Latest / Pod Save America / Can Trump's Health Care Cuts Be Stopped?

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Can Trump's Health Care Cuts Be Stopped? · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 2: Hey, it's Mike here, one of the hosts of The
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  Speaker 2: Guardian's award-winning daily news podcast, Today in Focus. Every weekday morning,
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• 1:28
  Speaker 3: MUSIC Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: Tommy is on vacation. Lucky him. It's just us.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Just you and me, buddy.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: How do you feel?
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: We'll get through it.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: On today's show, we're going to cover Stephen Miller screaming
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: and firing people at ICE for not rounding up enough immigrants. ICE,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: not tough enough for Stephen Miller. Big companies deciding that
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: they'd rather hire law firms that haven't bent the knee
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: to Donald Trump. And potential Democratic presidential candidates starting to
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: test the waters... with speeches and super PACs. I'm also
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: going to talk to our friend Brian Schatz, senator from Hawaii,
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: about the party's plan to fight Trump's tax cuts for
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: the rich and health care cuts for everyone else. But
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: let's start with the White House response to yet another
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: anti-Semitic attack, this one in Boulder, Colorado, where a man
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: unleashed a homemade flamethrower and Molotov cocktails on elderly Jewish
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: people who were marching peacefully in honor of the hostages
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: still held by Hamas. Twelve people were injured, some seriously injured.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: And the guy already confessed he was apparently planning the
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: attack for a year and told police he would do
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  Speaker 3: it again if he could. He's being charged with a
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: federal hate crime. But because this is Donald Trump's America,
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: that's not the end of the story. Because the perpetrator
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: is an Egyptian national who entered the U.S. on a
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  Speaker 3: tourist visa, applied for asylum, and then overstayed his visa
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: while waiting for his asylum claim to be heard. So
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: Trump's first post on the attack said that the guy
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: came in under, quote, Biden's ridiculous open border policy, which
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: isn't true since his tourist visa appears to have originated
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: in 2018. Trump went on to say, quote, this is
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  Speaker 3: yet another example of why we must keep our borders
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  Speaker 3: secure and deport illegal anti-American radicals from our homeland. Thoughts
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: on the attack and Trump's response.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: So the second anti-Semitic attack in as many weeks, this
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: one left people horrifically burned. The previous attack left two
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  Speaker 1: people dead. That one was perpetrated by a citizen, so
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: it is not an immigration issue. This one is perpetrated
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: by someone who is not a citizen and who is
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: here illegally, so it is now an immigration issue. As
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: you said, he came in under a tourist visa. There's
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: some reporting that he may have been also on a
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: work visa that expired in March of this year. So
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: it very well may turn out that he entered when
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Trump was president and became an undocumented immigrant when Trump
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: was president. Now, the fact that that is the case
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  Speaker 1: doesn't make Trump administration policies any responsible, nor the fact
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  Speaker 1: that Donald Trump has been far more focused on border
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  Speaker 1: security and images of the border, because that's what's in
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  Speaker 1: his head, than people overstaying their visas, which is an
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  Speaker 1: incredibly common problem and a big part of the population
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  Speaker 1: of undocumented immigrants. So we're left with sort of this
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: sort of messy set of facts. Donald Trump is going
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: to lie about those set of facts. His spokespeople are
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: going to lie about that set of facts. And the
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  Speaker 1: end result is we have a big, messy, broken immigration system.
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  Speaker 1: When a terrible crime like this happens, it is evil.
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  Speaker 1: It is awful. If it turns out that there were
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  Speaker 1: steps that should have been taken along the way that
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  Speaker 1: could have prevented it, then we should learn from that
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  Speaker 1: and figure that out. But the knee-jerk effort to turn
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  Speaker 1: this into an indictment of Biden policies versus Trump policies,
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  Speaker 1: so far, it's just not borne out by the facts.
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  Speaker 1: Not at all. I know.
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  Speaker 3: I found myself like, digging through the timeline and type
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: of visa and why did he get the work permit
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  Speaker 3: because you know he was waiting for his asylum claim
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  Speaker 3: to be heard and while you're waiting even if you
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: overstay your visa it's okay to stay here with the
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: work permit and then i'm like you know what what
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  Speaker 3: am i fucking doing like crime is bad when people
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  Speaker 3: commit crimes or terror attacks like this uh the police
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  Speaker 3: should have every available uh tool to apprehend them as
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  Speaker 3: they do right now immigrant or not immigrant citizen or non-citizen. And, uh,
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  Speaker 3: it shouldn't have to like, we shouldn't have to have
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  Speaker 3: every single crime now turn into a debate about the
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  Speaker 3: person's immigration status. In fact, the government has vetted people
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  Speaker 3: who are coming into this country more than your average
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  Speaker 3: American citizen who may commit a crime or may, uh,
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  Speaker 3: or may, you know, commit an antisemitic attack, like the
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  Speaker 3: last two antisemitic attacks that have happened this year that
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  Speaker 3: we know about. So like, what are we doing? What
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: we're doing is, They are exploiting this Trump and Stephen Miller.
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  Speaker 3: They are exploiting this horrific anti-Semitic attack in order to
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  Speaker 3: justify an immigration crackdown that is getting more extreme and
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  Speaker 3: dangerous by the day. And by the way, that's affecting
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  Speaker 3: people who are not only aren't criminals, but people who
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  Speaker 3: aren't who are here legally, who have legal status and
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  Speaker 3: are legally allowed to be here.
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  Speaker 1: We have a broken immigration system. There are people who
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  Speaker 1: have come here that were undocumented the day they got here.
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  Speaker 1: There are millions of people who came here by overstaying
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  Speaker 1: their visas. That is a policy problem. We also built
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  Speaker 1: an economy on the backs of undocumented people. That is
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  Speaker 1: a policy problem. If you want to make a claim
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  Speaker 1: that undocumented people are more dangerous or more violent, if
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  Speaker 1: you want to make a claim that people that have
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  Speaker 1: overstayed their visas are this sort of violent contention in
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  Speaker 1: our society, you can try to do that. It's not
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  Speaker 1: borne out. by the evidence. Now, if your political views
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  Speaker 1: tell you that even though, yes, immigrants do not commit
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  Speaker 1: crimes in the United States at a rate higher than citizens,
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  Speaker 1: or undocumented immigrants do not commit crimes at a rate
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  Speaker 1: higher than legal immigrants, but any crime by an undocumented
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  Speaker 1: person is an indictment of the entire broken system, and
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  Speaker 1: therefore we must deport everyone who's overstated a visa. We
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  Speaker 1: must do an incredibly... violent and cruel and widespread crackdown
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  Speaker 1: on everybody, even though the vast majority of people who
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  Speaker 1: are here legally, illegally are here because they're trying to
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  Speaker 1: build a better life. They want to get jobs. And
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  Speaker 1: we built an economy on the backs of undocumented and
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  Speaker 1: documented immigrants, to be honest. And if that's the policy
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  Speaker 1: proposal you want to put in place, propose it, put
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  Speaker 1: it forward, right? But instead, they just want to take
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  Speaker 1: a specific case, a terrible, evil fucking case of anti-Semitism
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  Speaker 1: and and turn it into an immigration story. By the way,
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  Speaker 1: when there was that shooting a week and a half ago,
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  Speaker 1: and it turns out to be a citizen, it can't
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  Speaker 1: be an immigration story. So now it's a leftism story,
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  Speaker 1: or it's a story about this other group of people
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  Speaker 1: we also don't like. When there's a terrible shooting at
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  Speaker 1: a softball game in Congress, that's also going to be
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  Speaker 1: a political story. But when you have kind of right-wing violence,
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  Speaker 1: when you have people goaded by racism, by xenophobia- Then
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  Speaker 1: it's mental health issues. There's mental health issues. Those are
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  Speaker 1: lone wolves.
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  Speaker 3: Lone wolves, yeah. Of course, Stephen Miller has been all
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  Speaker 3: over this too. His first tweet about the attack said, quote,
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  Speaker 3: no more hostile migration. Keep them out and send them back.
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  Speaker 3: He then followed up with a second tweet, in case
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  Speaker 3: people didn't read the first, I guess, just a couple
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  Speaker 3: hours later, that read, suicidal migration must be fully reversed.
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  Speaker 3: Suicidal migration. He doesn't really talk about what suicidal migration
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  Speaker 3: is in the tweet.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like it's just, this is a person
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  Speaker 1: from Egypt. And so it's sort of vaguely like a
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  Speaker 1: suicide bomber. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Or just that, you know, migration of people who do
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  Speaker 3: not assimilate, who in Stephen Miller's mind don't assimilate into
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  Speaker 3: our culture is suicide for America.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. And then, but it's like, this is
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  Speaker 1: not a migration. This is somebody who overstayed a tourism
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  Speaker 1: visa and who applied for other kinds of visas. Again,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: we're going to get more detail. We'll find out the
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  Speaker 1: exact fact of it. Like, what is your policy on that? Right.
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  Speaker 1: I saw, you know, J.D. Vance's was sort of said
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  Speaker 1: an offhand comment. If you're visiting for the World Cup,
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  Speaker 1: you better leave after.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 1: But as far as I can tell, like what they're not,
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  Speaker 1: this has not been a focus of this administration.
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  Speaker 3: Miller assured his true colors based on a report in
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  Speaker 3: the Washington Examiner about him losing his shit on ICE
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: agents for not detaining and deporting enough immigrants. He basically
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: calls a meeting in D.C. and everyone, all the field offices,
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: everyone in ICE has to like come to this meeting
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  Speaker 3: and He is apparently livid that the agency is behind
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  Speaker 3: schedule on deporting a million immigrants this year. And in
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: this meeting, he told all the people there, all the
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  Speaker 3: top ICE administrators, quote, you're not doing a good job
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: and quote, you're horrible leaders. When they told him that
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  Speaker 3: they were focusing on going after immigrants with serious crimes
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  Speaker 3: on their record, which is what Tom Homan and Donald
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: Trump and everyone else has been saying on TV, what
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: they said during the campaign, uh, Miller reportedly said, quote,
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: why aren't you at home Depot? Why aren't you at
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  Speaker 3: seven 11? Uh, two top ice officials were later fired
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: after that meeting, uh, reportedly because ICE isn't hitting the
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: White House Stephen Miller target of 3,000 arrests per day.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: Then over the weekend, Miller went on Lara Trump's Fox
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: News show to deliver his typically chill criticisms of our
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: immigration and legal systems. Let's listen.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: These.
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: District court judges have precipitated a constitutional crisis. The craziest,
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  Speaker 5: most liberal lawyer seeks out the craziest, most liberal judge
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  Speaker 5: out of the 700 and says, I want you to
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  Speaker 5: shut down this executive branch policy nationwide for the entire country.
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: Did the people of Florida consent to be ruled by
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: the judge of San Francisco? Scammers and grifters in Washington, D.C.,
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  Speaker 5: are getting rich. The illegal aliens are getting rich. The
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: criminals are getting away with everything.
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  Speaker 1: The illegal aliens are getting rich. What are you fucking
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: talking about?
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: Cause they're just, they're getting, they're getting all those beautiful
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: hotels in New York city.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't, what are you, what are you talking about?
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: He just, he's not even, he's not even trying to
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: lie well anymore. He's not even trying to lie even
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: like sort of like not even a baseline of believability here.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: We certainly suspected that, um, all the talk from the
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: Trump White House about focusing and prioritizing the worst of
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: the worst and the criminals was bullshit. But it's clarifying
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: to have Miller confirm it to all these ICE officials.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: Apparently he said, he said, what do you mean you're
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: going after criminals? Why not go to the 7-Elevens? Why
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: not go to this? And then one ICE official said
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: in the story, quote, Stephen Miller wants everybody arrested. That's
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: why he's mad.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. So there's a couple of things that are interesting
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: about this. One, He goes on television and says, these
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: judges are stopping us. These judges are stopping us. But
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: that's not what's stopping them here, right? That's not what
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: this is about, right? What's interesting to me about this
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: is he's going directly to these field directors and saying,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: why aren't you deporting more people? And what he's hearing
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: back is the kind of reality of governing, which is
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: limited beds. The Homeland Security Investigations Division doesn't feel it's
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: their responsibility to do some of these sort of street arrests,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: the enforcement and removal officers feel like they're overburdened and
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: there aren't enough beds. And so the truth is, and
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: this is what we've been saying, right, that they go
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: on television or they post how judges are stopping them.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Judges are stopping them. Judges are stopping them from using
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the Alien Enemies Act. Judges are stopping them from deporting
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: people without adhering to foreign prisons. But no one's actually
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: stopping them from using their power to do the deportations
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: and removals that they're legally allowed to do under the law.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: What's stopping them is just governing, their inability to govern.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: And so then you end up with, this is, I think,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: the second point, this incredibly strange meeting, right? A White
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: House senior official going, not just not, with the secretary
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: of Homeland Security there, apparently, Kristi Noem is there, kind.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: Of- Playing the good cop for the first time.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and really strange.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: She's like, you're doing okay, but you could be doing better.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Right, but I mean, this sort of fucking, you know,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: little fucking- you know, worm shouting at these field directors
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: and ICE officials who, uh, I am sure, uh, were, uh,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: pretty fucking heated to be having to take this from, from, from,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: you know, Trump's lackey, uh, who's not a member of
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: law enforcement, who's not any kind of, uh, uh, national security, uh, or,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: or law enforcement official in his past. So that's deeply
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: strange and really incredibly political, right? Like it's no, there's
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: inconceivable to imagine a senior advisor, the Obama administration going,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: directly to a group of field directors at ICE.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: Also, it really unlocks why they are going after all
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: of these people who have legal status, our kids, our families,
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: our people who've been here for 20, 30, 40 years,
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: their whole lives, because after yelling at them, they fire
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: two top ICE officials, right? And now he's telling them
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: you need 3,000 arrests per day. So if you're, say
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: you're an ICE federal agent who doesn't love arresting immigrants, right?
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: Which is being generous, right? You're just trying to do
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: your job. You're a civil servant. You've been there through
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: the Obama administration, Biden, Trump. Now your job depends on arresting,
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: making sure that you hit these numbers and arrest all
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: these people a day. Of course people are going to
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: get swept up in this that are either American citizens,
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: legal residents, kids dream all of it.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: It's very much like, it's like evil Alec Baldwin in Glenn,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: there again, Ross standing up in front of everybody saying,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, first place gets a Cadillac second place,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: steak knives, third place you're fired. And, and, and the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: third piece of this, which is just, again, like just
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: deeply strange to have you. So you have Donald Trump
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: who is trying to turn divisions of our, uh, our,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: our federal government into his sort of personal minions trying to,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: it's not the American military, it's his military. It's not
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: It's not America's Immigration Customs Enforcement Bureau. It's his, right?
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: It is actually quite strange to have a quote in
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: there from an administration official saying, if they don't get better,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: then everyone will know they're just not good at what
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: they do. They can't perform at the level of expectation.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: And it's like, oddly, it's just strange. It's just a
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: strange tack for them to be taking. And it clearly
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: is like a message they're sending directly to the agency saying.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought for a while that, I mean, I
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: do think part of this is a lot of these
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: roundups that they know are going to get people angry
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: are designed to send a message to keep immigrants away, right?
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: And I think that's still partly true. But I also
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: think they just, they really want to hit that million
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: number and they want to make those arrests and they
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: want to do it however they can. And that's why
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: we're getting, that's one of the reasons we're getting these
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: just horrific stories. I mean, just over the last week, like,
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: There was this Missouri mother. She's from Hong Kong. She's
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: been here 20 years. She's got three kids. She was
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: scooped up by ICE. She's in a jail somewhere. Kids
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: don't see her. And she's from this very rural, Trumpy
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: community in Missouri. And all these people are like, what? No,
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: she's like an upstanding citizen. She's the best person. And
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: she works so hard. And everyone loves her. And she
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: goes to her kids' soccer practice. And these aren't the
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: people I thought we were deporting. And no one can
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: figure out how to get her out of prison. Greg Sargent.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: did a podcast talking to her and her lawyer that
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: was out today. And she's like, you know, my daughter,
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: she's seven. She said, mom, please come home. Nobody tells
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: me bedtime stories anymore. I miss you. I need you.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: Like this, this is what they're doing. There was a
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: Massachusetts high school kid, high school senior honors student in
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: the band going to volleyball practice, scooped up on his
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: way to volleyball practice. Now he's in jail somewhere. He's
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: 18 years old. He's with, he's like shackled his, his
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: hands and his, his, his feet are shackled. He's in
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: this crowded cell with all these older men. And again,
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: everyone in the community is like, he is the best kid.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: Here since he was five. Five. Here since he was
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: five years old.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: Five years old. His parents brought him here from Brazil
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: when he was five years old. That's not fucking his fault.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: And he's been here all this time.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: It's the, like the, it's the, they run on, this
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: country is overrun. There's been an invasion. We're overrun with criminals.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: We're overrun with gang members. Not true. They can never
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: hit this number by just going after criminals and criminals.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: when the rhetoric meets the reality, they don't obviously ever say, well,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: we actually overstated this. The reality has to meet the rhetoric.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: And so that is why we see, if you touch
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: the immigration system and they could deport you, they need
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: to hit their quota, they need to hit their number.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: And it's going to increasingly touch the kind of people
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: that people didn't understand would be targeted by this, even
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: though people were saying that, right? Even though it's a
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: bit naive to pretend that Trump didn't tell us what
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: he was going to do, But that's why I think
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: you see the outrage in that town. That's why you see,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: and there was an ICE raid in San Diego that
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: went after the staff of a popular restaurant. You saw
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: people on the street being furious, standing in the way
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: of cars that led to the ICE having to, or
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: the local cops that were part of it, I'm not sure,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: just use like crowd dispersal and like, I don't know
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: what they were using, but they were allowed to get
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: people out of there. And I think you're going to
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: start seeing More and more of that, and I think
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: this gets to what we'll talk about in a second,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: but I do worry about this sort of vicious loop
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: we're now about to be in when ICE views itself
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: as being under siege, right? Not able to hit these
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: numbers because they were never realistic, while the public gets
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: increasingly angry and views them less and less as their representatives.
• 19:03
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• 20:18
  Speaker 3: JBL wrote about this at the Bulwark in his newsletter
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: on Monday about the fact that these guys are all,
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: a lot of them are wearing masks now, a lot
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: of these ICE agents. And he points out that there
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: are only two kinds of countries where law enforcement wears masks,
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: authoritarian states and failed states. I read the piece. I'd
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: love to say it's alarmist. Don't think I can.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So Congressman Dan Goldman, who's a former federal prosecutor,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: worked with law enforcement for years. He talked to ICE
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: officers about this. And he said, why are you wearing masks?
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: And one replied, because it's cold. And Goldman responds, would
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: you say that under oath? And the guy walks away.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: And he's a member of Congress. He's a representative of
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Congress and of the people in his district. And there's
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I think a couple of things going on because I
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: don't think this person who has them, I don't think
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: an ICE officer has a mask on says, I have
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: this mask on because I'm part of a fascist takeover
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: of the government, right? It's two things. It's one, it's
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: a culture that flows from Trump, which is Trump doesn't
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: believe he's accountable to Congress. He doesn't believe he's accountable
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: to the people. These guys work for him and they know, right?
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: I can say whatever I want to a member of Congress.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: I can arrest a member of Congress. I can get
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: into a quarrel with a member of Congress outside an
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: ICE facility, even though that person is just doing their job.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: And I know that I'll be fine because Trump doesn't
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: give a fuck about those people. And if anything, me
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: showing this kind of toughness and intransigence on his behalf
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: will only earn me more respect. So this is good.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: I'm protected by doing this. But the other piece of
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: it is there's a kind of siege mentality. And I
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: think this comes from right-wing media, which is like America
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: is a decadent and declining country where we forgot what's
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: important and how to keep ourselves safe and how to
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: do what it takes. We're not tough enough. Empathy is
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: a weakness. And so if I show my face, even
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: if I'm doing what's right for the country, even if
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: I'm doing what my president wants to keep Americans safe
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: and stop this invasion, I might be canceled. I might
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: be publicly vilified. People might come to my house because
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: you can't trust the American people anymore, not the ones
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: that don't agree with me 100%. It's not about protecting
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Americans or working for Americans anymore. I have to keep
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: myself protected because it's only the Trump administration that understands
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: the stakes here.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, their response to... the mask thing is, oh, well,
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: they're getting harassed and doxxed and they need to wear
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: masks because of that. And it's like, okay, well, and
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: Dan Goldman points this out in that piece. He's like,
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: so the Trump administration is banning masks for protests. So
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: you can't wear a mask protesting the government, but you
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: can wear a mask if you are the government and
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: arresting and cracking down on not just immigrants, not just
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: undocumented immigrants, but like you said, members of Congress or anyone.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: New York, I don't know if you saw it, New
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: York Magazine had this piece about the American citizens who've
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: been detained by ICE, not just in this administration, but
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: it's happened for decades, right? But the difference is other administrations,
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: and even the first Trump administration at times, when they
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: realized it was a mistake, would let the person go.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: We now know that this administration, even when it admits
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: a mistake in court, is not rectifying the problem. They
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: point out in that story, if you're an American citizen,
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: And ICE detains you. They'll say, are you a citizen?
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: You're of course going to say, I'm a citizen. Maybe
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: you have an ID. Maybe you have a social security card.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: Maybe you have, do you have your birth certificate or
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: your passport on you? Probably not. But even if you did,
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: they were saying that the agents usually suspect that the
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: documents are fake. So they don't take your word for
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: it by just giving the passport. So then they take
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: you in. So now you're detained. And because of the
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: backup and judges, and there's not enough time and resources
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: to have these trials on a, speedy basis as steven
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: miller complains about now you're sitting in detention for weeks
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: months and you just can't get out even if you're
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: an american citizen and this is like this can happen
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: and this can happen if it's an accident and now
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: think about like alien enemies and all the other stuff
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: they're doing like it just it goes to a very
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: dark place very fast i mean i think we're already
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: there but.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah but look they're gonna start this bill that's mostly
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: being debated around medicaid and taxes because that is the
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: lion's share of what it does puts a lot of
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: money towards giving ICE the ability to ramp up detentions,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: to ramp up deportations. And that is an agency that
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: feels unaccountable to the people, that is being spurred on
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: by someone like Stephen Miller on behalf of Donald Trump
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: to do deportations at any cost, that is willing to
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: lie to the public about the people they're deporting, is
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: incredibly dangerous. Americans will get caught up in this and
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: they will get trapped. Do I think, like, how bad
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: does that get? How long are they held? We don't know.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: We don't know.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: It doesn't seem like we want to find out.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would hate to find out.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: In other regime news, there was a fun update. This
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: actually is fun. In the Wall Street Journal about how
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: big companies are starting to cut ties with law firms
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: that capitulated to Trump or are at least starting to
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: steer more business to firms that have refused to bend
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: the knee. The list of companies reportedly includes Oracle, whose
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: executives have made some pretty significant donations to Trump over
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: the years. Also, Morgan Stanley, McDonald's, Microsoft. One lawyer for Citadel,
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: the hedge fund founded by Republican mega-donor Ken Griffin, recently
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: told major law firms that their fund likes to work
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: with lawyers who, quote, aren't afraid of a fight. We
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: also learned a couple weeks ago that our old friend
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: Karen Dunn and some other partners are leaving Paul Weiss
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: to start a new venture together after Paul Weiss capitulated. And,
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: you know, meanwhile... courts have blocked all the Trump executive
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: orders against law firms who dared to challenge them or
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: refused to capitulate. Um, and they're just carrying on.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty great. the, you think Paul Weiss.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: You think Paul Weiss is, uh, and some of these
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: other firms are regretting their decisions.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Right about now? I, I hope so. I hope it,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: what it looks like is a kind of fit of
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: peak at the very beginning of the administration when people
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: didn't know what it would look like to say no. Yeah.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: And, uh, uh, kind of this, this, There is this
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: moment right when Trump comes in, it's before we're seeing
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: the inevitable chaos and failures and lying and obstacles in
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: the court. I think it's Derek Thompson who talks about this,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: that this also happened in part in the first Trump term,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: which Trump makes a lot of crazy decisions and then
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: unmakes a lot of crazy decisions. I think the also
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: watching what happens after you capitulate to Trump has played
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: out And it doesn't play out well. I talked about
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: this with Adam Schiff on Love It or Leave It. And,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: you know, you make this deal with the devil, it
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't work out. That's the whole thing with deals with
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: the devil. And it was really reassuring to see a
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: bunch of their clients walk away from these firms, not
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: because they're partisan Democrats, but because it's just fucking embarrassing, right?
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Like if you're looking at sort of a media organization
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: that has capitulated to Trump and one that hasn't, who
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: are you going to trust more? right? Whether you're a
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: member of the audience or you're somebody who's going to
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: work there.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: You think 60 Minutes is hiring a lot of journalists
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: right now? You think they're getting a lot of applications?
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: And so, of course, you want a lawyer that's going
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: to be willing to fight, especially when the executive orders
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: are so patently unconstitutional. So it's such a clear violation
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: of the First Amendment and a bunch of other amendments
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: on their face.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: I've talked to a couple lawyers who are in firms
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: that focus mainly on litigation. And You know, they made
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: a good point, which is like, look, some of the
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: firms that have capitulated are firms that do a lot
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: of corporate mergers, a lot of that kind of work.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: And the firms that haven't tended to capitulate are the
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: ones with a lot of litigators. And the reason is
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: because when you hire a litigator, that's what they do.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: They fight in court. And you don't want to hire
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: a litigator who's afraid to fight. That's like the whole
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: reason you have a litigator.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Of course, it does. Yeah, we've talked about this before.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: It does speak to kind of like the different temperaments
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: of certain kinds of lawyers. It's just embarrassing. Who wants
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: to be part of an embarrassing... You're a law firm.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: You're a fucking law firm. You exist to fight on
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: behalf of your clients. Yeah.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: All right, let's talk about the state of the opposition.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: Democratic activists held a bunch of gatherings this weekend in
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: South Carolina and California, the kind that usually attract political leaders...
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: who may have ambitions beyond their current office, let's say.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: Sure enough, Maryland Governor Wes Moore showed up in South Carolina,
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: where he talked up his family's history in the state.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: Tim Walz visited both states in the same day.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: Tim Walz going for flying from South Carolina to California.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: And he promised to, quote, bully the shit out of
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump at his South Carolina stop. And also said
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: that he supports keeping the state as the first primary
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: contest in 2028. Not to be outdone, Connecticut Senator Chris
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: Murphy announced a new super PAC on Monday. to oppose
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: cuts to Medicaid and organize young people, focusing for now
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: on five states that happen to include Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: What do you think? Too early for this shit, or
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: is it good to have potential Democratic contenders out there
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: right now?
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, I think it's great to have them out there.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: I don't even know what it means to be too early.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: They're going to give them political speeches.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: That's how I feel.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: My only feeling about it is that it all it
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: just feels like it's from another era that you pretend
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: you're not running for president. And maybe some of them won't, right? Actually,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: it is the case that some people really may decide
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: not to do it. But if you are considering it,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: I kind of like the saying, you know what, I'm
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: thinking about it. We have a lot of work to
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: do before then, but I'm thinking about it because I
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: do think like kind of moving past the like footsie
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: era of presidential politics. And then it's to me less
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: about the like, is it too early? It's not just,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: what are they saying? How do they want to fight back?
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: What do you think the best strategies are?
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: Did you get a chance to listen to any of
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: Wes Moore?
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought he was good.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: I thought so too.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: His- I would say that he had a real emphasis
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: on the argument he wanted to make is that the
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: Democratic Party needs to be one of action. I think
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: his line was, gone are the days when the Democrats
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: are the party of no and slow. We must be
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: the party of yes and now. And so, you know,
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: it wasn't like too heavy on specifics about what that
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: means in the current context. But he did have his
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: record in Maryland, which is a very impressive record to
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: talk about. I find it interesting that when he's talked
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: about what they got done in Maryland, the first thing
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: he talked about was crime and how homicides and crime
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: are way down in Maryland. which is interesting. And then
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: he talked a lot about sort of jobs and opportunity
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: and wages there.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's felt like, and maybe it's felt like until
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: now that the potential 2028 senators have been out there
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: a bit more, and maybe that's just the nature of
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: their jobs while the governors have been a little bit
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: more restrained. I also think the governors have a more
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: thorny challenge. And we see this with Whitmer. I think
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: we see this with all of them that they're trying
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: to govern. Some of them have Republican legislatures. Some of
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: them worry about natural disasters and other times when they'd
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: have to kind of work with Trump. We saw Whitmer
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: kind of delicately try to figure out how to bring
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: money into the state. And she ends up smiling for
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: the cameras right before Trump says he's going to pardon
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: the people who fucking tried to kill her. So it's challenging.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: It's challenging. But I do think it's meant that like
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: the governors haven't been as sort of strident and out there.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: And then I think J.B. Pritzker gave a great speech
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: that was sort of an exception in terms of the
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: tone of the governors that felt more like what we've
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: heard from some of the senators. But beyond that, To me,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: I think Wes Moore is the one who said this,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: that we shouldn't be talking about 2028 because we have
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: too much to do in 2025. And I think there's
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: some truth to that. But at the same time, how
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: you fight in 2025 and 2026 is really important to
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: whether or not you're the right person in 2027 and 2028.
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: I liked Wes Moore's speech. I thought it was solid,
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: especially because it was interesting. It wasn't like too Trump
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: focused at all. Or too focused on like exactly what's
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: happening in Congress right now, which I think is probably
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: the right thing to do since most Americans don't give
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: a shit or like aren't paying attention. That also has
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: a quality where you're like, when could this speech be given?
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: You know, it could be given at another time. But
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: I was like, great. I want to hear more from him.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: And then Walls was saying, maybe it's time for us
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: to be a little meaner.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: And that he said, nobody votes for roadkill based off
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: that New York Times story where Anat Shankar Osorio, who's
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: a friend of the show, was talking about how in
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: focus groups it comes up that Democrats are like deer
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: in headlights. And so Wall said, yeah, deer in headlights. Well,
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: no one votes for roadkill.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: I think that's true. I think that's true. There's, yeah,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: we look like we got the, we talked about this
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: when we were with Jon Stewart and his pod, which
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: is that we got the stink on us.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: We do have the stink. I like that Murphy is
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: starting his super PAC, at least starting off now, by
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: donating to grassroots orgs and not candidates. I always think
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: there's like, you get a super PAC from a candidate,
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: and it's like, I'm donating to a slate of city
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: council people in South Carolina. Right, no, look, this is-
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: And they're all gonna do that, I'm sure. You gotta
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: do that. That's just politics. But it was nice that
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: he's like, it's like an organization that's gonna raise awareness
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: around the Medicaid cuts, and that's good.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: Good for Murphy. Yeah, it's great. You know what? The
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: more the merrier. I just like, you know, anybody, I like,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: how do we figure out what Democrats are supposed to
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: sound like? How do we figure out who's the right
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: person Talit, the Times had this story about these guys
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: running through South Carolina. And the question in everybody's mind is,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: who's going to be the person who can win? And
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: they're all going down there to prove that they're the
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: person who could win. Nobody knows who can win. Nobody
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: knows who the right person is. We're going to figure
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: that out by hearing what they'll actually do, how they'll
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: talk about taking the fight to Trump and these other Republicans.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: So I'm glad to have more. The more people out
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: there every day, the better. Yeah, I agree. Pod Save
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: America brought to you by Haya. Typical children's vitamins are
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  Speaker 1: you Googling. It's the Riemann hypothesis. Which I obviously know about.
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  Speaker 1: You should tell the audience. Yeah, but we were just
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  Speaker 1: talking about the Riemann hypothesis before recording because James has
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• 35:52
  Speaker 3: Speaking of strategy, Lauren Egan at the Bulwark reported on
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: Sunday that some Democrats... are pushing the main Democratic PAC
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: working on Senate races to put its money behind the
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: independent candidate in certain key states, mostly red states, purple states,
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: saying it's our best bet for preventing another Republican majority.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: The idea is that the investment would happen quietly, or
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: at least it was going to be quiet, and potentially
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: later in the cycle. So the example of this would
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: be you know, Dan Osborne, the independent candidate who ran
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: in Nebraska. And, you know, if Democrats at the end there,
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: some Democratic super PAC, you know, funneled a bunch of
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: money to help helped Dan Osborne out. What do you
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: think about this plan and the potential trade-offs?
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: So it's funny. I think that like what you're saying
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: of like, you know, okay, so we get these independents
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: to run. All right. They run on kind of popular
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Democratic politics, right? But against the Democratic Party, or in
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: some ways shows their kind of independence from the Democratic Party.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: And we all are very quiet about it. And then
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: right at the end, we dump a bunch of money,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: but that, so they don't get the stink, our stink
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: on them. So they don't know that they don't know
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: it's from us. And, and I, I say that it's like, okay,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: that can make sense in certain, in certain circumstances. And,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: and I agree with the argument that we cannot fix
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: what is broken with the Democratic brand in these places
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: between now and 2026, especially when a lot of what
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: is broken with the Democratic band is, yes, self-inflicted, but
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: some of it is just living in a world with
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: a massive right-wing propaganda apparatus that has been pumping people
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: with kind of inoculation against becoming a Democrat for a
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: very long time. So in that way, it makes sense,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: but it also, it all feels like it's treating people
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: like they're a little bit stupid because is what people
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: want a person who doesn't have a D next to
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: their name?
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: So, so, so yes, I think like, well, I think
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: that's like, I think probably yes, but also right. You know,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: there's a point that Tester makes that could a Democrat
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: who seems independent win, could an independent become tainted like
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: a Democrat? Absolutely. So I just, I think in the end,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: it's like, if we're going to have a chance in
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: some of these places, yes, we need independent minded people
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: who are able to have a brand that is distinct
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: from the tarnished national democratic party brand. Can that be
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: somebody running as an independent? Yes. Is it possible that
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: it's the right kind of person running as a Democrat? Absolutely.
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think to me, this is less about whether
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: some democratically aligned super PAC dumps a bunch of money
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: in at the end. It's less about the money and
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: more about the composition of the race, right? So if
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: you have a Democratic candidate running in Nebraska, which is
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: a very red state outside of Omaha, And then you
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: have a Republican candidate and then you have an independent candidate.
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: The independent candidate is the only one with a real
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: chance there, right? The Democratic candidate is probably not going
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: to win in Nebraska. And so do you want to
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: make sure that the Democrats are helping get it down
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: to a two person race between the independent and the
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: Republican by like saying, it's okay, we're not going to
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: feel Democratic candidate, or at least we're not going to
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: support that Democratic candidate because we think we have a
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: better bet with the independent candidate. Now, Everything depends on
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: who the person is, what their positions are, et cetera,
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: et cetera. But you talked about the Democratic brand. Like,
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: it is most damaged with the people who pay least
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: attention to politics. And so for the people who pay
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: least attention to politics but still vote, they are thinking
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: R next to the name. That must be a Trumpy person.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: D next to the name. They must be losers.
• 39:29
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: And there's this independent person running and maybe I'll take
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: a look at the independent person. And then who knows,
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: the independent person could have many democratic positions on many
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: issues and maybe have a few more conservative positions on
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: a couple issues, right? To win in that state or not,
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: who knows? But I mean, I like the idea. I
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: think who cares about the party label and the brand?
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: It's worked for Bernie Sanders for all these years. That's
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: why it's not an ideological thing either. You can have
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: a set of positions that doesn't necessarily put you on
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: the far left, on the center right. You could just
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: have a mix of positions and just run as an independent.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I agree. The thing I care about least
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: is like, well, they're not a Democrat and it's going
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: to rile the Democratic base, which I remember when uh,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: that was like one, one of Hillary's lines towards the end.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: It was like, well, he's not even a Democrat, you know?
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: And it's like, who gives a, I don't care about that.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: I really don't. I never did. I still don't. And,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: and so I, I don't care about that specifically.
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: I just, uh, being too cute by half.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's being too cute by half. And of course,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: if the, if the, it's also this kind of like, Hey,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: we're going to start talking about it, uh, a year
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: and a half before the election, or we start running
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: into trouble when all these candidates that you needed to
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: be independent start getting tagged as Democrats and kind of
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: running in disguise, right? It was like in the run-up
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: to the Osborne race.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: They're all going to have to run around with like
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: a big button on with a picture of Schumer's face
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: and a big red.
• 40:52
  Speaker 6: X through it.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: For sure, for sure. Hey, no bad ideas in a rainstorm.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: But I remember like in the Osborne thing, like everybody
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: was trying to be, you know, trying to make sure
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: they didn't, They didn't, like, make it seem like they
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: were too much behind it. Like, try not to talk
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: about it. Don't nationalize the race. And maybe that can work.
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: Don't go on Pod Save America.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Don't go on Pod Save America. Listen, a lot of
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: people are hearing that. And it seems to be something.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: And I don't know where that's coming from, but got
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: to nip that in the bud.
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: Wes Moore, Tim Walls, come on.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: Come on.
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: We love you guys.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, get on here.
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: Anyway, I think it's an interesting idea. I think it's
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: worth bringing up, and you're right, talking about it too
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: much is a lot, but I think that it speaks
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: to the deep problem with the Democratic brand that may
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: not just be about specific issue positions, but like the
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: totality of all the baggage and all the shit for
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: the last 10 years.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I do think like, you know, we should
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: probably be doing two things at once, which is one,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: figuring out how to elect independents who will caucus with
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Democrats in places where the Democratic brand is toxic.
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: But you can't say that. caucus with whoever they like.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: And caucuses with whoever they like, yeah. While at the
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: same time asking ourselves why it seems almost impossible to
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: elect a Democrat who has popular positions, even in states
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: that have expanded Medicaid, that have raised the minimum wage,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: that have voted to legalize weed, that have voted in
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: favor of unions, why the delta between Democratic policies and
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Democratic politicians is so vast. And where do we have
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: agency there? Where are we victims of the media there?
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: Where is it that there needs to be some kind
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: of that the leaders of our party to make some
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: kind of break with the past? What does that look like?
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: It's a big, hard question, but we should be doing that, too.
• 42:27
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: Quick check in on Trump's massive tax cut legislation. Going
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: to talk about it with Senator Schatz in a bit,
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: but thought we would get into it first. It's now
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: in the Senate's hands. John Thune is trying to cobble
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: together a version of the bill that can pass the
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: Senate where you can only lose three Republican votes. He's
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: already got Rand Paul and Ron Johnson threatening to tank
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: the bill over the fact that it'll add a few
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: trillion dollars to the deficit. And a group of other
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: senators who are worried about the fact that it'll cause
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: more than 10 million people to lose their health care coverage.
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: Most of the other Republicans in Congress are pretending neither
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: of those facts are true. Here's what Mike Johnson said
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: on Meet the Press over the weekend.
• 43:04
  Speaker 7: The Joint Committee on Taxation, the Committee for a Responsible
• 43:06
  Speaker 7: Federal Budget, the Tax Foundation, the Penn-Wharton budget model all
• 43:10
  Speaker 7: say this will add trillions of dollars to the deficit.
• 43:13
  Speaker 7: Are you really telling the American people this will not
• 43:16
  Speaker 7: add one penny to the debt and deficit? You can
• 43:19
  Speaker 7: guarantee that?
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: I am telling you this is going to reduce the deficit.
• 43:24
  Speaker 7: Do you only believe the CBO when a Democrat is president, Mr.
• 43:28
  Speaker 6: Speaker?
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: No, this is very easy to explain.
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: The CBO sometimes gets projections correct. But they're always off,
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: every single time, when they project economic growth.
• 43:39
  Speaker 7: If the bill becomes law, the top 10 percent of
• 43:41
  Speaker 7: households would see an increase in resources, but the bottom
• 43:45
  Speaker 7: 10 percent would see a decrease in resources.
• 43:49
  Speaker 6: Why are you.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Comfortable with that?
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: No, that's simply not— I' m not comfortable with that.
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: It is not true.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: It is true. It is true.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: It is true.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: It is true.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: So there's a big group of them. They're just lying
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: through it. And Trump's there, too. Trump, you know, he
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: was just posting today. No cuts to Medicaid. He's been
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: saying that. No cuts to Medicare, Social Security. Mike Johnson
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: did this with Welker, too, on Meet the Press. He
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: was like, absolutely, no Medicaid cuts. We're not cutting Medicaid.
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: It's just work requirements. But, of course, one of these
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: Republicans said, it's your choice if you want to have Medicaid.
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: Because if you're just trying to work, then you're fine.
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: Even though they have, you know, hundreds and hundreds of,
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: how much are they saving? A trillion? Anyway. even though
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: they're saving nearly a trillion dollars, $ 800 billion from Medicaid cuts.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: And by the way, only a portion of which would
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: come from work requirements, even if you take what they're
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: saying about work requirements at face value, which you cannot.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: That is, work requirements will hit a bunch of people
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: who will be hit only because the paperwork requirements will
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: be onerous and people will screw up and lose their
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: health care. That's their plan. That's such a bureaucratic plan.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: Then why, Speaker Johnson, does the bill include a multi-trillion
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: dollar debt ceiling increase that you also believe is essential
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: and has to be passed by August? Because it adds
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: to the debt. Why right now are Republicans debating internally
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: in the Senate how to get out some of these
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Medicaid cuts because you have members of the Senate Republican
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: caucus who have said they will not go along with
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: benefit cuts to Medicaid, which you have to figure out
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: how to get rid of because they are currently in
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: the bill.
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Senator Warnock, Raphael Warnock from Georgia, put it well.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: He was like, remember, these aren't work requirements in the bill.
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: These are work reporting requirements. And it's the reporting that
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: is going to kick people off because when you actually
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: get into it, these are like websites that go down
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: all the time. And suddenly you have to fill out
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: some paperwork. You have to drive to an office. And
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: it's just ridiculous. And, you know, again, they tried it
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: in Arkansas, 18,000 people who should have been eligible, most
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: of them working, almost all of them working, or with
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: a really good excuse why they're not, caregiving, et cetera. uh, disability,
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: lost their health insurance almost immediately. So it's just like,
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: it's designed to kick people.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: Yes. It's designed to be able to lose their healthcare.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: About 8% of the people, it would be ostensibly to
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: target 8% of people on Medicaid. It would hit, uh,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: members of the other 92%. That is the only way
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: to make sense of the money. The only reason to
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: do it, right? This is, it's again, like all these,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: all their logic always breaks down. Are tariffs meant to
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: do this? We're meant to do that. They're, they're, they're
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: at cross purposes. It can either raise money or it
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: can get manufacturing back. You can either, be using work
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: requirements to make Medicaid cheaper by making it cheaper for
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: the government to pay for tax cuts for the rich,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: which means people will lose their benefit. That's the only
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: way it makes sense. If it's saving money, it's because
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: people are losing their healthcare or it's not really a cut.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: There's just, it's in cross purposes.
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: Right, right. So, you know, lying about it seems to
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: be the most popular strategy. But then there was Joni Ernst.
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: And I know you and Dan talked about this a
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: little bit on Sunday's show. But she's at a town hall.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: One of her constituents asked her about the Medicaid cuts.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: And she basically says, well, she actually says, quote, we're
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: all going to die.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: Well, we're all going to die.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: We're all going to die. In the long run, we're
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: all dead.
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: Which was rightfully the front page of the Des Moines Register.
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: So someone probably told her to try to clean it
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: up a little bit. Didn't really clean it up. Here's
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: her video, not really apologizing for it. I.
• 47:26
  Speaker 6: made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes,
• 47:36
  Speaker 6: we are all going to perish from this earth. And
• 47:39
  Speaker 6: I'm really, really glad that I did not have to
• 47:42
  Speaker 6: bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: The tooth fairy joke? I... I don't even understand it.
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: I mean, I understand it, but it's really lame.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think she's saying, oh, are you all children?
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: You must also believe in it. You have not yet
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: come to understand the nature of life on Earth.
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: Because the objection with the comment was that she revealed
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: that we're all going to die. That was the objection,
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: not that she compared, oh, well, we're all going to
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: die to if losing your health insurance due to our
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: cuts maybe kills you. oh, whatever, we're all going to die.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: Right, the criticism, to put it plainly, was in saying, well,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: we're all going to die, you're being cavalier about people's
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: health care, something that they're really relying on, a lot
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: of constituents rely on. They're worried that you're lying about
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: this bill and supporting something that will actually hurt a
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: lot of people, including people who rely on life-saving medical
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: care through Medicaid, and that if you take that away,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: people might die prematurely because they can't access the medicine
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: that they need to live. And she said, well, we're
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: all going to die, which felt cavalier and glib, because
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: it was. But also.
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: Points for honesty.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: Of all these people lying on the Sunday shows, no cuts,
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: no cuts. She's just like, well, we're going to die.
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: Thank you for your honesty.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: And look, there's more savings there, right? Because there's Social
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: Security savings. Yeah.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: The death panels. They're finally coming around to the death panels.
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: We were trying to push that in Obamacare forever. They
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: made us take it out.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: They take all of our best ideas.
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: Let's jump back to the Hawks, to the Ron Johnsons
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: and the Rand Pauls. On Face the Nation this week,
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: Rand Paul said that, including him, there were at least
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: four Republicans in the Senate. who were willing to block
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: this bill. Meanwhile, I talk about this with shots, but
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: Politico is calling them the Medicaid moderates. We'll see how
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: long that lasts. But there's Markowski, Collins, also maybe Jim Justice,
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: also Jerry Moran from Kansas. I think there's someone else
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: in there. Anyway, So you get a bunch of people
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: who don't like the Medicaid cuts. Like you said, they're
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: cross purposes. Do you think this, this, this holds? So it's,
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: it's very, how does little Donnie T wriggle out of
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: this one? It's very, first of all, nobody knows right now.
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: Cause none of it makes here's, here's, here's the, the
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: challenge in, in figuring out what's going to happen for
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: anything to happen. Somebody right now, or many people right
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: now are lying. That's the only way.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: They're all lying. Well, it's more that what I'm saying
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: is what, what, in order for any bill to pass,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: a group of people have to be lying about the
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: thing that will cost them their vote.
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: And so what, what, what, uh, Rand Paul is saying
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: is I won't vote for this because it includes a
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: multi-trillion dollar increase in the debt limit. Okay. And then
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: you ask him, okay, well, what if they just took
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: that part out? And he's like, well, we should vote
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: on that separately. But if the bill is still as expensive,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: then it's basically the same as voting for the debt
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: limit increase because Democrats will vote for that anyway. So
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: It's really about the cost inside of the bill. Okay, fine.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: So you need something that raises the deficit less than
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: this bill, even though you must believe Mike Johnson is
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: lying because he's saying there's no deficit increase, but you
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: clearly recognize that there is. Okay, well, let's go over
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: to Holly and the Medicaid moderates. They're saying they want
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: to remove, basically, they're okay with work requirements. They've gotten
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: their heads around that, but they want to get rid of,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: which is only, by the way, it's not a majority
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: of the Medicaid savings in this bill. So they want
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: to get rid of a bunch of other stuff. There's
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: co-pays in there, other cost cuttings. other ways of shifting
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: the costs to the states. They want to get that
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: all out of there. What does that do? It makes
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: the bill cost even more, right? And what have we
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: heard from the House Republicans? They will not entertain anything
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: that doesn't fully extend the Trump tax cuts. So I
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: don't know. It's not resolvable based on what the public
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: argument currently is. It involves some group of people eating
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: a bunch of shit. Who are those people going to be?
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: Is there enough people to eat enough shit for whatever
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: comes out of the Senate to make it out of
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: the Senate and make it to the House? I don't know.
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: It's fascinating because House members, especially House Republicans, they're used
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: to eating shit. They enjoy the taste at this point.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. Just close your eyes and picture a steak.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: It's like a hook.
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: But the Senate is like, you know, is Rand Paul
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: really afraid of Donald Trump? Not as much. Maybe Ron Johnson. Although,
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: does Ron Johnson run again?
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: He might not run again, right? Like this might be
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: his last term. So it's interesting. And then Lisa Murkowski
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: and Susan Collins also don't really care about pissing off
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: They already have.
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: They already have. So that's like four right there, even
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: if all the other ones fall in line, which you
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: could imagine that happening. But again, to get like, it's
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: just hard to, unless they maybe like push the Medicaid
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: work requirements back, like imagine it like, oh, it doesn't
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: take place till 2029, 2030. So they, you know, they
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: get some of the Republicans to say they're going to
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: do it, but it really doesn't do it. But like
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: either way, what's really funny about this is the easiest
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: way to solve the math problem is to, I don't know,
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: you get a trillion dollars by not fucking extending the
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: tax cuts for people making over a million dollars, and
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: you'd get even more money by just raising taxes just
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: a little bit on people making over a million dollars.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: Well, that's inconceivable.
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: Think about all the ways that they could fix this
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: math problem and make sure that they have something that
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: is paid for, that reduces the deficit, and does some
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: cuts to government, maybe cuts that we wouldn't agree with,
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: And then also just raises revenue. There's there's a solution.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. All the way. But yeah. And by the way, also,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: what Rand Paul was mad about is that there's a
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: bunch of money for padding the military budget that he's
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: not in favor. It's a bunch of money for immigration.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: He's not in favor of like there is a yes,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: there is a path that they were willing to entertain
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: allowing some of the Trump tax cuts to expire. But
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: that's the project. That's why they're here. That's why all
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: of this. That's what led us all to this moment.
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: Wonderful moment. Can't wait.
• 53:23
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: When we get back from the break, you'll hear my
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: conversation with Senator Brian Schatz about how Senate Democrats are
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: planning to push back on that tax bill. But before
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: we do that, you all have two opportunities, two, to
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: see John Lovett in person this week.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: If you're in LA, you can come see our big
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: Pride show on Thursday, June 5th at Dynasty Typewriter. We've
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: got Adam Rippon, Clea Duvall, Joel Kimbooster, Brendan Scannell, Darby
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: Lynn Cartwright, Alexis Bevel, Sabrina Wu. So that's a really
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: big packed show. And then I'm red-eyeing right then. Wow.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: Then on June 6th, on Friday night, I'll be live
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: in DC with Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell from The
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Bulwark for Free Andre, a fundraiser at World Pride at
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: the Lincoln Theatre. We'll be raising money to help bring
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: Andre Hernandez Romero back to the U.S. after he was
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: denied due process. All proceeds will go to the Immigrant
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: Defenders Law Center, which is the organization fighting in court
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: on behalf of Andre and others like him. Before the show,
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Vote Save America is going to be doing a big
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: event with the Human Rights Campaign for a protest. We'll
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: be at the Supreme Court with a bunch of other
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: special guests. So come see us Thursday. Come to the
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: events Friday. You can RSVP for the protest and grab
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: tickets for both shows at crooked.com slash events.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: Red Eye. Red Eye, two shows. You might need one.
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: Are you going to get Elon's little pill bottle with
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: all the loose pills?
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: Hey, you know, you don't need a tech billionaire to
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• 56:03
  Speaker 3: Brian Schatz, welcome back.
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: Nice to be back. Happy birthday, John.
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Appreciate it. It's been too long
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: since we talked. This is great.
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, nice to see you.
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: Wanted to get your perspective on Trump's economic plan, which
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: hands a trillion dollars to the 1% of Americans who
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: make over a million dollars and cuts about a trillion
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: dollars in health care and food assistance for everyone else.
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: It's now the Senate's turn to try to pass this
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: shit sandwich. Republicans can only lose three of their senators.
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: I imagine the 47 Senate Democrats are already united in
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: opposition to this thing. What else can you guys do,
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: and how are you thinking about the strategy?
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: Well, this is outside in. Sometimes it's an inside baseball strategy,
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: but this has to be outside in. This has to
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: be that we generate enough public pressure to And as
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: we get closer and closer, people start to realize how
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: crappy this bill is. It's not sort of your run-of-the-mill
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: tax cut bill. This thing really throws at least 14
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: million people off of their health care. And then with
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: the loss of the Affordable Care Act subsidies, you're talking
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: about many, many millions more who are going to pay,
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: I mean, hundreds of dollars additionally per month as soon
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: as November because these rate cases have to be filed
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: by the end of July, in the middle of August.
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: for next year's rates. Even pretty soon, people are going
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars extra. Of course,
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: everybody knows that it cuts nutritional assistance, and for what?
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: Not for deficit reduction, not for other investments, nothing that
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: people actually are clamoring for. Even on the conservative side
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: of the aisle, nobody is asking for tax cuts other
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: than the people who are benefiting from them, who are
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: a pretty small percentage of people. But this is tax
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: cuts that will benefit primarily people who make $ 4 million
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: a year or more. And God bless them. I'm happy
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: for them to be successful. But they're actually not asking
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: for a tax cut. And that tax cut definitely should
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: not be funded by reductions in health care for regular people.
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: Politico has a piece about what they're calling the Medicaid moderates. Collins, Murkowski,
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: Josh Hawley, Jerry Moran, Jim Justice. All Republican senators who
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: they report aren't fans of the level of Medicaid cuts
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: in the House bill, if not some of the cuts.
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: How real do you think their opposition is?
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: Pretty real until it's not, right? I mean, I think
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: they genuinely don't want to enact this, but the question
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: is whether they will stand up for their constituents and
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: against Donald Trump. When he makes those phone calls and says, listen,
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: I need this from you, it's getting in the way
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: of our friendship, then very few people have demonstrated the
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: willingness to sort of stand up. But I think the
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: reason for optimism here is that this, two things. First
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: of all, this bill could not have been designed purposefully
• 58:58
  Speaker 4: to be more offensive to more people, right? I mean,
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: this is like, if you like got a bunch of
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: Democratic pollsters and said, I want you to go into
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: the lab and come up with the least popular piece
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: of legislation, this is pretty close to what it would resemble.
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: So this thing is not popular and we are on
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: the popular side of the most important issue that is
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: facing the country over the next month or two. That's
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: number one. Number two is we won a fight like
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: this in the first Trump term. We did not have
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: the votes. We had already lost the House and the
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: Senate and the presidency, and they thought they were going
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: to kind of mow us down. And it was started
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: with United Opposition and then to a huge grassroots movement,
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: which included people on the left, but also people on
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: the center and center right who care about rural hospitals,
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: who care about the health of our agricultural industry, who
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: care about nutritional assistance. You know, evangelicals are pissed off
• 59:52
  Speaker 4: about this. And so we do have a chance to
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: kill this bill We really do have a chance. All
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: we need is four senators or four House members to
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: kill this bill. Their math problem is really challenging because
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: you've got a bunch of people demanding that these cuts
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: get even steeper and even more ridiculous. And then you've
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: got a bunch of people who are demanding that they
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: get to be less severe. That math doesn't add up.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: And the only solution they have is to bullshit both
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: sides and then have Donald Trump essentially bully his way
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 4: into a bear majority. They have a chance. they hold
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: some decent cards, but I sort of like our chances too,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: because I just do see a mass movement. And it's
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: not just the people who care about the rule of law,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: although they're included. It's not just liberals, although they are included.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: It's also just regular folks who are like, I thought
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: I was voting for this dude to reduce the price
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: of stuff. And this guy is affirmatively going out of
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: his way to increase the price of energy, of food,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: of healthcare and everything you buy at the Walmart, the
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: Costco and the Target. And so I just think there
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 4: are some people, not all of them, a lot of
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: MAGA people who will do whatever he says, but there
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: are a lot of voters out there who did swing
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: in the direction of Trump because they thought he was
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: gonna make things cheaper for them. And this is like,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: it's such a turbocharged version of doing everything that he
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: promised not to do.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: So it seems like our eternal challenge in the Trump
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: era is to get attention and coverage of these kinds
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: of debates over cost of life issues, health care, taxes,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: anything that affects people's economic well-being, because they just don't
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: break through as easily. And especially in this term, when
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: Trump is doing so many things every day and taking
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: up so much attention with all of the very sort
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: of horrible things he's doing. You guys have ideas for
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: on how to help make sure this breaks through? And
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: then what can people who want to help make sure
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: it breaks through do? What's the best way for people
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: to get involved in this debate?
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: So I got one do and I got one don't.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: And both of those dos and don'ts apply both to
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: everybody out there in the world and Democratic elected officials.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: The first thing is we need to spend however long
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: it takes until this bill is either defeated or passed,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: talking about one thing and one thing only, which is
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: that they are going to increase the cost of everything. Healthcare, food, energy,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: consumer goods, in order to shovel big tax cuts to
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: the wealthiest Americans. And we need to talk about only this.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 4: That's the one thing that we need to do better on.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: And there are lots of outrages in this bill that
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: I could kind of delineate, but then we're off message.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 4: We need to talk about the thing that is maximally impactful,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: not the thing that you know, scratches my particular itch
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: about the bill, right? That's the first thing we need
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: to do is just talk about this bill. The second
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: thing we all need to stop doing is talking about ourselves,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: talking about the Democratic Party as some institution that if
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: we just get enough op-eds written or sub-stacks written or podcasts,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: all due respect, podcasts conducted or floor speeches or MSNBC hits,
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: if we just dial it exactly right, we're going to
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: unlock popularity. What we need to do is start being
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: the party of action and less navel-gazing. And even when
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: people act moderate or progressive, they like to talk about
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: themselves as if they are observing themselves. See, I'm a progressive,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: not like those moderates. See, I'm a moderate, not like those...
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: Who gives a shit? They're about to cut Medicaid. They're
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: about to increase the cost of energy and food and healthcare.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: We need to focus on one thing and one thing only,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: which is killing this bill, and we can do it.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, good luck.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: Look, you're right.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 6: You're right.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: And it's hard. I mean, but like, I'm a pundit.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: I talk about this shit all the time. I feel
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: like maybe it's our fault, too. But in the last
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: couple of years, especially the last year since the election,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: a lot of Democratic politicians, Pfeiffer calls this reading the
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: stage directions. There's a lot of like, here's what we're
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: supposed to be saying. And we're going to say this
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: more because we're told by the polls we're supposed to
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: say this. And it's like a lot of analysis as
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: opposed to just like, this is how I feel about this.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: And this is what it could mean for you. And
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: I'm going to try to go fight it.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: Well, and it's just, I'm now thinking out loud completely,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: but like, it's a little bit of a symptom of
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 4: the fandom in politics. Like politics is just like your
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 4: fantasy football team and you just kind of root for them,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: but it's not a participatory question. And then there's a
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: kind of aspect of it where even if you're on
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: the field, you're like Draymond Green, who's a basketball player
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 4: slash podcaster about basketball. And so I just feel like
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: we need to get out of our own damn heads,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: look at that bill, not think too carefully about it,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: call it a piece of shit and try to kill it.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: So we were talking earlier about the anti-Semitic attack in Colorado,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: which Trump and Stephen Miller are, of course, blaming on
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: Biden's immigration policies and using to justify their crackdown on
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: all immigrants. Miller tweeted, suicidal migration must be fully reversed.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: They seem to be getting... even more extreme on this issue,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: which doesn't seem possible, and the next day it's something worse.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: They're ignoring the courts, they're ignoring public opinion. In the
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: vein of, let's talk about what we can actually do,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: what else can be done here? I mean, how are
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: you guys thinking about this?
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: I think, well, let me just start with the anti-Semitic
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: attack from a day ago and the one in the
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: previous week. You know, as a Jewish American, as an American,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 4: this is terrifying stuff.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: And this is terrible stuff. And everybody left, right and
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 4: center needs to sort of have a complete sentence where
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: you're not pivoting from the question of antisemitism in America,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 4: which is a very real threat to whatever else it
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 4: is that you want to say, right? As a throat
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: clearing exercise before you say, and that's why something, something
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: pro-Israel or that's why something, something pro-Palestine Let's just acknowledge
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 4: that antisemitism is a vile, poisonous thing that appears to
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: be on the rise, and we now see it in
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 4: three dimensions. So I wanna just stop. Now, a new
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 4: paragraph regarding what Stephen Miller and the Trump administration are
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 4: doing is they are using it to justify immigration crackdowns
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: that have nothing to do with antisemitism, and of course,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: an assault on free speech and the rule of law
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: and higher learning Generally, but you know the challenges in
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 4: politics that you don't usually have enough time To say
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 4: both things without it sounding like you're just using one
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: thing in order to talk about the thing that you've
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: always wanted to talk about and I think whether you're
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 4: part of the kind of pro-palestinian peace movement or you're
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 4: more hawkish about Israel like we should all be able
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: to agree that anti-semitism has no place in public life
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 4: in the United States of America or anywhere and And
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: that anti-Semitism is never justified by disagreeing or agreeing with
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 4: the actions of Hamas or the PLO or the IDF
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: or the prime minister Netanyahu. And so I just feel
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: very strongly that we kind of have to take our
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: time on this and to try to find the maximum
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: number of people who can agree with some basic premises
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 4: about our shared humanity.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I totally agree. And, um, It seems as
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: though that Trump and Miller can't do that because they
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: are already using it to, they're already exploiting the issue
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: to carry out their deportations agenda.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 4: Well, you get the, I mean, you get the, I
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: got members who I like on the Republican side, I'll
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: talk to them about anti-Semitism and they immediately, I don't
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: want to say inexplicably, but like weirdly, like as an
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: interpersonal reaction, it's kind of weird because they'll immediately go to, hey,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 4: I'm one of the biggest supporters of Israel you've ever seen.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, uh, that's, No one says that to
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 4: a Chinese American, right? No one says that to a
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: Puerto Rican American. You just don't immediately pivot to the
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: sort of place of origin in such a way where
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: you are conflating support for the government of Israel with
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: opposition to anti-Semitism. It does get complicated because of motivations
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 4: and because of generations of history and and violence, but
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: I just feel like that has become a shield and
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: a sword on behalf of people who want to kind
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: of wield it against liberals, generally speaking.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: Do you guys have any other tools on, uh, the
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: deportation stuff? Just because I feel like, you know, they're
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: in open defiance basically of multiple courts, including the Supreme court.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: They are losing the public opinion war on this issue even.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: And it doesn't seem to matter, right? That like the
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: deportation forces are getting bigger they're they're taking high school
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: kids little kids people have been here for years and
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: years and years people have legal status and you know
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: i i scream about this all the time and everyone
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: raises awareness i know you do we all do but
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: i'm like are we just gonna is there nothing to
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: do but just wait and hope that democrats take back
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: congress and then we get Trump out of the White House?
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: And do we just have to endure a brutal immigration
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: deportation regime until then?
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think local governments can do some things.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 4: I think nonprofits can do some things to protect people
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: on the ground. Obviously, you don't want to get into
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: a kinetic situation with with law enforcement, but just physical
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: presence and observation can very much help to diffuse situations
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 4: and keep everybody safe. But you know, look, most of
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 4: the lawsuits, Trump I think has won 4% of his
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 4: lawsuits in the federal district and circuit and Supreme Court.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 4: So we are winning on that level. Compliance is, as
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 4: you've mentioned, spotty. But one of the things I promised
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 4: myself I would do in the second Trump term is
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 4: not bullshit someone that there's some magic button that is
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 4: available to us that we've just like not yet revealed
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: for lack of courage. I'm not sure what the legislative
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 4: branch can do. And I'm not sure that this will
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 4: change until our government changes. We can, like I said,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 4: work with nonprofit partners, work with litigation partners, of course
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 4: work in the legislative context, but there is no law
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 4: that we're going to pass to constrain these people in
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 4: the short run. Mike Johnson is in charge of the
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 4: House of Representatives.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah. How's your race for Democratic whip going? And why
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: do you want the job? It feels like it requires
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: dealing with some pretty big personalities and taking a lot
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: of shit for things that aren't necessarily your fault.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: For some reason, I like that. I mean, the state
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 4: senate president from Hawaii used to say 90% of politics
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 4: is social work. And so when you think about the caucus,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 4: you know, 47 of us, it's like case management. It's
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: sort of understanding the needs and the assets and the
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 4: aspirations of each person. And I just like that part
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 4: of politics. And I think it's especially interesting in a place, look,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: you can be pissed at Senate Democrats and as a collective,
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 4: but they are individually a bunch of very impressive people.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 4: And if I can help to kind of maximize the
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 4: use of everybody's talent geographically, you know, on the ideological
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 4: spectrum in terms of personal background and all the rest
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 4: of it. Like that sounds fun to me. And I
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 4: think I'm pretty good at it. So it's going reasonably well.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 4: I don't have anything news to report other than, you know,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: this is a job that I think fits my disposition
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 4: and personality and I'm hoping I can do it.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: What's your, what's your level of alarm right now? Now
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: that we're this many months into the Trump administration, you
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: seem like you seem determined and not too freaked out,
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 3: which I like, but I, I'm feeling a little I'm
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: feeling both frustrated, exhausted, and just sort of like, what,
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: what happens next? What do we do? We've been yelling
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: about this for over a hundred days now. And I don't,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: I don't know what, you know, well, I guess we
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: just have to wait for the midterms.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 4: I think it's a grind, right? Like, and I think
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 4: that people should not mistake my, you know, apparent, um, uh,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 4: calmness for, for being naive about the threat to the
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 4: United States itself. I think it is real. Um, My
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: sort of role model, this sounds ridiculous, but I'm just
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 4: talking disposition. This guy's an actual hero. But as I
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: watched him, I thought, oh, that's how you should conduct
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 4: yourself in a crisis. It is President Zelensky, because that
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 4: man does not look freaked out and has every reason
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: to be freaked out. Everything he cares about, everything he's
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 4: responsible for on a daily basis is in jeopardy. And
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 4: yet he understands that the best way to lead out
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: of that is to not have your hair on fire
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 4: and lose your cool. That doesn't mean you lose your
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 4: determination or have some lack of seriousness, but it does
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 4: mean that people like me have to be able to
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 4: communicate clearly, keep everybody else alert, alarmed, but still calm
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 4: enough to make strategic choices. And so that's the attitude
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 4: I take. It doesn't mean I don't have moments of, whoa, Um,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: I should, and you know, the times are very weighty
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 4: right now. Um, but so my level of alarm is
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 4: quite high. Um, but my level of determination is higher.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 3: Uh, last question. I'll let you go. You aren't posting
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: as much. I've noticed what's going on there.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: Uh, I didn't, I didn't even know that. So my,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 4: my like posting habits, like, you know, there's correlations between
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 4: how much I'm traveling, how much I'm exercising, how much I'm,
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 4: you know, surfing, how much I'm, you know, sleep patterns.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 4: So this was not some conscious political choice. This was
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 4: just like, I don't know.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you've, what's going on in my life.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: You're a fellow poster like me. And I was just,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: I'm like, what's your secret? I don't know if you suddenly,
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 3: you know, developed some healthier habits.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, no such luck.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, good.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 3: Just wanted to make sure. Senator Schatz, thank you as
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 3: always for joining and appreciate you coming on.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: Thank you. Happy birthday.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: All right, everyone. That's our show for today. Thanks, as always,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: to Brian Schatz for coming on. Dan and I will
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 3: be back with a new show on Friday. Bye, everyone.
• 1:14:13
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