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“Ukraine, if you’re listening.” · 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, Dan's conversation with House Judiciary Committee
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: member Jamie Raskin. We're also going to be checking in
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: with Abdul El-Sayed, the host of Crooked Media's brand new podcast,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: America Dissected, which you should immediately subscribe to and listen
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: to if you haven't already. It's all about how healthcare
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: in America has been fucked up by the media and politics,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: and it is smart and funny, and I will be
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: talking to him all about it. Before that, we get
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: to talk about all the latest developments on impeachment, including
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Trump's epic meltdown on Wednesday... more self-incrimination today, Thursday, and
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: we'll also share the results of our brand new Polar
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Coaster survey with Change Research in the battleground state of Arizona. Finally,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: if you haven't, check out the newest episode of Pod
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Save the World where Ben and Tommy look at Trump's
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: impeachable phone call from a foreign policy angle, including how
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: it could destabilize the Ukrainian government, how Russia uses corruption
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: to control Ukrainian politics, and how the policies advanced by
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Biden were initially shaped. They also talk with former British
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Prime Minister David Cameron about Brexit, Boris Johnson, and the
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: time that Ben Rhodes offended the Queen of England. So
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: check it out.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: The Patsy of the World teases are getting quite good.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: I know. Tommy really put some time into those, Tommy
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: and Michael. Okay, let's get to the news. Public support
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: for impeachment has been rising, and we now have our
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: own polling to confirm that. We'll talk more about all
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the results from our latest Polar Coaster series with change
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: research in a bit. But we did ask about impeachment
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: and found that 49% of Arizona voters support impeachment, including
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: nearly 94% of Democrats and about half of independents. More
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: than 90% of voters say they've heard about the Ukraine
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: scandal and what they learned has made independents and swing voters,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: and swing voters we're defining as people who have voted
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: for at least one Republican and Democrat in the last
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: three years. Independents and swing voters are 20 to 30
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: percent less likely to support Trump, who've heard about the
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Ukraine scandal. We also tested a few different Democratic messages
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: on impeachment against Trump's message that Democrats are engaged in
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: a witch hunt because they're mad about 2016. And the
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: most effective Democratic message is, that Congress needs to hold
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Trump accountable for his abuse of power to ensure a
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: free and fair election in 2020, even if it means impeachment.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: After hearing this, voters said they were more likely to
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: support the Democratic candidate over the Republican candidate's message by
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: 51 to 43 percent. Dan, how should this kind of
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: data and some of the other polling we've seen inform
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Democratic strategy on impeachment?
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Well, I think it is. It is important to see
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: polling in a battleground state, which Arizona clearly is, as
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: our poll makes clear. In this very polarized nation we have,
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: national polls where Trump is incredibly popular in some states
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: and incredibly unpopular in other bluer states don't really give
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: us as much of a signal of what's happening in
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: the states that are going to decide the presidential election.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: And the fact that impeachment is... a winnable exercise here
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: in Arizona, a state that will help decide the presidency
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: and who controls the Senate should put steel on the
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: spine of the Democrats who are doing this. If you
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: can litigate this political case in Arizona, you can do
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: it anywhere in the country. And that is, I think,
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: that should give comfort to some of the members who
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: are more nervous about the politics of this than they
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: should be.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And look, I mean, one thing we've seen from
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: the polling, uh, throughout the last week, is that this
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: is not the, at least so far, this is not
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: some scary political loser that a lot of, you know,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Democratic strategists in D.C. thought it was at first. Democrats, like,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: almost unanimously now support impeachment across polls. It's like, you know,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: between 85 and 95 percent are supportive of this. There
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: was a few stories today, too, that I saw some
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: of the representatives from more conservative districts, like Max Rose,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: some other people, you know, stories about them going back
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: to their districts. And, you know, they've been holding town halls.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: And actually, a lot of their voters were pretty supportive
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: of what they're doing. There's even one, I thought there's
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: one story about Alyssa Slotkin, who is representative in Michigan,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: also a district that she flipped from a Republican. So
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: it's a pretty moderate, pretty conservative district. And, you know,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: they interviewed a couple, basically Trump supporters who got all
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: their news from like OAN, you know, and Fox and everything,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: and who love Trump and think that impeachment's a waste
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: of time. And then the reporter's like, well, what about
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Alyssa Slotkin, your representative, who is now supportive of impeachment?
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: They're like, oh, we love her. We love her. That's
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: okay that she supports impeachment. We don't agree, but we
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: still love her. So, so far it's shown that there's
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: not as much risk as people thought for Democrats. I
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: do think the other thing that was interesting is, you know,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: we tested two messages on impeachment and the first one
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: was more straightforward. Donald Trump deserves to be impeached for
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: And then we sort of listed out some of the
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: impeachable offenses. And then we did a second one that
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: was like, look, here's what official White House documents show.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: And we talk about the call summary. And then we say,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: in order to defend our democracy and, you know, hold
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: the president accountable and make sure there's free and fair elections,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: you know, Congress has to investigate that even if it
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: means impeachment. You know, so it was a little more couched,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: a little more cautious, a little more sort of like
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: framing it as this more sad bipartisan thing that we
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: have to do. And it was much more popular, much
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: more persuasive among voters. Not very surprising, but it does
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: tell you why sort of Pelosi and a lot of
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: the other Democrats are framing impeachment as they are, and
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: not making it quite so partisan.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: So celebratory?
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, it's not a celebratory time. It's more in
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: sadness than anger, Dan.
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: One other thing in the poll that I thought was
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: very notable for Democrats in this, which is, We asked
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: people how much they'd heard about Trump's phone call with Ukraine,
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: and the numbers were stunning. Sixty-six percent of respondents said
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: they had heard a lot, and another 25 percent said
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: they'd heard a decent amount about this. So in this distracted,
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: disaggregated media environment where it's hard to break through, this
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: story is breaking through. You have nine in ten voters
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: hearing a lot or a decent amount about this story
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: in the last week. And as you mentioned in the polling,
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: the information in that story is very politically damaging to Trump.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: And so, like, that is an argument both for standing
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: strong here and continuing to push forward. It's also an
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: argument against short-circuiting this process early because you want to
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: get it over with.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: It's also an argument for Democrats, you know, making sure
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: that they drive this message every single day, that they,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, that they're speaking to the public,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: that they're holding press conferences, that they're holding hearings because,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: So far, the news has done the Democrats' work for them, right,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: by breaking the story and there's new things for people
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: to hear all the time. At some point, when all
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: the facts are known, you know, there's going to have
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: to be an effort on behalf of Democratic leaders to
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: keep this in the news. Impeachment hearings would obviously do that.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: But there is a danger here where if they just,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: everyone just goes about their business and forgets this ever happened,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: it will fade from the news and it will fade
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: from people's memories.
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: So one person who's not acting like impeachment will be
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: a political winner for Donald Trump is Donald Trump. All
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: of his, you know, his his couple of weeks of
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: angry tweeting came to life on Wednesday during a rolling
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: day long meltdown alongside the president of Finland yesterday. First
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: in the Oval Office, then at a press conference. You know,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: it was all more of the same. Cues the media
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: of being corrupt, accused Congress of staging a coup. call
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: for congressman Schiff to be tried for treason. You know,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: it's just typical, typical Wednesday. Trump talked about how impeachment
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: and the Ukraine scandal is all a hoax, that he
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: did nothing wrong, that his phone call was perfect. And
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: then this morning, Thursday morning, he confessed to everything he's
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: being accused of by publicly calling on Ukraine and now
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: China to investigate Joe Biden and his family. Let's listen
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: to some highlights.
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: Well, I would think that if they were honest about it,
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: they'd start a major investigation into the Bidens. It's a
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: very simple answer. They should investigate the Bidens, because how
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: does a company that's newly formed and all these.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Companies, if you look at.
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: And by the way, likewise, China should start an investigation
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: into the Bidens, because what happened in China is just
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: about as bad as what happened with.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: With Ukraine. Dan, what are we doing here? What are
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: we doing here? He did it. He tells us he
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: did it. What else do we need?
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Well, look, I see this angry red-faced man screaming into
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: the void, and I say, that is a man who
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: looks like he just lured Democrats into his impeachment trap.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, it is amazing that he Basically, the equivalent
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: of what he did today is Nixon going to the
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: South Lawn. admitting that he directed the break-in to the Watergate,
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: and then suggesting he's going to do another break-in to
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: another Democratic Party headquarters later. It is, I mean, it
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: is truly mind-boggling in its audacity, stupidity, the audacity of dumb.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't even know how to describe it.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: He's spent the last seven days trying to argue that
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: he did not pressure Ukraine to do this. And then he,
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: you know, this is a very, I will say the
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: question that was asked today is the same question that
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Jeff Mason from Reuters asked Trump yesterday, which was a
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: very smart question.
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Which is, they asked, what specifically did you want Zelensky
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: to do with regard to Biden? And I think most
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: questions that reporters ask of Trump too often are treating
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Trump as a cable news pundit and not president. This
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: is a very specific one where the answer is if
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: he tells the truth, he is admitting to the crime.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: And he got so mad about it yesterday that he
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: screamed at Jeff Mason. It's hard to imagine outside of
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: the context of an angry football coach, one adult screaming
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: at another adult like that in public.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we actually have a clip of that, too. Let's
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: just play that really quick. The question, sir, was what
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: did you want President Zelensky to do about Vice President
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Biden and his son, Hunter?
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: Are you talking to me?
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was just a follow-up of what I just asked.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: You, sir.
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: Listen, listen, you ready? We have the president of Finland.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Ask him a question. I have one for him. I
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: just wanted to follow up on the one that I
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: asked you.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Did you hear me?
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Did you hear me?
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: Yes, sir.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: Ask him a question.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: I will.
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: I've given you a long answer.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Ask him.
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: This gentleman, a question.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Don't be rude.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: No, sir, I don't want to be rude. I just
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: wanted you to have a chance to answer the question
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: that I asked you.
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: I've answered everything. It's a whole hoax. And you know
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: who's playing into the hoax? People like you and the
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: fake news media that we have in this country. And
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: I say, in many cases, the corrupt media, because you're corrupt.
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: Much of the media in this country is not just fake,
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: it's corrupt. And you have some very fine people, too.
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: Great journalists, great reporters. But to a large extent... It's
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: corrupt and it's fake. Ask the president of Finland a question, please.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was Donald Trump screaming at a reporter,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: ask the president of Finland a question. My favorite line
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: in that is, hey, hey, we got the president of
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Finland here. Ask him a question.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, Donald Trump's deep and abiding respect for the
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: protocol of of the two and two foreign leader press
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: conference is admirable, I guess.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: I also just think like, look, we, we have now
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: spent the last couple of days with Donald Trump and
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: the entire like Republicans in Congress, MAGA pundits, Fox news,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: the whole fucking conservative swamp ecosystem, um, coming up with
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: all of these bullshit defenses about, you know, who is
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: the whistleblower? And this is secondhand information. And, You know,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: he worked with Adam Schiff, and Adam Schiff should resign.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Adam Schiff made up the phone call. The whistleblower made
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: up the phone call. None of this is real. And
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: then all of us hear Donald Trump call on foreign
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: powers to investigate his political opponents, like, in public this morning.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: It's like, I guess, are we all the whistleblowers now? Hello. Hello,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Inspector General. I have some secondhand information. I have heard
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: from very good sources Donald Trump's voice. asking foreign governments
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: to investigate his political opponents. Should I write up the complaint?
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Should I go to Adam Schiff? What should I do
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: with this information, Dan?
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: I think there is a broader issue here about the
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Trump presidency that sort of manifests itself in the last week,
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: which is whether it's in his Twitter tantrums, which we
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: talked about on tour last week, or what he said
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: in his various press temper tantrums yesterday.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: But here you have the president of the United States
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: calling for the arrest, sentencing, and execution of Democratic members
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: of Congress in whistleblowers. You have the president bullying a whistleblower,
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: comparing a whistleblower to a spy, accusing them of treason.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: You have the president calling a constitutional impeachment process a
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: coup to take away people's Second Amendment rights, which— Seems
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: not dangerous at all. And we have reached this point
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: where sort of the majority of the political community, the reporters, politicians,
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: blue checkmark nation, we now no longer take the president
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: seriously or literally. He's basically the person screaming on the
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: subway where you're more focused on the fact that they're
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: screaming than what they're screaming. But he's President of the
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: United States, and these things still matter. And they really matter.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: We shouldn't take it lightly when the president calls for
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: the investigation of political opponents or members of Congress when
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: the chief law enforcement officer in the entire country is
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: a named member of the alleged criminal conspiracy at the
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: root of this whole thing. And so we laugh about it.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: He is insane. It is ridiculous. It is a fucking
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: national and global embarrassment that he is President of the
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: United States. But we can't default to he's a crazy person,
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: therefore the things he say don't matter. Because as we
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: know from all the violence that happened in El Paso
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: or the pipe bombs, the things he say do matter.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: And there are people in this world who act on them,
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: even if they're not members of Congress.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: There's that. And there's also the fact that he is,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: because this scandal and these impeachable offenses have to do
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: with national security and foreign policy, it opens up a
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: whole new element to why this is dangerous. He is
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: The president is jeopardizing our national security because he is
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: basing our foreign policy on his own narrow political interests, right?
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Like Ukraine is a country that was invaded by Russia
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: that the global community and the United States of America
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: have decided that it is in our interest to help
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: defend them from Russian aggression. And now that is at
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: risk because Donald Trump wanted them to investigate his political opponent. China,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: an authoritarian government, with whom were in a trade war
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: because of donald trump the entire global economy and are
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: in the united states economy at stake now he's sending
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: them a message that this authoritarian government should investigate an
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: american citizen and their family who happens to be a
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: potential political opponent of donald trump that's what he's doing
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: right now it's not just like it can't you know
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: i've laughed at times during this whole thing it is
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: absurd watching this unfold we are, you know, the fact
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: that our foreign policy is at stake and our foreign
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: policy is being based on whatever Donald Trump thinks will
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: get him through the election is incredibly dangerous. Incredibly dangerous.
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: These are not great times, I would say.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: No, no, they're not. It's not great, Dan. Politico reports
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: that- Buy those tumblers. Buy those tumblers. Yeah, no, buy them.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: That's it. It's on sale now. Politico reports that Some
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Republican lawmakers and strategists are concerned about Trump's strategy.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: I couldn't get through the question.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: With one Republican operative saying, quote, nobody wants to look
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: like Kevin McCarthy did on 60 Minutes. And right now
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: there is deep skepticism that the late night Fox lineup
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: will have any credibility with rank and file Republicans that
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: are necessary to prosecute this argument against House Democrats. What
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: do you think about that?
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: I mean it is certainly true that– I mean I
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: reject the premise of the question in the sense that
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: there is obviously no White House strategy.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: They don't– there isn't one. There is just a man
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: ranting into a microphone and then various sycophants with two
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: to three million people, audiences, parodying those. I was struck
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: by this tweet from– I think it was a tweet
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: from Laura Ingraham that said– basically she was trying to
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: give Trump advice where if he– essentially ignored this and
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: treated it and stopped acting like a crazy person that
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: he would get through it better. And it is, it's
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: interesting to watch because he, there is, there is a
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: strategy here. It's pretty obvious that any normal human being
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: could take. And there's also a, for Trump, right? Like
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: you could say, I did nothing wrong. You could blame
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Rudy Giuliani and fire him. You could, say you're going
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: to cooperate, right? I mean, that's sort of what they
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: did with Mueller is they kept saying they were going
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: to cooperate and they cooperated on the things that didn't
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: matter that much and on the things that really mattered,
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: they obstructed and they got away with it, obviously. There
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: is a strategy for Republicans too, which is to say,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: we don't agree with what Trump did. We think it
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: was wrong, but we don't think it rises to a
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: level of an impeachable offense. And we think it is
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: a shame that House Democrats are so busy trying to
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: undo the results of the 2016 election, that they are
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: refusing to help raise wages for families or improve healthcare.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Like there's an obvious strategy, but they can't do it
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: because with Trump, you have to take a loyalty oath
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: for political death, right? Like you have to ride with
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: him the whole way, or you live in fear of
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: being one tweet away from a primary.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's ride or die. I mean, there is, a
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: strategy if you sort of like step really far back
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: and squint, you can sort of see the strategy, which is,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: you know, the call was perfect. The whistleblower is a
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: partisan liar. Adam Schiff is a partisan liar. They're all
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: in cahoots with the deep state and CNN and, you know,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: whoever forged Obama's birth certificate. So they have this sort
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: of this conspiracy brewing. And you saw it yesterday a
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: little bit when the New York Times has the story
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: about how the whistleblower who originally filed a complaint within
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: the intelligence community before going to the IG just with
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: the whistleblower's bosses wasn't getting anywhere, didn't know what to
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: do because they were obviously trying to cover up the complaint.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: So then the whistleblower goes to um adam schiff's committee
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: to one of his staff members and says hey i
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: have this complaint what do i do and and sort
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: of doesn't doesn't explain exactly what the complaint is but
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: just gives the outline and then the committee says okay
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: well you should get a lawyer and you should go
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: to your inspector general at the intelligence community that's the
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: official channel but because the new york times writes it
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: you know it's like schiff might have known early about
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: the whistleblower suddenly now Every single right-wing media figure is
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: on high alert. Donald Trump's waving the article around during
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: the press conference. I'm exonerated. See what I told you?
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Adam Schiff's a liar. He's in on this. And I
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: do think what the right is doing is they're just
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: sort of waiting for these little developments to then cling to,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: to point to, and say, actually, this whole thing was
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: a fucking deep state plot after all, and Donald Trump's innocent.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: But what is the problem with that here?
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, there is a fundamental problem, and this
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: entire strategy speaks to the weakness, which is nothing the
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: whistleblower did or said, who they spoke to, who they
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: voted for. They could have a feel-the-burn license plate on
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: their car, and it wouldn't fucking matter because we don't
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: need– the whistleblower is inconsequential now because the core piece
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: of evidence prior to Donald Trump admitting to the crime
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: of national television earlier today– was a call transcript released
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: by Donald Trump's White House.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: All, I mean, the whistleblower basically drew a crime map
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: and then we've discovered all the crimes since then. So
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. And so, like, that strategy doesn't hold
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: up to literally one millisecond of scrutiny.
• 22:11
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: It may be enough to get through primetime on Fox
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: and to keep 40%, you know, Trump's 40% base in
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: his corner, but it's not a long-term strategy to deal
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: with the political fallout of this.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, no person who just sort of, even, even
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: if you're a headline scanner, even if you're one of the,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: even if you're just walking through the airport and see
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Chiron's on CNN, you're going to figure out that this
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: is all bullshit, that the, that the, like you said,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the whistleblower does not matter anymore because the call transcript
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: was the impeachable offense, the main impeachable offense until then
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: the president went on TV and and called on Ukraine
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: and another nation to investigate his political opponents. Look, it is,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: and this is, this is why we need to impeach him.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: And this is why fucking Republicans should join in too.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Like it is clear now that we cannot have a
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: free and fair election in 2020 because the president of
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: the United States is using the vast powers of his office,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: including his ability to make foreign policy and make national
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: security decisions to pressure foreign governments to solicit foreign assistance
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: to interfere in our election on his behalf. Literally what
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: the founders were worried about, foreign interference in the United
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: States affairs, in our elections. Donald Trump is committed to
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: doing that. Even now, even as he has been caught
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and in the middle of an impeachment trial for this,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: impeachment inquiry about this, he is asking foreign nations to
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: investigate his political opponents. And if people think that he's
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: going to stop at Joe Biden, you should Think again,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: because he will do this. He will find a foreign
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: nation to investigate Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Harris and on and on and on. And it won't
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: just be foreign nations. It will be, you know, right
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: wing billionaires. And no matter he will do anything, he
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: will use all of the powers of his office, including
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: the investigative powers of the United States Attorney General and
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: the Justice Department. Whatever he can get his hands on,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: he will use it to dirty up his political opponent
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: in 2020. And that is why impeachment is so important.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Let me ask you this question, though. Do you think
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: impeachment will stop him from doing it again?
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Perhaps not. Perhaps not. Basically, all it is is, you know,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: it will sort of be a flashing red light for
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: everyone because it'll be in the news. So that's like
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: everyone be aware that the next time you hear something
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: shady about one of Trump's opponents, now you know that
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: he probably, you know, he probably called on someone to
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: find that smear, find that dirt.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Like it at least all it does is it. exposes
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Trump's motives, methods, and sort of shines a light on
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: what he's doing to try to dirty up his political opponents.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: So in some way, and look, and it might not
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: stop Trump, but there's probably enough people and enough foreign governments,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: you know, who will, if he's being impeached for this,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: will maybe think twice about it.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: That's the hope. It's basically the only option we have
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: because the other option is, everyone go about their business
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: and Trump just solicits foreign interference in quiet and we
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: don't talk about it.
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Like I obviously am for impeachment. I think it's the
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: right thing to do full stop. It's also the right,
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: the best political move in the situation we're currently in.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: I think it probably, I think it almost certainly doesn't
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: decrease the odds that Trump commits more crimes and potentially
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: increases the odds that he commits more crimes because he,
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: nothing happened to him other than being a historical political
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: embarrassment now and have to wear the, wearing the scarlet
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: eye for the rest of time. Um, and, but he
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: still is an office. Um, so I think, but I
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: do think it's, it will, it will encourage other people
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: to come forward who are witnesses to these crimes.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: And I do think it will make the people around Trump,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: not like the, the most MAGA E of his people,
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: but the people who run the government, right. to be
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: more cautious about getting sucked into his vortex of crime.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: I think that's right. So when you get the order
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: from Mick Mulvaney or someone else to put the call
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: transcript on the classified server, you're going to be less
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: willing to do that or more willing to tell someone
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: you got asked to do that. So I think that is,
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: we're looking at actual substantive benefits of going through this process.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: I think that is one of them. Because for the
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: people who were either willing or were witting or unwitting
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: accomplices to Trump's crimes here, they're all going to spend
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: time in front of Congress. They're going to have to
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: deal with legal bills and people are not going to
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: want that.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: And again, if the ultimate substantive goal is to get
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: him out of office, at least in 2020, because of
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: the election, this will keep him mired in scandal and
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: on the defensive and melting down as he did yesterday.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: And that's not good for him politically, right? Like his
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: poll numbers are down. The, you know, support for impeachment
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: is up. Like this is not every day that he's
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: having a complete meltdown is another day that he and
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: his campaign don't get to prosecute the case against the Democrats.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: And I, right. And we'll talk about this a little
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: more when we get to the Arizona poll, but we
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: tested a number of message frames on Trump to try
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: to figure out what the best story to tell about
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: this man is. And one of them was about his
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: constant tweeting and the petty fights and the chaos that
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: comes from a Trump presidency. And that message was very
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: effective with core sets of voters. And so Trump is
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: doing himself. We talked earlier about how the country is
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: dialed into this story. So you have a story that
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: everyone's focused on. People are paying attention. And Trump is
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: exhibiting at a record level the exact behavior that turns
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: a lot of voters off. And so keeping Trump at
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: an 11 is... is good for the Democrats over the
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: long term.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about the latest substantive developments from this week. First,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: the latest on the scandal and then what Congress is
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: doing about it. We learned on Monday that Donald Trump
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: has effectively sent William Barr on an international mission to
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: solicit foreign assistance in discrediting Robert Mueller's investigation and confirming
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: the right-wing conspiracy theory that it was actually Ukraine and
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: the Democrats who colluded and interfered in the 2016 election. Seriously,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: this is a real thing. As part of that effort,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Trump has reportedly called the Australian prime minister. He called
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Boris Johnson. Barr's met with the Italians. Dan, how are
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: these calls for foreign assistance different than the Ukraine call?
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Well, the Ukraine call is an off-the-books effort to use
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: law enforcement to politicize an election, an interference election. And
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: the calls with Australia involving Bill Barr... is an on
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: the books effort to use foreign interference to interfere with
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: an American election, right? This is a sanctioned investigation that
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: is happening, but it has the same goal, right? Which
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: is to strengthen Trump politically by creating some sort of
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: fig leaf to say that he is not actually guilty
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: of obstruction of justice or wanting to collude with the Russians.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: And so, I mean, and we should be all very clear,
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: all of us are paying for this. Every taxpayer in
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: America is paying for Bill Barr to fly around the
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: country to try to make the things that come out
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: of Sean Hannity's mouth true. That is an official mission
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: of the chief law enforcement officer in the country.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's not just like– looking into the past
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: here either, right? Like I think what they're going for
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: here is, and you hear this from all the biggest
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: MAGA pundits out there, like fucking Hugh Hewitt and all
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: the right-wing lunatics. They are all very excited. They keep
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: talking about the Barr report, like it's the Mueller report. And,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: you know, it's yet again, it's another Devin Nunes memo.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: It's another Barr summary of the Mueller report. Like what
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: they're hoping is for Bill Barr to come out with
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: this explosive new report that says, yes, the American intelligence
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: community did go after Donald Trump in 2016. FBI did
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: go after Donald Trump in 2016. The origins of the
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: investigation were funded by the Democrats, like all of our
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: crazy conspiracy theories have said for a while. And by
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: the way, we don't know that Barr and the Justice
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Department won't bring more indictments against people that are politically motivated. Like,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: we just, we can't trust that anymore because of what
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Barr has done. I mean, how, what is the significance
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: of Barr's involvement here, personal involvement? Like, isn't it a
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: little unusual for the Attorney General of the United States
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: to be personally investigating American intelligence agencies at the President's request?
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, that's a question that answers itself.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Like, yes, it's fucking unusual.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: It is– like there was this view among the sort
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: of establishment legal community in Washington who were on Bill
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Barr's moot court team or went to– like the sort
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: of elite law school community in D.C. which cares more
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: about each other than their party affiliations. There was sort
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: of this view that, oh, Bill Barr is just doing
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: this to shut Trump up, right? Like it's sort of
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: a fake thing. We're just going to do it. I've
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: assigned this U.S. attorney to do it and it's just
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: going to be happening and we're just going to calm
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: the president down. But that's not what's happening. Bill Barr
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: is himself flying around the country. Let's just put it
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: this way. It is so unusual. If Bill Barr himself
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: was flying around the United States to investigate a major
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: crime here in the United States, that would be an
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: odd use of his time. So this is for a
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: massive ongoing criminal investigation in the United States, that would
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: be odd. And the fact that he's traveling all over
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: the world and taking all the time, when is he
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: doing his job? Right.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: No, he's not doing his job. He is a full-time... This.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: Is what he sees as his job, right? He is
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: serving Trump, not the country.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: No, he's a full-time henchman and co-conspirator. But the Attorney
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: General is just one of Trump's co-conspirators in the Cabinet.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: The other.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Turns out is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who confirmed
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday that he was on Donald Trump's call with
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: President Zelensky after basically lying about it on the Sunday shows. Dan,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: if the call was so perfect, why did Pompeo lie
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: about it?
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: Great question, John. Really great question. I mean, why did
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: he lie so poorly? Ben and Tommy have made this point.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: It is highly unusual for the Secretary of State to
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: be on the phone. when the president is having a
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: foreign leader call. This is just a conversation with the
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: new president of Ukraine. This is not the first call
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: ever with the head of Iran, or this is not
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: a conversation with Kim Jong-un. This is a normal, you know,
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: theoretically in the course of business call. So it's very
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: strange for Pompeo to be on it. It is very
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: notable that he lied about it. I mean, there is
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: an irony to this, which is, Pompeo made it his
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: life mission over several years to make Susan Rice saying
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: an incorrect thing on a Sunday show to be one
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: of the greatest crimes in human history. And he goes
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: on a Sunday show and doesn't say an incorrect thing.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: He lies to the American people about it, which says
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: to me at least that Pompeo knew what he heard
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: was bad.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Because if he said he was on the call, they
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: didn't have to say what he heard on the call.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: And so– It's not a good piece of evidence for
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: the Trump case.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think what's important to know about Pompeo is
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: just how political he is. And there was a good
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Vox piece about how all these State Department officials are
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: on record or went on background saying he has politicized
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: this department to such an incredible degree. There was the
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: profile of him a couple of weeks ago where one
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: diplomat called him a heat-seeking missile for Trump's ass. Like
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: he's the big, you know, Trump himself said, I think
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: I fought with everyone on my staff and in the cabinet,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: except Pompeo. He's the only one I haven't fought with.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: So Pompeo is really sort of in competition with Barr
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: here to see who can curry favor with Trump the most.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: But it makes you, look, if this whole idea where
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Rudy Giuliani is basically saying, you know, oh, I just
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: didn't do this myself. I did this with the help
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: of the State Department, right? Like Rudy's trying to implicate
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: the State Department. And, you know, you think, knowing how
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Pompeo's relationship with Trump, that Rudy might be right, right?
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: And this is why Pompeo is trying to prevent officials
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: from the State Department from testifying to Congress. He doesn't
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: want anyone to testify about this, probably because he knows
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: the State Department is implicated in Trump trying to pressure
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, right? I mean, like, Trump
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: and Pompeo allowed our ambassador to Ukraine, a career civil servant,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: longtime official, to be fired for no reason, no cause,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: only because she wouldn't participate in this fucking scandal to
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: pressure the Ukrainian government to dig up dirt on Biden.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: And Pompeo did nothing about that. Nothing about that. And
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: all of this is going to come out when these
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: people eventually testify, right?
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: And in the documents, right? Like, you could tell this in.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: How Kurt Volker, who was the assistant secretary, and others
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: have reacted to this, which is what was happening was
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: highly unusual and made people very uncomfortable. So to what
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: extent is there email traffic about this amongst State Department employees?
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: I would not be surprised to find some of these
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: people who got roped into this crime caper, sending an
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: email to file, essentially, to sort of detail what happened
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: in real time, much like Jim Comey did in some
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: of his conversations with Trump. And this is one of
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: the reasons Pompeo's ability to prevent those documents from coming
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: out is much more limited than the White House's because
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: State Department documents are subject to FOIA. And so the
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: legal case for getting them, even outside of the context
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: of impeachment inquiry, is much stronger. And so their goal
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: is clearly delay, delay, delay, delay, and try to keep
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: this information out because there is a story to tell
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: here because Giuliani, with we assume the okay of Mike Pompeo,
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: turned elements of the State Department into a taxpayer-funded part
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: of the Trump for re-election campaign. And that is multiple crimes. Yeah,
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: that is not legal.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about what the House Democrats are doing
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: about all this. They've now subpoenaed Rudy, multiple State Department officials,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: and the White House itself for documents and depositions. Pompeo
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: responded with a letter that basically told Democrats to fuck off,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: though he didn't explicitly say he wouldn't be cooperating. It
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: was a lot of words about, oh, I don't want
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: to subject my employees to the bullying and intimidation of
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Congress and blah, blah, blah. Rudy sounds like he might
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: tell them to fuck off. His excuse was, well, no,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: it was signed by Democrats, so I don't have to
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: comply with a subpoena signed by Democrats. That's not a thing.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: That's not a thing, no. Who knows what the White
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: House will do? Can Trump and his goons just ignore
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: these subpoenas, and what can Democrats do about that?
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, there will be a court case about this
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: if they ignore it. And we will put, once again,
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: put our hands in the judiciary. Now the legal argue,
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: the ability of a judge to side with the, with
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: Trump and the Trump administration is much harder in the
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: context of impeachment inquiry. There is an urgency to this
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: request that is very, both in terms of time and
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: value of the request that is much, that is much bigger. Um,
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: and so, it seems unlikely that they are going to
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: be able to stop everything. There will be conversations about
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: executive privileges and relates. So, you know, certainly these calls,
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: the other calls that are on the class, the highly
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: classified server, things like that, maybe there, you know, there
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: will be a debate about, but in general, it seems
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: like Congress, the Trump administration is going to have to
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: cooperate at some level or they will be forced to cooperate.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: And I do think that the Pompeo letter is essentially
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: performative obstruction.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Right.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: He's, he, He's writing the letter so that he can
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: show Trump and Trump's goons that he is goon-like, even
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: though there isn't a lot of bite to the bark
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: in the letter.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: I do think that Schiff and Pelosi and the Democrats
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: have been smart in that in these letters that they send,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: in these subpoenas, they say, by the way, if you
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: do not comply— it will be used as evidence against
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: you in the impeachment trial. And that we will consider
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: obstruction of, I mean, remember, one of the articles of
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: impeachment for Nixon was obstruction of Congress. And Schiff and
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: Pelosi are basically saying, anyone who doesn't comply, this will
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: be part of an article of impeachment that is obstruction
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: of Congress. Now, I wonder if the Trump administration isn't
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: looking at that and saying, well, you know what, if
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: we're either going to be, if the president's going to
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: be impeached for Either a bunch of crimes and abuses
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: of power that the whole public knows about or be
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: impeached for us obstructing Congress because we don't want to
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: provide any information or have anything else be revealed. They
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: don't just take the path of being impeached for obstruction
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: of Congress because they just, they know that essentially this
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: is all, you know, this is a political exercise as
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: impeachment always is. Impeachment is a political exercise. And They
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: just think it will be less damaging to them in
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: the election if they're impeached over obstruction of Congress versus
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: if a whole bunch of new information comes up.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I really much worry about that because it's essentially
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: like adding a fourth life sentence to someone's term. Like
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: why do they care, right?
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: And I think it– so I hope that Democrats don't
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: default to that in the interest of handling this expeditiously.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: Because I think we do want to get to the
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: bottom of this. We want to know the full scope
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: of what happened. And we also just think of all
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: the things we've learned within a week. And this is
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: only from things that Trump has either admitted publicly or
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: the White House has released. Imagine what we can find
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: out when we actually get the things that they think
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: we shouldn't have. And so there will be a balance.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: And I understand there's a balance here. We can't live
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: in a world where The House has to wait for
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: this to wind itself through a bunch of courts. The
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court sits on it and we're into the fall
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: of next year. That is not a viable option. But
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: I hope they push as hard as they can to
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: get as much truth as they possibly can and don't
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: allow some sort of November deadline or December deadline to
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: allow Trump to be– deny the American people the fullest
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: picture possible of what Trump did.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. OK, let's talk about 2020 and start
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: with the results of our latest Polar Coaster 2020 series
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: with our wonderful partners at Change Research. Just a note
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: about Change. Change's weekly polling was one of the very
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: first to spot Elizabeth Warren's rise in the primary. They
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: can do polling very quickly with dynamic online sampling. And
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: so if you're a Democratic candidate, committee, nonprofit, think about
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: using them. Go to ChangeResearch.com. Check out all of their data.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: They did a great impeachment poll within like 48 hours
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: last week. so you can check out all the results there.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: All right, so we polled Arizona. Dan, why did we
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: poll Arizona, and what were we looking to achieve in
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: this poll? Well, two things.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: We polled Arizona because Arizona's been talked about for years
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: as a battleground state. Even 2008, Obama even considered investing
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: in there at the end. In 2016, the Clinton campaign
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: campaigned in Arizona in the last week and spent money there,
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: a decision that hasn't worn well over time. But there's
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: been this thought that Arizona is on the cusp of
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: becoming a true battleground state like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Virginia, etc.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: And our poll indicates that it is. So we wanted
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: to test that. We wanted to see how real a
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: battleground state it was. Is it sort of more like
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin than Georgia? Is it close enough that it deserves
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: early and serious investment? The other question is, we've done
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: one other battleground state, and that is Wisconsin. And there
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: has been this debate raging for a while now within
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: the Democratic Party of, do we want to focus on the, quote-unquote,
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Rust Belt in the industrial Midwest or the Sun Belt
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: in states like Arizona? And our poll indicates that that's
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: a false choice, that much of the– there's very little
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: difference in the efficacy of the messaging between those two states.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: You don't have to have a message for Arizona, a
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: message for Wisconsin there. the same message could be very
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: effective in both places. You just have to have the
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: right message.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a super important point. All right,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: to the findings. Trump's approval in Arizona is the same
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: as it was in Wisconsin, 48%, which is higher than
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: his national average of around 41%. He's got a 50-48
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: approval on the economy, which is also the same as Wisconsin.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: And he trails a generic Democratic candidate 47% to 46%.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: with 2% voting third party and 5% undecided. That's also,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: you know, it was a one point margin in Wisconsin
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: as well. This is a state where new voters are
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: key for Democrats. Non-2016 voters, people who did not vote
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: in 2016, but say they're going to vote in 2020,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: lean Democrat by 69 to 16%. And this is why
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: in this poll, Arizona is much closer than it was
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: in 2016, where Trump beat Hillary by three and a
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: half points. And also 68% of those new voters are
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: under 35. So this is, there is, you know, there's
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: the one difference between some of these Sunbelt states and
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: some of these Rust Belt states is in Wisconsin, it
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: is a bit more of a persuasion game. And it
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: does seem like in Arizona, it's much, and we've seen
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: this in Texas and Georgia as well. It's much more
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: about trying, Democrats trying to expand the electorate to bring
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: in new voters and especially young voters. Swing voters are,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: People who say they voted for at least one Republican
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: and one Democrat in the last three years support the
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: Democratic candidate by 54 to 26 percent. Independents lean Democrat
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: by 43 to 40 percent. Also, we pulled the Senate
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: race and found that Mark Kelly has a 50 to
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: 47 percent lead over Senator Martha McSally, whose approval rating
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: is a pretty awful 30 percent with 50 percent disapproval. Dan,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: I'll stop there before we get into the messaging stuff.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: Your initial reactions to the top lines, and how do
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: you see the state being different than Wisconsin for Democrats,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: if at all?
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: The initial reaction to the top lines is Arizona is
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: going to be one of the states that decides the
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: White House. This is not a stretched state. We generally divide,
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: in the context of a presidential campaign, usually divide the
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: states into battleground states and, quote, expansion states, which are
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: states that you don't necessarily need to get to 270%
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: They are harder to win, but if all things are
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: going your way and you have resources, you'll invest in them.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: North Carolina is an expansion state. Georgia is theoretically an
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: expansion state. But Wisconsin now deserves to be on the
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: battleground state list with the states that are essentially coin
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: flips right now, at this stage at least. And so
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: I think that is a very positive sign for Democrats
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: because Trump's ability to move Ohio and Iowa into his
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: column have– dramatically narrow the number of paths a Democrat
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: has to 270. And so getting one more state that
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: we have a chance to win is very helpful, right?
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: You could lose Wisconsin, win Arizona, you're still president. And
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: also forces Trump to compete in another state. So I
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: think that's very important. I think it is very similar
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: to Wisconsin in a lot of ways, but the way
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: in which it is different, you point out, it is
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: the path to winning is different and I think somewhat
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: harder or more resource intensive than Wisconsin. Because Democrats have
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: not been running well-funded, well-organized presidential campaigns in the state
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: for decades now, you're starting off with a less– your
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: volunteer list, your voter list, your data is less sophisticated
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: and well-organized than it is in some of these other states.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: And it just simply is harder and more expensive to
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: get new voters than it is to persuade people who
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: vote all the time. There's greater upside to it, which
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: is why you want to do it. So– To compete
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: in Arizona is going to require the Democratic Party and
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: eventually the Democratic nominee to start investing as soon as possible.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: Because there's a big registration task and the turnout task
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: is going to be harder. But it is very winnable.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: And the upside is actually because of this new voter universe,
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: higher than in Wisconsin.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, we also pulled the Democratic horse race,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: which we don't put a ton of stock into because
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Arizona is not an early state. And we tell everyone,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: we tell all you guys to make sure to only
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: really care about polling in the early states. So you
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: can look at our Democratic course rates polling, but the one,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: and you know, Warren leads, it's 35 with 35, Bernie's
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: at 19, Biden's at 15, et cetera, et cetera. But
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: I do think the one thing that it's worth paying
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: attention to is the favorability ratings among all of the candidates.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: So Trump's, we talked about Trump's approval, Trump's personal favorability
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: rating among all voters is 42, 56. So negative 14 approval,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: which is pretty bad. But the only Democratic candidates currently
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: more popular than him are Pete Buttigieg, 39-35. He's at
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: plus three. But that's, of course, 39-35. That's a lot
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: of people who have no opinion of Pete at all.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren, who's 45-45. So that's her approval. Bernie Sanders
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: is 41-50 at negative nine. Kamala Harris is 35-48, negative 13.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: And then Joe, I was mostly surprised by Joe Biden's
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: favorability in this poll is one of the lowest. 33-56,
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: that's negative 23, that's worse than Trump's approval. What do
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: you make of that?
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: I think that this is one data point, so I
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: think we need to be very cautious about drawing too
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: many conclusions from it. Much like this poll was conducted,
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: which is, I think, a caveat we probably should have made.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: This poll was conducted basically in the worst week of
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: Trump's political life to date.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was last week.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: And it's notable that he's still at 48 at In
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: this poll, in terms of his approval. This has also
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: not been a great week for Joe Biden because every
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: conversation about Trump's impeachment involves a conversation about Joe Biden. Now,
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: that conversation is based on nothing of substance because there
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: was no evidence Joe Biden did anything wrong. But it's
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: still– like he's in the noise, right, of the story
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: that nine in ten Americans are being consented to. That's
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: part of it. It also, I think, probably speaks to
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: some polarization within the Democratic Party. because Biden can't be
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: at 33 without a decent amount of Democrats having an
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: unfavorable opinion of him. And so the question is, is
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: that a thing that corrects itself when a nomination fight
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: is over? So I think it's something worth watching truly
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: to say. But- it would be a point of concern
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: for me if I was in the Biden campaign, for sure.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: So the important part of the poll for us was
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: our message testing. We first wanted to answer the question,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: what's the most effective overall argument about Trump? We've said
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: this a lot of times, there's a million accurately negative
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: things you can say about Trump, but a campaign is
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: about choosing a message, being disciplined, repeating it over and
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: over again. You have to eventually make a choice about
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: what you say about your opponent. You can't say everything,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: you know, Hillary Clinton ran into this problem in 2016.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: John Kerry ran into this problem about George Bush in 2004.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: We called him a million different things. So we tried
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: to test, you know, is it Trump's lying, his racism,
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: his corruption, his policies? What's the most effective argument? Two
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: clear winners emerged of all of the frames that we tested.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: Here's the first one. Here is the most popular frame.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's constant tweeting nasty insults and petty squabbles with
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: everyone from politicians of both parties to America's allies. are
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: preventing us from making any progress. Instead of uniting us
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: to solve big challenges, he's divided us for his own
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: political gain. That was effective among independents, among swing voters,
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: even among some Republicans. But a close runner-up, almost tied,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: was this message. Donald Trump ran for office as a
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: champion of working people, but as president, he's given tax
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: breaks to big corporations, supported trade agreements that help big businesses,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: and proposed cuts to healthcare and retirement benefits. That was
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: also very, very popular with independents and swing voters. That
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: one was a little less popular with Democrats, and I'm
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: guessing it's because Democrats probably didn't agree with that first
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: line that he ran for office as a champion of
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: working people.
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's probably right. Both of these, for context,
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: the first one overall made 12%—scratch that, the math is
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: fucked up in my head. Both of these did very
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: well overall and with independents. The One about Trump is
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: a faux populist did a few points better with independents.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: Yes, it did. It did. And Republicans, which is interesting too.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think just to give people context about why
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: we did this, the most fundamentally basic exercise that any
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: campaign goes through when they get into a race is
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: something called the message box. And the message box is
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: Four squares on a whiteboard generally where you put your
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: positive argument for yourself and you put your negative argument
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: for your opponent. And you want to know what your
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: opponent's positive argument of themselves is and their opponent's negative
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: argument for you. The bottom left, the Democrats' best negative
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: argument about Trump is one that we have never been
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: able to figure out.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: To your point. Racist, liar, conman, uncouth, unfit. you say
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: all the things, all of which are true. But if
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: you say all the things, no one thing breaks through.
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: And so you need a clear and consistent story. And
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: so this point of this was the beginning of the
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: exercise to figure out what is the best way to
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: describe Trump that is the most impactful with the voters
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: we need. Because if we run through the same exercise
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: where we say all the things again, then we're going
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: to have the same problem we had in 2016, which
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: is no one, no, like you can't ask voters, um,
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: Voters won't be able to read back to you. I
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: remember doing post-election panels in 2016, and I would ask voters,
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: or I'd ask the attendees, what was Donald Trump's message
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: for himself, right, in the context of this message box?
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: And they would say, make America great again. I'd ask
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: the question of, I'd say, what was Hillary Clinton's message
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: for herself? And you'd get lots of answers. People would
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: shout out lots of things, but they were nothing consistent.
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: I would ask what Hillary Clinton's negative message about Trump was,
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: and the room would erupt, right? Like, racist, unfit, alt-right, liar,
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: et cetera, misogynist, all true. And you ask them what
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: Trump's negative message about Hillary was, and they would all yell,
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: crooked Hillary. And so that is not necessarily why Trump won,
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: but it certainly contributed to that fact. And we need
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: to be able to have, at the end of the
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: 2020 election, when you ask people, what is Democratic nominee's
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: X argument against Trump, you want to be able to
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: read back something specific to you.
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: And so after we did that, the next series of
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: messages we tested were more specific statements about Trump's record
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: and policies on immigration, abortion, healthcare, judges, national security, and
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: the economy to see which statements would make voters more
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: or less likely to support him. Once again, as in Wisconsin,
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: we found that statements describing Trump's economic policies were significantly
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: more effective against him than any other statement about his
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: policies or record. And so You know, you listed the
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: top four in the memo that you wrote about this, which,
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: by the way, everyone should go to Crooked.com, read Dan's
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: memo about Wisconsin. It's brilliant, just like the Wisconsin memo was.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: So go check that out. But top four messages most
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: effective against Trump. Trump promised to reduce the deficit, but,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: you know, he dramatically increased government spending and cut taxes
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: for corporations and the wealthy. And the deficit is expected
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: to grow to a trillion dollars this year. So one
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: about how his tax cut increased the deficit. Another one
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: about how his tax cut gave a tax break to
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: companies that ship jobs overseas. And GM and some other
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: companies are already closing plans and moving stuff overseas. Another one,
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: this was the most popular one in Wisconsin, message in Wisconsin.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump broke a campaign promise by proposing more than
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: $ 1 trillion in cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: even as he passed a tax cut for the rich.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: And then Donald Trump promised to repeal NAFTA, but now
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: he's working with Wall Street, major corporations, and the big
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: drunk companies to pass a new NAFTA that hurts workers
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: and helps corporations. All messages about Trump favoring the rich
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: over working people with his policies. Dan, what did you
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: think about these results? And tell us a little bit
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: about what you said in your Arizona memo.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: So in the.
• 55:38
  Speaker 5: Memo, I.
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: Offer.
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: three recommendations for how Democrats can begin the process of
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: winning Arizona. The first one is, as I mentioned earlier,
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: which is invest now and early because this is going
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: to be about registering and turning out new voters. That
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: is going to be the path to win. You've got
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: to start that process right now. The second was about
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: the narratives, which is that the best argument about Trump
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: is that he is a chaotic corporatist, that he is
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: causing chaos. And I think what was most important about
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: those narratives was that there is a cost to his actions, right?
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: It is not just that he is a crazy tweeter
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: who fights with people. It's that because he is doing that,
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: he's not helping your family. He's not fighting for things.
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: And so in any message about Trump, you got to
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: draw it to a specific outcome for American families. It's like,
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: this is not a quite, we're not trying to convince
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: people not to vote for him because he's unpresidential or uncouth.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: It is, his behavior is not bad on its own
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: it's his bad behavior has an impact on your life
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: yeah and i should be better this.
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: And we should say that even in that first one
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: about his tweeting i think one of the reasons it
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: works is instead of uniting us to make progress he
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: has divided us for his own political gain by doing
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: all this crazy tweeting and yelling and insulting and stuff
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: like that there's a specific mention that it is in
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: that he has impeded our progress as a nation.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: And then the third point, which I think is the
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: most important point, and I think it's true in Arizona,
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: it was true in Wisconsin, I think it's true nationally,
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: is whoever wins the economic debate is going to win
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: this race. So Trump's economic approval rating in this poll
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: is 50-48. And that comes despite a summer of really
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: bad economic news for Trump. His trade war, recession fears,
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: huge market gyrations, some below expectations growth numbers. Despite all
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: of that, Trump's economic approval rating is still positive and
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: he gets positive ratings on nothing. And so that's significant.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: And we also tested Trump's positive economic message for himself.
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: And so we tested since Trump became president, we've created
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: millions of jobs and unemployment rates are the lowest they've
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: been in decades. That message was very effective. Most Trump
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: messages that we have tested either in Wisconsin, Arizona, don't
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: do anything to move the race. Just they, they're either
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: a slightly more, they're like slightly less offensive to independents
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: and swing voters. This one made independence 20% more likely
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: to support Trump and even cut the Democratic number down
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: into the 60s. And so that is very significant. But
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: as you point out, Trump's economic support is a mile
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: wide and an inch deep. And so if we communicate
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: the messages outlined in this poll, the ones we tested,
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: we can take him down. And if he loses his
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: economic support, I think the bottom does fall out with
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: everyone other than the MAGA base. And so for all
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: the discussion of all the other important issues, we can
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: and should talk about guns, civil rights, Trump's racism. The
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: Democratic candidate has a moral obligation to talk about those
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: things and campaign on those things. But the effort to
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: take Trump's economic approval rating down should begin right now.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: And there is so much information. The problem is people
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: know the unemployment numbers, and they know that Trump says
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: the economy's been good, but they don't know what his
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: actual economic policies are, and they don't know who his
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: economic policies are for. When you find out that he
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: has done these bad things in order to help his
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: friends in big business and enrich himself, then it can
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: be devastating. But that information is not breaking through in
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: the organic press. And so it needs to be part of,
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: I know I'm a fucking broken record on this, but
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: a aggressive, targeted, sustained advertising campaign. And that campaign should
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: have started yesterday.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: Well, when you, yes, it should have. When you read
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: this memo, you read this poll and read our Wisconsin poll,
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: you realize why during yesterday's press conference, Nancy Pelosi opened with,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: instead of impeachment, I'd like to talk about prescription drug
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: prices and our legislation to lower prescription drug prices. And look,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: we have been very critical. We had been very critical
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: of Pelosi before this impeachment inquiry for not pursuing an
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: impeachment inquiry. But I would say that Pelosi's reluctance to
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: pursue impeachment makes a little more sense when you read
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: polls like this. Now at least you know what polls
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: she's been looking at. Because these polls all say the
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: best way to beat Trump, the most effective way to
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: beat Trump, is to talk about these economic issues, to
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: talk about his faux populism, his plutocracy, his helping his
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: rich friends over working people. his budget cuts, his health
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: care cuts, his Social Security cuts, his Medicare cuts. Like,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: this is what Democrats need to be talking about in
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: this election in order to beat him. And, you know,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: now my argument would be that I think that we
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: can do both, that like there is both a moral
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: obligation and a political benefit to impeaching him. And we
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: should do it. And we've argued that we're in it now.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: But I think if all we talked about from now
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: until the election is is Trump's crimes and his criminality
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: and everything he deserves to be impeached for and his
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: racist outbursts and his tirades and all that kind of stuff.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: And we didn't talk about all of the policies that
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: he's passed that are making life harder for most people
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: in this country of all races, of all genders, of
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: all backgrounds. Um, then we would, you know, we're not
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: putting our best argument forward. And so I understand, you know,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: and everyone should understand like, This is, like you said,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: this is our ultimate goal. We do need to communicate
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: to voters exactly what Trump's policies are and what they
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: have done to the country, especially on the economy.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: And the last point I'd make on that is, I
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: think it's great that Nancy Pelosi started a press conference
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: that way, but Trump is spending millions of dollars on
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: digital ads to take this message directly to the voters.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: And we are not going to communicate the economic narrative
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: that we need through the press. We have to communicate
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: directly to people.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is an old theory that we can communicate
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: it through the press.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: And we know this because all of this information that
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: we show to voters has all been covered by the press.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: It's not that they ignored the stories. They wrote stories
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: about the trillion dollar deficit. They wrote stories about the
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: tax plan, but it doesn't break through the noise. People's information,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: like The mistake we make in democratic politics is we
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: worry about the coverage and not the conversation. You can't
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: just add up the number of headlines you got and
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: news hits you got and think that that equals communication.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: It is, is it showing up in people's social media feed?
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: Are they seeing it? Are they seeing it relentlessly? And
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: there just is no strategy or no possibility to use
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: the organic earned media to do that. So you're going
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: to have to spend money to do it. And it
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: can happen. at the exact same time that we're impeaching Trump.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: At the exact same time we're talking about how Trump's
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: policies on guns have contributed to all these other things.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: But it has to be happening. Yep.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: All right. When we come back, we will have Dan's
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: interview with Congressman Jamie Raskin, and then we will have
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: my interview with Abdul El-Sayed. Thank you.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: He's the Democratic Congressman from Maryland's 8th District. Jamie Raskin,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: welcome to Pod Save America.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: Delighted to be with you guys.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: Congressman, I want to start with the briefing that you
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: had yesterday with the State Department Inspector General. Can you
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: tell us about that briefing and what you learned?
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: Well, the Inspector General felt he had to act after
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: he learned of the whistleblower's complaint because he was sitting
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: on this bizarre package of propaganda papers, essentially, which had
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: been delivered to him in a manila envelope that was
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: addressed in calligraphy to Secretary Pompeo, attention, Ruth. And then
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: the return address was the White House, but it didn't
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: really look like White House stationery. And then there were
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: a group of subdividers within these documents from the Trump Hotel.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: But basically, it's a compendium of.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: Propaganda hits on the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Yanukovych, I
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: think that's her name, and then also on Hunter Biden
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: and Joe Biden. And so it looked to me very
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: much like the kind of stuff that Rudy Giuliani has
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: been talking about, And sure enough, we learned later in
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: the day yesterday that Giuliani took responsibility for having delivered
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: this over to the Secretary of State, and it made
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: its way from Pompeo to his legal counsel to the
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: Inspector General, who turned it over to the FBI. They've
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: had it for four or five months. Apparently, there's nothing
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: in there that they found worthy of launching a criminal investigation.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: And then when he heard about the whistleblower complaint, he
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: decided he should turn it over to Congress as well.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: So to my mind, what it reinforces is the idea
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: that there was a propaganda campaign, which was largely run
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: by Rudy Giuliani, trying to undermine the Bidens and also
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: trying to undermine the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: Congressman, what questions do you have coming out of that briefing?
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: And what more do you want to know about the
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: role that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo played in this
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: whole effort? Well, yeah.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: I mean, I would like to know what exactly was
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: Secretary of State Pompeo's role. There was no postmark on
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: this document that reached him. So somebody apparently handed it
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: to him, gave it to him. Maybe it was over
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: at the Trump Hotel because there's all this Trump stationery
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: built into it. I don't know where it came from.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: We don't know what else he did with it. And
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: it at least suggests the possibility that he was part
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: of the kind of shadow campaign that that Giuliani was
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: running in the Ukraine to try to dig up dirt
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: or produce disinformation about the Bidens. And so I would
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: certainly like to learn from Secretary Pompeo what he knew
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: about it and what his involvement was. But in terms
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: of the core of the story here, it doesn't alter
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: in any way my understanding of what happened. President Trump
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: in this phone call very clearly tried to shake down
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: the president of Ukraine, Zelensky, in order to get him
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: to produce political dirt on the Bidens. And he was
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: willing to withhold $ 391 million in the weeks leading up
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: to that phone call as part of that effort, and
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: then engaged in an effort to cover up all of
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: these proceedings, the shakedown and the basic sellout of our
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: own election. And basically, at this point, we're in the
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: process of collecting more details about what else went along
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: with this phone call. Was there preparatory work? Was there
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: a more detailed campaign by Giuliani to try to get
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: the Ukrainian government to play ball, as they said?
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: What is your optimism about getting access to the materials
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: at the White House and other departments, given that they
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: have to date refused to comply with any congressional requests?
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: Does this being an impeachment inquiry change the nature of this?
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: Well, I think it's all going to come out. We
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: have whistleblowers popping up all over the place now, which
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: is why it's so important for us to protect the
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: the original whistleblower who described this scheme in great detail.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: And so much of this, I think, we will find
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 3: documented in texts and email messages. And this is a
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: president whose original sin was to decide to use his
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: public office as an instrument for self-enrichment and private political advancement.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 3: And that's pretty much all that has gone on in
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: the White House, as far as I can tell, or
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: most of what's gone on in the White House. So
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: we're going to find lots and lots of emails and
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: texts that record all of these activities. Now, obviously, we've
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: learned also about this secret computer server, this electronic safe,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: where the original records of the July 25 phone call
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: were stored. Apparently, there are other phone calls that are
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: in there, and I would be very interested to see
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: all of those, both relating to Ukraine and then also
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: perhaps relating to other tangential matters.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: For our listeners, can you help them understand exactly how
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: making this request in the context of an impeachment inquiry
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: is different? How does it increase your chances to get
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: access to the information you want?
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that everything has changed in terms of
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: the chemistry of White House obstructionism of our investigative powers.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: Because we are in a full-blown impeachment inquiry led by
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Speaker Pelosi, and
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 3: all of the committees are working together towards a common
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: goal here. Our investigative fact-finding powers are at their judicial zenith,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: so the courts are going to regard them as at
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: their peak. But moreover, we are able to say with
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: compelling plausibility to people in the executive branch, you turn
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: over these documents as you are legally obligated to do,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: And if you don't, we can hold you in contempt,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: either civil contempt or criminal contempt, and try to take
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: you to court, or we can hold you in contempt ourselves.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: But in any event, leaving contempt to the side, you
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: are an obstruction of justice, and that itself can become
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 3: an article within an impeachment process. If you go back
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: and look at the Nixon impeachment, for example, obstruction of
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: justice in a much narrower way than what we're seeing here,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: was one of the accounts laid out in an article
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: of impeachment. So I think that's a serious threat that
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: they have to be concerned about. The other thing is
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: that as an evidentiary matter, we are letting all witnesses
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: know that the refusal to turn over this or that
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: document or the refusal to testify or to testify honestly
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: will be taken as an essential admission of of the
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: underlying factual allegations they're trying to avoid or dismiss.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: How concerned are you that this is going to end
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: up in a long, drawn-out court battle that extends an
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: inquiry longer than you would like?
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: No, I think time is on our side. We're not
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: relying on the courts. The core of presidential misconduct is
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 3: well-known and essentially admitted by the president, who bragged about
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 3: what he was doing, and even today, again, tried to
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: ask other countries to produce the information about the Bidens.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: And so the core of misconduct is known. We do
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: want to try to flesh out surrounding factual particulars, but
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: to the extent we are obstructed in that, we will
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: just count that as effectively an admission. You know, this
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 3: is not... a court of law and this is not
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: a matter of crime and punishment. The president's not going
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: to prison if he's impeached and then ultimately convicted and
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: removed in the Senate. He's simply removed from office on
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: the finding that he's unfit because of having committed high
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: crimes and misdemeanors against the American people and against the
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: American Constitution. So I think that he, given that he's
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: running around the country saying that his phone call was
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: perfect and his behavior's been perfect, he needs to come
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: forward with all the evidence they have to try to
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: show that what seems so perfectly clear to everybody else
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: isn't actually the case. And I would love to see
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: what his argument is. He says that he did nothing wrong,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: that it was flawless, and that his performance was perfect.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: Let him come forward and let them stop trying to
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: prevent documents from coming out. Let them stop trying to
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: obstruct witnesses and tell us exactly why this is not
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: what it seems to be, which is the use of
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: the foreign policy and military power of the presidency to
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: extract political favors from an ally which is struggling against
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 3: foreign aggression, in this case Russian aggression. It's just an
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: outrageous sequence of facts, and the president or somebody needs
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: to explain why there's anything remotely defensible about it.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: You're a member of the Judiciary Committee. How concerned are
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: you about Attorney General Barr's involvement in this specific scandal?
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: Well, we have multiple questions for Mr. Barr, who was
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: indeed named by the president, who made him sound like
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: he was a participant in in these events. And if
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 3: that's the case, of course, he must recuse himself from
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: anything having to do with this investigation. When the whistleblower
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 3: complaint was sent over to the Department of Justice and
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: the Department of Justice found that there was no reason
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: to investigate any further to find whether there was criminal
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: conduct involved, he did not recuse himself. There's no mention
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 3: of any recusal by the Attorney General. So that's a
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: very serious problem. You know, we're talking about an AG
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 3: now who, from the beginning of his service, has been
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: acting much more as a right-hand man and a counselor
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: to the President of the United States than he's been
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 3: acting as an Attorney General and a lawyer for the
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: American people. So we want to know precisely what his
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: involvement was. And it does look as if he also
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: was trying to lobby foreign governments to produce the information
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: that the president sought against them, which is pretty astounding
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 3: if it's true.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: Congressman, one follow-up on that. How unusual is it that
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: Attorney General Barr is flying all over the world, engaging
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: in an investigation into American intelligence and law enforcement agencies?
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: Well, first of all, the attorney general seems to be
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 3: in pursuit, not of the truth, but in pursuit of
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 3: fabricated information to try to contradict what our law enforcement
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: agencies have all found. So the CIA and FBI and
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: the Department of Justice's own special counsel, Robert Mueller, all
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: found that there was a sweeping and systematic campaign by
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 3: the Russians to interfere in in our election. That's simply
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 3: beyond dispute from the standpoint of official United States government
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 3: sources that have studied the matter. And yet they appear
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 3: to be wanting, again, to reopen and relitigate what happened
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 3: in the 2016 election. What's remarkable about that to me
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 3: is that the president, of course, declared repeatedly that the
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 3: Mueller report exonerated him on the charge of collusion with Russia. Now,
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: It did not because, as Mueller said, we don't deal
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 3: with the question of collusion, which is a colloquial statement
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 3: about interactions. And they found more than 100 interactions between
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 3: the Trump campaign and Russia. But it did say that
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: there was not sufficient evidence to charge Trump with conspiracy. Now,
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 3: some have said that's because Trump refused to testify and
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: there were other problems in the evidence. But in any event,
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: that was a conclusion that there was not sufficient evidence
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: to go forward with conspiracy charges. So you think that
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: Trump and his team would just leave well enough alone.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: And he, after all, did declare victory there. You know,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: no collusion and, you know, no conspiracy, he said. But
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: they're still trying to undermine the conclusion that Mueller rendered
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: that there was a sweeping and systematic campaign by Russia.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: Why would they be doing that? That seems as if
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 3: they're doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin more than they're
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 3: doing a service even to Donald Trump. I mean, that's
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: remarkable to me that they're traveling all over the world
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 3: to try to undermine the findings by the CIA and
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 3: the NSA and the FBI and a dozen other intelligence agencies.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: And yet there we are. And, of course, they are
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 3: also trying to shake loose information about the Bidens. And
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: the packet that we saw yesterday also targeted Ambassador Yovanovitch.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: Congressman Raskin, thank you so much for joining us on
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America, and we'd love to have you back
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: on again soon. Good.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: I would love to do it.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: Thanks again.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 3: Thanks. Bye-bye.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: On the pod today, the host of the newest Crooked
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: Media podcast, America Dissected, Abdul El-Sayed. Abdul, how's it going?
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 6: I am doing great.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: How are you?
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: I am fantastic. So we've known each other for quite
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: a while. You came in many months ago now to
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: pitch us on the idea for this podcast, and we
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: were immediately interested. Could you give us a version of
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: that pitch here and tell us why you wanted to
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: tackle all these issues and do this podcast?
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 6: Absolutely. So, you know, John, I'm a doctor and an epidemiologist,
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 6: and Before I ran for governor in Michigan, I was
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 6: the health commissioner in the city of Detroit. And one
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 6: of the things you come to appreciate when you sort
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 6: of break out of the little nucleus of your medical
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 6: and epidemiologic world and into the broader world of the
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 6: way we think about government and politics is that the
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 6: conversation that most of us are having about health is
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 6: just the wrong conversation, right? Whether it's the political conversation
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 6: or it is the media conversation, or even worse, it's
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 6: the wellness conversation of people exploiting your insecurities to sell
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 6: you stuff that could hurt you. We're just not talking
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 6: about this right. And I realized that part of that
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 6: is because we are so siloed in our conversation. And
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 6: so what we're trying to do with this podcast is
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 6: to break the wrong conversation and build the right one
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 6: and really center on the fact of science and the
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 6: role of government in what has been a pretty miraculous
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 6: increase in our overall well-being over the past century. And
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 6: I know, you know, in a moment right now where
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 6: Donald Trump moves our timeline, where our conversation at the
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 6: pace of like, you know, a new conversation every day.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 6: We don't really think in centuries long, but like the
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 6: last century saw our life expectancy rocket, right? And we
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 6: go from, you know, a life expectancy in the 40s
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 6: to a life expectancy in the 70s or 80s. And
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 6: that's a pretty big deal. So like, how do we
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 6: do that? And then how do we apply that kind
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 6: of logic and reasoning now?
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, it's interesting, you know, people think
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: about the issue of healthcare in America. And so often,
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: The debate is focused on coverage and what kind of
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: a health system we want to build. And obviously, you
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: cover that as well. But there are also these sort
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: of public health issues that you cover, which I find
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: really fascinating. One of the early issues you talked to
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: us about that you end up covering in this podcast
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: that really made this whole thing click for me was
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: sort of the Ebola scare. Because I remember sort of
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: the Obama administration trying to prevent the spread Ebola. And
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: there was this media hysteria around it. It was fueled
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: by Donald Trump and other right-wing figures. And I just
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: remember thinking how fast the media hysteria sort of overpowered
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: our ability, the government's ability and the medical community's ability
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: to deal with this in a rational way. And I
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: think what's fascinating about this podcast is you sort of
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: track that not only for the issue of Ebola, but
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: for so many other issues where media and political hysteria
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: and bullshit sort of overtake the capacity of government and
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: the medical community to really grapple with issues that they
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: should be able to grapple with.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 6: That's right. So I was a professor of epidemiology in
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 6: New York during the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. And
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 6: you had this sort of movement of these scare tactics
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 6: by people who would ultimately run for president on those
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 6: scare tactics. What it did was it created this sort
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 6: of need to respond to an issue that had not
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 6: actually become an issue and would really not become an
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 6: issue in the United States. Now, that did two things.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 6: Number one, it took our attention away from what we
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 6: actually could do about the problem, which is empower our
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 6: public health infrastructure to go and fight the epidemic and
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 6: save lives in West Africa. But then number two, to
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 6: actually do something about the problems that we're actually suffering
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 6: at home. Like one of the things that was happening
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 6: during the Ebola epidemic was that we were having one
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 6: of the worst flu years in recent memory that year.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 6: And one of the things that we can do is
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 6: just get a flu vaccine. Like that's a way to
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 6: protect yourself from a very deadly disease right at home.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 6: But like people don't talk about the mundane that way, right?
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 6: They talk about these extremely scary diseases. And Ebola is
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 6: a terrible disease that killed a lot of people, but
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 6: not in the United States. And so we were just
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 6: having the wrong health conversation.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: I loved your episode about the anti-vaxxers. That's out now.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: What did you learn about why health conspiracies like that
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: proliferate and what we can do to stop them?
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, a couple of things. I had some
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 6: really interesting conversations with folks. And I think number one,
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 6: I think the medical and public health community just has
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 6: to be a lot more honest about what we know
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 6: and what we don't. And I think when we come
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 6: to it this conversation from a space of honesty and
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 6: respect for the scientific process, I think what it does
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 6: is it creates the space for folks to say, okay,
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 6: what can I trust now? But like, you never really
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 6: trust an institution that's like all or nothing about what
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 6: it says it knows. Number two, people who choose not
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 6: to vaccinate, they usually do it from a place of fear.
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 6: And one of the problems with the way we have
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 6: conversations is, is that we just come at it from
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 6: a place of blame and anger. And usually when you're
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 6: part of an institution that people don't trust in the
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 6: first place because you're so all or nothing and telling
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 6: them what to do, and then you start yelling at
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 6: them for making the decision that you told them not
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 6: to make, you don't usually win them over. And so
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 6: we've got to be able to differentiate between some of
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 6: these problematic people who are exploiting the space to sell
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 6: pseudoscience and to sell products, From folks who are their victims.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 6: And I think when it comes to the victims, we've
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 6: got to come from a place of empathy. most of
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 6: our political conversation, it would be a very different country
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 6: right now. And so I think there's a lot we
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 6: can learn about how we communicate both with honesty and empathy.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: So your next episode is about the insanely high cost
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: of prescription drugs. Talk about what we can expect from
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: that episode. And I'd also love to hear what you
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: think about Nancy Pelosi's legislation on this that she announced
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: a few weeks ago that she's been trying to push
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: even in the midst of impeachment.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 6: Yeah, look, I really am thankful that House Democrats led
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 6: by a number of legislators, including the Speaker, are bringing
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 6: this forward. So what they're trying to do is give
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 6: power to the Secretary of Health and Human Services to
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 6: negotiate with drug manufacturers for the 250 most expensive medications
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 6: on the Medicare formulary that are currently under patent. And
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 6: so that's a really, really big deal. But What we're
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 6: trying to dig into in this episode is precisely why
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 6: prescription drugs are so expensive in the first place. And
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 6: that's because the government cannot negotiate. And it's this crazy
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 6: thing that shows you exactly how corporations have, in effect,
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 6: because of our lax campaign finance system, have been able
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 6: to reach across the firewall between government and economics to
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 6: create these hugely problematic policies, like the fact that Medicare,
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 6: which is one of the biggest purchasers of prescription drugs,
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 6: can't negotiate down the cost of these drugs. And so
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 6: we use this story about a really critical hepatitis C medication,
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 6: hepatitis C being the most deadly infectious disease in America
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 6: right now. This medication that's priced at $ 84, 000 a course.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 6: And we look at how it got priced that way.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 6: And the fact is, is that the research that led
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 6: to the creation of this medication, it was funded by
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 6: the NIH and the Veterans Affairs Administration, our taxpayer dollars.
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 6: And so it's crazy because these pharmaceutical companies have leveraged
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 6: their input into the political process to basically leave us
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 6: paying both for the research and development that creates these medications,
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 6: and then also on the back end, these exorbitant prices
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 6: that are way higher than any other country. So we
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 6: like really try and walk the listener through how this
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 6: drug got created, how it got bought, and how Wall
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 6: Street leveraged its weird incentive structure to leave it costing
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 6: that much. And I do hope that this bill moves forward.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 6: I'm a little bit cynical about what the impeachment process
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 6: is going to do to it, but it's an important start.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 6: I think we can go a lot further, and we
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 6: talk a little bit about that in the pod.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. One of the things that, you know,
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: even as there's disagreement on healthcare within the party is
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: You know, the high cost of prescription drugs, you'll see
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: like progressive Democrats, more centrist Democrats. You even heard, you know,
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: some Republicans talk about it. I think in polling and
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: when you talk to people, it shows up consistently as
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: one of the very biggest concerns among people is the
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: high cost of prescription drugs. It sort of unifies people
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: across party, class, education. It is just it is one
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: of the most pressing problems in health care for sure.
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 6: I mean, one of the things about it, so I
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 6: ran for governor of Michigan in 2018 and got to
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 6: meet a lot of folks. And almost everybody has an experience,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 6: either for themselves or among one of their loved ones,
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 6: where that person had to really, really stretch, if not
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 6: potentially co-bankrupt, to be able to afford a medication that
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 6: was critical for their being alive, whether it's insulin, whether
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 6: it's an EpiPen. whether it's this medication for hepatitis C,
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 6: we're watching as these corporations have in effect just flayed
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 6: us financially so that they can make billions of dollars.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 6: And so it really doesn't matter who you are, this
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 6: issue touches you. And sometimes when we talk about healthcare
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 6: writ large, if you have insurance and you've never actually
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 6: had to use it, it's one of those things that
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 6: sort of back of mind. But when it comes to
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 6: prescription drugs, because all of us are affected by it, it's...
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 6: it makes sense that it pulls so highly among the
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 6: set of concerns that people really identify when they want
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 6: government to act.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: All right, Abdul. So everyone, please go check out America Dissected.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: Go download it. Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: You are the perfect person to do this, having both
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: a health background and a political background. So you can
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: fuse the two worlds together. So everyone, it's And it's
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: very entertaining too. It's just a really fun podcast and
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: you will learn a lot. So thanks for joining us
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: and good luck with everything.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 6: Yeah, John, thank you guys for doing this pod. Like
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 6: the goal here is that we're having the health conversation
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 6: we should be having and it doesn't have to be boring, right?
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 6: Because these are things that all of us have to
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 6: pay attention to in our daily lives for ourselves and
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 6: our loved ones. ones so hope you'll check it out
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 6: thanks for the opportunity to do it and it's been
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 6: a lot of fun working with you guys and I
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 6: hope that folks will check it out.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Abdul and Congressman Raskin for joining us today
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: and we will talk to you next week we're going
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: to switch next week Dan and I will be doing
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: the Monday pod And then you'll hear from Tommy and
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: John and I for the Thursday pod.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 2: Just keeping people guessing.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all the time.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 2: Bye. Bye, everyone.
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Somanator, and
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: Katie Long for production support. And to our digital team,
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Narmel Coney, and Yael Freed, and Milo Kim,
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: who film and upload these episodes as a video every week.