in courts and then they just never have to comply.
34:06
Speaker 2: I mean, I hate doing the thing where we hammer
34:09
Speaker 2: Democrats and we, it's sort of like disillusioning, but what this,
34:14
Speaker 2: like I hadn't, Legitimately mystified and frustrated by what Richard
34:19
Speaker 2: Neal is doing here. Like, what did he think was
34:22
Speaker 2: going to happen here? And why was there not a
34:24
Speaker 2: decision made about the next step before he got the
34:27
Speaker 2: letter from Mnookin?
34:29
Speaker 3: That is the most, it's the craziest fucking thing.
34:32
Speaker 2: So be ready.
34:35
Speaker 3: It's like, it's so crazy, Dan. It is so like every,
34:38
Speaker 3: like the Trump administration not complying with the order for
34:41
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's tax returns. The most predictable thing.
34:43
Speaker 1: Who would have thunk it?
34:44
Speaker 3: The most predictable thing since October of 2016. And seems
34:49
Speaker 3: taken aback without a clear immediate next step. It almost
34:52
Speaker 3: like the next step should be in the request letter. Like,
34:56
Speaker 3: what is going on?
34:57
Speaker 1: Everything's very careful and cautious.
35:00
Speaker 2: And the problem with it is, is it's undermining of
35:02
Speaker 2: Nancy Pelosi's strategy. Whatever you think about it, Nancy Pelosi's
35:05
Speaker 2: view is starting impeachment proceedings right now is a mistake.
35:10
Speaker 2: So we are going to aggressively look at all of
35:13
Speaker 2: this stuff and then come to an conclusion on impeachment.
35:17
Speaker 2: But that strategy, the political merits of that strategy, and
35:21
Speaker 2: the substantive ones, frankly, fall apart if they are not
35:24
Speaker 2: incredibly aggressive on everything that is happening short of impeachment.
35:29
Speaker 2: And so if Richard Neal is dawdling around thinking about
35:32
Speaker 2: what he could possibly do, and in his quote he's like, well,
35:35
Speaker 2: we could subpoena him, but they don't seem to be–
35:38
Speaker 2: really complying with subpoenas these days. So I don't know.
35:41
Speaker 2: It's just like, it feeds into the caricature that a
35:45
Speaker 2: lot of people, a lot of democratic Democrats have about
35:49
Speaker 2: how the Democrats are going about this, right? It's just, it's,
35:53
Speaker 2: it's just a terrible legislative political mistake.
35:58
Speaker 1: Dan, what do you think about states like California that
36:00
Speaker 1: are requiring candidates to release their taxes in order to
36:03
Speaker 1: be on the ballot? I remember you talking about this before.
36:06
Speaker 2: I thought this was a good idea for a really
36:08
Speaker 2: long time and I've advocated for it and I've argued
36:10
Speaker 2: for it. But then I had a massive amount of
36:14
Speaker 2: concern about it a few days ago. And so what
36:20
Speaker 2: I would like to know from like some of our
36:23
Speaker 2: political polling data experts is what do we believe the
36:28
Speaker 2: impact on turnout in California would be if Donald Trump
36:31
Speaker 2: is not on the ballot?
36:34
Speaker 1: Oh, interesting.
36:36
Speaker 2: So think about this, right? So California, if you presume
36:40
Speaker 2: turnout drops at a rate proportional to party registration, that
36:44
Speaker 2: means that more Democrats will stay home. And how does
36:48
Speaker 2: that affect our capacity to hold the crooked seven and,
36:52
Speaker 2: you know, go after someone like Devin Nunes, right? Like
36:54
Speaker 2: are those voters who are, you know, like the voters
36:59
Speaker 2: who did not turn out in 18, but you can
37:00
Speaker 2: potentially get in a presidential election year. Are they going
37:03
Speaker 2: to turn out in a state like California if they
37:05
Speaker 2: can't vote against Trump?
37:07
Speaker 1: Yeah.
37:09
Speaker 2: So are Democratic nominees on the ballot, obviously, but Trump
37:11
Speaker 2: is not. What is the impact of that? I'd like
37:13
Speaker 2: to sort of know that because this is a political
37:16
Speaker 2: discussion before proceeding forward.
37:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. Good for you for going right to the political
37:22
Speaker 1: context here.
37:23
Speaker 2: I think there should be a federal law that just
37:25
Speaker 2: like to run for president, you have to file financial
37:28
Speaker 2: disclosure forms. That law should be updated. to include the
37:32
Speaker 2: release of tax returns, which I believe was in H.R. 1,
37:34
Speaker 2: the first bill the Democrats in the House passed. But
37:37
Speaker 2: absent that, if we set up this piecemeal system, we
37:39
Speaker 2: could live in a world where we're disadvantaging ourselves because
37:42
Speaker 2: the only states who would pass such a law are
37:44
Speaker 2: ones that are controlled by Democrats, therefore probably safe states
37:49
Speaker 2: in the presidential election. But we need higher Democratic turnout
37:53
Speaker 2: among less likely voters to win things up and down
37:57
Speaker 2: the ballot in the more Republican parts of these blue states.
38:00
Speaker 1: Interesting.
38:00
Speaker 3: It's also worth, I think, worrying about what happens when
38:04
Speaker 3: Republicans in states that are in reach of Democrats start
38:08
Speaker 3: using this as an opportunity to create other standards to
38:11
Speaker 3: keep Democrats off the ballot.
38:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure they'll do that soon.
38:14
Speaker 2: I mean, there were efforts to make presidential candidates release
38:17
Speaker 2: their birth certificate. I think in Arizona or something like that.
38:21
Speaker 2: They didn't get all the way to the end, but
38:22
Speaker 2: this was a big thing in the early parts of
38:25
Speaker 2: Obama years.
38:28
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about 2020. Question of the day is,
38:31
Speaker 1: how much do the Democratic candidates need to make their
38:33
Speaker 1: campaigns about Trump in order to stand out in a
38:36
Speaker 1: crowded field and unify the party? So there was a
38:38
Speaker 1: long New York Times story by Astrid Herndon and Jonathan
38:42
Speaker 1: Martin this week about how Kamala Harris and her advisors
38:46
Speaker 1: are trying to reset and recalibrate her campaign by having
38:49
Speaker 1: her spend more time taking on Trump. In Detroit over
38:52
Speaker 1: the weekend, she added a new section to her stump
38:54
Speaker 1: that ended with the line, quote, this president isn't trying
38:56
Speaker 1: to make America great. He's trying to make America hate. Okay.
39:01
Speaker 1: So the reason that she wants to do this is
39:03
Speaker 1: that there's a disagreement within her campaign over whether Kamala
39:06
Speaker 1: should run to the left or to the center. Quote,
39:09
Speaker 1: other Harris advisors and allies have winced at some of
39:12
Speaker 1: the senator's overtures to liberals. They believe her pool of
39:14
Speaker 1: attainable voters sits squarely between the center and left and
39:18
Speaker 1: that she need not always offer the answer liberal activists
39:21
Speaker 1: may want from her. Dan, what did you make of
39:23
Speaker 1: this piece?
39:25
Speaker 2: It made my head explode. We scream all the time
39:29
Speaker 2: about how... reporters and pundits presume political calculation behind every
39:36
Speaker 2: utterance a candidate makes. And that is unfair because political candidates,
39:42
Speaker 2: like humans, have sincere beliefs and they will say things
39:44
Speaker 2: they believe in regardless of the politics of it. But
39:47
Speaker 2: when a candidate's advisers... Call up the New York Times
39:50
Speaker 2: or anyone else and then explain in gory detail the
39:53
Speaker 2: political calculation between that candidate's next utterance. You're doing that
39:58
Speaker 2: candidate a massive disservice. Kamala Harris has really smart, loyal
40:04
Speaker 2: staff on her campaign. But some people in and around
40:08
Speaker 2: her campaign, I think, did her a tremendous disservice by
40:12
Speaker 2: reading the New York Times into their playbook.
40:14
Speaker 4: You know, we always.
40:15
Speaker 2: yell about Democrats in the House needing an inner monologue
40:17
Speaker 2: instead of calling up Politico. This is also true of
40:20
Speaker 2: campaign advisors. Like, I think if this had happened on
40:24
Speaker 2: the Obama 08 campaign, I think Plouffe would have burned
40:27
Speaker 2: the building down.
40:29
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll tell you, we're not on campaigns right now,
40:33
Speaker 1: but we still get emails from political reporters asking us
40:35
Speaker 1: to talk about, you know, some like inter-party fighting and
40:39
Speaker 1: what's going on. What do you think of Biden? Because
40:41
Speaker 1: you were in the White House. I was like, And
40:43
Speaker 1: I'm like, no.
40:44
Speaker 3: No, you do it anonymously. But it's like, I mean,
40:49
Speaker 3: you don't respond.
40:50
Speaker 1: I never participate in those stories, even though I'm not
40:52
Speaker 1: a campaign. Cause I'm like, that's just, there's nothing that
40:54
Speaker 1: comes from my participation in that story. That's going to
40:56
Speaker 1: be helpful to the candidate. So nevermind if you're on
40:59
Speaker 1: the campaign or advising the campaign doing that, like Jonathan
41:03
Speaker 1: Martin calls you up. No, I love Jonathan Martin. He's
41:06
Speaker 1: a great reporter, but I'm not talking to him about that.
41:08
Speaker 1: If I'm on a campaign.
41:10
Speaker 3: I have a simple rule. I only talk to reporters
41:12
Speaker 3: if they're writing a glowing profile about me personally. I
41:18
Speaker 3: also want to say one other thing because I'm sorry.
41:21
Speaker 3: Make America great again. Make America hate again. I have
41:24
Speaker 3: expected Kamala to remove her face like Arya Stark and
41:26
Speaker 3: reveal Hillary Clinton. And like I worked for Hillary Clinton
41:30
Speaker 3: for years. I believe Hillary Clinton should be fucking president
41:32
Speaker 3: right now. I agree with every criticism of those who
41:35
Speaker 3: constantly blame Hillary Clinton alone for the reason she's not president.
41:38
Speaker 3: But that sentence to me gets at some of the
41:40
Speaker 3: mistakes we made in 2016 that we should not be
41:42
Speaker 3: making in 2020.
41:44
Speaker 1: I mean, it's also a line that is a very,
41:45
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a piece about consultants and advisors talking
41:48
Speaker 1: to the New York Times. And that's what that line
41:50
Speaker 1: sounds like. I mean, I talked to Kamala Harris for
41:53
Speaker 1: almost an hour here and she never said stuff like that.
41:55
Speaker 3: She never rhymed.
41:56
Speaker 1: She's warm, brilliant, engaging. She's like, she is a very
42:00
Speaker 1: authentic person. I know authenticity gets thrown around, but like,
42:03
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris is. So the piece says her advisors have, quote,
42:06
Speaker 1: extensively polled and run focus groups on the Democratic primary
42:09
Speaker 1: electorate and, quote, do not believe she should bow to
42:11
Speaker 1: liberal activists, setting aside the wisdom of people telling reporters this.
42:16
Speaker 1: Are they right, Dan? No.
42:18
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm speechless at the absurdity that someone told that.
42:24
Speaker 2: It makes me so mad I can barely stand it.
42:26
Speaker 2: And it makes me actually really, I'll get to your answer,
42:28
Speaker 2: but I just want to vent for one sec. It
42:29
Speaker 2: makes me mad on Kamala Harris's behalf. She just had
42:34
Speaker 2: her best moment on the campaign since the announcement, right?
42:39
Speaker 2: She just demonstrated to the whole world in the bill
42:42
Speaker 2: bar hearing about like what, like what she is so
42:46
Speaker 2: good at and how talented and smart she is. And
42:48
Speaker 2: the response to that is to lay out your political strategy.
42:51
Speaker 2: And the times is crazy. It's, I think the, it's
42:54
Speaker 2: the wrong way of thinking about it, which is you're
42:56
Speaker 2: putting yourselves in this, Twitter blue checkmark pundit box that
43:03
Speaker 2: is just not how voters think about it, right? They
43:05
Speaker 2: are making a holistic judgment on a candidate, on who
43:09
Speaker 2: they are, what they stand for, what their policy beliefs are,
43:13
Speaker 2: and what kind of opponent they would make to Trump.
43:15
Speaker 2: And to try to choose between, like, we have to
43:17
Speaker 2: be liberal or moderate is the, like, you don't campaign
43:21
Speaker 2: in a silo, right? You are a human being. And
43:24
Speaker 2: voters will support people that they agree with on some
43:27
Speaker 2: things and disagree with on other things because they're making
43:29
Speaker 2: an overall judgment. So if members of her campaign are
43:33
Speaker 2: thinking about this in terms of one path or the
43:36
Speaker 2: other path, I think it's just a very faulty way
43:38
Speaker 2: of thinking about presidential politics. Sometimes that is a way
43:42
Speaker 2: you think about a Democratic primary for Senate or governor,
43:45
Speaker 2: which is there's a liberal candidate or there's a moderate candidate.
43:48
Speaker 2: You count up the liberal voters, you count up the
43:49
Speaker 2: moderate voters and figure out which one is a better shot.
43:51
Speaker 2: But a presidential campaign is something incredibly different than that.
43:55
Speaker 2: And the judgments that voters make is incredibly different than that.
43:57
Speaker 2: It's much more complex. And this is an incredibly and
44:00
Speaker 2: painfully simplistic way of looking at politics.
44:03
Speaker 1: I also think there's something more important than ideology and
44:07
Speaker 1: deciding that you're going to tack to the left, tack
44:10
Speaker 1: to the center, apologize for a past position, whatever. I mean,
44:14
Speaker 1: we have candidates in here all the time and we
44:17
Speaker 1: have pushed them on their support for the filibuster. When
44:22
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris was here, I asked her about her record
44:25
Speaker 1: as a prosecutor in the truancy program she started. And
44:27
Speaker 1: she said she regretted her support for this law that
44:31
Speaker 1: caused some parents to be arrested. And my view on
44:37
Speaker 1: this is if you believe in your past record, even
44:41
Speaker 1: if it's not necessarily popular right now, then say you
44:44
Speaker 1: still believe it. If you're truly regretful of it, say
44:47
Speaker 1: you're truly regretful. If you're for the filibuster, Don't tell
44:51
Speaker 1: me that now you're against the filibuster just because you're
44:54
Speaker 1: here and you know that we feel that way. I
44:56
Speaker 1: will respect it a lot more if you come here
44:58
Speaker 1: and say, I know you guys hate the filibuster. I
45:01
Speaker 1: know you guys think, here's why I think we should
45:02
Speaker 1: keep the filibuster because I really believe that. Just be
45:05
Speaker 1: who you are and stand by your beliefs. And I
45:07
Speaker 1: think you will get a lot more credit from people
45:10
Speaker 1: than having a bunch of advisors say, oh, well, when
45:13
Speaker 1: you go on this program, you should attack to the
45:14
Speaker 1: left a little bit. When you talk to this crowd,
45:16
Speaker 1: you should attack to the center a little bit, all
45:17
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Because that just gets you twisted
45:20
Speaker 1: in knots all the time. Right.
45:21
Speaker 3: Well, because what's not mentioned in the article is what
45:24
Speaker 3: does Kamala Harris actually believe about the kind of policies
45:27
Speaker 3: we should have when she's president? One reason this story
45:30
Speaker 3: is going to be so damaging is now if she
45:33
Speaker 3: bucks the left wing of the party, it's not because
45:36
Speaker 3: she believes it or doesn't believe it. It's because that's
45:38
Speaker 3: the strategy. If she decides to accede to demand of
45:40
Speaker 3: the left wing of the party. It's not because she
45:42
Speaker 3: believes it. It's because she has made a strategic decision.
45:44
Speaker 3: And so reducing every position to a strategic choice just
45:49
Speaker 3: makes it harder to take any position whatsoever because it's
45:53
Speaker 3: no longer about who you are and what you stand for. Uh,
45:57
Speaker 3: it's about messaging and strategy. Yeah.
45:59
Speaker 1: I mean, let's get to the crux of the pieces.
46:02
Speaker 1: So because there's this disagreement about whether she should tack
46:05
Speaker 1: to the left or tack to the center, um, The
46:08
Speaker 1: easy out here is whacking Trump because hitting Trump is
46:12
Speaker 1: the way that you can both unify the party because
46:16
Speaker 1: people on the center of the party and the left
46:17
Speaker 1: of the party all hate Trump.
46:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, this trebuchet is all along the flank there.
46:23
Speaker 1: And it's the easier way to stand out in this
46:24
Speaker 1: crowded field because candidates who take on Trump directly, whether
46:28
Speaker 1: it's Joe Biden, whether it was Kamala Harris taking on
46:30
Speaker 1: Bill Barr in that hearing, whether it's, you know, other
46:33
Speaker 1: candidates have done this as well. those candidates tend to
46:35
Speaker 1: get more coverage than the primary candidates who are running
46:38
Speaker 1: around just talking about policy. Dan, what do you think
46:41
Speaker 1: about that?
46:44
Speaker 2: It's once again a very simplistic way of thinking about it.
46:49
Speaker 2: It's also, it's this incredibly false choice, like which candidate
46:51
Speaker 2: is not taking on Trump?
46:54
Speaker 1: Right.
46:55
Speaker 2: Like Elizabeth Warren's policy rollouts are done entirely in the
46:59
Speaker 2: context of of fixing the problems that many times existed
47:04
Speaker 2: before Trump, but have been exacerbated by Trump, right? Like
47:08
Speaker 2: Trump is the conversation. There is no dearth of candidates
47:13
Speaker 2: talking about Trump. Like what was so impressive about Kamala
47:17
Speaker 2: Harris's performance in the Bill Barr hearing was not that
47:21
Speaker 2: she took on Trump and no one else did. It
47:23
Speaker 2: was that she showed herself to be smart and thoughtful
47:28
Speaker 2: and And to take no shit from Bill Barr. It's
47:32
Speaker 2: just her general demeanor. She came off as an incredibly
47:36
Speaker 2: impressive person who you could see sitting behind the desk
47:38
Speaker 2: in the Oval Office in that moment. It was not
47:40
Speaker 2: that all of a sudden she discovered the benefits of
47:43
Speaker 2: Trump criticism. In fact, she didn't even really talk about
47:46
Speaker 2: Trump in there. She really talked about Bill Barr and
47:48
Speaker 2: Bill Barr's conduct and how the report was done. And
47:52
Speaker 2: it highlights an important part of her background, which was
47:54
Speaker 2: that she was a prosecutor. So one way of thinking
47:57
Speaker 2: about that exchange is, People value her role as a prosecutor,
48:02
Speaker 2: much in the way that we believed in the 2008
48:04
Speaker 2: campaign that people valued Barack Obama's role as a community
48:07
Speaker 2: organizer because it spoke to the kind of president he
48:09
Speaker 2: wanted to be as someone who would try to bring
48:12
Speaker 2: change from the bottom up. So you could take from that,
48:15
Speaker 2: we should talk more about her being a prosecutor. I
48:17
Speaker 2: don't know that you can look at what happened there
48:19
Speaker 2: and the success they had, I presume raising money and
48:23
Speaker 2: generating attention after that and say the reason for that
48:26
Speaker 2: is the answer to that is we need more Trump criticism.
48:29
Speaker 2: Trump criticism is fine. Criticism is all I want. He's
48:31
Speaker 2: worthy of all of it and more, but I don't
48:33
Speaker 2: know how that's going to make you stand out in
48:35
Speaker 2: this field.
48:36
Speaker 1: Yeah. Again, I mean, there's, in some instances, Trump represents
48:40
Speaker 1: a unique emergency. In other instances, Trump is merely a
48:45
Speaker 1: continuation of a Republican party that's become radicalized over the
48:48
Speaker 1: last decade. Um, And probably you should just respond to
48:52
Speaker 1: each instance when it happens. You know, like if it
48:55
Speaker 1: requires you to take on Trump directly because you're talking
48:57
Speaker 1: about a specific issue where Trump is some unique emergency,
49:00
Speaker 1: then talk about Trump. Otherwise, you don't have to. Like,
49:03
Speaker 1: I think it's just it's situation dependent here. I don't
49:05
Speaker 1: think it's a strategy to necessarily stand out in a field.
49:09
Speaker 1: I don't think.
49:09
Speaker 3: It's also this is the third story in as many
49:12
Speaker 3: weeks about a candidate deciding to use Trump to make
49:15
Speaker 3: themselves distinct.
49:16
Speaker 4: Right.
49:17
Speaker 3: I mean, Bernie did that, I think, in his announcement.
49:19
Speaker 3: He spoke more about it. Trump than others. Joe Biden
49:22
Speaker 3: made Trump and the way in which Trump is an
49:24
Speaker 3: aberration central to his announcement. So I find it all
49:28
Speaker 3: a bit strange. And, you know, Dan, to your point,
49:30
Speaker 3: the reason that moment stood out was not because it
49:33
Speaker 3: was about Trump. It was because it was about her.
49:35
Speaker 3: It was a moment about that she stood out.
49:38
Speaker 1: She said it because she did something in that moment
49:40
Speaker 1: that probably no other candidate in the field could do.
49:44
Speaker 1: My advice to candidates is always like, think about the
49:46
Speaker 1: things that make you unique and stand out in this
49:48
Speaker 1: field that are unique to you. Skills that you have,
49:52
Speaker 1: a background that you have, issues that you've cared about
49:55
Speaker 1: for a long time. When you do that, then people
49:58
Speaker 1: are like, oh, that's only something that Kamala Harris could
50:01
Speaker 1: say or do. That's only something Elizabeth Warren could say
50:03
Speaker 1: or do. And the more you're focusing on that, the
50:06
Speaker 1: more people say, okay, now I know why this particular
50:08
Speaker 1: candidate stands out in the field because none of these
50:10
Speaker 1: other candidates could do that, say that, propose that policy,
50:14
Speaker 1: et cetera.
50:15
Speaker 2: I'm not saying this is what is underlying Kamala Harris's
50:18
Speaker 2: campaign's approach to this, but I did talk to someone
50:23
Speaker 2: who was advising another presidential candidate who was seeking attention.
50:27
Speaker 2: And a big way in which they are thinking about
50:30
Speaker 2: this is how can you get Trump to react to you, right?
50:34
Speaker 2: And if Trump attacks you, the candidates who have had
50:37
Speaker 2: Trump engage with them have seen jumps in fundraising online, right?
50:43
Speaker 2: So if Trump will tweet about you or pick a
50:45
Speaker 2: fight with you or whatever else, that that is helpful.
50:48
Speaker 2: And I can see why candidates are trying to look
50:50
Speaker 2: for a way to get him to react to you
50:52
Speaker 2: because that is a tension. But it's important to note
50:54
Speaker 2: that is a tactic, not a strategy. And that is
50:57
Speaker 2: a way to generate money. It's not a way to
50:59
Speaker 2: win the primary. The second point I want to make
51:02
Speaker 2: is just generally as we think about our nominee and
51:05
Speaker 2: we run through our mind about what attributes do we
51:08
Speaker 2: want the nominee to have to make them best suited
51:11
Speaker 2: to take on Trump. And that I don't mean like
51:14
Speaker 2: what they look like or who they are or where
51:16
Speaker 2: they're from, but like what are they good at as candidates?
51:20
Speaker 2: I am much more concerned that our nominee– be able
51:24
Speaker 2: to tell their own story about why they're running for president,
51:28
Speaker 2: what they would do as president, who they would fight for,
51:30
Speaker 2: than I am in their ability to say bad things
51:33
Speaker 2: about Trump. I think what happened in the lesson of
51:36
Speaker 2: 2016 is not that we need to do a better
51:40
Speaker 2: job of making the case against Trump, although there's fair
51:42
Speaker 2: criticism of how the Clinton campaign did that. It is
51:45
Speaker 2: that we need to not chase Trump down every rabbit hole.
51:49
Speaker 2: We can't allow him to define the four corners of
51:51
Speaker 2: the conversation. We want a nominee who can talk about
51:53
Speaker 2: themselves and talk about their vision and inspire people on
51:56
Speaker 2: their own, not just try to scare them about Trump.
51:58
Speaker 2: And so I just think that the, we can wrap
52:01
Speaker 2: ourselves around the Trump axle in a pretty dangerous way
52:04
Speaker 2: pretty quickly.
52:06
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's very important for candidates to look
52:08
Speaker 1: at that first debate and realize that it is not
52:11
Speaker 1: a contest of sick burns. It is not, you know,
52:14
Speaker 1: it's not like, uh, so-and-so had the best, uh, Trump
52:18
Speaker 1: hit RT. If you agree, you know, like that's not the, the,
52:22
Speaker 1: People should walk away from those debates and where they're
52:24
Speaker 1: going to look at fucking 10 people on stage two
52:27
Speaker 1: nights in a row and think, okay, which candidate really
52:31
Speaker 1: stood out? Not because they had the best line on Trump,
52:34
Speaker 1: but because I said, oh, that person is bringing something
52:36
Speaker 1: to the table that none of these other candidates bring. Yeah.
52:39
Speaker 3: It's also, I think there's a point that Mayor Pete
52:41
Speaker 3: has made a few times, which I actually think is
52:43
Speaker 3: really smart in that when either you look for a
52:47
Speaker 3: way to insult Trump effectively, or when you seek to
52:52
Speaker 3: get Trump's attacks. Yes, you are picking a fight with
52:55
Speaker 3: Donald Trump, but in some sense, not only are you
52:57
Speaker 3: playing on his turf, you're in some sense seeking his approval,
53:01
Speaker 3: seeking his recognition that you're on his level. And it
53:04
Speaker 3: really does, once again, define everything around Trump and by Trump.
53:08
Speaker 3: So I do think, you know, Dan, to your point,
53:10
Speaker 3: it's tactic, not a strategy. Not only is it not
53:12
Speaker 3: a strategy, I think in the long term, every time
53:15
Speaker 3: we engage in a debate that is about seeking Trump's criticisms,
53:20
Speaker 3: you are giving him power in our part of the process.
53:25
Speaker 1: Yeah. And like you said, Dan, I get why people
53:28
Speaker 1: do it because in the short term, you get a
53:30
Speaker 1: burst of online fundraising and you get a lot of
53:33
Speaker 1: people cheering you on Twitter.
53:34
Speaker 3: And you obliterate every other candidate. It's just you and Trump. Right.
53:37
Speaker 1: And so that's very tempting. And I think there's definitely
53:41
Speaker 1: a time and a place to do that once in
53:42
Speaker 1: a while. But you're right. It's not an overall strategy. Okay.
53:47
Speaker 1: When we come back, we'll have Dan's interview with Stacey Abrams.
53:59
Speaker 2: Our guest today is Stacey Abrams. She's the former Georgia
54:02
Speaker 2: House Minority Leader, founder of Fair Fight Action, and author
54:06
Speaker 2: of the amazing book, Lead from the Outside. Stacey, welcome
54:09
Speaker 2: back to Pod Save America.
54:10
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me.
54:11
Speaker 2: So this is the first time we've had a chance
54:12
Speaker 2: to talk since you announced your decision not to run
54:15
Speaker 2: for Senate. I understand and deeply respect a decision to
54:20
Speaker 2: not run for an office that you don't feel is
54:22
Speaker 2: right for you. But I'm curious about what brought you
54:26
Speaker 2: to that decision. Because in your announcement. You said that
54:31
Speaker 2: democracy is under attack. And I'm curious what it is
54:34
Speaker 2: about the attack on democracy that makes you think the
54:38
Speaker 2: Senate is not the right place to lead the fight
54:40
Speaker 2: against that.
54:40
Speaker 4: So I see those as two separate but interrelated issues.
54:47
Speaker 4: The role of the Senate is to propose legislation. It's
54:50
Speaker 4: also an extraordinary platform to have debate and conversation. And
54:55
Speaker 4: I think that that job needs to be taken by
54:58
Speaker 4: a Democrat from Georgia, and I'm going to do everything
55:00
Speaker 4: in my power to make that so. But my experience,
55:04
Speaker 4: not only in the recent elections, but for the last
55:06
Speaker 4: 20 years, has also signaled the importance of having folks
55:10
Speaker 4: on the ground doing the work every day, and particularly
55:14
Speaker 4: tackling the bureaucratic entrenchment of voter suppression at the state level.
55:20
Speaker 4: And when I weighed my responsibility and my goals While
55:26
Speaker 4: I deeply respect Chuck Schumer and believe absolutely I could
55:31
Speaker 4: have won that election and a Democrat can win it,
55:34
Speaker 4: when I thought about the next six years, the next
55:37
Speaker 4: 12 years, next 18 years, three, two or three terms,
55:40
Speaker 4: or even a single term, I do not believe that
55:43
Speaker 4: the work that I do and the way I approach
55:45
Speaker 4: the work that I do would be a match with
55:48
Speaker 4: the Senate. I think I could have supported that kind
55:51
Speaker 4: of work on the ground, but I do not think
55:52
Speaker 4: I could have let it. And for me, that's the
55:55
Speaker 4: most important issue, being on the ground doing this work.
55:58
Speaker 4: And to be fair, I see myself and have seen
56:02
Speaker 4: myself for the last 20 years, I'm much more suited
56:07
Speaker 4: to a more executive role than a legislative role. Because
56:11
Speaker 4: even in the state legislature in Georgia, I was a
56:14
Speaker 4: legislator for four years. I was the leader for seven years.
56:17
Speaker 4: And part of that was that for me, it's about
56:20
Speaker 4: building systems and making sure that the execution of the
56:23
Speaker 4: ideas are as tightly done as possible. And that's what
56:27
Speaker 4: I'm good at.
56:29
Speaker 2: So you're going to be leading this effort through your organization,
56:33
Speaker 2: Fair Fight Action. What will Fair Fight Action be doing
56:37
Speaker 2: to fix our democracy and fight against voter suppression?
56:41
Speaker 4: So Fair Fight Action has three roles right now. One
56:43
Speaker 4: is litigation. We have filed a comprehensive federal lawsuit that
56:47
Speaker 4: goes beyond any lawsuit that's been filed before. Instead of
56:51
Speaker 4: attacking individual examples of voter suppression, and there have been
56:54
Speaker 4: incredible lawyers and groups that have been doing that work,
56:57
Speaker 4: we are essentially articulating a Brown versus the Board of
57:00
Speaker 4: Education theory of the case, which is that as a
57:03
Speaker 4: matter of fact, this connection of registration access denial, ballot
57:09
Speaker 4: access denial, and ballot counting denial, when those things are
57:12
Speaker 4: yoked together, there is a system of disenfranchisement that violates
57:16
Speaker 4: the Constitution of the United States of America and And
57:18
Speaker 4: we do not have free and fair elections in Georgia.
57:22
Speaker 4: This litigation had its first test last Tuesday in front
57:25
Speaker 4: of a federal judge. We are waiting to hear if
57:28
Speaker 4: he will grant the state's motion to dismiss, which is
57:31
Speaker 4: predicated on the argument that they weren't really responsible for
57:34
Speaker 4: the election, which we disagree with. Number two, it's legislation.
57:40
Speaker 4: We are fighting for fair systems, for actual voting systems.
57:45
Speaker 4: Georgia is about to make the single largest purchase we
57:49
Speaker 4: know in American history we believe ever of machines that
57:52
Speaker 4: have been called the worst machines in the world. They
57:55
Speaker 4: are hackable, they are vulnerable, and they do not provide
57:58
Speaker 4: an audit trail. And we will spend $ 150 million for
58:02
Speaker 4: a license to allow the state to continue to pay
58:05
Speaker 4: for these flawed machines. And it just so happens if
58:09
Speaker 4: the wrong company is selected, the two colleagues of the
58:13
Speaker 4: current governor, his deputy chief of staff, and his general
58:17
Speaker 4: counsel will be benefiting their former employers. The third part
58:21
Speaker 4: is advocacy. We know that it's not just enough to
58:24
Speaker 4: talk about the right to vote, to talk about democracy
58:26
Speaker 4: in the abstract, but to really connect it to the
58:29
Speaker 4: lives that we lead. That's why we've been fighting against
58:32
Speaker 4: not only this purchase of machines through legislation, but we've
58:36
Speaker 4: been talking to people about the fact that we still
58:38
Speaker 4: don't have Medicaid expansion in Georgia. That's a direct result
58:40
Speaker 4: of stolen elections. We, as a state... just saw the
58:44
Speaker 4: governor sign the most draconian anti-abortion legislation in America. That's
58:49
Speaker 4: because of this election outcome. If people's voices aren't heard,
58:52
Speaker 4: then their will and their visions can't be realized. And
58:56
Speaker 4: so we're using verified action to push that conversation and
58:59
Speaker 4: to talk about advocacy so that people understand it's not
59:01
Speaker 4: just about the right to vote, it's voting for your lives.
59:05
Speaker 2: I think that's a really important point because Democrats often
59:08
Speaker 2: fight back against voter suppression in in the courts. And
59:11
Speaker 2: then when we have political power trying to do it legislatively,
59:15
Speaker 2: but not often enough do we make the public argument
59:17
Speaker 2: of the consequences against it. Do you feel like the
59:21
Speaker 2: party is starting to learn a lesson here? Do you
59:23
Speaker 2: want to hear more from Democrats making a public case
59:26
Speaker 2: so that there are political consequences for Republicans who push
59:28
Speaker 2: these laws?
59:31
Speaker 4: Absolutely. I think that the party has done a better job.
59:35
Speaker 4: We've been able to work very closely with Chairman Cummings,
59:40
Speaker 4: who has launched an investigation into the Georgia election. We've
59:45
Speaker 4: had conversations and were part of the hearings that are
59:47
Speaker 4: being conducted by Chairwoman Marsha Fudge. We are working with
59:51
Speaker 4: Representative Terry Sewell on the restoration of the Voting Rights Act.
59:56
Speaker 4: And every presidential candidate I've spoken with so far has
59:59
Speaker 4: agreed to talk about voter suppression. But I think your
1:00:02
Speaker 4: point is the most accurate one, which is that we
1:00:05
Speaker 4: have to connect the dots. The people who are the
1:00:07
Speaker 4: most likely to be victimized by voter suppression are the
1:00:10
Speaker 4: very ones who have been convinced that voting is irrelevant
1:00:13
Speaker 4: because they've never seen their lives truly advance. If we
1:00:17
Speaker 4: don't remind them not only of the power that they hold,
1:00:20
Speaker 4: but show them that there should be consequences for stealing
1:00:23
Speaker 4: that power, then we are no we are no solution
1:00:26
Speaker 4: to their problem. And so my approach to the work
1:00:30
Speaker 4: that I do, regardless of what it is, is to
1:00:33
Speaker 4: always make sure we come back to the core belief system,
1:00:37
Speaker 4: which is that we have a democracy so that the
1:00:39
Speaker 4: people can be served. We have government so that as
1:00:42
Speaker 4: a community, we benefit as many people as possible and
1:00:45
Speaker 4: we remove barriers for opportunity to success. Those are not
1:00:50
Speaker 4: conversations you can have when people can operate with impunity
1:00:54
Speaker 4: in the theft of your votes and but also when
1:00:56
Speaker 4: people come to power and they don't use that power
1:00:58
Speaker 4: to advance your interest.
1:01:00
Speaker 2: If you win your lawsuit, what are the national implications
1:01:04
Speaker 2: of that? Does it extend beyond the state of Georgia
1:01:07
Speaker 2: in terms of setting precedents?
1:01:09
Speaker 4: So it's going to be, it's certainly going to have
1:01:13
Speaker 4: an effect through the findings of fact for other states
1:01:17
Speaker 4: that have similar situated laws. Because it's a state-based case law,
1:01:24
Speaker 4: that's using specific language that's in our state legislation. There
1:01:28
Speaker 4: are limits to what the implications can be, but as
1:01:31
Speaker 4: we know, when legislation is overturned, when the courts make determinations,
1:01:38
Speaker 4: other courts do look to what those decisions were. It
1:01:41
Speaker 4: won't necessarily compel better action, but it sets a precedent,
1:01:45
Speaker 4: and we believe it sets the framework for other states
1:01:48
Speaker 4: to pursue a similar strategy. Everything I do, whether it's
1:01:52
Speaker 4: Fair Fight Action and our fight for voter integrity or
1:01:55
Speaker 4: Fair Count, which is an organization I launched a few
1:01:58
Speaker 4: months ago that is looking at the census, or New
1:02:01
Speaker 4: Georgia Project, which I started in 2014, every organization I start,
1:02:05
Speaker 4: we design it to be exportable and replicable. So even
1:02:08
Speaker 4: if the litigation itself cannot solve the problem in Ohio
1:02:13
Speaker 4: or in Indiana or in Texas or Tennessee, what we
1:02:16
Speaker 4: want to have happen is that others will know what
1:02:18
Speaker 4: to do, how to do it, and we will have
1:02:20
Speaker 4: given them a roadmap and the resources and support to
1:02:23
Speaker 4: get it done.
1:02:24
Speaker 2: A few months ago, you wrote an incredibly powerful essay
1:02:27
Speaker 2: about identity politics and pushback on a lot of the
1:02:30
Speaker 2: bullshit that surrounds that conversation, the conversation about identity politics
1:02:35
Speaker 2: and the Democratic Party. I wonder if you could explain
1:02:38
Speaker 2: to our listeners, if you didn't get a chance to
1:02:40
Speaker 2: read that, what your argument was and get your reaction
1:02:42
Speaker 2: to the endless and endlessly stupid debate among pundits about
1:02:48
Speaker 2: whether Democrats should go after the quote unquote, base or
1:02:51
Speaker 2: the white working class?
1:02:53
Speaker 4: Okay. So very quick top line explanation. The most reductive
1:02:59
Speaker 4: idea of identity politics is either that you pick someone
1:03:03
Speaker 4: based on their identity or you only select them because
1:03:08
Speaker 4: they see your identity. Okay. No one should elect anyone
1:03:12
Speaker 4: simply because they have a shared identity. But what they
1:03:15
Speaker 4: should expect and why identity politics is so powerful and
1:03:18
Speaker 4: thus is the target of so many attacks is identity
1:03:22
Speaker 4: politics essentially says, I see you. I see the obstacles
1:03:26
Speaker 4: to your success. I see the barriers to your opportunity.
1:03:30
Speaker 4: And as someone you are hiring to solve the problem,
1:03:33
Speaker 4: you can trust that I know how to solve the
1:03:36
Speaker 4: problem because I see the problem. The more complicated way
1:03:41
Speaker 4: of talking about it is to say that, We know
1:03:43
Speaker 4: throughout our history, identity politics has always been the impetus
1:03:48
Speaker 4: for change, that when communities that were denied access aligned
1:03:53
Speaker 4: themselves and organized themselves based on their shared challenge, that
1:03:57
Speaker 4: they were able to produce results. That if people can't
1:04:00
Speaker 4: see you, if leadership can't see you, it will not
1:04:03
Speaker 4: solve for you. The corollary then is that we have
1:04:08
Speaker 4: to recognize that everyone has an identity, that white working
1:04:11
Speaker 4: class is an identity. African-American middle class is an identity.
1:04:17
Speaker 4: Latino is an identity, but so is growing up in
1:04:20
Speaker 4: a rural community. So is being in the blue collar
1:04:23
Speaker 4: segment of a town. What we want from leadership is
1:04:28
Speaker 4: an inclusive understanding that all of us want the same things.
1:04:32
Speaker 4: We want access to health care. We want economic security.
1:04:35
Speaker 4: We want a good educational opportunity. We want a fair
1:04:40
Speaker 4: justice system. We want free and fair elections. And that
1:04:43
Speaker 4: if you don't understand what the challenge to my accomplishing
1:04:47
Speaker 4: those ends are, then you are not good for this job.
1:04:52
Speaker 4: And that if you cannot see my identity, you cannot
1:04:54
Speaker 4: see me, you cannot serve me.
1:04:56
Speaker 2: I mean, that is such an important understanding of how
1:05:00
Speaker 2: politics operates. Do you think people are starting to better
1:05:06
Speaker 2: understand what that means, or are we still operating in
1:05:09
Speaker 2: an outdated sense?
1:05:11
Speaker 4: I think we are seeing... more leaders push back on
1:05:15
Speaker 4: the narrative. But unfortunately, some of the folks running for
1:05:19
Speaker 4: the presidency are still caught up in this very reductive
1:05:24
Speaker 4: and internally inconsistent idea. Because to the underlying point of
1:05:29
Speaker 4: your other question, when you try to give primacy to
1:05:32
Speaker 4: one group over the other, you are giving primacy to
1:05:35
Speaker 4: one identity over the other. which is to say you
1:05:38
Speaker 4: don't reject identity politics. You just don't give privilege to
1:05:42
Speaker 4: the identities who need you in this way. And so
1:05:45
Speaker 4: in my campaign, we centered communities of color. We centered
1:05:49
Speaker 4: marginalized communities. But that didn't mean I didn't campaign everywhere
1:05:54
Speaker 4: and talk to everyone. I simply acknowledge that most of
1:05:57
Speaker 4: the politics of our communities are geared towards the normative
1:06:01
Speaker 4: voter and that if we don't then acknowledge those who
1:06:04
Speaker 4: are outside the system, we will never bring them inside.
1:06:08
Speaker 4: These are not mutually exclusive ideas. In fact, they are
1:06:11
Speaker 4: deeply connected. And when tied together and leveraged together, they
1:06:16
Speaker 4: are extraordinarily effective, unless, of course, you're running in a
1:06:18
Speaker 4: state with deep voter suppression, in which case the outcome
1:06:21
Speaker 4: may not be what you expect.
1:06:23
Speaker 2: Fair enough. Do you believe Georgia will be a swing
1:06:30
Speaker 2: state in 2020?
1:06:31
Speaker 1: It is.
1:06:31
Speaker 2: It already is.
1:06:35
Speaker 4: I point people to the fact that despite the outcome
1:06:37
Speaker 4: of the election, I ran against a cartoon villain who
1:06:40
Speaker 4: controlled every mechanism of power, and he still only barely
1:06:45
Speaker 4: eked out a victory of 54,000 votes. In a midterm
1:06:49
Speaker 4: election where the gubernatorial race was the top of the ticket,
1:06:52
Speaker 4: which means you didn't have the natural national resources that
1:06:56
Speaker 4: come with a Senate campaign or worse, or better, a
1:06:58
Speaker 4: presidential campaign, we were able to increase... Latino, Asian Pacific
1:07:04
Speaker 4: Islander turnout by 300%. We tripled their turnout. We increased
1:07:08
Speaker 4: youth participation rates by 139%. Increased black turnout by 40%.
1:07:14
Speaker 4: We transformed the electorate and we increased white participation in
1:07:17
Speaker 4: the Democratic Party for the first time in a generation.
1:07:20
Speaker 4: Those are all signals that if a well-funded presidential campaign
1:07:25
Speaker 4: comes to call, you can replicate that outcome. You simply
1:07:29
Speaker 4: have to do what we did, which is talk to everyone,
1:07:32
Speaker 4: see everyone and invest in those communities. If you do that,
1:07:36
Speaker 4: that's 16 electoral votes. I don't know of a candidate
1:07:39
Speaker 4: who should imagine that it's worth squandering access to 16
1:07:43
Speaker 4: electoral votes simply because you have to come south of
1:07:45
Speaker 4: the Mason-Dixon line. And we're on our way to Florida,
1:07:47
Speaker 4: so you might as well stop by and invest.
1:07:50
Speaker 2: I would just note that as someone who watched your
1:07:52
Speaker 2: campaign very closely and has family in Georgia who very
1:07:56
Speaker 2: proudly voted for you, that I think your campaign is
1:08:00
Speaker 2: a model just not for... not just for Democrats turning
1:08:04
Speaker 2: Georgia blue, but for winning the whole thing, an inclusive, progressive,
1:08:11
Speaker 2: unifying campaign. So that's a personal note on my end
1:08:14
Speaker 2: to someone who really was impressed by you and the
1:08:18
Speaker 2: campaign you ran, which leads me to ask this question
1:08:22
Speaker 2: that I'm required to ask, otherwise they will take my
1:08:24
Speaker 2: microphone away. But it has been reported that you, while
1:08:29
Speaker 2: not running for Senate, are still potentially considering joining the
1:08:33
Speaker 2: ever-growing Democratic presidential field. Is that true? Yes. Oh, interesting.
1:08:39
Speaker 3: Would you be.
1:08:41
Speaker 2: Willing to share what factors are going into that decision?
1:08:46
Speaker 2: What would lead you to make a decision one way
1:08:47
Speaker 2: or the other?
1:08:49
Speaker 4: Certainly. As I said, for me, the most important and
1:08:53
Speaker 4: urgent conversation of the day is the fight for free
1:08:56
Speaker 4: and fair elections, because I believe that that is an
1:08:58
Speaker 4: existential crisis facing our democracy. If people doubt it, they
1:09:02
Speaker 4: should look at what has happened in the last six
1:09:04
Speaker 4: weeks in Tennessee, in Texas, in Arizona, in Florida. These
1:09:09
Speaker 4: are all direct assaults on the right to vote. And
1:09:13
Speaker 4: these are direct assaults on our elections in places where
1:09:15
Speaker 4: people who are considered the outliers have asserted their power
1:09:20
Speaker 4: and their voices, and we see Republicans doing everything they
1:09:24
Speaker 4: can to strip them of their votes. More importantly, or
1:09:28
Speaker 4: not more importantly, but as a proof point, the Wall
1:09:31
Speaker 4: Street Journal published what had to be one of the
1:09:33
Speaker 4: weakest and most spurious arguments against voter suppression that I've
1:09:37
Speaker 4: seen outside of some screed written on Facebook. All of
1:09:44
Speaker 4: this is to say we cannot win elections in America.
1:09:48
Speaker 4: for the people if we do not have candidates who
1:09:51
Speaker 4: are fighting against voter suppression. But we also have to
1:09:55
Speaker 4: have candidates who are fighting for all of us, who
1:09:58
Speaker 4: realize that this is not an election against Donald Trump.
1:10:01
Speaker 4: It is for America. If we allow ourselves to be
1:10:04
Speaker 4: pulled into a battle royale against a craven opportunist who
1:10:10
Speaker 4: has no respect for people, then we diminish who we
1:10:13
Speaker 4: are and we take our eye off the ball. We
1:10:15
Speaker 4: also have to have candidates who believe that every community
1:10:18
Speaker 4: is a persuasion target, not just a turnout target, and
1:10:20
Speaker 4: that we have to have a strategy that looks at
1:10:22
Speaker 4: every state and understands how can we maximize our turnout,
1:10:26
Speaker 4: not to win the popular vote, but to win the
1:10:28
Speaker 4: electoral college vote. I'm looking at all that, and I
1:10:31
Speaker 4: want to make certain that the candidates who are moving
1:10:33
Speaker 4: forward are paying attention to that and have plans for that.
1:10:36
Speaker 4: If I think they don't, I'll probably jump in myself.
1:10:40
Speaker 2: Well, that is interesting. Well, whenever you have an announcement
1:10:44
Speaker 2: that you want to make, you're always welcome here on
1:10:46
Speaker 2: Pod Save America. Before I let you go, though, I
1:10:49
Speaker 2: did want to ask, while you're making this decision, how
1:10:53
Speaker 2: can our listeners who are supportive of what you're doing
1:10:57
Speaker 2: in Georgia with Fair Fight Action, how can they help you?
1:11:01
Speaker 4: We'd love for them to go to fairfightaction.com and sign up.
1:11:05
Speaker 4: We will not only keep you apprised of what we're
1:11:07
Speaker 4: doing with Fair Fight Action, but we will also tell
1:11:09
Speaker 4: you about what's happening across the country. We're working with
1:11:12
Speaker 4: other groups, and we want to just continue to amplify
1:11:14
Speaker 4: this question and this conversation. And then as a quick aside,
1:11:18
Speaker 4: I want to plug faircount.org. We are also doing work
1:11:22
Speaker 4: on the 2020 census. As you know, if people aren't counted,
1:11:25
Speaker 4: they do not count. And there's a concerted effort to
1:11:28
Speaker 4: erase communities of color and poor communities from the narrative
1:11:32
Speaker 4: of America. This cannot be allowed to happen, and that
1:11:36
Speaker 4: means we have to redouble our efforts to ensure that
1:11:38
Speaker 4: there's a fair census in 2020. That means the work
1:11:41
Speaker 4: starts now, and we are hard at work doing that
1:11:43
Speaker 4: here in Georgia and working across the country. So go
1:11:46
Speaker 4: to FairFightAction.com and FairCount.org. Sign up and let us know
1:11:51
Speaker 4: how you want to help because we will call on
1:11:52
Speaker 4: you when we need you.
1:11:54
Speaker 2: Stacey Abrams, thank you so much for joining us, and
1:11:56
Speaker 2: we hope to have you back soon.
1:11:58
Speaker 4: Look forward to it. Thank you so much.
1:12:04
Speaker 1: Thanks to Stacey Abrams for joining us. And have a
1:12:07
Speaker 1: great weekend. We'll talk to you on Monday.
1:12:09
Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
1:12:10
Speaker 3: Don't complain to me about the fact that I got
1:12:11
Speaker 3: all over.
1:12:12
Speaker 1: Your Thursday pod.
1:12:12
Speaker 4: I don't care.
1:12:14
Speaker 1: Wow. I'm feeling a little sensitive.
1:12:17
Speaker 3: Always.
1:12:19
Speaker 1: Bye, everyone.
1:12:20
Speaker 2: Bye, Dan.
1:12:20
Speaker 1: Bye. Thank you.