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"The Subpoena Finale." · 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 1: On today's show, the final January 6th hearing suggests that
0:28
Speaker 1: Donald Trump isn't a great guy. Democrats zero in on
0:31
Speaker 1: a closing midterm message and Colorado Senator Michael Bennett joins
0:35
Speaker 1: to talk about his midterm race for reelection. Before we start,
0:40
Speaker 1: in case you missed it, What A Day has a
0:42
Speaker 1: new host. MSNBC political analyst Juanita Tolliver joined co-host Josie
0:47
Speaker 1: Duffy Rice, Priyanka Arabindi, and Travelle Anderson to give you
0:51
Speaker 1: the latest politics and news every morning. Very exciting. Listen
0:55
Speaker 1: to new episodes of What A Day every Monday through Friday,
0:58
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. All right, Dan, let's get
1:02
Speaker 1: to the news. So we are recording this just after
1:05
Speaker 1: the series finale of Insurrection. Do you think we've worn
1:10
Speaker 1: out that joke yet?
1:12
Speaker 2: Yes, John.
1:13
Speaker 3: Yes, we have.
1:14
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the last time we're going to be
1:16
Speaker 1: able to use it. So it's getting a little send off.
1:20
Speaker 2: Wait till the reboot in the lame duck, my friend.
1:23
Speaker 1: Oh, there we go. There we go.
1:24
Speaker 4: All right.
1:25
Speaker 3: So.
1:26
Speaker 1: Today's hearing was about summing up the entire case against
1:29
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends for their attempted
1:31
Speaker 1: coup in 2020, a coup that started with an attempt
1:35
Speaker 1: to overturn the election even before the votes were counted
1:37
Speaker 1: and ended with a violent attack on Congress. The committee
1:41
Speaker 1: presented new evidence and new testimony that proves Trump knew
1:44
Speaker 1: about the violence at the Capitol and reacted by encouraging
1:47
Speaker 1: the mob. But then there was, as there always is
1:51
Speaker 1: in these hearings, Dan, there was a twist. We learned...
1:55
Speaker 1: from some reporters during the hearing that at the end
1:57
Speaker 1: of the hearing, there would be a vote to subpoena
2:02
Speaker 1: Donald Trump himself. And of course, the committee delivered. Here's
2:05
Speaker 1: a clip.
2:06
Speaker 4: It is our obligation to seek Donald Trump's testimony. He
2:11
Speaker 4: is the one person at the center of the story
2:15
Speaker 4: of what happened on January 6th. So we want to
2:19
Speaker 4: hear from him. Pursuant to today's notice, I send to
2:23
Speaker 4: the desk a committee resolution and ask for its immediate consideration.
2:28
Speaker 3: Resolved.
2:30
Speaker 5: That the chairman be and is hereby directed to subpoena
2:33
Speaker 5: Donald J. Trump for documents and testimony in connection with
2:37
Speaker 5: the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol.
2:41
Speaker 4: Mr.
2:41
Speaker 5: Chairman, on this vote, there are nine ayes and zero noes.
2:46
Speaker 3: Wow.
2:46
Speaker 1: Nail biter.
2:48
Speaker 2: It would have been funny if one of the retiring.
2:51
Speaker 1: Members was like, fuck that.
2:53
Speaker 2: No, and then immediately resign from Congress, take a job
2:56
Speaker 2: as the guest host of The Five.
2:58
Speaker 1: All right, so big twist. Trump gets subpoenaed. Why do
3:05
Speaker 1: you think they did it, and what happens now?
3:08
Speaker 2: Well, we know what happens after Congress issues the subpoena.
3:12
Speaker 3: Nothing.
3:12
Speaker 2: I mean, it's like, you and I were joking earlier,
3:16
Speaker 2: but Congressional subpoenas apparently in this day and age have
3:19
Speaker 2: the legal force of a paperless post. But look, I
3:23
Speaker 2: think to be in all seriousness, Amanda Carpenter, who's a
3:27
Speaker 2: never-Trump Republican strategist, made this point. They're not subpoenaing Trump
3:32
Speaker 2: expecting that he is going to testify, particularly if we're
3:35
Speaker 2: on a constrained timeline because the Republicans might take the
3:38
Speaker 2: House in a few months. But it's to show that
3:41
Speaker 2: they subpoenaed him and he refused to testify. And that's
3:43
Speaker 2: sort of the point of doing all of this, is
3:46
Speaker 2: he's at the center of this. He lied. He knew
3:49
Speaker 2: he lost. He knew violence was coming. He lied about
3:52
Speaker 2: it then. He's lying about it now. And he does
3:54
Speaker 2: not have the courage to answer those questions under oath.
3:58
Speaker 2: And that's the point of it, I believe.
4:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely getting in his head, which is why
4:03
Speaker 1: I've been asking our team to monitor Truth Social for
4:07
Speaker 1: any truths from Trump. that may pop up during this podcast.
4:13
Speaker 1: Of course, I don't have good internet service, so you'll
4:16
Speaker 1: have to let us know if there's any truths, because
4:20
Speaker 1: I think... No, I mean, I think that's exactly... I
4:22
Speaker 1: think they sort of had to do this. There's no
4:24
Speaker 1: reason not to subpoena Trump at the end of this,
4:27
Speaker 1: especially if they're going to make a criminal referral or if...
4:31
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole thing is sort of... It's a
4:34
Speaker 1: public case that they're making, and a political case they're
4:36
Speaker 1: making as much as a legal one, as we've said
4:38
Speaker 1: many times here. And... you know, if you're just watching
4:42
Speaker 1: these hearings, you think, well, then doesn't Trump get a
4:44
Speaker 1: chance to speak for himself? Doesn't Trump get a chance
4:47
Speaker 1: to tell his side of the story? Well, yes, he
4:48
Speaker 1: did have a chance to tell his side of the story.
4:50
Speaker 1: And now we'll see what happens. Or he could plead
4:53
Speaker 1: the fifth, which would also, which is, of course, his
4:55
Speaker 1: right to do. And as the committee pointed out, that's
4:58
Speaker 1: what Roger Stone did. That's what a number of other
5:00
Speaker 1: witnesses did who might have committed crimes around January 6th.
5:05
Speaker 1: They pled the fifth. And Donald Trump, of course, has
5:07
Speaker 1: the right to plead the fifth, but that would be
5:09
Speaker 1: telling as well. that would be telling as well. So
5:12
Speaker 1: what'd you think of the hearing overall? Did we learn
5:14
Speaker 1: anything new or surprising?
5:16
Speaker 2: I mean, all of these hearings have just provided new
5:19
Speaker 2: data points to buttress what we already knew, is that
5:22
Speaker 2: Donald Trump was responsible for what happened on January 6th.
5:24
Speaker 2: He was part of a multi-layered plan to steal the
5:29
Speaker 2: election through any means necessary. Fake legislators, the vice president,
5:34
Speaker 2: violent assault on the Capitol, all of the above. And
5:37
Speaker 2: I think it's also– like if you were someone like us, right,
5:40
Speaker 2: who consumes political news directly into our veins, we read
5:43
Speaker 2: all the tweets. We read all the newsletters.
5:46
Speaker 1: All the tweets.
5:47
Speaker 3: All the tweets.
5:48
Speaker 2: We're even vaguely aware of what happens on cable. It's
5:52
Speaker 2: like none of this is new to us. We could
5:54
Speaker 2: even like pinpoint video we had seen before or Trump
5:58
Speaker 2: clips we had seen before, but we're not the audience.
6:01
Speaker 2: The audience is everyone else. And it's not just people
6:03
Speaker 2: who are going to tune into this, because people who
6:05
Speaker 2: tune into a congressional hearing in the middle of the
6:07
Speaker 2: day on a Thursday are people like us. But it's
6:09
Speaker 2: that there are going to be headlines on social media,
6:13
Speaker 2: on news websites, local news, cable news about these hearings.
6:17
Speaker 2: And the headlines are going to say two primary things.
6:20
Speaker 2: Donald Trump knew he lost. Donald Trump, three things, I guess.
6:24
Speaker 2: Donald Trump knew he lost. Donald Trump knew there would
6:26
Speaker 2: be violence. And Donald Trump And Congress subpoenaed Donald Trump
6:30
Speaker 2: to testify on January 6th hearings. That is to remind everyone.
6:33
Speaker 2: And that's been the point of these hearings from the beginning.
6:36
Speaker 2: Because they don't have the force of law. They can't
6:38
Speaker 2: jail him. They can't force Merrick Garland to indict him
6:42
Speaker 2: or prosecute him. It is to grab the country by
6:45
Speaker 2: the lapels and scream as loudly and often as possible
6:49
Speaker 2: that Donald Trump is a dangerous, deranged criminal. And that
6:55
Speaker 2: he certainly, he should not have been president, he should
6:57
Speaker 2: not be president, and he certainly shouldn't be leading one
6:59
Speaker 2: of America's two political parties. And you have to do that.
7:02
Speaker 2: This was perhaps their last chance to do this under
7:05
Speaker 2: this Democratic leadership. If the House goes, as a lot
7:07
Speaker 2: of political prognosticators think it will.
7:11
Speaker 1: And as they've done in the past, they supported those
7:15
Speaker 1: headlines that you mentioned with some fun, new, interesting tidbits. Fun, terrifying,
7:20
Speaker 1: all the above. So like, you know, they mentioned that
7:23
Speaker 1: they got testimony from Brad Parscale, Trump's former campaign manager,
7:27
Speaker 1: that Trump was preparing to declare victory as early as
7:31
Speaker 1: July of 2020. Trump told people his plan was to
7:36
Speaker 1: declare victory on election night. They showed testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson,
7:41
Speaker 1: who we had seen in a previous episode. But they
7:44
Speaker 1: have her saying that Trump said, I don't want people
7:47
Speaker 1: to know that we lost. This is embarrassing. Figure it out, Mark.
7:51
Speaker 1: Figure it out, meaning Mark Meadows as chief of staff.
7:54
Speaker 1: So I do think it's important to have testimony and
7:57
Speaker 1: evidence that Trump knew that he lost. I mean, we
8:01
Speaker 1: all assume that. They've been making that case for a
8:03
Speaker 1: couple hearings now, but I thought there was some more
8:05
Speaker 1: damning evidence that Trump privately acknowledged that he lost multiple
8:09
Speaker 1: times here.
8:10
Speaker 3: Yes.
8:11
Speaker 2: One thing about that, though, is I think that, that
8:14
Speaker 2: is important. I think it's important as a political matter
8:16
Speaker 2: to the broader country that he was pulling the wool
8:19
Speaker 2: over everyone's eyes, but as a legal matter, even if
8:21
Speaker 2: he believed he lost, you still don't get to direct
8:24
Speaker 2: a violent mob to assault the Capitol, right? Like that is,
8:27
Speaker 2: that is just, I think worth noting that whether he
8:30
Speaker 2: is too deluded or dumb to know the truth, it's
8:34
Speaker 2: still a crime.
8:35
Speaker 4: Yeah.
8:36
Speaker 1: But like, but like so much of this is a
8:38
Speaker 1: political public case, which is why I'm sure they did that. Um,
8:42
Speaker 1: We also, there was evidence from a bunch of United
8:45
Speaker 1: States Secret Service emails that the Secret Service did anticipate
8:49
Speaker 1: violence at the event at January 6th. We found out
8:53
Speaker 1: that witnesses were told, quote, not to cooperate with the panel,
8:57
Speaker 1: with the January 6th committee, over Trump's famous fight with
9:02
Speaker 1: the Secret Service when he was in the motorcade and
9:04
Speaker 1: apparently lunged. And remember, it was like, oh, Tony Arnauto says,
9:08
Speaker 1: there's all these fucking sources that You know, sources close
9:11
Speaker 1: to Tony Ornato and Bobby Engel at the Secret Service
9:13
Speaker 1: say they will testify that Cassidy Hutchinson lied. Well, they
9:18
Speaker 1: never testified. And in fact, now they have evidence that
9:21
Speaker 1: people were told not to cooperate with the committee about
9:24
Speaker 1: that fight. So you can leave it to your own
9:26
Speaker 1: devices to figure out what happened there. We found out
9:28
Speaker 1: that Trump did watch the violence unfold on television and
9:31
Speaker 1: did nothing. There was a United States Secret Service text
9:35
Speaker 1: after Trump tweeted that Mike Pence had let us down.
9:39
Speaker 1: And it's just like one of my favorite lines of
9:42
Speaker 1: all time. It's just Trump just tweeted about Pence. Probably
9:46
Speaker 1: not going to be good for Pence.
9:50
Speaker 3: Nope. Probably not. Probably not.
9:53
Speaker 1: But could be. Not great, Mike Pence. Not great, Mike Pence.
9:56
Speaker 2: I appreciate the humility of using probably.
9:59
Speaker 1: Could be great.
10:00
Speaker 2: Probably not. But could be.
10:01
Speaker 3: Probably not.
10:02
Speaker 1: Probably, probably not going to be too great for Mike Pence.
10:05
Speaker 2: Yes.
10:06
Speaker 1: There was also harrowing footage of the leaders of Congress
10:12
Speaker 1: sort of in the Capitol, in their hideaway, in their
10:15
Speaker 1: secure location. that was filmed by Nancy Pelosi's daughter, Alexandra Pelosi,
10:21
Speaker 1: who was there on hand. And she filmed Pelosi and
10:26
Speaker 1: Schumer and other leaders of Congress begging for help. They
10:30
Speaker 1: called Ralph Northam, governor of Virginia, to try to get
10:32
Speaker 1: the Virginia National Guard. They were trying to get the D.C.
10:34
Speaker 3: Police.
10:35
Speaker 1: I mean, we knew that we had heard stories that
10:39
Speaker 1: that had happened, but that was pretty scary to watch.
10:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it just kind of puts you back
10:44
Speaker 2: in the moment. of just how dangerous that was, which,
10:48
Speaker 2: you know, we always sort of make ourselves numb to it.
10:50
Speaker 2: And then we're reminded every time there's one of these
10:51
Speaker 2: hearings or we see the videos of the people storming
10:54
Speaker 2: the Capitol or like just missing Mitt Romney or all
10:57
Speaker 2: the other near misses. It's a reminder that it is
11:00
Speaker 2: absolutely unbelievable that more people were not killed on that day,
11:04
Speaker 2: given the scale of what happened and how close they came.
11:08
Speaker 2: I also think those videos are just absolutely damning of,
11:14
Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, John Thune, Mitch McConnell, these Republicans
11:19
Speaker 2: who were on the phone with Democrats in that moment
11:23
Speaker 2: begging someone to get the president to tell the rioters
11:29
Speaker 2: to leave, to dispatch help. They don't do it. President
11:33
Speaker 2: Trump does not lift a finger to save them at
11:35
Speaker 2: a time when they were at risk of being murdered.
11:39
Speaker 2: And still, to this day, they carry water for him.
11:41
Speaker 2: All of them would– will endorse him the day after
11:45
Speaker 2: he announces, they will stick with them. They have stuck
11:47
Speaker 2: with him this whole time. And it's just, it's just
11:49
Speaker 2: a reminder of what historically treasonous cowards they are.
11:55
Speaker 1: Well, and to your point about, you know, is this,
11:58
Speaker 1: does this matter legally or is this just a political thing?
12:01
Speaker 1: The fact that the committee continues to play the clips
12:04
Speaker 1: of Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy after January 6th condemning
12:09
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is, purely political in the best possible way,
12:13
Speaker 1: just to remind everyone of the cowardice that you're talking about.
12:17
Speaker 1: Per usual, as part of that footage, per usual with
12:20
Speaker 1: everything in the Trump era of politics, moments of horror
12:24
Speaker 1: and tragedy are right next to moments of comedy. At
12:27
Speaker 1: one point, Nancy Pelosi is talking about the rioters in
12:31
Speaker 1: the Capitol, and she says that someone needs to, quote,
12:33
Speaker 1: clean up the poo-poo that they're making literally and figuratively
12:37
Speaker 1: at the Capitol.
12:38
Speaker 2: Nancy Pelosi very famously does not swear and does not
12:42
Speaker 2: abide by anyone swearing near her or in her presence.
12:46
Speaker 2: And so I think that that is why she used
12:48
Speaker 2: that term.
12:50
Speaker 1: Which you can tell because at this moment where she's
12:53
Speaker 1: just like, she turns to Schumer at one point, she goes,
12:56
Speaker 1: can you believe this is happening? And I was like,
12:58
Speaker 1: how did she not drop an F-bomb there? That's like the, like,
13:01
Speaker 1: that's the moment right there when they're, and she just,
13:04
Speaker 1: she was very also cool, calm and collected of all
13:06
Speaker 1: the leaders and like, McConnell's down there. You see Thune.
13:09
Speaker 1: You see Schumer. And like Pelosi is just sort of
13:11
Speaker 1: like directing the whole thing. Just like cool as a
13:14
Speaker 1: cucumber the whole time.
13:15
Speaker 2: And also, and I love it, at every opportunity mentions
13:20
Speaker 2: at the instigation of the president of the United States.
13:23
Speaker 2: Every single time. Every call she's with, she finds a way.
13:25
Speaker 1: To point out. She's always on message. She's always on message.
13:27
Speaker 2: Good for her. Good for her.
13:29
Speaker 3: Yeah. All right.
13:30
Speaker 1: So stepping back.
13:31
Speaker 2: Before we step back, John, would you like me to
13:34
Speaker 2: read you the truth that was just posted?
13:36
Speaker 1: Yes. Yes, we got a truth.
13:39
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm aware of two things. First, they put out
13:41
Speaker 2: a two-minute video on Truth Social that was pre-produced and
13:44
Speaker 2: pre-made that said, why did the unselect committee never talk
13:47
Speaker 2: about the peaceful, enormous crowds at the January 6th speech
13:50
Speaker 2: or the overwhelming evidence of election fraud? The sham committee
13:53
Speaker 2: is ignoring the truth. Those are some of the excerpts
13:55
Speaker 2: from that video, but then there is a– Boring.
13:57
Speaker 3: Boring.
13:59
Speaker 2: But he has also posted a truth that said, why
14:01
Speaker 2: didn't the unselect committee asked me to testify months ago?
14:04
Speaker 2: Why did they wait until the very end, the final
14:07
Speaker 2: moments of their last meeting? Because the committee is a
14:09
Speaker 2: total bust that has only served to further divide our country,
14:12
Speaker 2: which by the way, is doing very badly, a laughingstock
14:15
Speaker 2: all over the world.
14:17
Speaker 1: Man, that is so Trump, just like clinging on to
14:20
Speaker 1: whatever bit of, you know, uh, lame punditry that he
14:26
Speaker 1: saw on cable news because the one thing you'd hear
14:28
Speaker 1: from the all the pundits on cable after they did
14:31
Speaker 1: this opinion is like well why did they wait until
14:33
Speaker 1: now well why did they wait until now so trump
14:35
Speaker 1: just of course watches that because he's obviously watching the
14:37
Speaker 1: coverage hangs hangs on to that and decides that's going
14:40
Speaker 1: to be his truth he's so fucking predictable i.
14:41
Speaker 2: Mean the unselect committee what does that.
14:44
Speaker 1: Even mean yeah it doesn't doesn't mean anything.
14:47
Speaker 2: Were they not selected? Were they randomly chosen? If they
14:50
Speaker 2: were random, it also would have been selected. It doesn't
14:52
Speaker 2: show great facility with English.
14:55
Speaker 1: You know what, Donald Trump? That truth, that gets one
14:58
Speaker 1: politico for me. That was not even a real valiant attempt.
15:03
Speaker 1: You can do better than that. You can do better
15:05
Speaker 1: than that. Stepping back, do you think the January 6th
15:08
Speaker 1: hearings were successful or do you think it's too early
15:10
Speaker 1: to say?
15:12
Speaker 2: It's obviously too early to say in the sense that
15:17
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess if we have another insurrection in
15:19
Speaker 2: a couple of years, then we'll say they failed.
15:21
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, it's.
15:23
Speaker 2: Like, did the Inflation Reduction Act, climate change provision, did
15:27
Speaker 2: the climate change provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, I
15:29
Speaker 2: don't know, did the planet melt? Like, we'll find out
15:31
Speaker 2: in centuries. But I think we have to judge. There
15:35
Speaker 2: are ways to look at this and say they were successful.
15:38
Speaker 2: There was a very annoying, poorly thought out, pretty pedantic
15:43
Speaker 2: op-ed in the Times today by someone.
15:45
Speaker 1: Oh, no, I... I'm so mad that you read that
15:48
Speaker 1: because I read it this morning and I was like,
15:50
Speaker 1: I don't even want to make everyone mad by sending
15:52
Speaker 1: this around. So I'm just never going to send it around.
15:54
Speaker 2: But this is going to be righteous anger because I'm
15:55
Speaker 2: going to tell everyone why it sucked. The point being,
15:58
Speaker 2: it was dumb. I'm not even going to get into it.
15:59
Speaker 2: But the argument they made, this individual who once again,
16:02
Speaker 2: I said, I can't promise exists because I don't know
16:05
Speaker 2: who he or she is. But was that in the polling,
16:10
Speaker 2: the number of people who believe that the election was
16:14
Speaker 2: illegitimate has not changed from before the hearing to now.
16:18
Speaker 2: And if you view the hearing as, are we going
16:20
Speaker 2: to deprogram Trump supporters from thinking that the election was stolen,
16:26
Speaker 2: it was always doomed to fail. That's not how disinformation works.
16:29
Speaker 2: That's not how the armada or media ecosystem works. But
16:33
Speaker 2: it also, as a political matter, it does not matter.
16:38
Speaker 2: Whether they believe it's a big lie or not is
16:40
Speaker 2: not absolutely consequential. And it's not something that a congressional
16:43
Speaker 2: committee has the ability to stop. If the point was
16:45
Speaker 2: to remind everyone how deeply dangerous Donald Trump is, then
16:51
Speaker 2: they have made progress on that. If it was to
16:52
Speaker 2: remind everyone that our democracy is in danger, then they
16:56
Speaker 2: have succeeded at that. And in fact, you have seen
16:59
Speaker 2: movement in polls over time in the number of Republicans
17:01
Speaker 2: who think Donald Trump should be charged with a crime,
17:03
Speaker 2: as high as one in four Republican voters in some
17:06
Speaker 2: polls earlier this summer. That's a big deal. In a
17:11
Speaker 2: highly polarized, closely divided nation, that is a difference. And
17:15
Speaker 2: prior to these hearings, January 6th had been flushed down
17:18
Speaker 2: the memory hole of our national short attention span. And
17:21
Speaker 2: they brought it back out. And it's incredibly important that
17:23
Speaker 2: they did.
17:25
Speaker 3: Yeah.
17:25
Speaker 1: And look, the January 6th committee cannot do anything about
17:28
Speaker 1: the fact that upwards of 80% of the population did
17:32
Speaker 1: not follow news and political news, especially closely. They can't
17:37
Speaker 1: fix that. What they can do is make the best
17:39
Speaker 1: case possible to get the most coverage possible in the news,
17:42
Speaker 1: which they did. right? For the audiences who watched, which
17:48
Speaker 1: admittedly is a small subset of the American population, but
17:51
Speaker 1: one that includes very influential media figures and journalists with
17:56
Speaker 1: quite a bit of reach, for that crowd, it was important,
17:59
Speaker 1: and they talked about it, and they wrote about it,
18:01
Speaker 1: and they talked about it on television, and all the
18:04
Speaker 1: people who paid attention to that saw it. And it
18:07
Speaker 1: was a damn good case. They made the best case
18:09
Speaker 1: they could do. And what was the alternative? Just not
18:11
Speaker 1: talk about the insurrection that took place at our Capitol?
18:15
Speaker 1: It's just, of course, of course they should have done
18:17
Speaker 1: what they did. Beyond that, they can't control what everyone thinks.
18:23
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe this is damning with faint praise, but
18:25
Speaker 2: it's by far the most impactful, important set of congressional
18:30
Speaker 2: hearings since Iran-Contra. I know, we're talking about a quarter
18:34
Speaker 2: century here. It's hard to know what would be more.
18:36
Speaker 2: So they did the absolutely best job they could. They
18:40
Speaker 2: You can take the horse to water. You can't make
18:42
Speaker 2: it drink. But they made it as compelling a case
18:45
Speaker 2: as anyone could possibly have made in this media environment
18:49
Speaker 2: with the tools available to them.
18:52
Speaker 1: I interviewed Rachel Maddow for Offline this week. Oh, excuse me. Yeah,
18:57
Speaker 1: just a little preview. And so she has this fantastic
19:01
Speaker 1: new podcast out called Ultra, which is about a fascist
19:05
Speaker 1: movement that gained steam in the United States before World
19:09
Speaker 1: War II in the early 40s. And it had infiltrated
19:12
Speaker 1: members of Congress. And it was like thousands and thousands
19:16
Speaker 1: of people in the United States. I mean, it was
19:17
Speaker 1: like this crazy untold story. But I asked her, she said, look,
19:22
Speaker 1: it ends up being a hopeful story because this, you know,
19:25
Speaker 1: this movement was obviously defeated. And I said, well, what
19:28
Speaker 1: was the best strategy to That you found telling the
19:32
Speaker 1: story for defeating it the first time. And she said exposure.
19:35
Speaker 1: Exposure is the number one most effective strategy. Making sure
19:40
Speaker 1: that everyone knows what these people are up to. And
19:43
Speaker 1: making sure that it doesn't happen in the dark. That
19:46
Speaker 1: everyone knows. And that's what the January 6th committee did.
19:49
Speaker 1: And like you're right. Who knows what will happen from here?
19:51
Speaker 1: It's not going to like, is it going to lead
19:53
Speaker 1: to Donald Trump's arrest and imprisonment? No, like we're all
19:55
Speaker 1: going to have to make the case that Donald Trump
19:58
Speaker 1: should not be president again. It's not going to absolve
20:00
Speaker 1: us of the very hard work that we have ahead
20:03
Speaker 1: of us to make sure that this man does not
20:05
Speaker 1: become president again. I know that's what we wanted. But
20:08
Speaker 1: like that's not how it works. So I think they
20:12
Speaker 1: did a great job. I mean the question is what's
20:14
Speaker 1: next on the legal front? Like are we all just
20:17
Speaker 1: waiting for Merrick Garland to cross the T's and dot
20:19
Speaker 1: the I's on the post-election indictment of Donald Trump or what?
20:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a question on for what, right? Merrick
20:29
Speaker 2: Garland has got multiple criminal investigations going into Trump. We
20:33
Speaker 2: have investigations in Fulton County, Georgia. There are other investigations
20:37
Speaker 2: in Trump businesses in New York. I mean, it's really
20:39
Speaker 2: a race to who can get their indictment out first,
20:42
Speaker 2: I guess. But we are in this awkward position now
20:44
Speaker 2: where we're clearly too close to the election for the
20:46
Speaker 2: Department of Justice to make an indictment. If that was
20:50
Speaker 2: going to happen, it would have happened months ago. They
20:52
Speaker 2: clearly aren't ready to do that if they're going to
20:54
Speaker 2: do it. What happens after the election? Is there some
20:57
Speaker 2: period afterwards between what happens if Donald Trump announces for
21:00
Speaker 2: president in that period? When you and I were talking
21:03
Speaker 2: to Maggie Haberman last week, the week before, I can't remember,
21:07
Speaker 2: she pointed out that one of the reasons he wants
21:08
Speaker 2: to run is because he wants the constitutional protections that
21:12
Speaker 2: come with being president from indictment. And so who knows
21:16
Speaker 2: what's going to happen? The committee can't make it happen.
21:18
Speaker 2: I do think that the committee clearly put information out
21:22
Speaker 2: into the world that the Department of Justice did not know.
21:25
Speaker 2: some of that, like we've read reports about that, and
21:27
Speaker 2: increase public pressure on the Department of Justice to do something.
21:31
Speaker 2: Whether that means they will indict on the Espionage Act
21:33
Speaker 2: for the Mar-a-Lago case, whether they will do something, indict someone,
21:37
Speaker 2: whether they indict Trump or some of the people around
21:39
Speaker 2: him here, we don't really know. And once again, we
21:41
Speaker 2: don't have control over. And if you're looking for even,
21:45
Speaker 2: not that anyone listening to this podcast needs it, but
21:47
Speaker 2: even more motivation for these midterms is If we can
21:50
Speaker 2: retain control of the House, we have the ability to
21:52
Speaker 2: see this through, to continue to put pressure on Donald Trump.
21:55
Speaker 2: He wants to run the clock out.
21:56
Speaker 3: On this subpoena.
21:57
Speaker 2: Maybe it will be enforced.
21:58
Speaker 3: Maybe it won't.
21:59
Speaker 2: But if the Republicans take Congress over, then the subpoena
22:01
Speaker 2: will be null and void, I believe. So we have
22:04
Speaker 2: the ability to keep pressing this case if we keep
22:07
Speaker 2: the House.
22:08
Speaker 1: And there were two other pieces of notable Trump legal
22:11
Speaker 1: news today during the hearing. The first was that former
22:15
Speaker 1: Pence chief of staff, Mark Short, And Trump National Security
22:19
Speaker 1: Advisor Kash Patel were seen today at the federal courthouse
22:23
Speaker 1: here in D.C. where grand juries meet. So that could
22:26
Speaker 1: be happening. And then we found out that the Supreme
22:31
Speaker 1: Court denied Trump's appeal over the Mar-a-Lago documents. No dissents.
22:38
Speaker 1: No dissents. The Supreme Court does not want to save
22:40
Speaker 1: him on this one.
22:42
Speaker 2: I mean, there is one other one that I think
22:43
Speaker 2: is just worth noting, which came out in The Times
22:46
Speaker 2: during the hearing, I guess, which is, as we know,
22:48
Speaker 2: Donald Trump's– the Trump organization, his business is under– Oh, yeah.
22:53
Speaker 2: His investigation is being sued in a pretty massive civil
22:56
Speaker 2: case in the state of New York. So right before
23:02
Speaker 2: those charges were– that case was launched, Donald Trump went
23:05
Speaker 2: to my home state of Delaware, where you can– where
23:08
Speaker 2: all corporations are apparently created. to form a new business
23:12
Speaker 2: called Trump Organization 2. So he would have a separate business,
23:16
Speaker 2: not under vacation, which is just amazing in its audacity
23:19
Speaker 2: and its lack of creativity.
23:22
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like he's a criminal. It doesn't
23:26
Speaker 1: sound like he's a great guy. What happens if there
23:29
Speaker 1: are no Trump indictments? Do we all have to castigate
23:32
Speaker 1: Democrats as miserable failures and put away our Liz Cheney bobbleheads?
23:35
Speaker 1: What happens?
23:37
Speaker 2: Look, it is not the fault of this committee if
23:40
Speaker 2: there are no indictments. They have no control over that.
23:42
Speaker 2: They have no ability to indict Trump. That is not
23:44
Speaker 2: on them. And I don't think if you want to
23:48
Speaker 2: do an accurate rendering of the history of this committee hearing,
23:51
Speaker 2: that should not be a demerit on them. They've done
23:55
Speaker 2: all they possibly could. If Merrick Garland were to decide
23:58
Speaker 2: not to indict Trump for all the various crimes, that's
24:01
Speaker 2: something that he will have to answer for in the
24:02
Speaker 2: history books. We've tried to be, I think, as fair
24:09
Speaker 2: and open about the challenges of making a case against Trump,
24:12
Speaker 2: and it's high stakes for the Department of Justice. But
24:15
Speaker 2: if the reason they don't pursue it is political, I
24:20
Speaker 2: think that is something that is going to be very
24:23
Speaker 2: damning in the short term for our political system and
24:27
Speaker 2: very damning for how this Department of Justice and Merrick
24:31
Speaker 2: Garland's tenure is seen over the course of history.
24:35
Speaker 1: But I also think that we all have to be
24:36
Speaker 1: open to the fact that they might not bring an
24:38
Speaker 1: indictment because they do not believe that they can get
24:42
Speaker 1: a conviction or that the indictment is warranted.
24:45
Speaker 3: Right.
24:45
Speaker 1: Like these like we're all we can we can all
24:49
Speaker 1: go on Twitter and see all the Twitter lawyers saying
24:52
Speaker 1: that like, oh, he definitely broke this law or that law.
24:54
Speaker 1: But like, you know what? That's that's that's not what
24:56
Speaker 1: we do. And we're not in the Department of Justice.
25:00
Speaker 1: And you're right that if they were doing it because
25:01
Speaker 1: they're worried about the politics, that's inexcusable. But there's a
25:04
Speaker 1: possibility they don't do it because they don't think that
25:07
Speaker 1: they can prove that he actually broke any laws, even
25:09
Speaker 1: though what he did was fucking horrendous. So we'll see.
25:13
Speaker 2: And also, it's not a panacea. Merrick Garland could indict
25:17
Speaker 2: Trump tomorrow, and he could still announce for president.
25:22
Speaker 1: In fact, he will.
25:30
Speaker 2: Is what happens in the elections, in this election coming
25:33
Speaker 2: up and in 2024. We have no control over what
25:36
Speaker 2: Merrick Garland does or what happens after the Department of
25:39
Speaker 2: Justice were to indict him. That would be in the
25:42
Speaker 2: hands of a jury. That would be in the hands
25:44
Speaker 2: of a judge ruling on motions, all those things. All
25:46
Speaker 2: we control is political accountability. We cannot depend on legal
25:50
Speaker 2: accountability to solve our political problem.
26:02
Speaker 1: So you'll all hear a lot about these hearings on
26:05
Speaker 1: Twitter and on cable news and right here in this podcast.
26:08
Speaker 1: But one place you won't hear about them is on
26:10
Speaker 1: the campaign trail. So a Politico analysis found that less
26:13
Speaker 1: than 2% of all spending on television ads in House
26:16
Speaker 1: races have been about January 6th. And the Democrats have
26:20
Speaker 1: aired just two dozen spots focused on threats to democracy
26:23
Speaker 1: in about 16 different battleground districts. Why do you think
26:26
Speaker 1: this is?
26:28
Speaker 2: Because it is backward looking and Donald Trump himself is
26:31
Speaker 2: not on the ballot this fall. Trumpism is on the ballot,
26:35
Speaker 2: which is why you've seen a lot of ads about
26:38
Speaker 2: MAGA extremism and extremist views. And there have been ads
26:42
Speaker 2: in Senate races and other races about January 6th when
26:45
Speaker 2: you have a shocking number of Republican candidates who were
26:48
Speaker 2: at the Capitol that day. Mark Fincham, Doug Mastriano, a
26:51
Speaker 2: whole bunch of people were at the January 6th rally,
26:53
Speaker 2: and you see it there. But we want this race
26:57
Speaker 2: to be a referendum on Republican extremism. But that referendum
27:01
Speaker 2: has to be on extremism going forward, not extremism that
27:05
Speaker 2: happened in the past. And while this committee is doing
27:08
Speaker 2: the right thing to focus on that in their capacity,
27:11
Speaker 2: if you're making the case to voters, it has to
27:13
Speaker 2: be about what happens after this election, not what happened
27:17
Speaker 2: after the last election.
27:19
Speaker 1: And a referendum on extremism that affects your life directly.
27:25
Speaker 1: And this is what I heard over and over again
27:27
Speaker 1: in every single focus group for the wilderness when I asked,
27:31
Speaker 1: what issues does the media cover too much? What issues
27:34
Speaker 1: does the media not cover enough? And under cover too much,
27:38
Speaker 1: January 6th, these hearings came up again and again. And
27:42
Speaker 1: what does the media not cover enough? The economy, health care, education,
27:46
Speaker 1: and abortion. Although that was getting a lot of coverage.
27:51
Speaker 1: So people talked about it as an issue that they
27:52
Speaker 1: cared about, but not as one that wasn't getting enough
27:54
Speaker 1: coverage because it has. So again, like you're trying to
27:59
Speaker 1: get people to vote for you who don't pay close
28:02
Speaker 1: attention to the news and to politics. And what they
28:05
Speaker 1: want to know is if I show up and vote
28:08
Speaker 1: for you, what are you going to do to make
28:09
Speaker 1: my life better? And we can all say, well, what
28:13
Speaker 1: they're going to do is protect democracy from another insurrection.
28:16
Speaker 1: But to someone who's just like struggling to get through
28:19
Speaker 1: the day, that answer just doesn't land as effectively. And
28:23
Speaker 1: we can be upset about that for sure and wish
28:26
Speaker 1: that more people would care. But that's not the reality
28:29
Speaker 1: that we're living in. And we have to operate within reality.
28:31
Speaker 1: That's politics. It's interesting because one thing I thought about
28:35
Speaker 1: is we talked to Pat Ryan who won that special
28:38
Speaker 1: house race in New York a couple months ago. And
28:41
Speaker 1: he did make sort of democracy– central to that race.
28:46
Speaker 1: But it wasn't really January 6th that he talked about
28:49
Speaker 1: a lot. It was sort of the threat to democracy
28:51
Speaker 1: writ large. And he sort of folded in the threat
28:54
Speaker 1: to our freedoms and what they've done and the Dobbs
28:59
Speaker 1: decision and everything else the Republicans have done and all
29:02
Speaker 1: the other extremism. He sort of folded it into one argument.
29:05
Speaker 1: And I do think there's probably a way for Democrats
29:07
Speaker 1: to sort of make the larger threat to democracy a
29:10
Speaker 1: part of this midterm campaign as long as you make
29:13
Speaker 1: it tangible for people.
29:15
Speaker 3: Right.
29:15
Speaker 2: The reason that this extremist minority is willing to seize
29:19
Speaker 2: power in every way possible, throwing out votes, suppressing votes,
29:23
Speaker 2: violently storming the Capitol, is because they want to put
29:26
Speaker 2: in place an extremist, unpopular agenda that includes banning abortion,
29:31
Speaker 2: banning marriage equality, banning books, privatizing Social Security and Medicare,
29:35
Speaker 2: things that they could not put in place through the
29:38
Speaker 2: normal course of politics because the vast majority of the
29:41
Speaker 2: country opposes them. And so that is what Pat Ryan's
29:45
Speaker 2: campaign message was, is it tied all of the Republican
29:49
Speaker 2: efforts to undermine our democracy as a way to put
29:54
Speaker 2: in place this extremist agenda that affected people's lives. And
29:58
Speaker 2: that's the connection you've mentioned. That's what you have to do.
30:00
Speaker 2: And so there's a way to do it that is
30:02
Speaker 2: not about Donald Trump that is bigger than January 6th.
30:05
Speaker 2: January 6th is a very important issue. It is one
30:07
Speaker 2: that should be talked about. But in the context of
30:09
Speaker 2: making a political persuasion argument, there are better ways to
30:13
Speaker 2: do it, in my opinion.
30:15
Speaker 1: Speaking of cutting Social Security and Medicare, NBC News reported
30:19
Speaker 1: today that Those two issues have become a focus of
30:23
Speaker 1: Democratic campaign ads this cycle. The piece also says, quote,
30:27
Speaker 1: these ads come as Bernie Sanders and James Carville have
30:29
Speaker 1: warned Democrats that relying only on abortion is a mistake
30:33
Speaker 1: and they also need to turn to economic issues. What
30:36
Speaker 1: do you think about that? I know you have feelings.
30:40
Speaker 2: It's just the straw man argument here is so annoying.
30:46
Speaker 3: No one.
30:47
Speaker 2: No one is running only on abortion. No one is
30:50
Speaker 2: arguing that people only run on abortion. That's not a
30:52
Speaker 2: thing that's happening. It's just, it's not. That's just, if
30:55
Speaker 2: you look, I watch a gazillion campaign ads where political
31:00
Speaker 2: experts react. We pay attention to what these campaigns are doing.
31:02
Speaker 2: No one is doing that. Is abortion a central issue
31:05
Speaker 2: in this race?
31:06
Speaker 3: Yes.
31:06
Speaker 2: Should it be? Yes. Does the poll show that it
31:09
Speaker 2: is effective both in engaging Democrats who had been disengaged
31:14
Speaker 2: from the politics and in persuading the voters we need?
31:17
Speaker 3: Yes.
31:18
Speaker 2: But it's only part of the argument.
31:19
Speaker 3: So just.
31:22
Speaker 1: Did you read Bernie's op-ed about this?
31:24
Speaker 2: No, I just read the tweets. Who do you think
31:25
Speaker 2: I am? Honestly, this is so bad. I didn't even
31:30
Speaker 2: know there was an op-ed. I just saw all the
31:32
Speaker 2: tweets about it. I got so mad. I just got
31:35
Speaker 2: so mad that I checked out of it.
31:37
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders wrote an op-ed in The Guardian, as one does.
31:41
Speaker 3: In The Guardian?
31:42
Speaker 1: What is happening?
31:43
Speaker 3: Are we sure this is real?
31:45
Speaker 5: I don't know, man.
31:47
Speaker 1: I read it with my own eyes. I read it
31:49
Speaker 1: with my own eyes. And look, so basically he says
31:52
Speaker 1: in the op-ed, he starts by saying abortion is critical.
31:55
Speaker 1: It should not be on the back burner. We should
31:57
Speaker 1: be talking about it. It's an important issue. But I
32:00
Speaker 1: am hearing that Democratic consultants are advising candidates to just
32:05
Speaker 1: cut a couple abortion ads for the last couple weeks
32:09
Speaker 1: and just wait for the victory. I'm paraphrasing it. That's
32:12
Speaker 1: basically what it is.
32:12
Speaker 3: Yes.
32:13
Speaker 1: And so then he said, and this is why we
32:14
Speaker 1: need to also talk about economic issues. So Bernie is
32:17
Speaker 1: claiming that he's hearing this is what consultants are saying.
32:20
Speaker 1: But you're saying, as the host of Political Experts React
32:25
Speaker 1: that looks at every campaign ad, that you have not
32:28
Speaker 1: seen that.
32:29
Speaker 2: I've not seen that. And we are friends with Democratic consultants.
32:33
Speaker 2: We know lots of people working on races. If there
32:36
Speaker 2: are people saying that, they are very bad consultants. The
32:39
Speaker 2: ones who are working on the most races, the ones
32:41
Speaker 2: we know, are not making that argument to anyone. And
32:44
Speaker 2: just no one is like, Just cut a couple ads
32:46
Speaker 2: and wait for victory to roll in. That's not really
32:51
Speaker 2: how it works.
32:53
Speaker 1: I think what's happening is abortion as an issue does
32:57
Speaker 1: get more media coverage, just as every political issue gets
33:00
Speaker 1: more media coverage than the economic issues that Democrats are
33:04
Speaker 1: always told to drive home. Because cultural, social, political, racial,
33:11
Speaker 1: all of those issues just get a lot of media coverage.
33:15
Speaker 1: And and and someone talking about like raising the minimum
33:17
Speaker 1: wage and health care, those issues happen to be central
33:21
Speaker 1: to Democratic campaigns, stump speeches, television ads. But they just
33:25
Speaker 1: don't get the same level of media coverage unless you
33:28
Speaker 1: have a situation where, like, you know, Republicans are trying
33:31
Speaker 1: to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
33:32
Speaker 4: Right.
33:32
Speaker 1: Otherwise, you don't hear about that stuff as much. So
33:35
Speaker 1: there is that, but that is much different than actual
33:39
Speaker 1: campaigns that are spending money on ads and going out
33:42
Speaker 1: on the stump every day only talking about abortion, which
33:44
Speaker 1: is not happening.
33:45
Speaker 2: There are lots of abortion ads, but there are also
33:48
Speaker 2: a lot of ads about Republican extremism, of which abortion is,
33:52
Speaker 2: as it should be, an important part. But there are
33:53
Speaker 2: other issues in there as well. And some of those issues,
33:56
Speaker 2: as we'll get to in like two seconds, are economic.
33:59
Speaker 3: Right.
33:59
Speaker 1: Well, so what do you think about the Medicare Social
34:01
Speaker 1: Security strategy that NBC News was reporting on in general?
34:05
Speaker 3: It's good.
34:06
Speaker 2: It is a good strategy if done in the right way.
34:10
Speaker 1: The way you say good did not really.
34:12
Speaker 3: Well, in.
34:15
Speaker 2: A lot of tough elections where things are not looking
34:19
Speaker 2: great for Democrats, it's like this is the last card
34:23
Speaker 2: in the deck that we pull, right? Social Security and Medicare,
34:26
Speaker 2: they're going to cut it. And it's like, we're like,
34:28
Speaker 2: oh my God, seniors, we got to get them. But
34:30
Speaker 2: in this case, and in the ads that I've seen
34:33
Speaker 2: about this, including some from Mark Kelly and some from
34:37
Speaker 2: John Fetterman, some ads from groups supporting them in those
34:40
Speaker 2: races are good because what they are really addressing is inflation.
34:45
Speaker 2: I know that seems crazy, but bear with me. There
34:48
Speaker 2: is a tendency to look at these issues like inflation
34:51
Speaker 2: in a one-dimensional way. It's about inflation. Let's talk about
34:56
Speaker 2: what we'd It's not a problem. We've done these things
34:58
Speaker 2: with a problem. But ultimately, all campaign issues are about,
35:02
Speaker 2: come down to, or they're a proxy really for, who
35:06
Speaker 2: do you trust to fight for you on this issue?
35:09
Speaker 2: Who do you trust to fight for you on the economy?
35:10
Speaker 2: Not who is responsible for getting it here, who has
35:14
Speaker 2: what plans for doing it. Who do you actually trust?
35:16
Speaker 2: And if you can convince people that Republicans are the
35:20
Speaker 2: kind of people who want to cut Social Security and Medicare...
35:22
Speaker 2: Those are people you cannot trust to take on the
35:26
Speaker 2: oil companies, to stand up to big corporations doing price gouging,
35:29
Speaker 2: to fight for working and middle class people. And so
35:32
Speaker 2: it is actually an extension of this extremist argument, where
35:36
Speaker 2: these are extreme positions. And someone who is willing to
35:41
Speaker 2: force a young person to bring a pregnancy to term
35:46
Speaker 2: after being raped is the same kind of person who
35:49
Speaker 2: would overthrow an election and cut Social Security and Medicare.
35:53
Speaker 2: And so these are extremist views, and they are on
35:55
Speaker 2: the economy. And essentially what we're trying to do is
35:58
Speaker 2: disqualify Republicans from being people you would trust to deal
36:02
Speaker 2: with inflation. For the voters who say inflation is the
36:04
Speaker 2: number one issue, would you really trust somebody who wants
36:06
Speaker 2: to put your Social Security into the stock market right now?
36:10
Speaker 2: That is sort of the argument there. And I think
36:11
Speaker 2: that is, in a lot of campaigns I'm seeing, they're
36:13
Speaker 2: doing it in the right way.
36:16
Speaker 1: There's also a news peg here in the final weeks
36:19
Speaker 1: of the election. This isn't just based on Rick Scott's
36:24
Speaker 1: campaign plan that Mitch McConnell said would never happen that
36:27
Speaker 1: got like Pinocchio'd to death. This is a Bloomberg story
36:33
Speaker 1: from last week where a bunch of House Republicans who
36:37
Speaker 1: are all vying to be the chair of the Ways
36:40
Speaker 1: and Means Committee, if the Republicans take back the House,
36:43
Speaker 1: talked to Bloomberg News and said what they're planning to
36:46
Speaker 1: do is to use the debt ceiling to negotiations that
36:50
Speaker 1: will be happening in 2023 as they're going to hold
36:55
Speaker 1: the debt ceiling hostage until they get cuts to Medicare
36:58
Speaker 1: and Social Security. They said this, and Medicaid. They said
37:01
Speaker 1: this to the Bloomberg reporter. They're like, we're going to
37:03
Speaker 1: have to go after entitlements. And they're not going to
37:06
Speaker 1: raise the debt ceiling unless they get entitlement cuts. So
37:09
Speaker 1: that means Medicare and Social Security, Medicaid. So it's like, yeah,
37:12
Speaker 1: of course, every Democrat running should run out there and say, look,
37:16
Speaker 1: if these guys take the House, even though Joe Biden's
37:18
Speaker 1: still going to be president, they're going to try to
37:20
Speaker 1: hold the debt ceiling hostage and maybe crash the global
37:22
Speaker 1: economy unless they get cuts to Medicare and Social Security.
37:25
Speaker 1: I'd be running on that all the fucking time.
37:28
Speaker 2: And another way to connect the dots here is two things,
37:30
Speaker 2: is the vast majority of Republicans running say that they
37:33
Speaker 2: want to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act. I talked to
37:36
Speaker 2: Michael Bennett, an interviewer here shortly, where his opponent wants
37:38
Speaker 2: to do that. Doing that means that you are going
37:41
Speaker 2: to increase the deficit because you are going to repeal
37:45
Speaker 2: the minimum tax, which means that large corporations can keep
37:49
Speaker 2: paying $ 0 in taxes. And how are you going to
37:52
Speaker 2: pay for that? By cutting Social Security and Medicare. So
37:54
Speaker 2: less taxes for corporations, less Social Security and Medicare for you.
37:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think I think that is the right message.
38:00
Speaker 1: And again, and with the debt ceiling thing, too, you
38:02
Speaker 1: get to tie in the extremism because it is, of course,
38:05
Speaker 1: extreme to hold the global economy hostage because you want
38:08
Speaker 1: cuts to Medicare and Social Security. So, all right. When
38:11
Speaker 1: we come back, we will have Dan's interview with Senator
38:13
Speaker 1: Michael Bennett.
38:23
Speaker 2: Joining us now to talk about his upcoming reelection is
38:26
Speaker 2: Colorado Senator Michael Bennett. Senator Bennett, welcome back to Pod
38:29
Speaker 2: Save America.
38:31
Speaker 3: Thanks, Dan. It's great to be with you.
38:33
Speaker 2: I want to start with just a quick reaction to
38:36
Speaker 2: today's news. Inflation remains stubbornly high. Everyone who's out there
38:41
Speaker 2: talking to voters, as you are, knows that this is
38:42
Speaker 2: top of mind for everyone else. The Fed has a
38:47
Speaker 2: very aggressive strategy of rate increases to essentially slow down
38:51
Speaker 2: the economy. A lot of folks are concerned that that
38:54
Speaker 2: is going to put the burden on working families by
38:58
Speaker 2: raising unemployment and slowing wage growth. Is the Fed doing
39:02
Speaker 2: the right thing? And if not, what else should they
39:04
Speaker 2: be doing?
39:05
Speaker 3: I think they're doing the right thing because, unfortunately, I
39:07
Speaker 3: don't think they have much of a choice. I think
39:10
Speaker 3: they waited too. This is Monday morning quarterbacking, and I'll
39:13
Speaker 3: admit that. But I think they waited too long to
39:16
Speaker 3: do this. They kept interest rates at zero for too long.
39:20
Speaker 3: And I think the breadth of the quantitative easing probably
39:24
Speaker 3: was broader than it should have been. I've had this
39:27
Speaker 3: conversation with the Fed chair because of concerns that I had.
39:31
Speaker 3: This was before the inflation, concerns that I had about
39:34
Speaker 3: the cost of housing in Colorado, which has gone through
39:36
Speaker 3: the roof. There's no workforce housing left in our state.
39:40
Speaker 3: That's partly the result, I think. He disagreed with me.
39:44
Speaker 3: It's partly the result of a Federal Reserve that intervened
39:48
Speaker 3: and drove asset prices and the stock market through the
39:51
Speaker 3: roof so that people with cash can pay whatever it
39:55
Speaker 3: is they want to pay for housing in Colorado. I'm
39:58
Speaker 3: not saying they shouldn't have intervened, but I do think
40:01
Speaker 3: that was an unintended consequence of the intervention. And to
40:05
Speaker 3: your point, you know, once again, we find ourselves on
40:09
Speaker 3: the back end of a recession, making income inequality worse
40:14
Speaker 3: in this country. creating a country where the folks at
40:19
Speaker 3: the very top benefit every time the economy falls or grows.
40:25
Speaker 3: And working people, often for them, economic recoveries over the
40:30
Speaker 3: last 50 years have actually acted like recessions for them.
40:34
Speaker 3: And I would say a more important question is, can
40:39
Speaker 3: we hopefully claim that we're at the end of the
40:42
Speaker 3: Reagan era and the end of you know, this sort
40:45
Speaker 3: of supply side trickle down economics and an economics that
40:51
Speaker 3: privileged people that wanted to make stuff as cheaply as
40:54
Speaker 3: possible in Southeast Asia or China over lots of other
40:57
Speaker 3: things we could have privileged in our economy, like decent
41:00
Speaker 3: wages and like, you know, having durable supply chains and
41:07
Speaker 3: international security. And I think the bill that we recently
41:09
Speaker 3: passed that the president signed, the CHIPS Act, to my
41:13
Speaker 3: mind anyway, maybe the first step to trying to say,
41:17
Speaker 3: we're going to privilege some other stuff, and we're going
41:19
Speaker 3: to bring the semiconductor supply chains back to America for
41:26
Speaker 3: a variety of reasons, not the least of which is
41:28
Speaker 3: our national security. But I think we ought to be
41:30
Speaker 3: thinking about other things too in the wake of the
41:33
Speaker 3: busted supply chains that really have caused the inflation that
41:36
Speaker 3: we're dealing with now, in addition to the rising energy
41:39
Speaker 3: prices that have been caused by and economic recovery and
41:42
Speaker 3: by Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
41:44
Speaker 2: I mean, you mentioned the CHIPS Act. Congress has also
41:47
Speaker 2: passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which over the medium and
41:49
Speaker 2: long term will do a lot to reduce costs on
41:51
Speaker 2: things like prescription drugs. But for voters who are thinking
41:55
Speaker 2: inflation is too high, the cost of gas is too high,
41:57
Speaker 2: groceries is too high, help me finish this sentence. Send
42:01
Speaker 2: Democrats back in the majority to do X to help
42:04
Speaker 2: you with.
42:05
Speaker 3: So that we can create an economy in America that
42:07
Speaker 3: when it grows, it grows for everybody, not the top 10%.
42:11
Speaker 2: Are there specific things that a Democratic majority would do
42:14
Speaker 2: to help deal with the costs?
42:15
Speaker 3: There are specific things I would want to do. I mean,
42:18
Speaker 3: I think that, first of all, we should reverse the
42:20
Speaker 3: Trump tax cuts for the richest Americans. We haven't done
42:23
Speaker 3: that yet. And we should fund Bennett Brown and Brown Bennett,
42:27
Speaker 3: which are the biggest tax cuts for working people that
42:30
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party has stood for in generations. That's the
42:33
Speaker 3: child tax credit that I've worked on for years that
42:37
Speaker 3: I ran my completely unnoticed campaign for president on. But
42:40
Speaker 3: You know, we did pass that last year and it
42:42
Speaker 3: cut childhood poverty in America almost in half. And it
42:45
Speaker 3: meant that families in Colorado were getting 450 bucks a
42:48
Speaker 3: month to help feed their kids and to help pay
42:51
Speaker 3: their rent. Similar with the earned income tax credit, which
42:55
Speaker 3: I've worked on with Sherrod Brown for a long time too, that,
42:58
Speaker 3: you know, benefited millions of workers with, you know, that
43:01
Speaker 3: don't have children. I mean, I think those are the
43:04
Speaker 3: kinds of tax policies that could help people in the
43:07
Speaker 3: short term, deal with the inflation issues that we're confronting.
43:11
Speaker 3: And then in the short term, I think the Federal
43:14
Speaker 3: Reserve has to continue to try to do what it's doing,
43:17
Speaker 3: even though it has some of the effects that you described.
43:20
Speaker 3: And then over the longer term, what we have to
43:23
Speaker 3: do is, I think, repatriate these supply chains so that
43:27
Speaker 3: we're not seeing the kind of inflation that we're seeing
43:29
Speaker 3: right now and have an energy policy in this country,
43:33
Speaker 3: unlike the one we had going into this administration, which
43:36
Speaker 3: was inflationary terrible for our national security, and awful at
43:41
Speaker 3: reducing emissions. I mean, coal is up 20% since Biden
43:45
Speaker 3: became president. We should have an energy policy in place
43:48
Speaker 3: that allows us to, over time, reduce costs, create energy
43:53
Speaker 3: independence and economic independence, keep Europe in the fight against
43:58
Speaker 3: Putin for Ukraine, and that reduces emissions. And I think
44:02
Speaker 3: the combination of what we've got in hand with respect
44:08
Speaker 3: to natural gas and the Inflation Reduction Act puts us
44:13
Speaker 3: in a position that no other country in the world
44:16
Speaker 3: is positioned to, you know, puts us in a position
44:18
Speaker 3: to lead that transition that I think over time is
44:22
Speaker 3: going to make a huge difference to people's pocketbooks in
44:24
Speaker 3: this country.
44:26
Speaker 2: On this podcast, we talk about the closest Senate races
44:29
Speaker 2: in the nation all the time, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania,
44:33
Speaker 2: et cetera. We don't mention Colorado very much, but You
44:36
Speaker 2: are up for reelection. There's been some rumors or some
44:40
Speaker 2: thoughts that maybe this is going to be a close race.
44:44
Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell's super PAC just gave money to your opponent's
44:47
Speaker 2: super PAC. I think President Biden's headed to Colorado shortly.
44:51
Speaker 2: What is the status of your race? How are you
44:54
Speaker 2: feeling about your reelection?
44:55
Speaker 3: I mean, every time I run every race like I'm
44:59
Speaker 3: 20 points behind, that's how I've And Dan, when you
45:01
Speaker 3: and I first met, I was running for the first
45:04
Speaker 3: time in Colorado, having been appointed to the Senate. And 2010,
45:09
Speaker 3: you'll remember, was a terrible year for Democrats because we
45:15
Speaker 3: had passed the Affordable Care Act. And I was out
45:18
Speaker 3: on the eastern plains of Colorado with a slide deck
45:21
Speaker 3: trying to explain, here's why I voted for the Affordable
45:24
Speaker 3: Care Act. I'm not sure I convinced anybody, but- I survived.
45:28
Speaker 3: And because I did, and Harry Reid did that year,
45:31
Speaker 3: and Patty Murray did, we held the majority, even though
45:35
Speaker 3: it was a complete wipeout. And that meant 35 million
45:39
Speaker 3: people who might have lost their health insurance didn't lose
45:41
Speaker 3: their health insurance. You know, I'm running the same way
45:44
Speaker 3: today as I did in 16 when Trump won. That
45:47
Speaker 3: was a crazy year. And I think we're going to
45:49
Speaker 3: be okay. It's going to be close, and the race
45:52
Speaker 3: is going to close. And McConnell is spending money here,
45:55
Speaker 3: and we will learn last week that a billionaire in
46:00
Speaker 3: Wyoming has put $ 4 million into a super PAC here
46:05
Speaker 3: to try to buy the race for my opponent. And
46:07
Speaker 3: I think people should know about my opponent. He's trying
46:09
Speaker 3: to claim that he's a pro-choice, moderate Republican. And the
46:13
Speaker 3: reality is he voted for an abortion ban in Colorado
46:16
Speaker 3: two years ago that had no exceptions for rape or incest.
46:20
Speaker 3: He says that he doesn't support any of the federal
46:23
Speaker 3: laws that are being used to codify Roe versus Wade.
46:28
Speaker 3: He doesn't support Colorado's own bill codifying Roe versus Wade.
46:32
Speaker 3: He said he would have voted against the bipartisan gun
46:36
Speaker 3: bill that we passed, a bill that even Mitch McConnell
46:38
Speaker 3: voted for. He won't vote for it because he says
46:41
Speaker 3: we have too many gun laws, doesn't support the existing
46:46
Speaker 3: red flag law that we have in Colorado, and he
46:48
Speaker 3: wants to make permanent the Trump tax cuts So I mean,
46:52
Speaker 3: I think this guy is way, he also opposes the
46:54
Speaker 3: Inflation Reduction Act, which as you mentioned, caps drug prices
46:59
Speaker 3: at 2000 bucks for seniors. Finally, after decades requires Medicare
47:04
Speaker 3: to negotiate drug prices for the American people and caps
47:07
Speaker 3: insulin at $ 35. And this guy says there's nothing in
47:10
Speaker 3: the bill to like. So the choice is going to
47:12
Speaker 3: be very clear for Coloradans. And I think He is
47:15
Speaker 3: way outside the mainstream. I mean, I of Colorado, I
47:19
Speaker 3: will confess that unlike his primary opponent, who actually was
47:22
Speaker 3: an insurrectionist on January 6th, he was not there that day.
47:27
Speaker 3: But he has said that he thinks that Donald Trump
47:30
Speaker 3: bears no responsibility for what happened on January 6th.
47:33
Speaker 2: It says a lot about the state of the Republican
47:35
Speaker 2: Party that simply not attending the riot on the Capitol
47:40
Speaker 2: is what makes you a moderate in this party.
47:42
Speaker 3: I know. I agree. And I think it also, to me,
47:45
Speaker 3: it says a lot. You know, this guy knows better,
47:48
Speaker 3: I'm sure. He knows that Trump blew the whistle that
47:52
Speaker 3: brought all those people there in their racist T-shirts and
47:55
Speaker 3: in their anti-Semitic T-shirts. But, you know, instead of saying that,
47:59
Speaker 3: instead of telling the truth about it, He's just being
48:02
Speaker 3: an apologist for Donald Trump and saying he didn't bear
48:05
Speaker 3: any responsibility. It reminds me of Senator Cruz on the floor,
48:10
Speaker 3: literally the day of the insurrection, standing in the well
48:14
Speaker 3: of the Senate, claiming that we were disrespecting Trump's voters
48:19
Speaker 3: because we weren't basically having a recount. We weren't delaying
48:24
Speaker 3: the certification of Joe Biden's election. And then we got
48:27
Speaker 3: invaded right after Cruz was saying that. And when we
48:31
Speaker 3: went back to the floor, I went down there and
48:33
Speaker 3: I said, you know what? You guys are the ones
48:36
Speaker 3: disrespecting your voters and Donald Trump's voters because you won't
48:40
Speaker 3: tell them the truth. And you know better. And even
48:44
Speaker 3: after we've been invaded, they still won't tell the truth.
48:48
Speaker 3: So you're right. I think it does say a lot
48:49
Speaker 3: about the state of the Republican Party.
48:52
Speaker 2: Obviously, we want everyone who hears this interview in Colorado
48:56
Speaker 2: to get out and vote and volunteer and do everything
48:58
Speaker 2: they can for you. But we're also making the case
49:00
Speaker 2: to our listeners all across the country about the stakes
49:03
Speaker 2: of this election and about why it matters who's in
49:06
Speaker 2: the majority in the Senate. So maybe could you talk
49:08
Speaker 2: a little bit about what would concern you as someone
49:12
Speaker 2: I know who cares deeply about democracy, about the Republicans
49:15
Speaker 2: taking the Senate majority this fall?
49:17
Speaker 3: I mean, first of all, if you think the democracy
49:20
Speaker 3: is fragile, which I do, and I hope most people
49:23
Speaker 3: believe that, that are listening to this, then Democrats have
49:26
Speaker 3: a moral obligation to win, you know, not for the
49:28
Speaker 3: sake of Democrats, but for the sake of the democracy,
49:31
Speaker 3: because what's on the other side is the Republicans that
49:35
Speaker 3: are running in Georgia and Pennsylvania and Ohio and here
49:39
Speaker 3: in Colorado and in Arizona, these are not people that
49:44
Speaker 3: are committed to the democracy. And that's something I think
49:48
Speaker 3: we need to be really worried about. And I will
49:50
Speaker 3: tell you, before I was in this job, I used
49:52
Speaker 3: to hear politicians say all the time, this is the
49:54
Speaker 3: most important election of your life. You know, that's what
49:57
Speaker 3: people would say. And I want to tell you my very,
49:59
Speaker 3: I think very considered opinion about this, having watched Donald
50:04
Speaker 3: Trump get elected president, which should never have happened. It
50:07
Speaker 3: should never have happened. And it wasn't his fault that
50:10
Speaker 3: he got elected, but he got elected. And then being
50:14
Speaker 3: there on January 6th for that invasion of the Capitol
50:17
Speaker 3: by my fellow citizens, you know, with the, you know,
50:20
Speaker 3: with those racist banners and flags, um, My judgment is
50:25
Speaker 3: that every election between now and when we expire is
50:28
Speaker 3: the most important election of our lifetimes. And we should
50:31
Speaker 3: treat it that way. We have to treat it that way.
50:34
Speaker 3: You know, Amy Klobuchar is a friend of mine. She's
50:36
Speaker 3: going to be mad that I said this on your
50:38
Speaker 3: podcast because I've only said it in Colorado. But, you know,
50:42
Speaker 3: I keep telling people in Colorado that I'm sick and
50:46
Speaker 3: tired of hearing Amy Klobuchar say that Minnesota has the
50:48
Speaker 3: number one voter turnout rate in the country because I
50:51
Speaker 3: know and she knows I know. that Colorado has the
50:54
Speaker 3: second highest voter turnout. So what I've been pleading with
50:58
Speaker 3: people in Colorado to do is take that talking point
51:02
Speaker 3: away from Amy Klobuchar. We have an excellent, excellent system
51:05
Speaker 3: of voting in Colorado, mail-in ballots. We've got tons of
51:11
Speaker 3: early drop-off places and a nice early voting period. And
51:17
Speaker 3: ballots are going to go out next Monday. And I
51:20
Speaker 3: just hope that everybody votes like this is a presidential election,
51:24
Speaker 3: because the stakes are incredibly high. If we have Mitch
51:28
Speaker 3: McConnell as the majority leader with a pro-life Senate in
51:32
Speaker 3: the wake of Roe versus Wade being overturned, we have
51:35
Speaker 3: a Senate that wants to perpetuate the trickle-down economics that
51:39
Speaker 3: got us here to begin with, these incredibly staggering rates
51:43
Speaker 3: of income inequality and lack of economic mobility in our country.
51:47
Speaker 3: That in and of itself, I think is the biggest
51:49
Speaker 3: threat to our democracy. And we've got to fix that.
51:52
Speaker 3: We need an economy that when it grows, it grows
51:54
Speaker 3: for everybody. So people can see, you know, that there's
51:57
Speaker 3: opportunity for themselves and opportunity for their families. Otherwise Trump's
52:01
Speaker 3: going to come back again and say, I alone can
52:03
Speaker 3: fix it. That's what happens. That's when you lose, that's
52:06
Speaker 3: when you lose a democracy, you know, because people sense
52:10
Speaker 3: that they don't have an opportunity and, and, and, and maybe,
52:14
Speaker 3: A tyrant can show up and tell you I alone
52:17
Speaker 3: can fix it. You don't need a democracy. You don't
52:18
Speaker 3: need the rule of law. You should expect your public
52:22
Speaker 3: sector and your private sector to be hopelessly corrupt, hopelessly bankrupt.
52:26
Speaker 3: And you're a sucker if you don't believe that. That's
52:29
Speaker 3: the dark vision he ran on the last time. And
52:32
Speaker 3: we need to cure the underlying circumstances in our society
52:37
Speaker 3: so that people do have economic hope for themselves and
52:39
Speaker 3: for their families.
52:41
Speaker 2: Senator Bennett, I think that's a great place for us
52:43
Speaker 2: to end. where your GOTV message is one of two things.
52:48
Speaker 2: Turn out and vote like your democracy depends on it.
52:50
Speaker 2: And if that doesn't work for you, turn out to
52:51
Speaker 2: vote so you can stick it to Amy Klobuchar.
52:54
Speaker 3: Just so you can take that talking point away from Amy. Exactly. Yes.
53:00
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, Dan. Catching up after the election's over. Absolutely.
53:04
Speaker 2: I look forward to it. Always fun to talk to you, Senator.
53:06
Speaker 3: Great seeing you. Thank you.
53:13
Speaker 4: All right.
53:13
Speaker 1: Thank you, Michael Bennett, for joining us today. It's Thursday. Tomorrow,
53:18
Speaker 1: the two of us and Tommy and Lovett are going
53:21
Speaker 1: to go interview our former boss, Barack Obama, for a
53:24
Speaker 1: special bonus episode that will be out Saturday. So check
53:28
Speaker 1: out that bonus episode. And you can also listen to
53:29
Speaker 1: it Friday night first on Sirius XM channel 127. So
53:33
Speaker 1: check it out. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
53:41
Speaker 1: The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is
53:44
Speaker 1: Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producers are Hayley Muse and Olivia Martinez.
53:48
Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and
53:51
Speaker 1: Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer,
53:54
Speaker 1: Ari Schwartz, Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for
53:57
Speaker 1: production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford,
54:01
Speaker 1: Milo Kim, and Amelia Montuth. Our episodes are uploaded as
54:04
Speaker 1: videos at youtube.com slash podsaveamerica.