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“Where is the line?” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Later in the pod, my interview with Federal Election Commission
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub about the crime of soliciting foreign interference
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: in our election. Topical. Topical. But first, we'll be talking
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: about all the latest developments and responses from Republicans and
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Democrats to what very well could be the biggest and
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: the dumbest political scandal in American history. A few housekeeping notes.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: We've got a new episode of Love It or Leave
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: It that dropped over the weekend, and it includes Adam Scott,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Nicole Byer, and a very Ken Burns-ish take on the
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Great Civil War that some Trump supporters have been warning
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: us about. That sounds fun. There's also a brand new
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: episode out today of America Dissected with Abdul El-Sayed. It's
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: all about the insane cost of prescription drugs in this
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: country and why the pharmaceutical companies get away with this shit.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Go listen. It is a fantastic episode. Please check out
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: this podcast if you haven't already. And finally... We talk
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: a lot about 2020 here, but there are also very
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: important elections in 2019, particularly in Virginia, where Democrats have
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: a very good chance of flipping the legislature, which would
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: mean progress on issues like gun control and the ability
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: to draw, to redraw gerrymandered congressional maps in 2021. So
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: if you haven't, please make a donation to Vote Save
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: America's Fuck Gerrymandering Fund at votesaveamerica.com slash gerry, G-E-R-R-Y, We
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: only need to flip two seats in each chamber in
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Virginia to put Democrats in charge. So this is one
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: of those funds where a little money is going to
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: go a long way because these are state legislature races.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: We have a few to flip. Elections in November, very,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: very big deal. So check it out. All right, Dan,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: it's all happening. Since we last spoke on Thursday, even
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: more evidence has emerged that the president directed a scheme
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: involving multiple government officials and who attempted to trade America's
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: financial and diplomatic support for a promise from the Ukrainian
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: government that they would launch politically motivated investigations into American
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: citizens with the purpose of helping Trump get re-elected. The
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: president and his personal lawyer have basically admitted that they
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: did this. It's been confirmed by the White House summary
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: of the call between Trump and the president of Ukraine.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: And now we have incriminating text messages between various Trump-appointed diplomats,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: as well as the emergence of at least one more
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: whistleblower who claims to have firsthand information about the Arms
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: for Investigation scandal. Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported on Sunday
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: night that a couple of Rudy's clients were bragging about
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: their connections to Rudy and Trump while, quote, trying to
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: install new management at the top of Ukraine's massive state
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: to companies controlled by Trump allies. Dan, I can only
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: imagine how hard this news hit the president, who, as
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: you know, has been a passionate foe of corruption his
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: entire life. But let's start with the news that Attorney
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Mark Zaid confirmed on Sunday that he's now representing multiple
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: whistleblowers and that the second whistleblower, who has not yet
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: filed a formal complaint, has firsthand knowledge of some of
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: the allegations. How big of a deal is this when
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: so much of what the original whistleblower told us has
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: already been confirmed?
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: I think the significance of these additional whistleblowers... has less
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: to do with the specific information we may or may
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: not get about this Ukraine scandal, but it does say
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: that Trump's strategy to intimidate whistleblowers writ large is failing.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Because ultimately, all of that, you know, we've had this
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: question in our head about how, like, Trump keeps attacking
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: this whistleblower, even though the whistleblower, what the whistleblower said
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: is now basically overtaken by events, right? Where we already
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: have this call transcript, we have Trump's repeated confessions to
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: said crimes on camera, on national television. And so why
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: do we care? But the main thing that Trump is
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: doing is he's trying to intimidate additional whistleblowers, saying, if
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: you come out, I will come after you. And at
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: least for this group that we're hearing about now, that
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: has not worked. And I think that is the moral
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: marming concerned if you're Trump.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it also undermines the completely absurd defense and attack
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: by Trump about how, you know, the whistleblowers are, you know,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: partisan deep state plants who don't have firsthand information and
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: they're in cahoots with Adam Schiff and all the rest
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: of the deep state gang to try to take down Trump.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: The more that come forward and the more that have
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: firsthand information and the more that this information is all
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: corroborated by all of the other evidence we have, it
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: does feel like that lessens the effectiveness of the already
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: ridiculous attack. But I don't know. What do you think?
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he's going to be yelling about the deep
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: state till the very end.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he will.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: The question is, is that going to matter for anyone
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: other than his supporters who want some sort of permission
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: structure to back crime?
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: They need a pro-crime permission structure. They're just waiting for it.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: And the deep state's their best target. Yeah, no, I mean,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: I'm sure... We're going to have more Glenn Beck chalkboards
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: and fucking all the rest of the conspiracies on the
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: right about all of this, depending on who the whistleblowers
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: are or where they work. But it doesn't seem like
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: that's going to really hold water with almost anyone else.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's the hope. That's the hope.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: That's the test for democracy, I guess.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Well, it's a test for democracy. It's a test for voters.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: It's also the test for media, by the way, because
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: reporters in the past have had a tendency to jump
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: on any kind of whiff of partisanship on behalf of
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: some of these whistleblowers. If it turns out that one
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: of the whistleblowers were somehow in the Obama administration or
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: even in the Bush administration now, everything seems now to
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: be fodder for Trump saying, these people are just out
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: to get me. It's not on the level, which is
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: itself a bit ironic.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, it does, just for a sec, speak to
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: a little bit of the Watergate creditization of a certain
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: generation of reporters, which is Like there's all like secret
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: sources are supposed to be the way in which presidents
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: come down. But we don't need a secret source here
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: because we have the White House releasing the smoking gun.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: We have the knuckleheads texting about it and we have
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: the president admitting to crimes on television. So like I'm
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: for everyone blowing the whistle, all the all blowers whistle
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: or something. But it doesn't really it's like the obsession
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: with the secret source is less relevant when the president
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: admits to the crimes publicly.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and, you know, Lovett said this during one of
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: our live shows before, but Donald Trump is deep throat here,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: so don't have to worry about that. All right, Dan,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: so early last week you tweeted, the perfect call is
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: actually a text. Turns out you were even more right
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: than you thought at the time. On Thursday evening, the
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: House Intelligence Committee released a series of texts provided during
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: 10 hours of testimony by Kurt Volker, Trump's former special
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: envoy to Ukraine. The messages between Volker, U.S. Ambassador to
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: the EU to the European Union Gordon Sondland, and interim U.S.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor, are fairly cut and dry.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Here's Volker texting President Zelensky's top aide, quote, Heard from
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: White House. Assuming President Xi convinced Trump he will investigate, slash,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: in quotations, get to the bottom of what happened in 2016,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: we will nail down date for visit to Washington. Here's
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Sondland to Volker, quote, I think POTUS really wants the deliverable.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: And here's where it gets good. Here's Bill Taylor to Sondland. Quote,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Are we now saying that security assistance and White House
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: meeting are conditioned on investigations? And then Sondland's response, Call me.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Taylor the next day after that call. Quote, As I
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: said on the phone, I think it's crazy to withhold
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: security assistance for help with a political campaign. And here's Sondland, quote,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: the president has been clear, no quid pro quos of
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: any kind. And then I suggest we stop the back
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: and forth by text. And then he suggests another phone call. Dan,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: I don't have a legal or law enforcement background, but
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: it smells a little fishy to me. What do you think?
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, to quote the great American television character Stringer Bell,
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: don't take notes on a motherfucking criminal conspiracy because that
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: is what is happening here. I mean, we are dealing
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: with the dumbest criminals. And Bill Taylor is not dumb
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: because he knows exactly what he was doing, which was
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: he was basically luring them into admitting to their crimes
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: in writing just so everyone was clear. It was sort
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: of like, yes, let me put the drugs in this
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: bag in case anyone is listening to the wire, and
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: then I'm going to hand you this bag with drugs,
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: and you're going to hand me an envelope with money.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Can you confirm just a little louder that the drugs
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: in this bag, it's heroin in the bag. Can you
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: just repeat that for me? Just say it closer to
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: my chest.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Tommy has made this point several times on Twitter and
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: to us, which is, you don't have to text call me.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: You can just call.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: I know, it's pretty bad. So, I mean, what possible
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: reason does Ambassador Sondland have to be involved in as
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: such a passionate loyalist to Donald Trump? Who is this guy?
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: What's his deal? Why does he seem to be the
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: one who's trying to protect Donald Trump here?
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: He is a rich guy who was originally for Trump,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: and then he walked away from Trump. over one of
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: the many horrible things Trump did. But then when Trump won,
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: he bought his way back in with about a million
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: dollars in donations. And he got the job of ambassador
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: to the European Union, which is very strange to give
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: that very important position to a donor, right?
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: American ambassadorships are not great, but there's usually generally a
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: set that go to donors, and then there's a set
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: that go to career foreign policy professionals. And the EU
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: is usually handled by a career foreign policy professional. And
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: it's also notable that Trump sent this guy with no
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: relevant experience, given that he has been screaming about his
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: support for Brexit for several years now. So the whole
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: thing is very awkward. It's also noting that Ukraine is
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: not a member of the EU and therefore someone should
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: really have no authority over this. But he appointed himself
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: to this position. And when anyone in the State Department
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: asked why, he said, talk to the president.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Right. So he is a Trump henchman, essentially. And it's
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: important to know who these people are to give the
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: text some context. Right. So Sondland is a Republican mega donor,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: owned a hotel chain, donated a couple million to the
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: inaugural to Trump's inaugural through a shell company. and then
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: was rewarded to be a EU ambassador, which, as you
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: pointed out, Ukraine's not in the EU, like probably shouldn't
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: be handling the Ukraine portfolio here. Bill Taylor was a
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: former ambassador to Ukraine. He was he worked as a
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: more of a career diplomat in the Bush administration, the
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Obama administration, and now for Trump. sort of reluctantly took
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: this job after Trump and Rudy had the current Ukraine ambassador, U.S.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: ambassador to Ukraine fired before she was supposed to come home.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: So Bill Taylor gets there. He's sort of like a
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: longtime diplomat in both kinds of Republican and Democratic administrations
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: and is now like pretty horrified that they're all trying
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: to commit these crimes and tries to say so in
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: text and it's pretty clear that Sondland is trying to
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: protect Trump from all this by saying, Oh, Mr. Trump
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: said no quid pro quos. I'm supposed to say that
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: right here in the text. I mean, how do you,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: how do you think this adds these texts add to
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: the already pretty airtight case for impeachment here?
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Well, like the line or the line keeps moving on
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: the Republicans. All right. So first when we heard reports
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: of the call, the idea was, well, As long as
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: he didn't explicitly ask for a favor, then it's fine.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: And then Trump asked for a favor. And then the
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: next line is, well, Trump did not explicitly tie Ukraine
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: military aid to these investigations. And so that was the
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: new line in which Republicans are like, Trump cannot cross
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: that line or he's in trouble. And then these texts
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: come out and make it just vividly clear that the
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: exact play here was if Ukraine wanted U.S. military aid,
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: which it needs, then it was going to have to
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: do the things that Trump wanted. And so we now
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: like it every time the Republicans say, yeah, it's fine,
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: except unless this happens, that this happens. And the texts
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: are rock solid proof that this was a quid pro
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: quo for U.S. military aid. Yeah.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: How much does it matter that Sondland claimed in the
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: text that there was no quid pro quo? And now
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Republicans on the Intel Committee, no surprise, are saying that
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Volcker claimed the same thing during his testimony, that there
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: was no I was not aware of any quid pro
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: quo at all. How much how much do you think
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: this matters?
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Well, it's going to matter in the same way the
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: deep state conspiracy matters for some, which is if you're
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: looking for a way to stick with Trump, then this
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: gives you a piece of evidence. Even if all of
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: the other evidence completely runs counter to it, they're just
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: going to hang their hat on this very thin read
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: of this specific line in this text. But everything else,
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: the full pattern of behavior is very clear that there
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: is an explicit quid pro quo here involving Trump. U.S.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: military aid in a meeting with President Trump in exchange
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: for Trump's doing Trump's political bidding regards to the 2016
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: election and the 2020 election.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: And there is also one more piece of evidence that
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: emerged over the last several days from new dumbest senator alive,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Ron Johnson, who we're going to talk about later. But
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Johnson basically says that Sondland came to him said that
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: there was some kind of a quid pro quo around
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: military insistence for investigations. Johnson then goes to Trump and
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: is like, what is this about a quid pro quo?
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: And Trump's like, no, I would never do that. Are
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: you serious? Are you kidding? Absolutely not. So it goes
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: to show that Sondland, who was saying there was no
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: quid pro quo in the text messages to Volcker, really
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: believed that there was but was trying to cover it
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: up and so was trump which goes to show that
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: like there wasn't there was a moment at the beginning
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: of the scandal where i was like i wonder if
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: these people are so brazen and so fucking ethically morally
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: bankrupt that they just don't know what that what they're
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: doing is a crime or that it's a severe abuse
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: of power at the very least um But it's clear
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: that they did. It's clear from these texts and from
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: reporting about Trump that they absolutely didn't know that this
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: was wrong and that they were actively trying to cover
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: it up. Right.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Right. I mean, it's very clear what was happening here.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: It is not a mystery to anyone. And all the
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: other depositions and the subpoena documents, everything are going to
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: fill out the picture. But we know what happened. It
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: is very clear. And the question is, what is Congress
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: going to do about it? And I say that Congress specifically,
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: not just Democrats, but will there be any accountability for
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: a very clear scheme to leverage U.S. foreign policy to
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: help the political campaign of the incumbent president of the
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: United States?
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Dan, finally, one more question before we move on to
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the Republican response. Do you believe, like Donald Trump reportedly does,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: that former dancing with the stars contestant slash current energy
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: secretary Rick Perry is in fact the mastermind behind this
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: whole sordid scheme.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was Rick Perry
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: convincing us that he is a moron when he was
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: pulling all the strings.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: The whole time. The whole time.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: It's basically Rick Perry as Kaiser Soze is not a
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: story that people are going to believe.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Well, so, and what we're referring to, in case you've
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: missed this, is Axios reported that on a call with
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: House Republicans, Trump said something along the lines of, quote,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: not a lot of people know this, but I didn't
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: even want to make the call. The only reason I
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: made the call was because Rick asked me to. Something
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: about an LNG, liquefied natural gas, plant. So, I mean,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: it's sort of funny that he's blaming Rick Perry, but
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: there is also another way that Perry is involved here.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: You know, I mentioned at the top of the show,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: the AP story, that A couple of Rudy's clients were
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: trying to use their connections to Trump and Rudy to
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: push for favorable treatment from the state-run natural gas company
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: in Ukraine. It turns out that Rick Perry was also
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: trying to fire the whole board of this natural gas
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: company that is, again, run by the state of Ukraine
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: and replace it with at least two Republican donors from Texas. Now,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Perry claims this was because, you know, this natural gas
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: company wasn't as open to Western business interests as it
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: should be. And yet, usually when you try to push
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: for the removal of a whole bunch of people on
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: a state-run natural gas board in Ukraine, you need the
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: approval of, I don't know, the IMF, the World Bank,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: the international community. It's not just the U.S. coming in
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: like a bunch of fucking gangsters. and saying, hey, please
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: replace these people on the board with a couple of
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: our fucking donors.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: I guess we should have seen this part of it coming.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: Not the Rick Perry mastermind part, but ultimately at the
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: heart of every Trump scandal that we deal with is
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: someone trying to get rich, right? It is never about
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: politics or policy. It's always about profits. And so in
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: the core of this, there's the D.C. conspiracy. There's the
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: trying to take down Joe Biden. But ultimately, it's about
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: a bunch of people close to Trump trying to get
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: rich off what's happening in America.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And these two Rudy clients, they've met with Trump before.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: They've been at Mar-a-Lago. They actually helped. They were in
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: conversation with the Ukrainians about investigating Joe Biden. And then
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: these same people Go back to the Ukrainians about the
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: board of the natural gas company. And they say, you know, look,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: we're close with Trump and Rudy. And obviously, you know,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Ukraine wants a better relationship with the United States. And
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: the board is run by the government of Ukraine. So, look,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: you know, it's pretty beneficial for everyone to do business
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: with us. I mean, that is how they are using
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: their connections and Trump and Giuliani. Like, all of this
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: is so fucking corrupt. And the audacity... of them to
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: be doing this side hustle while their whole point, supposedly,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: is to clean up fucking corruption in Ukraine and to
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: accuse the Bidens of corruption while Rudy and his clients
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: and his Trump buddies are running a side hustle the
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: whole time? It's not great.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: It's not great. This element of the scandal, I think,
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: speaks to the need for a broad... impeachment inquiry because
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: if we think this is the only time that a
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: bunch of Trump cronies are prostituting the American policy process
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: in order to make money, that's insane, right? Like that
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: is obvious that we just stumbled on this grift through
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: some other corruption scandal. So there is grift happening everywhere
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: and we should be looking for it. And I don't
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: think we should short circuit this before we at least
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: do some due diligence to see where else this is happening.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Because the intersection, you have lobbyists running federal agencies, you
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: have donors with full access, you have Trump greenlining said corruption.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: And so I think an important part, if we're going
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: to use the impeachment process to tell a story about Trump,
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: this is an important part of the story and it's
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: bigger than Ukraine.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Also, if the argument for impeachment is that this is
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: a serious abuse of power, And then it's not the
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: first time he has abused his power. It's not some
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: one off incident that was an accident or whatever else.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: I think it is important to build a case that
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Trump has been abusing the power of the presidency over
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: and over for personal, political and financial gain. That's it.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: That's the story of Donald Trump's presidency. That's the story
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: of his campaign. It's the story of his whole fucking life.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: But I think that's going to be the ultimate frame.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: for Democrats, and, you know, we have all this evidence.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: This is all the Ukraine scandal, but like you said,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: there's probably a ton of other scandals under every single
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: government agency there is. So let's talk about the Republican
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: response to the scandal, which has been decidedly mixed. Here's
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: an outstanding lead from the Washington Post. Quote, their allegiance
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: to a president who has held them captive. Across the country,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: most Republican lawmakers have responded to questions about Trump's conduct
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: with varying degrees of silence, shrugged shoulders, or pain defenses.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: So I'd say one of the most pain defenses came
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: from Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, who's up in 2020, when
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: one of her constituents confronted her during a town hall.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: And I think we have a clip here of the question,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: and then we'll get to Senator Ernst's answer. We have him.
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: Going after Ukraine. Oh, well, if you want weapons to
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: protect from my buddy in Russia, then you're going to
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: have to do what I want you to do and
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: investigate Joe Biden. Now, this morning we have him going, oh, well,
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: we should, you know, he's going to be in the
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: White House here in the next couple of weeks. And yet,
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: you know, we're going to have, you know, he should
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: investigate Joe Biden, too, because I'm sure there was some
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: other stuff over there. And then we get conspiracy theories
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: and we get lies. And then we get everything else
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: except for what we really need to know and what
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: we really need him to do. And it just, where
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: is the line? When are you guys going to say
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: enough and stand up and say, you know what? I'm
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: not backing any of this.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: And then we have Joni Ernst trying to answer this. Okay.
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: So President Trump, if.
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: I can say yay, nay, whatever the president is going
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: to say, what the president is going to do. It's
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: up to us as members of Congress to continue working
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: with our allies, making sure that we remain strong in
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: the face of adversity. I mean, that's what we have
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: to do is continue to encourage those other countries. So
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: that's what we will continue to do.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Nailed it. Nailed it, Joni Ernst.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: We can say yay, nay, whatever.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: What was that? That was awful. Now, I mean, I
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: have to give such credit to that questioner who is
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: a constituent of Joni Ernst. She is an Iowan. And,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: you know, I think she put people's frustrations and also
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: why Donald Trump's actions are so deeply disturbing and rise
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: to the level of impeachment. And, you know, she articulated
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: it probably better than anyone I've heard. And just asking
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: the question, where is the line? Where is the line? And...
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: you know, Joni Ernst could not answer. Do you think, Dan,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: this is why no one from the White House or
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: the Republican leadership was willing to go on any of
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: the Sunday shows this weekend? Why are so many of
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: them afraid to say anything about this?
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: It is actually notable that no one did it because
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: really the fastest way to Trump's heart is to be
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: willing to absolutely embarrass yourself on TV in his defense.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: And it says a lot that no one was willing
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: to step up to that task. And there is nothing
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: to say. It isn't like, The president committed a crime.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: He confessed to the crime. He is threatening whistleblowers. He's
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: doubling down on the crimes. Oh, you want to impeach
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: me for pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden? Well... In
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: for a penny, in for a pound. I'm going to
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: ask China to do it, too. And so I don't
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: know what like there is nothing to say. You know,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: in one of these stories, it says no one wants
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: to be Kevin McCarthy, which is it should be basically
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: everyone's pinned tweet. But like there is no there is
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: not there is no answer you can say that is
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: not embarrassing because the position of defending and enabling this
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: crime and corruption is embarrassing. And most Republicans know that.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Did you see this morning, Dan, that Kevin McCarthy Kevin
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: McCarthy'd himself again? He was he was on Fox and
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Friends and they asked him about the president calling on
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: China to investigate Joe Biden. And and he was like,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: he didn't say that. Just like I like that Kevin
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: McCarthy has just gone to a place where like he's
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: basically telling us things we see with our eyes and
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: hear with our ears just are not true. Kevin McCarthy
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: is going to pretend everything. That none of this shit
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: is happening. It is like a step beyond the usual, oh,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I haven't, Paul Ryan, his predecessor, used to do the old, oh,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: I haven't read the tweets this morning. I haven't read
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: the transcript. I didn't see the president's answer to that.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: I don't pay attention to all the stuff, which of
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: course was a lie. but at least it was a
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: comforting lie. We knew that Paul Ryan was lying and
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: we all moved on. Kevin McCarthy's, he's going an extra step.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy's like, uh, you know what? That's just not true.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: And they were like, well, here's the transcript, sir. And
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: he says it right here. He said the word though,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: do us a favor though.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Nope.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Nope. I didn't see that. I didn't see that. I mean,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: does he think that's going to work?
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: I think Kevin McCarthy is, I think he missed, I'm
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: sure when Paul Ryan left the Republican leadership, he, left
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: a note for kevin mccarthy in the desk and one
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: of those things probably was the best way to deal
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: with trump is to tell the press you don't read
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: the news but as you point out paul ryan read
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: the news and said that i think kevin mccarthy took
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: paul ryan too literally and just does it does not
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: read the news he has no idea what is.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Happening someone get kevin mccarthy a fucking newspaper.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: Um find him up for what a day fast.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: So speaking of Paul Ryan, his former communications aide, Brendan Buck,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: had an interesting quote in one of these stories where
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: he said, they are working with a president with no
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: tolerance for anyone to criticize him, they being the Republicans.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: They're getting stuck wrapped around the axle of whether what
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: the president did was wrong or whether he even did
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: it in the first place. So, you know, I wanted
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: to ask you about this. Do we think that, I mean,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: I think that Brendan has a point, right, that some
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: of these Republicans are just terrified of speaking out because,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: and we'll talk about Mitt Romney in a second, that
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the president will just unload on them, right? He'll tweet
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: about them. He'll attack them. All the right-wing radio hosts
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: will attack them. Everyone on Fox will attack them. They'll
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: get a primary challenge. So fear drives a lot of this.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: But then, you know, this morning, you know, we haven't
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: talked about this, but late last night, the president basically
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: decided that, uh, US troops are going to, uh, immediately
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: pull out of, uh, Northern Syria and that, uh, and
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: he's going to basically allow, um, uh, the Turks to
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: invade Northern Syria and, uh, the Turks want to sort
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: of go after the Kurds who have been our allies, uh,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: in this fight. And so basically all these Kurdish fighters
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: who have been our allies are going to be just
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: left to the mercy of, um, you know, the invading
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Turkish army here. And, you know, Trump said, fuck you,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: I don't care. I'm just going to abandon our allies here.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: And this morning, all of these, a ton of Republicans
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: have spoken out against Trump's move here. Why is he
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: abandoning our allies? This is part of our national security.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: This is horrible for him to do. He has to reassess.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: So none of these Republicans were too scared of speaking
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: out against Trump this morning when it came to Syria
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: and Turkey. So what do we think is driving their
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: reluctance on this scandal, the Ukraine scandal?
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: I do. Before we get to that, you mentioned Paul
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Ryan's aide, Brendan Bach. He's been quoted in all of
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: these stories about Republicans. I just think it's so funny
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: that Paul Ryan's top advisor has become the spokesperson for
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Republican cowardice.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Poor Brendan. Yeah. Yeah, it's thanks. Thanks for. Well, thanks
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: for speaking up now, at least.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess. But it's not so funny.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is like the one way in which Republican.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Like pre-Trump orthodoxy has remained is on. foreign policy, right?
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: This was the first thing the Republicans did together when
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: Trump was elected, was working with Democrats to pass Russian
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: sanctions because they were afraid that Trump would unilaterally get
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: rid of them. They have pushed back on other things
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: Trump has done. And so this is, like, as the
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: party gets splintered into never-Trumpers, MAGA folks, supply-siders, anti-trade populists,
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: the one thing that's still tied most of them together,
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: at least in the confines of Washington, is neoconservative foreign policy.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: And so it's sort of like they get to all
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: go back to the same cocktail parties they used to
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: go to before Trump was elected.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess, but the Ukraine scandal is also
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: a scandal about foreign policy. Like, I find it completely insane.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: That the Republican Party, right, which is the party that
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: has told, you know, feared Russian aggression for so long
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: and is supposed to be the tough party. Right. And
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: and now under Donald Trump is supposed to be the
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: nationalist party. Right. The people are sovereign and we're all
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: about nationalism and U.S. borders are super important, blah, blah, blah.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: This is the party that now says it's OK. For
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: the President of the United States, this is also, by
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: the way, the party of civil libertarians, right? We protect
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: you from federal government overreach. That's the Republican Party for
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: a long, long time. But when the President of the
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: United States decides to go to a foreign government, foreign governments,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: including authoritarian foreign governments in China, and says, hey, why
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: don't you go investigate American citizens to help me out?
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: And to basically then jeopardize our national security and our
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: foreign policy in To say, okay, we will only provide U.S. military, financial,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: and diplomatic support to your country that is facing Russian
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: aggression if, if you give me the investigations I need
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: to get myself re-elected. Somehow, the nationalist party, the tough party,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: the Republican party is totally fine with this. No big
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: deal whatsoever. Federal government, the federal government asking foreign governments
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: to investigate the lives of American citizens? No problem. Super conservative.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: It's like, it is unbelievable. One prominent Republican who did
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: speak out against Trump's abuse of power is the party's
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: 2012 presidential nominee, Utah Senator Mitt Romney, who said that, quote,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: the president's brazen and unprecedented appeal to China and to
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is wrong and appalling. For that,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Trump called him a pompous ass who deserves to be impeached,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: which senators cannot be. Dan, aside from Romney, Susan Collins
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: said Trump's call was inappropriate and a big mistake. Ben
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Sasse criticized Trump asking China's authoritarian government to investigate an
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: American citizen, so I guess that's nice. How much do
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: these statements matter? How positive of a sign should we
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: take them to be?
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: I don't want to give people credit for doing the
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: bare fucking minimum. I mean, like, the amount of But
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: people were on Twitter were carving Mitt Romney into Mount
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Rushmore for sending one tweet. If he votes to convict Trump,
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: then he gets full credit. If he used his power
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: in any way to push for accountability on Trump, then
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: I would give him credit. If he were to partner
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: with a Democrat on legislation that would, you know, curb
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: some of Trump's powers or you know, co-sign a subpoena
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: in the Senate to ensure that we have some oversight
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: and give him some credit. But it just is not
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: true that the only power the founders granted to a
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: co-equal branch of government is sad tweets. Like, it's just... Like,
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: I'm glad he did it. Like, he should... Like, we should...
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: It's better than not doing it, but let's actually do something.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: You should not get a huge amount of credit for
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: saying the obvious truth.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess... My view on this is
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: it is not super useful to sit around and debating
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: whether we give someone credit or not, or whether, you know,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: their statement about Trump is a sign that they're going
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: to convict or not. Like we can sit around all
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: day debating this and predicting. To me, Mitt Romney's statement,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: forget about how we think about Mitt Romney. It is
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: a politically useful statement. Because as we are trying to
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: build a case against Donald Trump, not just for a
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: potential Senate trial, but for the most important trial, which
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: is the 2020 election, we are trying to show that
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: not only has what he done pissed off Democrats because
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: we're just partisans, but that there are enough Republicans, conservatives,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: never Trump Republicans, wherever they may be out there, who
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: find this behavior appalling because there are going to be
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: some voters who think to themselves, OK, well, it's not
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: just the Democrats criticizing Donald Trump. I am also noticing
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: some of these Republican senators that I know or Republican
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: pundits that I see on TV also criticizing Donald Trump.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: So maybe this one's worse than the other ones. Right.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Like I find the statement useful and I find it
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: like we should take Mitt Romney's statement right now. put
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: it in a bunch of ads, run them in Maine
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: and Colorado and Arizona and all the places where Republican
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: senators are vulnerable and up in 2020 and say the
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: party's 2012 nominee thinks that what Donald Trump did is appalling.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: What does your senator have to say about it? Where
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: is your senator stand instead of just hiding? And so
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: I think Mitt Romney's statement is useful and that we
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: can use it to pressure some of the other vulnerable
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Senate Republicans. Where it might lead, what Mitt Romney might do,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: we have no fucking idea. But I think, you know,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: what we should do is welcome it and then use
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: it to pressure these other Republicans.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: Okay, you've convinced me. I allowed my never-ending hatred of
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: Mitt Romney to cloud my judgment here.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know me. I mean, during the 2012 campaign,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: I was always the big Romney defender. Loved the guy.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you were the one who, you were like, this
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Bain stuff seems off-limits.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Look, we strap Leo on the roof of the car
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: all the time, you know? That's a throwback. I'm wondering
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: who gets that.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: To your point, in addition to using it to pressure
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Senate candidates, we should also use it in the impeachment
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: ads that exist only in our brains to target Romney-Clinton
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: voters in core battleground states, because that is a group
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: that's going to be very hard to to hold on
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: to and where trump has a chance of making inroads
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: to nullify the gains democrats may make with some other
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: groups and so like having mitt romney say that what
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: trump did is terrible and showing people who pulled the
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: lever for mitt romney about too many years ago could
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: seem like a good use of money we don't have
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: and can't seem to find yeah.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: And i will say that after uh complaining about this
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: for like the last several days i noticed that you
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: know um bill crystal's group is running some ads right now.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: These are a bunch of never Trump Republicans who are
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: running a few ads about impeachment. And then I saw
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: a report that Tom Steyer's group is going to put
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: a couple million dollars into ads in battleground states about
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: impeachment as well, which is a positive sign. There could
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: be a lot more of that. We could be doing
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: all this a lot faster. People should be producing like
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: digital ads, even if there's not a huge buy behind them,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: just so you know, The media covers it, but like
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: there should be a lot more creativity around the ads
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: here and they should be a lot faster than they are.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: But it's good to at least see a couple of
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: groups are starting to play here.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Kudos to Tom Steyer, but it is sad that Bill
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Kristol is the one coming to our rescue.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. So another defense of Trump is that
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: he was just joking about asking Ukraine and China to
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: investigate American citizens. This was the brainchild of Marco Rubio.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: who before losing to Donald Trump suggested that he has
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: a small penis and shouldn't be trusted with the nuclear codes. Dan,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: what do you think? Is the Donald Trump's just joking
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: excuse that was the brainchild of Rubio, but also repeated
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: by Jim Jordan, I think Senator Roy Blunt from Missouri,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: a couple other Republicans, just joking, just trolling us? Is
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: that going to work?
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, that had like a 2% chance of working.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: If it had not been reported mere hours after Trump
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: said this, the by CNN that Trump did actually do
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: it and that there was a call transcript on the
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: secret White House server that contained the information. So, no,
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: I do not think that's going to work.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the best part is Rubio says this about China
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: that it was just a joke, and then the very
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: next day, which always happens, Trump tweets, look, I do
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: think that China should engage in investigations. You know, I
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: don't think it's politics. It's just corruption. So he wasn't joking.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: He fucking told us he wasn't joking. You dipshit. God,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: I hate Marco Rubio.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: He sucks.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: He sucks. He sucks. Finally, we have the Ron Johnson defense,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: which is to go on television and repeat all the
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: memes that your crazy uncle posts on Facebook. Here is
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: the exchange between the Wisconsin Republican and Meet the Press
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: host Chuck Todd.
• 38:38
  Speaker 6: That is why Trump is so upset. He had this
• 38:41
  Speaker 6: false narrative about that resulted in him being set up
• 38:45
  Speaker 6: by James Comey on January 16th, then he has a
• 38:48
  Speaker 6: senator council appointed, that has hampered his entire administration, and
• 38:55
  Speaker 6: now once he's been, that was proven false, he would
• 38:59
  Speaker 6: like to know, and I would like to know, and
• 39:01
  Speaker 6: I know his supporters would like to know, Where did
• 39:03
  Speaker 6: this all come from?
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: Who planted that false story?
• 39:06
  Speaker 6: Who leaked? You know, I have my third letter in
• 39:10
  Speaker 6: to the Inspector General of the Intelligence Committee asking to
• 39:12
  Speaker 6: just confirm, just confirm, are you investigating those leaks that Peter.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: Strzok talked about?
• 39:18
  Speaker 7: All right, Senator, I have no idea why.
• 39:20
  Speaker 6: No, that's a setup. It is entirely relevant to this point.
• 39:23
  Speaker 7: Why a Fox News conspiracy propaganda stuff is popping up
• 39:26
  Speaker 7: on here.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: I have no idea. I have no idea why. we're
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: going here.
• 39:30
  Speaker 6: Because this is underlying exactly why President Trump is upset
• 39:35
  Speaker 6: and why his supporters are upset at the news media. Okay,
• 39:38
  Speaker 6: this is not about the media.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: Senator Johnson, please. Can we please.
• 39:44
  Speaker 7: Answer the question that I asked you instead of trying
• 39:46
  Speaker 7: to make Donald Trump feel better here that you're not
• 39:50
  Speaker 7: criticizing him?
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Chuck.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: I've never heard Chuck in all the years we've known
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: him that angry about anything. That was something. I mean, Dan,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: did Ron Johnson, did he have to do that? What
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: does it say about being a Republican in today's Republican Party?
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: That that is your performance on Meet the Press when
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: you when you're asked about a current scandal involving the
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: president's abuse of power and you go back to the fucking,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: you know, Peter struck texts and the idea that James
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Comey set up Donald Trump in the fucking Russia investigation,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: which was conducted by Republican Bob Muller. and a bunch
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: of FBI agents and the intelligence community and the FBI
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: is somehow a fucking conspiracy because you see that on
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: a bunch of right-wing websites.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: I think it speaks to two elements of modern Republicanism.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: The first is the audience of one, right? Everyone who's
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: on TV knows that Trump is going to watch what
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: they're saying and very well may tweet them out of existence.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: And so they're all performing for him. Not for the
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: voters back home, not for swing voters who may be watching,
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: not for the moderate of the reforming for Trump. And
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: that matters. That affects how they think. And we know
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: Trump's going to watch because he actually DVRs all these
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: shows and watches them later. He tweeted about Face the
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: Nation like nine hours after it was on. So he
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: got back from the golf course, whatever he did on Sunday,
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: sat down on his couch, fired up Face the Nation
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: and watched it afterwards, which... That's the first person to
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: ever do that in American history. And so the second
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: phenomenon is it's the Fox News effect, which is we
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: think all the time about how Fox News affects voters.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: But we don't think about how Fox News affects Republican politicians.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: And they... have moved into the Fox bubble. Ron Johnson
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: believes these things because he gets all of his information
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: from a right-wing propaganda bubble. And so he, you know,
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: I think probably a little bit like Kevin McCarthy, as
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: we were talking about earlier, is like Fox News, if
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: I use Fox News sort of as a catch-all for
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: all of the terrible Republican propaganda, but Fox News is
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: pickling the Republican brain and is happening at the highest
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: levels of American government. And that is, that should scare
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: people because our government decisions are being made, and our
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: policy outcomes are being dramatically impacted, not just in the
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: White House, but in Congress, by the things that Sean
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: Hannity and Tucker Carlson and Maura Ingram say on a
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: nightly basis. And that's scary.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and there's no better example of this,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: forget about Ron Johnson, than the abuse of power that
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: the president may be impeached over, right? Like, one of
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: the investigations he asked for was into the Bidens, which
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: is also part of a conspiracy theory that, you know,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: fucking Peter Schweitzer put in a book somewhere. The other investigation...
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: is into, you know, the idea that Ukraine fucking framed Russia,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: this menacing country next door that has invaded it, and
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Ukraine has somehow had it together to frame Russia for
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: interference in the 2016 election. Not this idea that, you know,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: I know a lot of them are pointing to some
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Politico story that Ken fucking Vogel wrote last year or whatever, that,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: you know, perhaps there was people in the Ukraine who, like,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: exposed Paul Manafort's crimes to, because they fucking hate Paul
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Manafort because he worked for a Russian puppet in Ukraine.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: So they say they were helping the Clinton campaign by
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: exposing Paul Manafort's crimes. Not that. Donald Trump believes that
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: there's a server, that Hillary Clinton's server is hidden somewhere
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: in the Ukraine, and that if we find the server
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: and look into it, then we're going to discover that
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: it wasn't Russia all along, that our FBI and our
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: intelligence agencies And members of both administrations, the Obama administration
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: and the Trump administration, all of these people in the
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: federal government, even people that Donald Trump appointed this whole time,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: were part of a conspiracy to just frame Russia and
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump for election interference in 2016. That's what he believes.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: He believes that. Rudy Giuliani believes that. And no small
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: amount of the Republican Party fucking believes that. That's what
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: we're dealing with here.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: Not great.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: It is not great. What do you think... republicans could
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: be doing right now and what would the best strategy
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: here b from republican politicians who are trying to get
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: through this aside from what we would like them to
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: do which is uh... show some fucking courage and say
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: that it's wrong and that you're gonna hold the president
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: accountable i.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Think you could say it's wrong but they had better
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: be swaddled impeachment.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: Which i'm surprised that more of them haven't done it.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: It's so because it allows you to state the obvious.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: Trump's conduct is indefensible. It is obvious and indefensible. And
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: so don't defend it. Don't, like, wrap yourself into a
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: pretzel or whatever trying to explain why it's okay for
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: presidents to pressure foreign governments to interfere in American elections.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: It is not. That is, like, on the list of
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: hypothetical impeachable offenses that the founders probably drew up, right? Like,
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: obviously what it is. But you can say, if you're
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: a Republican... It was wrong. The president should not have
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: done it. But it doesn't reach a level of impeachable offense,
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: particularly this close to an election, and we should have
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: let the voters have their say. And then it's pivot
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: and attack the Democrats for focusing on this partisan obsession
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: instead of doing X, Y, or Z, improving, like, raising
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: wages or building infrastructure, whatever it is. But they can't
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: do that because Trump will brook no dissent. And so
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: they're stuck in this, you know, on this very sad
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: short menu of options that we outlined. The Marco Rubio joke,
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: the hide from the press, the, you know, Ron Johnson
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: conspiracy theory route. There's the obvious answer is not available
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: to them because Trump won't let it be available to them.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: And it's because they don't belong to a political party anymore.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: They belong to an authoritarian cult. That's the truth. That's
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: that's why they can't. That's why they're not allowed to
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: criticize dear leader. even to say that something he did
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: was wrong, but it doesn't deserve impeachment. They can't do that.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: I also think once you say that it's wrong for
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: the president of the United States to ask a foreign
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: country to interfere in our elections, to investigate American citizens,
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: to do this as a quid pro quo for getting
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: the United States' military, financial, and diplomatic support, you do
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: then have to answer, well, if it's so wrong, like,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Why are we just going to let him do it?
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: And yes, we have an election in 2020 where we
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: can decide this, but we don't have any confidence that
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: it's going to be a free and fair election because
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: the president is actively trying to rig it. That's what
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: he needs to be impeached for.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: I think that strategy only works if you can hang
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: your hat on the non-quid, it's not a quid pro
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: quo text, right? I think you cannot admit to all
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: of the facts. that are at play here, and then
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: not hold Trump accountable through removal from office. You can't
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: really say the president blackmailed Ukraine in order to get
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: a political beneficial investigation by, he did that, but I'm
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: not accountable. But you can sort of, you have to
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: admit to some set of facts to do it. Otherwise,
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: it's impossible. But People either are willfully, they're making, the
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: members of my Democratic make them willfully ignorant of the fact,
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: or they're just, like I said, twist themselves into pretzel.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. All right, let's talk about how impeachment is affecting
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: the Democratic primary, especially Joe Biden. This is from the
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: New York Times over the weekend in a piece about
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: how his campaign has struggled over how to respond. Quote, Mr.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: Biden himself was equivocating. He wanted to defend and protect
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: his son, but he also believed the president was baiting
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: him into a dirty fight. And as a lifelong adherent
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: to congressional tradition, Mr. Biden was wary of acting hastily
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: as an impeachment inquiry was getting underway. The Biden campaign's
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: tense deliberations reached a climax last weekend when Mr. Biden
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: agreed to give a scorching rebuttal to Mr. Trump in
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: a speech on Wednesday in Reno, Nevada. But he delivered
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: it well into the evening on the East Coast, and
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: it was mostly lost amid another long day of Trumpy interruptions.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: To some Biden allies, it seemed too little too late,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: a case study in political indecision. So, Dan, on one hand,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: you read this And you see Biden equivocating on whether
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: Trump should be impeached and the Biden folks writing Saturday
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: night op eds in The Washington Post and responding to
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: Trump tweets that are like two days old. And you
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: think maybe not the most nimble response. On the other,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: there were two Fox News polls out this week in
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: the show, Biden winning Wisconsin and beating Trump by more
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: than any other Democrat there and holding a huge lead
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: in South Carolina. So what do you think? Is he
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: handling this well? Are we all in the media and
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: on Twitter overreacting? What do you think?
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: I like that you considered it two groups of people,
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: the media and Twitter.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say, I don't want to
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: lump us right in with the media, you know? Yeah.
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: I want to just provide a little context first that
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: I think underlies that New York Times story, which is
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: any time I've ever been working in a campaign and
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: a candidate's family became part of the campaign conversation, that's
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: when things got really messy. Sure. gets very hard for
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: campaigns to make clearly thought out, nimble decisions when the
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: impact of those decisions is not about what happens in
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: polls or what happens in the voting booth or what
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: happens around the kitchen table or in their family. And
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden is incredibly close to his son, Hunter. Obviously,
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: together they have been through an unimaginable amount of tragedy
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: in their lives. And so, like, I just think we
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: have to recognize that the fact that this is about
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden's son makes this a much more complicated thing.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: So when we sit here and say you should be
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: doing X, Y, and Z, you should do it this fast,
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: understand the decision-making process is more complicated than it would
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: be if this was just about, you know, some other
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: false attack.
• 49:59
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, just any time Candace Stanley is involved,
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: things get very complicated very quickly. But no, but Having
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: said that, the response is lacking on every level. And
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: they are playing by an old set of rules by
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: responding with speeches and Washington Post op-eds. And even by
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: the old set of rules, they are performing poorly. Giving
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: your speech, your big response on the West Coast at
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: night makes zero sense. And there's a reason no one
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: noticed it. When you texted me on Sunday morning to
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: say that Biden had written a Washington Post op-ed, I
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: was forced to remember that the Washington Post had an
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: op-ed page.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: It's so... And, like, I happened to catch it Saturday night.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: And I was just... Because I'm a loser and was
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: going to bed and was reading the news on a
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: Saturday night. And I just see him like, wait, Joe
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: Biden has an op-ed that he wrote in the Washington Post?
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: What is this?
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: And.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: You know, I read it before I went to bed.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: It's a fine op-ed. It doesn't break any new ground.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: It doesn't say anything interesting. But it's fine, whatever. And
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: then I wake up the next day, and of course,
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: all the Sunday shows have happened, all this other news,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: and you can't find a single comment about that op-ed anywhere.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: No one is talking about it. Few people have read it.
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: It has made no news. And it just, to me,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: I don't mean to harp on an op-ed, because it's
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: just a fucking op-ed. Who cares? But to me, it
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: is indicative of of a problem that their campaign has
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: had beyond just this scandal, which is they are not
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: very nimble. They do not move quickly. They do not,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: like you said, they do not play by the rules
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: of today's media age. Now, part of this is because
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: they believe that the gang of people who are on
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: Twitter and part of the media, whether it's reporters or
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: progressive activists, are always overly hysterical about everything, that we're
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: all in a bubble, and that all their voters, who
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: are non-college educated, white Americans, black Americans, Latino Americans, their
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: older voters, their coalition is not always on Twitter freaking
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: out about every development in the news cycle. And I
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: get that. I understand that. And I understand that that
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: is their coalition. But what they don't realize is that
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: what is happening on Twitter and on the news is driving.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: The media that eventually reaches all voters in this country.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: It is shaping the narrative. And they seem to be
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: very reluctant to be quick enough and bold enough to
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: shape that narrative as events are happening. They always seem
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: to be a bit behind the eight ball. And I'm
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out why that is.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: I think there is a happy medium somewhere between a
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: campaign that's basically RT, if you agree, and where the
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: Biden campaign is right now. And yes, I know I
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: stole your joke you made to me separately, but I
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: can do that. And I think this is like, I
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: think Biden is an extreme example of this. So I
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: think this speaks to democratic political communications more broadly than
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: something that very worries me, which is in 2019, political
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: communications is not public relations. It's modern information warfare. And
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: where the press is only a small part of it.
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: a strategy to persuade people. So Biden is in this mix.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: The Trump is spending millions of dollars in digital ads,
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: which he's protecting himself by attacking Biden and convincing targeted
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: sets of voters in battleground states all across this country
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: that Joe Biden is corrupt. And he is doing it unimpeded,
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: unresponded to. And for too many Democratic campaigns, their strategy
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: is talk to the press. And the Republican strategy and
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: Trump strategy is to talk to people and to put
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: money behind it. And when you play by the old
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: set of rules, you are going to lose. And like
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: I said, they are not even playing by them particularly well.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: And to the point I made earlier about why this
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: is complicated is Joe Biden has very smart advisors. They
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: have people we've worked with, we've worked on campaigns with.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: And so sometimes it's not– in a campaign, the sum
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: is less than the total of the parts. And so,
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: which often speaks to organization, right? And I am, you
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: talk about nimbleness, and I am not particularly good at
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: nautical metaphors, but they are an aircraft carrier, right? It
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: takes a long time to turn. They have a lot
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: of people. Joe Biden had people around him for a
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: very long time. And you want to be something, I
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: don't know what you would call it, but something that's
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: more nimble than an aircraft carrier, that turns more quickly
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: and can react more quickly. And that is particularly true
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: in this media age against someone like Trump, who was
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: firing a new version of a new attack issue every
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: five seconds.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: There's also a strategic issue here, which, you know, Biden
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: sort of gave voice to during one of his fundraisers
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: that was quoted in one of these pieces where he said,
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: you know, basically his lesson from 2016 is, you know,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: Trump pulled Hillary into the mud with him. And so
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: every time Trump said something crazy, she had to respond,
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: which is something that we've talked about a lot, which
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: was a problem, right? Is that like, Trump says something racist.
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: Hillary gives a speech about Trump's racism. And the headline
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: is Trump says something offensive. And here's Hillary Clinton's response.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: And it's not really helpful to her campaign because it's
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: always just her responding to every crazy thing that Donald
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: Trump tweets. And so what Biden takes from that is
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: I don't want to get down into the mud with
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. I don't want to respond to every bullshit
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: thing he does. And I understand that. And I understand that.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: And to a point, I agree that you don't want
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: to go tit for tat with Donald Trump and you
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: don't want to respond to every fucking tweet that Donald
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: Trump sends out every day. Because if the campaign is
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: about small things, he wins. If it's about big things,
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: we win. I keep saying this, right? But this is different.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: This is not a small thing. This is not Donald
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: Trump saying something offensive. This is Donald Trump interfering with
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: to make sure that we don't have free and fair
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: elections in 2020 because he wants to rig it and
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: he wants whatever help he can get to rig it,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: whether it is the Attorney General of the United States
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: or the government of Ukraine or the government of China,
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: whoever can help him. He is going to use the
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: power of the presidency to make sure that we don't
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: have a free and fair election in 2020, but that
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: he has every advantage that the presidency gives him and
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: doesn't give him according to the law, but he's going
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: to take anyway to try to win this fucking election.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: And there is nothing bigger than that. And it's part
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: of Joe Biden's message, if he wants it to be, right?
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden is the one who's saying, this is a
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: fight for the soul of the country. And it is
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump who is uniquely bad, even more so than
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: your typical Republican. Donald Trump is uniquely bad. He is
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: a threat to our democracy. He is a threat to
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: the world. So what better example of Donald Trump being
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: a threat to our democracy and the world than what
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: he has done in Ukraine? Joe Biden should be all
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: over this, talking about it every single fucking day. He
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: should have a new topper to his stump speech every
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: single morning. They should be pumping out videos from the
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: campaign over and over again. New creative videos. They should
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: be he should be doing interviews all the time.
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: Like a nimble campaign would see what Donald Trump has
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: done as right in their wheelhouse. This is in Joe
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: Biden's message wheelhouse right now. And he doesn't have to
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: make it about him and his family either. That's the
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: other thing. Right. Like I've been saying this whole part.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: It's not just about Donald Trump asking for an investigation
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: into his political opponent. Donald Trump is asking foreign governments
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: to investigate American citizens. Yes, it happened to Joe Biden
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: this time, but next time it could happen to Elizabeth Warren,
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, or any American who disagrees with
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. That is what is at stake here.
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: The other elements of this for the Biden campaign is
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: Biden's campaign is very explicitly hooked his candidacy to electability.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: And here you have, there's probably no better validation of
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden's electability argument, at least in terms of public perception,
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: than the fact that Donald Trump is so scared of
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: running against Joe Biden that he engaged in a multifaceted,
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: ham-handed international criminal conspiracy to try to sink Biden's candidacy.
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: It seems pretty obvious. And so you point about some
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: other things they should be doing. I do think they
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: need– there's an offense element of this where they're making
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: this about their message. They're using it to raise money online,
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: something they very much need to do. This is the
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: biggest story in America, and spending money digitally to– Even
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: if you're not doing it to defend yourself, but to
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: raise money and build up your supporter base would be
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: a smart thing to do. The second thing is, I
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: think one lesson in 2016, you don't have to follow
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: Trump down into every rabbit hole. But you better be
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: sure to arm your supporters with the facts they need
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: to defend you when these conspiracy theories start spreading on
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: social media. And so explainer videos, graphics, things that Biden
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: supporters could share on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, wherever else, or
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: even in conversations at the water cooler that explain why
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: Biden's call to fire the prosecutor had nothing to do
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: with his son's business. In fact, probably put the company
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: that his son served on the board on at greater
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: legal risk. The facts are all on his side, but
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: they are not being marshaled As far as I can tell,
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: I have a campaign in a digitally friendly way to
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: combat what is truly a wildfire of conspiracy theories that's
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: spreading on social media.
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: And look, you know, I started this by talking about
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: the polls. And it is true that these two polls
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: that were released over the weekend do not show any
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: real damage to Joe Biden's candidacy. He's far out in
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: the lead in South Carolina. He's on top in Wisconsin,
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: still beating Trump by a few more points than Sanders
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: or Warren in that poll. But I also think, A,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: it's still early. B, there's other polls that when they ask,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: you know, Investors Business Daily did a poll that said,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: you know, do you think the Department of Justice should
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: investigate Biden and his son? Yes, 57. No, 37. Monmouth,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: a plurality of Americans say it is, quote, probably true
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: that Biden, quote, put pressure on Ukrainian officials to get
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: them not to investigate his son's business dealings there. 42
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: to 37. So there's a lot of people who don't
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: know yet, but that's still a plurality who think that he,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: that Biden, put pressure on the Ukrainian government. And so
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: this might not be making a dent in the horse
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: race or Biden standings right now immediately, but this is
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: going to wear over time. This is exactly what happened
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: to Hillary Clinton with the email scandal. And that's the
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: real danger here. And we talk about electability in the general,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: like to me, one element of electability is, is your
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: campaign going to be nimble enough to respond to the
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: dirtiest campaign in history from Donald Trump. Are you going
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: to be ready to respond? Are you going to be
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: fast and nimble and understand, as you said, Dan, that
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: this is information warfare? That's what this is about. And
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: every campaign that wants to be the Democratic nominee needs
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: to understand that, I think.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: I think by that test, we would both agree that
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden's campaign has not met it yet.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: No.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: We also haven't seen any of the other campaigns tested
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: in this moment yet.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: That is also true. Right.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: Like, and so we just don't know, like we, I
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: think rightfully have praised Elizabeth Warren for running the best
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: campaign in the race today. Well, we also haven't seen
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: her tested like this. And so it just, before we
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: make conclusions that Biden is definitely not the best candidate
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: or shouldn't be the nominee or whatever else, he is
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: facing a test no one else has. He needs to
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: do better by he's the only one who has been
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: in this position to date. But you should presume, as
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: you point out, that everyone is going to, whoever our
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: nominee is, is going to face a coordinated election interference
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: that will involve the American government, foreign governments, and everything else.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is very high likelihood that whoever the Democratic
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: nominee is, Donald Trump, will somehow order an investigation into
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: that campaign, whether it's with the help of his foreign
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: autocrat pals or his buddy, the Attorney General. Whether it's
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: Kazakhstan investigating Elizabeth Warren or Bill Barr investigating Mayor Pete,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: it's going to happen. It's going to happen. Or at
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: the very least, if it doesn't happen, we should be
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: prepared for it to happen. And all those campaigns should
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: figure out what their plan is and how they would respond.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: And hopefully it is better than how Biden has responded
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: so far. But of course, it also still is early. And,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: you know, Biden still has time to to mount a
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: better response.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: So that's our hope.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: That's our hope. That's our hope. All right. When we
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: come back, we will have my interview with FEC chairwoman
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: Ellen Weintraub. On the pod today, we are very happy
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: to have the chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission, Ellen Weintraub.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: Thank you, John.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: So in June, you released the following statement. Let me
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: make something 100% clear to the American public and anyone
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: running for office. It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: or receive anything of value from a foreign national in
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: connection with the U.S. election. You just retweeted the statement
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: again last week. Why do you feel you have to
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: keep reiterating this basic point about the law.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: You know we are in an interesting moment and uh...
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: in our democracy john and i think that as chair
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: of the fbc one of my duties is to make
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: sure that the public and all political actors are well
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: informed about the law i want to make sure that
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: we are a hundred percent clear on what the law
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: is and where the lines are and i am really
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: hoping that people will hear me and they will listen
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: to me and they will follow the.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: Law Obviously, the June statement was around when the president
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: told George Stephanopoulos famously that he might again accept foreign
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: assistance in the 2020 election. And of course, last week
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: was right in the middle of this latest Ukraine scandal.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: How much has this news surprised you? What's your reaction
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: to this been? Without getting into the details of the case,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: because I know that you can't.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, I'm not going to comment on any individual's conduct,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: but I do think that we saw in the 2016
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: election that there were foreign actors who were trying to
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: interfere with our elections, and our intelligence community has warned
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: us that we will see it again in 2020. I
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: was reading just yesterday that the Iranians are now trying
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: to hack into political databases. So who knows where all
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: of this is going to be coming from, but we
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: need to be all on high alert. It is an
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: all-hands-on-deck moment for our democracy, and I think all of
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: us in government who have any role to play in
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: trying to prevent foreign interference in our elections, keeping American
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: elections for Americans, really need to be stepping up right now.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: So in your statement, you also point out that the
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: founding fathers anticipated the very problem of foreign interference in
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: American elections. Why were they concerned? Why is this such
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: a big deal?
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: Well, it is a big deal because we're an important country,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: and even back before we were important, George Washington in
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: his farewell address warned against the insidious wiles of foreign influence.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: The jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: since history and experience prove that foreign influence... is one
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: of the most baneful foes of Republican government. And we
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: have one of the leading cases in this area, the
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: Blumen case. Interestingly enough, the author of the opinion was
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: then Judge Kavanaugh, no friend of campaign finance regulation. But
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: when it came to foreign influence, he chose an entirely
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: different attack on the problem. And was very clear on
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: the importance of American citizens being able to define our
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: American political community and making sure that we are the
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: ones who are making decisions in our elections. We do
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: not want foreign spending in our elections. We don't want
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: foreign interference in our elections. This is sometimes described as meddling,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: but it's really a much more serious problem than that.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: as a major superpower. Obviously, there are many countries around
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: the world who feel like they might have a stake
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: in who our leaders are and how our policies get shaped.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: And we need to make sure that these are decisions
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: that we as Americans are making for ourselves.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: So the law makes it illegal for a foreign national
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: to directly or indirectly, quote, make a contribution or donation
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: of money or other thing of value to a campaign.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: Can information such as opposition research, polling, or politically motivated
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: investigations be legally considered things of value, in your opinion?
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: Well, there are a number of court decisions on what
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 3: can be considered a thing of value in light of
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: other statutes, and some of those directly address information as
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: a thing of value. There is also FEC precedence on
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: this topic, where we have looked at polling data, at
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: opposition research, at an activist contact list, at mailing lists,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: something can be intangible and still be a thing of value.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: In an advisory opinion that the FEC issued in 2007,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: the Commission recognized the broad scope of the foreign national
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 3: contribution prohibition and found that even where the value of
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 3: a good or a service may be nominal or difficult
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: to ascertain, such contributions are nevertheless banned. And it's important
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: that if you go back to the Blumen decision to
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: note what a small amount was at issue there. We
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: were looking at Benjamin Blumen, a Canadian citizen who wanted
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: to spend $ 300, three individual $ 100 contributions, and wanted to
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: copy a bunch of flyers and hand them out in
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: Central Park. And at no point while this case was
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: litigated all the way up to the Supreme Court did
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: anyone say, oh, that's just too inconsequential, that's de minimis,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: we don't need to worry about that. No, anything of
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: value that comes from a foreign national and comes into
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: our electoral system is a problem.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: How do you all determine what constitutes either a contribution
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: or what constitutes a thing of value, right? Like, for example,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: if someone, say, ordered a politically motivated investigation, that investigation,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: of course, may turn up nothing, in which case maybe
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: there would be no value to that individual's campaign. And
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: yet the intent would clearly be to get something of
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: value to help one's campaign. So how do you make
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: those determinations in individual cases?
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: Well, in individual cases, we look at the facts of
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: the particular case. And some things may not be very valuable.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: That is certainly true. We would have to assess that
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: in the context of the individual case, but we would
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: normally look at, is this something that people normally pay
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: money for? Is this something that is going to cost
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: someone something to produce? So if costs are incurred in
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: connection with buffing of value that it plainly has that
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: value and the fact that something is not terribly valuable
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: you know that might go into a decision as to
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 3: how far the commission wanted to go in terms of uh...
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: investigating or or penalizing it but the foreign national ban
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: is the broadest uh... and one of the strongest prohibitions
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: that we have in the federal election campaign act And
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: it's one that the commission has historically taken very seriously.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 3: On the solicitation end, of course, it's hard to value
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: something when you are soliciting it. It may not be
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: clear what the value is, but soliciting something of value
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: from a foreign national is plainly prohibited under our law.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: Right. So there is a longstanding rule that when information
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: comes to the attention of the Department of Justice indicating
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: a probable violation... of the Federal Election Campaign Act, quote,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: the department will apprise the commission of such information at
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: the earliest opportunity. The Justice Department did not do this
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: in the case of the whistleblower complaint. And former Solicitor
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: General Neil Katyal has described this as a cover-up. Are
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: you concerned about this? Were you surprised when you found
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: out that the DOJ did not forward the whistleblower complaint
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: to the FEC?
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 3: We don't normally comment on communications that we have back
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: and forth with the Department of Justice. So I think
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: I'm going to demur on that one.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: Okay. I figured I thought I would try.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: I appreciate the effort.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: No, no, of course. So last question. What concerns do
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: you have at this point about the 2020 election and
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: making sure that we hold sort of free and fair
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: elections in 2020? What keeps you up at night? Well.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: I'm concerned that we have not adopted stronger protections in
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: light of what happened in 2016. There are a raft
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: of bills that have been introduced, and many of them
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: have passed in the House and are stuck in the Senate.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: I would particularly like to see Congress adopt some very
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: strong sanctions measures to demonstrate to the world that This
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: is the United States of America. We will not stand
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: for anyone messing around in our elections, and there will
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: be consequences to be paid if that happens. Now, because
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: we really need to focus on deterrence. What happened last
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: time is not going to be the same thing that
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: happened next time. It's going to be very hard to
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: predict exactly what will happen before it happens. So I
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: think the deterrence angle is really important. I would also
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: like to see things like the Honest Ads Act passed.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: so that we could bring Internet communications under the same
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 3: set of rules that we have for broadcast ads. We
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: know that politics is moving online at a rapid pace,
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: and we are going to see more and more advertising
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: and other information sharing going on online. So we need
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: to bring our rules up to date with the information
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: age and with the Internet's role in our politics.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: Outstanding. Chairwoman Weintraub, thank you so much for joining us.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: Really appreciate you taking the time. And thanks for all
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: you're doing.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 3: It was my pleasure. Thank you.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Chairwoman Weintraub for joining us today. And we'll
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: see you Thursday. We have a special pod that we're
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: recording Wednesday night with guest co-host Rachel Maddow. We'll be
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: in studio with Rachel. Me and Lovett and Tommy and
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: that pod will be out first thing Thursday morning. We're
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: very excited about it. So we'll see you then. All right, Dan.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: Talk to you. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: product of Crooked Media. The senior producer is Michael Martinez.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Sominator, and Katie Long for production support.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmel Cohnian, Yale Freed,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: a video every week.