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“Humane immigration and salad vaccination.” · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:23
Speaker 1: On today's show, Republicans and Democratic centrists are causing a
0:26
Speaker 1: congressional clusterfuck for the ages. Former White House domestic policy
0:30
Speaker 1: director Cecilia Munoz joins to talk about what Joe Biden
0:33
Speaker 1: can do about migration at the border and his immigration agenda.
0:37
Speaker 1: And we talk through this week's wildest right-wing conspiracy in
0:41
Speaker 1: a new segment we're calling Shit Your Uncle's Posting. Before
0:46
Speaker 1: we start, we just announced a brand new podcast from Gimlet, Crooked,
0:51
Speaker 1: and A24 called 544 Days. That's how long Washington Post
0:56
Speaker 1: journalist Jason Rezaian was held hostage in Iran and where
0:59
Speaker 1: he was falsely accused of being an American spy. In
1:02
Speaker 1: this limited series, Jason will tell the story of what
1:05
Speaker 1: it took to free him, all while navigating the high-stakes
1:08
Speaker 1: world of nuclear diplomacy. The 544 Days trailer is out now,
1:12
Speaker 1: and you can catch the first three episodes on September 28th.
1:15
Speaker 1: Listen for free only on Spotify. And don't miss Hysteria
1:19
Speaker 1: this week. Erin and Alyssa talked to Congresswoman Cori Bush
1:22
Speaker 1: about her new legislation to help renters, and Dr. Heather
1:25
Speaker 1: Irubunda about the pervasive misinformation out there about COVID vaccines
1:30
Speaker 1: and fertility. New episodes of Hysteria drop every Thursday, so
1:34
Speaker 1: check it out.
1:34
Speaker 3: All right, let's get to the news.
1:36
Speaker 1: Joe Biden met with congressional Democrats at the White House
1:39
Speaker 1: on Wednesday after centrists threatened to tank the agenda he
1:42
Speaker 1: ran on and Republicans threatened to shut down the government
1:45
Speaker 1: and blow up the economy. The meeting came ahead of
1:48
Speaker 1: a few hugely consequential deadlines. Here they are about a
1:51
Speaker 1: month from now. There will be a stock market crash
1:54
Speaker 1: and a massive recession if Congress doesn't lift the debt ceiling.
1:58
Speaker 1: A week from now, the federal government will shut down
2:01
Speaker 1: if Congress doesn't pass a bill to fund it. And
2:03
Speaker 1: on Monday, Nancy Pelosi has promised to vote on a
2:06
Speaker 1: bipartisan infrastructure bill that currently doesn't have enough support to pass.
2:11
Speaker 1: Progressives say they won't vote for it until Democratic centrists
2:14
Speaker 1: agree to pass Biden's Build Back Better bill. Centrists say
2:17
Speaker 1: the fully paid for economic plan costs too much money.
2:20
Speaker 1: And Republicans are threatening to oppose the Build Back Better bill,
2:23
Speaker 1: the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the government funding bill, and the
2:27
Speaker 1: debt ceiling increase because they're assholes who would happily watch
2:30
Speaker 1: the country collapse if it meant that Joe Biden and
2:32
Speaker 1: the Democrats would fail. Dan, let's start with what we've
2:37
Speaker 1: heard about this big White House meeting that took place
2:41
Speaker 1: on Wednesday. A bunch of people left the meeting, and
2:44
Speaker 1: of course they talked to reporters because that's what we
2:45
Speaker 1: do now. Joe Manchin said that the president told him,
2:49
Speaker 1: Give me a number and tell me what you can
2:52
Speaker 1: live with and what you can't. Stephanie Murphy, another centrist,
2:55
Speaker 1: said both sides agreed that both the infrastructure and the
2:59
Speaker 1: Build Back Better bills should pass. Bernie Sanders said, I
3:02
Speaker 1: think at the end of the day, we're going to
3:03
Speaker 1: be fine. And my favorite quote came from Nancy Pelosi herself.
3:07
Speaker 1: We're calm and everybody's good and our work's almost done.
3:12
Speaker 1: Does all that make you feel better? What do you
3:14
Speaker 1: think about, what kind of tea leaf, let's do some
3:17
Speaker 1: tea leaf reading from that meeting. Yeah.
3:20
Speaker 2: I mean, this is going to run really counter to type, but.
3:23
Speaker 3: Are you optimistic? Well. Does that mean I have to
3:26
Speaker 3: be pessimistic?
3:27
Speaker 2: No, I mean, you just, you live your truth, okay? I,
3:35
Speaker 2: looking at everything everyone said, it makes me relatively optimistic
3:39
Speaker 2: that the worst case scenario of both bills failing and
3:43
Speaker 2: nothing happening will not come to pass. There is a
3:46
Speaker 2: natural rhythm to these things. And this is something that
3:49
Speaker 2: you and I have watched Joe Biden do before. This
3:51
Speaker 2: is what he is very good at, which is getting
3:53
Speaker 2: people in a room and saying, enough with all the bullshit.
3:56
Speaker 2: What do you want? You say 3.5 is too much?
4:00
Speaker 2: Give me a number. You don't like this policy? Give
4:02
Speaker 2: me a policy you do like. He's forcing people to
4:05
Speaker 2: put aside the posturing and make it be about policies.
4:07
Speaker 2: You can't actually make decisions because No one is being
4:11
Speaker 2: particularly specific about what it is they want and what
4:13
Speaker 2: it is they don't want. It's all just very generic, broad,
4:19
Speaker 2: ethereal posturing. And so if we're ever going to get
4:21
Speaker 2: to where we need to go, people have to say
4:23
Speaker 2: what they want and then negotiate because you can't negotiate
4:26
Speaker 2: between something and nothing. And so I have some optimism
4:31
Speaker 2: that we are getting to a place where some decisions
4:34
Speaker 2: can be made before too long.
4:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do share.
4:38
Speaker 1: Some of that optimism, because if you hearing, if we're
4:41
Speaker 1: hearing both the progressives and the centrist in the meeting, uh,
4:47
Speaker 1: speak relatively positively, not just about the meeting, but about
4:50
Speaker 1: the general agreement that both bills do need to pass
4:54
Speaker 1: and that they're both, they're all on board with both
4:56
Speaker 1: bills passing, then it seems like we're getting somewhere. Of course,
4:58
Speaker 1: devils in the details. Um, the other piece of good
5:00
Speaker 1: news is, is this morning, right before we recorded, uh,
5:04
Speaker 1: Schumer and Pelosi both said that, um, that the White
5:07
Speaker 1: House and Congress has agreed on a framework for how
5:10
Speaker 1: to pay for the bill with tax hikes on the rich. Now,
5:14
Speaker 1: I heard that there's like basically a menu of revenue
5:17
Speaker 1: raising options, which means various tax hikes on the rich
5:22
Speaker 1: that they're going for. But I do think that that
5:25
Speaker 1: might be a good first step, because if you can
5:27
Speaker 1: get everyone to agree on, all right, how much money
5:29
Speaker 1: are we going to raise through taxes, knowing that the
5:32
Speaker 1: bill is fully paid for? Then you can sort of
5:34
Speaker 1: back into an overall number because like, oh, well, we
5:37
Speaker 1: raised this much money in taxes that we've all agreed on.
5:39
Speaker 1: So now we can spend this much money.
5:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's definitely possible. I do want to temper my
5:43
Speaker 2: optimism in one way because I don't want us to
5:45
Speaker 2: look Pollyannish, which is I think something's going to get done.
5:49
Speaker 2: Is what gets done. What should get done or what
5:53
Speaker 2: needs to get done? Will it get done in a
5:54
Speaker 2: way that maximizes the policy and political opportunity before us?
5:58
Speaker 2: That's a different question. But I am moving away from
6:01
Speaker 2: the cliff of the idea that nothing will get done,
6:04
Speaker 2: which would be a disaster and squandered opportunity of truly
6:07
Speaker 2: epic proportions.
6:09
Speaker 1: So in addition to taxes, there are a bunch of
6:11
Speaker 1: other policy issues to figure out here, to say the least.
6:14
Speaker 1: I just want to talk about two big ones. One
6:16
Speaker 1: is health care, something that came out of the reports
6:19
Speaker 1: about the meeting. is that a lot of the centrists
6:23
Speaker 1: in the meeting said they were on Pelosi's side. Pelosi
6:28
Speaker 1: wants to really shore up the Affordable Care Act, bigger subsidies,
6:31
Speaker 1: more Medicaid expansion, all that kind of stuff. Bernie and
6:36
Speaker 1: a lot of progressives want to expand Medicare to include vision, hearing, dental.
6:41
Speaker 1: I do wonder if the centrists end up making the
6:46
Speaker 1: Bernie Medicare expansion much tougher, especially since they have Pelosi
6:49
Speaker 1: on their side.
6:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that that is going to be hard.
6:54
Speaker 2: I mean, it once again gets to the stupidity of
6:56
Speaker 2: this whole thing, which is why not both? We absolutely
6:59
Speaker 2: need to do both things. We should be able to
7:01
Speaker 2: do both. And if there wasn't some sort of fake
7:05
Speaker 2: posturing about money being spent that is not really adding
7:08
Speaker 2: to the deficit, then we could do both. But I
7:11
Speaker 2: think the bulk of the political will seems to be
7:14
Speaker 2: on the side of strengthening the Affordable Care Act, which
7:16
Speaker 2: is still completely insane to me that Medicare does not
7:20
Speaker 2: cover a program designed to help the elderly does not
7:24
Speaker 2: cover hearing.
7:26
Speaker 3: It's insane. It's insane. Yeah.
7:27
Speaker 2: I mean, Bernie is a hundred percent right on the substance.
7:29
Speaker 2: It's not even a close.
7:30
Speaker 3: I agree. I agree.
7:31
Speaker 1: And I mean, again, I also think that we should
7:33
Speaker 1: expand Medicaid in States that haven't done it and we
7:35
Speaker 1: should increase the subsidies and the affordable care X so
7:38
Speaker 1: people can buy health insurance. So I, again, it's, people
7:41
Speaker 1: have asked me like, where, where do you fall on
7:42
Speaker 1: this one? It's like, it's hard to choose because all
7:44
Speaker 1: those things are incredibly important to do. Um, The other
7:47
Speaker 1: big issue here is climate and particularly Joe Manchin's position
7:51
Speaker 1: on the climate provisions. He said that he's far apart
7:55
Speaker 1: from the president on some of this stuff, which is unfortunate.
7:58
Speaker 1: That's not a piece of good news, I think. Just
8:01
Speaker 1: so everyone knows, the Democrats' plan on climate is to
8:04
Speaker 1: make big oil companies and corporate polluters pay more the
8:08
Speaker 1: more they pollute and then use that money to reward
8:11
Speaker 1: businesses and communities that are transitioning to clean energy, which
8:14
Speaker 1: will create millions of jobs and make sure that our
8:17
Speaker 1: kids don't spend their lives dealing with wildfires and floods
8:21
Speaker 1: and droughts that are only going to get worse. Right now,
8:23
Speaker 1: we reward fossil fuel executives and companies for making our
8:27
Speaker 1: air and water dirtier.
8:29
Speaker 3: I don't know why we would keep doing that. What
8:31
Speaker 3: do you think, Dan?
8:33
Speaker 2: Joe Manchin was going to be the skunk at the
8:35
Speaker 2: garden party no matter what. But I would say that
8:37
Speaker 2: putting the centrist senator from a coal state that Donald
8:42
Speaker 2: Trump won by 40 points in charge of energy policy
8:45
Speaker 2: in the United States Senate was a short-sighted decision. I mean,
8:50
Speaker 2: this goes to the bigger point here, which is we're
8:54
Speaker 2: talking about all the politics of this and the polling
8:57
Speaker 2: and what is a good number and what's a bad
8:58
Speaker 2: number and all of that. It is worth just stepping
9:00
Speaker 2: back for one second and just dealing with the fact
9:05
Speaker 2: that This is the best. This bill right here before
9:09
Speaker 2: us is the best and maybe the last chance for
9:12
Speaker 2: a very long time to do anything about climate change.
9:16
Speaker 2: Because if Republicans get control of one branch of government,
9:19
Speaker 2: then we will do nothing about climate change. And to
9:22
Speaker 2: think about the stakes here is that currently Democrats are
9:25
Speaker 2: favored to lose the House. That doesn't mean it's going
9:26
Speaker 2: to happen, but history, gerrymandering, all these things are running
9:30
Speaker 2: against us. When Democrats lost the House in 1994, they
9:34
Speaker 2: didn't get it back for 12 years. We lost it
9:36
Speaker 2: in 2010. We didn't get back for eight years. That
9:40
Speaker 2: is not time we have on our hands in climate change.
9:44
Speaker 2: And so it'd be great if everyone could put aside
9:45
Speaker 2: all the petty bullshit and like try to save the
9:47
Speaker 2: planet because that is actually the most important thing here.
9:50
Speaker 2: And that keeps getting lost in some of these smaller
9:54
Speaker 2: policy fights. Does it take away the fact that we
9:57
Speaker 2: need Joe Manchin's vote? So this is not going to
9:58
Speaker 2: be what we want, but it's it does sort of
10:00
Speaker 2: raise the stakes and speaks to what is at hand
10:03
Speaker 2: before us.
10:05
Speaker 4: Yeah.
10:05
Speaker 1: And when we had Ron Klain on, I asked him
10:08
Speaker 1: about this, and he said he was optimistic that they
10:11
Speaker 1: could figure out a formula that works for everyone. And
10:15
Speaker 1: I think what he's referring to is this sort of
10:17
Speaker 1: pay-for-performance plan or whatever it's being called right now, but
10:21
Speaker 1: this plan to basically say to corporate polluters, you pay,
10:25
Speaker 1: and the money that you pay for polluting, we're going
10:27
Speaker 1: to use to help with clean energy transition. And of course,
10:30
Speaker 1: I'm sure Manchin has some issues there, probably with coal,
10:34
Speaker 1: but especially, I guess, he wants natural gas included as
10:36
Speaker 1: a clean source of energy, which seems crazy to me,
10:38
Speaker 1: but maybe that's the place where you compromise. But whatever
10:42
Speaker 1: that formula ends up being is going to be a
10:43
Speaker 1: very big deal. Politico says that the Monday vote on
10:46
Speaker 1: the bipartisan infrastructure bill is a huge win for Democratic moderates,
10:49
Speaker 1: which seems crazy to me if it doesn't pass. And
10:53
Speaker 1: if it doesn't pass, it's because progressives are going to
10:55
Speaker 1: do what they say they're going to do, which is
10:57
Speaker 1: vote against the bill, which I think they should do
11:00
Speaker 1: if they don't have a Build Back Better bill at
11:01
Speaker 1: that point.
11:02
Speaker 3: What do you think?
11:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. I think they should vote against it.
11:06
Speaker 2: The stakes are too high to give up your one
11:08
Speaker 2: piece of leverage over a tiny handful of moderates who
11:11
Speaker 2: are out of step with the bulk of the party.
11:13
Speaker 2: I mean, it's going to be painful when it happens
11:15
Speaker 2: and there's going to be, oh my God, Biden's bad
11:19
Speaker 2: August and his miserable September have gone into a terrible October.
11:22
Speaker 3: Progressives tank the bill. I'll disarray.
11:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's going to be, if they end up
11:27
Speaker 1: voting the bill down, again, I think they should for
11:30
Speaker 1: the reason you just said, it's their only last piece
11:32
Speaker 1: of leverage. The centrists have basically dared progressives to vote again.
11:38
Speaker 1: They've forced them to vote against this bill. because they've
11:40
Speaker 1: sent so many signals that, oh, if the bill went down,
11:44
Speaker 1: you know, maybe they wouldn't, or if there was no bipartisan,
11:47
Speaker 1: you know, if the bill went down, they wouldn't support
11:49
Speaker 1: Build Back Better, or they might not support Build Back
11:51
Speaker 1: Better at all, that, like, the only thing progressives have
11:54
Speaker 1: is the leverage on this bill, so they kind of
11:56
Speaker 1: have to. But if the vote goes forward and the
11:59
Speaker 1: bill goes down, the headlines are going to be fucking brutal,
12:03
Speaker 1: which makes me think that, as we get closer to Monday,
12:07
Speaker 1: if the votes aren't there and there's not a larger
12:10
Speaker 1: agreement on build back better, that Pelosi will not put
12:13
Speaker 1: that bill up for a vote.
12:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. Cause to what the not
12:20
Speaker 2: putting it up would theoretically upset the nine, 10, I
12:24
Speaker 2: think it's 10 now, 10.
12:26
Speaker 3: Yeah. Josh got Josh got the Godheimer gang.
12:28
Speaker 4: Yeah.
12:29
Speaker 2: The Godheimer gang. Um, but what possible, like what, what
12:34
Speaker 2: possible upside do they have in the bill getting voted down?
12:36
Speaker 2: Like it seems to be, it's, I think we would,
12:39
Speaker 2: we will avoid, I hope we avoid that fate, but it's,
12:44
Speaker 2: none of this is pretty and it's all more complicated
12:46
Speaker 2: than it needs to be. And I think there's one
12:48
Speaker 2: important point here that I think keeps getting lost is
12:50
Speaker 2: with sort of the bias towards bipartisanship and moderation in
12:54
Speaker 2: Washington political coverage is the responsible people here are the progressives, right?
13:00
Speaker 2: Greg Sargent made this point, which they have been specific
13:02
Speaker 2: about what they want. They've been specific about what they're
13:05
Speaker 2: willing to compromise on. They have put out a plan,
13:08
Speaker 2: and it is the centrists who are running around lighting
13:12
Speaker 2: things on fire for political posturing and no particular purpose.
13:16
Speaker 2: So when this goes down, there will obviously be a
13:19
Speaker 2: ton of coverage that will blame, for very obvious reasons, AOC,
13:24
Speaker 2: the squad, liberals, particularly liberal women. That is going to happen,
13:30
Speaker 2: but that is not how we got here. How we
13:32
Speaker 2: got here is Josh Gottheimer, Kyrsten Sinema, Joe Manchin, and
13:36
Speaker 2: the rest causing making this much more challenging than it
13:38
Speaker 2: used to be.
13:39
Speaker 1: The progressive position isn't just the responsible position. It's the
13:42
Speaker 1: politically shrewd position. There are many times where I believe
13:46
Speaker 1: deeply in progressive policy, and I'm on their side with policy.
13:51
Speaker 1: And yet, on the politics i get the constraints and
13:55
Speaker 1: i get some of the arguments that mainstream democrats make
13:57
Speaker 1: about the constraints the politics on it it on in
14:00
Speaker 1: this situation like centrists are threatening to tank a bill
14:06
Speaker 1: that includes some of the most popular provisions ever polled
14:12
Speaker 1: uh Allowing Medicare to negotiate for cheaper prescription drugs is
14:17
Speaker 1: one of the most popular things ever polled. Raising taxes
14:22
Speaker 1: on the wealthiest Americans and big corporations, hugely fucking popular.
14:27
Speaker 1: Expanding Medicare, hugely fucking popular.
14:31
Speaker 3: Go pull it.
14:31
Speaker 1: So I guess my final question on this is we
14:35
Speaker 1: have this extremely popular bill. hugely popular with Democratic voters,
14:40
Speaker 1: popular with independent voters, popular with like anywhere between, you know,
14:43
Speaker 1: a third and half of Republican voters.
14:47
Speaker 3: How is this?
14:47
Speaker 1: We have Democratic majorities in both houses. How is it
14:51
Speaker 1: so hard to get this done?
14:53
Speaker 2: This is like one of those problems where in political
14:55
Speaker 2: reporting and punditry, 90% of it's about strategy, right? Like,
14:59
Speaker 2: what's the right message? Why are we doing this? When
15:01
Speaker 2: the problem here is structural, right? There are two things
15:04
Speaker 2: that I think have put us in this position because,
15:07
Speaker 2: I mean, you obviously remember this six months ago when
15:09
Speaker 2: everyone was like, after the rescue plan passed, they were like,
15:12
Speaker 2: we have learned the lessons of 2009. There is no
15:15
Speaker 2: way we're going to end up in that situation again.
15:17
Speaker 2: We've got it all figured out. And lo and behold,
15:20
Speaker 2: here we are in a situation that's actually way stupider
15:25
Speaker 2: than the divisions over the Affordable Care Act. That was
15:29
Speaker 2: a tough vote. Like, let's not, it was at best
15:32
Speaker 2: a 50-50 issue and it was underwater for most of
15:34
Speaker 2: the time. The Build Back Better agenda is one of
15:36
Speaker 2: the most popular pieces of legislation I've ever seen, hands down.
15:40
Speaker 2: And so it's not that we learned all the lessons
15:43
Speaker 2: and then we forgot them in the last few months.
15:45
Speaker 2: And recognizing that people have a lot of pandemic brain,
15:48
Speaker 2: it's been hard, but that's not what happened. There are
15:50
Speaker 2: two issues going on here. I think one is sort
15:52
Speaker 2: of obvious, which is the fact the existence of the
15:56
Speaker 2: filibuster is making this so much harder. We are trying
15:57
Speaker 2: to jam every single thing we want to do for
16:02
Speaker 2: the next decade into one bill. And so now the
16:05
Speaker 2: trade-offs aren't between this healthcare plan or that healthcare plan.
16:08
Speaker 2: It's between a healthcare plan and a climate change plan,
16:11
Speaker 2: healthcare plan and childcare. And that makes it so much harder.
16:14
Speaker 2: It also makes it so much harder to message. Like
16:16
Speaker 2: what is the narrative of here's everything, right? And then
16:21
Speaker 2: the second thing I think is really interesting. And I've
16:24
Speaker 2: been thinking a lot, I wrote about this today, but
16:26
Speaker 2: I think a lot about when Tommy interviewed Elizabeth Warren
16:30
Speaker 2: as part of our interviews with presidential candidates. And we
16:32
Speaker 2: asked her, what her first bill would be. Would it
16:34
Speaker 2: be Medicare for all? Would it be her wealth tax?
16:36
Speaker 2: Would it be her Wall Street reform plan? And she said, no,
16:37
Speaker 2: it'd be my anti-corruption bill. Because all the things I
16:41
Speaker 2: want to do take on special interests. So we have
16:43
Speaker 2: to reduce the influence of special interests first to make
16:45
Speaker 2: all that stuff easier. And the fact that we did
16:48
Speaker 2: not do those things, we have not done those things,
16:50
Speaker 2: are why you have a tiny handful of members who
16:53
Speaker 2: have received a ton of money from the pharmaceutical industry
16:56
Speaker 2: opposing this incredibly popular thing. And so those two things,
16:59
Speaker 2: I think, are why we're here. It's not everyone is stupid.
17:02
Speaker 2: It's no one can read politics. It's that the system
17:05
Speaker 2: is set up. And if we don't fix those things,
17:08
Speaker 2: the filibuster and reforming politics, every time there's democratic control
17:13
Speaker 2: of government again, God willing, that ever happens again, because
17:16
Speaker 2: that is not a given, we're going to end up
17:18
Speaker 2: right back in 2009. And so I think it's a
17:21
Speaker 2: little bigger than just like centrists don't understand politics or
17:24
Speaker 2: progressives are being too demanding. It's a structural problem.
17:27
Speaker 1: Well, to that point, I realize everyone's in deal-making mode
17:31
Speaker 1: right now and it's all sort of behind closed doors, meetings,
17:35
Speaker 1: and it's not very productive for Joe Biden to go
17:38
Speaker 1: out there and start screaming about Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
17:43
Speaker 1: But I do wonder if it behooves him to pick
17:46
Speaker 1: a fight with some of these special interests that are
17:48
Speaker 1: standing in the way of passing this bill so he
17:50
Speaker 1: can have a fight out there and talk about how
17:53
Speaker 1: prescription drug companies... and big oil companies, and banks, and
17:58
Speaker 1: billionaires that don't pay any taxes, which I know he's
18:01
Speaker 1: doing an event today about that, if hammering that as
18:07
Speaker 1: a message might sort of help build public support or
18:10
Speaker 1: at least build public pressure on Democrats to get something
18:13
Speaker 1: done without directly attacking some of these Democrats, which would
18:17
Speaker 1: be satisfying, is satisfying to us, but probably would not
18:20
Speaker 1: lead them to then vote for the bill.
18:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with that.
18:23
Speaker 2: I also just think broadly– he had a tweet today
18:28
Speaker 2: sort of laying out why the Build Back Better bill mattered.
18:30
Speaker 2: I think getting him out there, maybe going to some
18:33
Speaker 2: of these swing states, not necessarily targeting specific members. I'm
18:36
Speaker 2: not saying go to West Virginia or Arizona to go
18:38
Speaker 2: after Cinnamon Mansion, but go to the states that are
18:41
Speaker 2: going to matter in 2022. Give some speeches, do some
18:43
Speaker 2: events that just message why you're doing this and sort
18:46
Speaker 2: of get– try to lift some of– this is really
18:48
Speaker 2: hard in this news environment, but to lift narrative a
18:52
Speaker 2: little bit out of like a really minuscule minutiae of
18:56
Speaker 2: legislation to like, what's this all about? Why does it matter?
18:59
Speaker 2: What are we going to accomplish if we do these things?
19:00
Speaker 2: And I think that, I don't know whether that'll help
19:04
Speaker 2: make passing the bill that much easier, but it will,
19:06
Speaker 2: I think, ensure that the final product is better understood
19:09
Speaker 2: by the public when the cut time comes. But like
19:11
Speaker 2: I said, border crisis, Afghanistan, Delta variant, Very strange flap
19:18
Speaker 2: with the French. There's a lot of things sucking up
19:20
Speaker 2: coverage right now. So I'm not saying that's easy, but
19:22
Speaker 2: it's something to at least consider.
19:24
Speaker 1: So as I mentioned earlier, unless Congress gets their shit together,
19:26
Speaker 1: it's not just the fate of Joe Biden's agenda at
19:28
Speaker 1: stake in the next few weeks, but the fate of the.
19:30
Speaker 3: Whole federal government and the U.S. economy.
19:33
Speaker 1: Republican senators from Mitch McConnell to Mitt Romney have all
19:36
Speaker 1: said they will vote against raising the debt ceiling, and
19:40
Speaker 1: then they will vote against a government funding bill if
19:42
Speaker 1: it includes an increase in the debt ceiling.
19:45
Speaker 3: Why are they doing this? What are they trying to
19:47
Speaker 3: achieve here?
19:48
Speaker 2: Mitt Romney? our hero.
19:50
Speaker 3: I just served this up to you.
19:54
Speaker 2: Look, I have really come around on Mitt Romney. He
19:57
Speaker 2: has done a lot of pretty admirable things, but I
20:00
Speaker 2: still– find a little joy in reminding people that Mitt
20:06
Speaker 2: Romney helped cause all the problems we currently have in
20:08
Speaker 2: this country. That's a topic for a much longer discussion
20:14
Speaker 2: for another podcast one day. But they are doing this
20:17
Speaker 2: because they want to make Democrats pay a political price,
20:22
Speaker 2: and they do not care what happens to the country.
20:24
Speaker 2: They do not want to vote. They want no Republicans
20:27
Speaker 2: to have to vote to lift the debt ceiling so
20:29
Speaker 2: they can then hammer Democrats for the deficit that they
20:33
Speaker 2: mostly created with their giant tax cut for corporations two
20:36
Speaker 2: years ago. It is pure, unadulterated cynicism for a very
20:42
Speaker 2: stupid reason in a very high stakes environment.
20:46
Speaker 1: So why are Democrats still pretending that Republicans might raise
20:52
Speaker 1: the debt ceiling? The House passed a bill to fund
20:54
Speaker 1: the government, include the debt ceiling increase. Now we're going
20:56
Speaker 1: to go through this whole charade where the Republicans are
20:59
Speaker 1: going to filibuster, even the motion to proceed to vote
21:02
Speaker 1: on this bill. And we're just going to go through
21:05
Speaker 1: this whole thing. I guess it's part of the strategy.
21:09
Speaker 1: We've talked about this before, that they believe the Republicans
21:12
Speaker 1: might pay a political price for holding the American economy hostage.
21:17
Speaker 1: I certainly would love to believe that. Of course, they
21:19
Speaker 1: should pay a political price for that. But I'm not
21:23
Speaker 1: sure that they will. And the clock's ticking. And the U.S.
21:29
Speaker 1: economy is at stake here. So again, I never understood
21:34
Speaker 1: this strategy.
21:38
Speaker 2: Whenever I read about this, I think there must be
21:40
Speaker 2: something that I am missing. Because everyone involved here was
21:44
Speaker 2: intimately involved the last two times we dealt with this situation.
21:47
Speaker 2: Nancy Pelosi was the leader of the House both times.
21:49
Speaker 2: Senator Schumer was in the leadership. Joe Biden was in
21:52
Speaker 2: the White House. Large portions of the White House staff
21:54
Speaker 2: were in all those meetings with us, were part of
21:56
Speaker 2: all the decision-making of how we fought back on it
21:59
Speaker 2: and have to know that this can't work. And so
22:03
Speaker 2: I like to believe this is an act one of
22:06
Speaker 2: a two-act play. I just, for the life of me,
22:08
Speaker 2: can't figure out what the second act is given how
22:13
Speaker 2: close we are getting to sort of the last moments
22:17
Speaker 2: here because the government shuts down in a week. And
22:19
Speaker 2: so If you haven't figured out the debt ceiling, are
22:21
Speaker 2: you going to decouple the government funding and the debt
22:24
Speaker 2: ceiling and now have to deal with the debt ceiling
22:25
Speaker 2: all by itself and taking even the tiny modicum of
22:28
Speaker 2: leverage you have over Republicans because it includes disaster aid
22:33
Speaker 2: and a shutdown is a more easily understood political argument?
22:37
Speaker 2: I am mystified and alarmed, but maybe I'm naive, but
22:43
Speaker 2: I just want to believe that there is some other
22:46
Speaker 2: plan here that is just waiting to be dusted off,
22:51
Speaker 2: or there's a play to run. I just don't know
22:54
Speaker 2: what it is.
22:55
Speaker 1: It seems to me like this is what's going to happen.
22:56
Speaker 1: Republicans are going to filibuster the debt ceiling. Democrats are
22:59
Speaker 1: going to say, you're monsters. You held the economy hostage. Again,
23:03
Speaker 1: we're all going to be right. We're going to yell
23:05
Speaker 1: at reporters for not covering it like that. Again, we're
23:07
Speaker 1: going to be right. Reporters should cover the fact that
23:09
Speaker 1: Republicans want to hold the economy hostage just to score
23:12
Speaker 1: political points. And then Democrats are going to create a
23:16
Speaker 1: new reconciliation bill And another voterama. And they're going to
23:21
Speaker 1: pass government funding, pass all the extra aid that we
23:25
Speaker 1: need for disaster relief and everything else, refugee resettlement in
23:28
Speaker 1: that government funding bill. And there's going to be a
23:30
Speaker 1: debt ceiling increase in there. And they're all going to
23:32
Speaker 1: vote for it. And they're going to be annoyed about it.
23:35
Speaker 1: And that's going to be that.
23:36
Speaker 4: Right.
23:37
Speaker 2: But when are they going to do that?
23:39
Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, probably pretty soon, probably over the next couple
23:42
Speaker 1: of weeks. I guess they have what a cup. Well,
23:43
Speaker 1: government funding.
23:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, we got it. We got a week. We got
23:46
Speaker 3: a week. So they could do a clean.
23:49
Speaker 1: Uh, CR continuing resolution next week just to keep the
23:52
Speaker 1: government funded for a couple of months while the Democrats
23:54
Speaker 1: figure out the debt ceiling piece of it. And maybe
23:56
Speaker 1: the Republicans will vote for the clean CR because it
23:58
Speaker 1: doesn't have a debt ceiling increase. So that's how they
24:00
Speaker 1: buy themselves more time.
24:02
Speaker 4: Yeah.
24:02
Speaker 2: I mean, it's, it is quite messy.
24:05
Speaker 1: But again, I will ask the question, um, They could
24:09
Speaker 1: have done this at the beginning without going through this
24:12
Speaker 1: whole fucking rigmarole.
24:14
Speaker 2: I mean, we have made this argument before. The best,
24:18
Speaker 2: smartest thing Democrats could possibly do is eliminate the debt
24:23
Speaker 2: ceiling as a political weapon. Because it's one that we
24:25
Speaker 2: will not use. We could have used it against Donald Trump.
24:28
Speaker 2: We did not. I feel better about us as human
24:30
Speaker 2: beings that we didn't. But we, Democrats, helped Donald Trump
24:35
Speaker 2: lift the debt ceiling to pay for all of his
24:37
Speaker 2: spending and all of his tax cuts. And now here
24:39
Speaker 2: we are. It's still Donald Trump's tax cuts we're paying for,
24:42
Speaker 2: and Republicans won't help us. So I don't know why
24:44
Speaker 2: we would not just eliminate it, make it go away forever,
24:48
Speaker 2: and take this off the table because it's too dangerous
24:51
Speaker 2: to have this set of mattress lying around for a
24:53
Speaker 2: bunch of irresponsible babies on the Republican side to be
24:56
Speaker 2: in charge. It just cannot happen. And if you're unwilling
24:58
Speaker 2: to just eliminate the mechanism, what you could do, where
25:01
Speaker 2: the if we're going to pass something by ourselves, by reconciliation,
25:08
Speaker 2: whatever else, push the timeline so far out that president
25:12
Speaker 2: Joe Biden will not deal with this again in his
25:14
Speaker 2: first term, at least like that.
25:17
Speaker 4: Yeah.
25:17
Speaker 2: It's the, that, I mean, that, that is the thing.
25:19
Speaker 2: Now I imagine like, this is, this is a rocket science.
25:22
Speaker 2: I'm telling anyone that they don't know. I imagine there's
25:24
Speaker 2: a bunch of mealy mouth centrists who are like, Oh,
25:26
Speaker 2: that seems bad. I'd rather deal with, I'd rather rip
25:29
Speaker 2: the bandaid off super fucking slowly and than just fix
25:32
Speaker 2: the problem, which is why they picked the end of 2022.
25:36
Speaker 3: Which is great.
25:37
Speaker 2: Let's set it up so that the first act of
25:40
Speaker 2: a Republican Congress, if that's what happens, is to hold
25:44
Speaker 2: Joe Biden hostage. We've talked about this before. What are
25:47
Speaker 2: they going to ask for? It's going to be insane.
25:49
Speaker 2: And we know this is a problem because that's exactly
25:52
Speaker 2: what happened to Obama. Because in 2010, we had to
25:55
Speaker 2: lift the debt ceiling. A bunch of mealy mouth centrists
25:58
Speaker 2: got together with Republicans and said they would not lift
26:01
Speaker 2: the debt ceiling, and lest we appointed the Simpson-Bowles Commission.
26:04
Speaker 2: That's how we got that. And then Mitch McConnell, who
26:08
Speaker 2: supported the Simpson-Bowles Commission, then voted it down, flipped his vote,
26:13
Speaker 2: which then those same Democrats said, Obama, you promised us this.
26:15
Speaker 2: You have to do it by executive order. And we
26:18
Speaker 2: ended up crazily creating a long-running Morning Joe segment for
26:21
Speaker 2: four years. It's just like we've– We know what's going
26:27
Speaker 2: to happen here. So it's like, let's fix the fucking
26:29
Speaker 2: problem and move on and do what we need to
26:30
Speaker 2: do instead of setting ourselves up to just repeat a
26:32
Speaker 2: painful history all over again.
26:34
Speaker 3: I shouldn't have, I shouldn't have triggered you.
26:38
Speaker 1: To start talking about Simpson bowls and the debt ceiling again.
26:42
Speaker 1: I gotta remind myself, never do that, but you're right.
26:45
Speaker 1: If there is a there are two political parties in
26:47
Speaker 1: this country. One is a responsible governing party that may
26:50
Speaker 1: screw up all the time. You may disagree with them,
26:51
Speaker 1: but there's only one responsible governing party. The other is
26:54
Speaker 1: an extremist faction. And if you leave a tool around
26:57
Speaker 1: that could destroy the global economy and there's an extremist
27:00
Speaker 1: faction as one political party, they're going to use it
27:03
Speaker 1: if they have the chance. So you might as well
27:05
Speaker 1: get rid of it for fucking ever.
27:09
Speaker 3: All right.
27:10
Speaker 1: When we come back, former domestic policy director for Barack Obama,
27:13
Speaker 1: Cecilia Munoz, joins us to discuss the influx of Haitian
27:15
Speaker 1: immigrants at the border and whether Democrats still have the
27:18
Speaker 1: ability to reform our immigration system. We've all seen the
27:30
Speaker 1: images last week of Haitian men, women and children crowded
27:34
Speaker 1: at the U.S. border in Del Rio, Texas, trying to
27:37
Speaker 1: cross over. many of them getting physically beat back by
27:39
Speaker 1: Border Patrol agents on horseback who were shown on video chasing, yelling,
27:43
Speaker 1: and swearing at them. More than 14,000 migrants have arrived
27:46
Speaker 1: so far, and while thousands are being allowed to stay,
27:50
Speaker 1: the Biden administration is being criticized by elected Democrats and
27:53
Speaker 1: civil rights groups for mass deportations, just as the Senate
27:56
Speaker 1: parliamentarian ruled that Democrats couldn't include the president's immigration reform
28:00
Speaker 1: proposals in their budget. Here to walk us through what
28:04
Speaker 1: can be done is a longtime immigration advocate who's been
28:07
Speaker 1: through quite a few of these challenges herself. Our former colleague,
28:10
Speaker 1: Cecilia Munoz, who ran the Domestic Policy Council for President Obama. Cecilia,
28:15
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us.
28:16
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me.
28:18
Speaker 1: Can you walk people through what the challenge is facing
28:22
Speaker 1: the Biden administration right now? Because there are a lot
28:25
Speaker 1: of people who see these migrants trying desperately to come
28:28
Speaker 1: here and they ask, why not let all of them
28:31
Speaker 1: stay or at the very least stay while they apply
28:34
Speaker 1: for asylum or legal status?
28:36
Speaker 4: Yeah.
28:39
Speaker 5: I think it's easiest to break down the challenge facing
28:41
Speaker 5: the administration into two big pieces by population.
28:45
Speaker 4: Challenge one is what's happening at the border.
28:47
Speaker 5: And challenge two is what happens to the people who
28:49
Speaker 5: have been living without immigration status in the U.S.
28:52
Speaker 4: For many years, roughly 10 or 11 million people.
28:55
Speaker 5: To start with the border, really the essence of the
28:59
Speaker 5: challenge is that the administration is working with a really
29:02
Speaker 5: terrible set of tools that were not designed for the
29:06
Speaker 5: challenges that we're facing, right? All of the infrastructure at
29:09
Speaker 5: the border, from the physical facilities to like the border
29:13
Speaker 5: patrol stations, to the personnel and their training, to the
29:18
Speaker 5: laws and the policies, all of that was designed for
29:21
Speaker 5: the border we had 30 years ago, which, and the
29:24
Speaker 5: challenge back then was single adults coming from Mexico. And
29:28
Speaker 5: that's not what we have now. What we have now
29:30
Speaker 5: is families coming from Central America. And as is the
29:34
Speaker 5: case of this minute, also from Haiti through Latin America, right?
29:39
Speaker 5: The Haitians that have been coming to Del Rio didn't
29:41
Speaker 5: come straight from Haiti. They were living in Latin America previously.
29:45
Speaker 5: So we have a whole infrastructure that's designed for something
29:49
Speaker 5: different than what's happening now. And the government's job is
29:53
Speaker 5: to sort out for anybody presenting themselves at the border,
29:56
Speaker 5: their job is to sort out who might have a
29:59
Speaker 5: legal basis to enter, right? So if you have a visa,
30:02
Speaker 5: you have a legal basis to enter. And if you
30:04
Speaker 5: might qualify for asylum because you have a fear of
30:07
Speaker 5: being returned, you have a legal basis to enter. And
30:11
Speaker 5: so their job is to sort all of that out.
30:14
Speaker 5: It's easier to sort it out at the ports of entry.
30:16
Speaker 5: It's really hard to sort it out in between the
30:18
Speaker 5: ports of entry, especially when there are large numbers of
30:20
Speaker 5: people coming. And the government, I think, has never done
30:25
Speaker 5: as humane a job as it could. And obviously the
30:30
Speaker 5: Trump administration was, you know, did a lot of appalling
30:33
Speaker 5: things in dealing with this challenge. And obviously this administration
30:37
Speaker 5: is doing some horrifying things as well. So it's a,
30:40
Speaker 5: it's a, it's a really daunting task. I have to
30:45
Speaker 5: say as awful and horrifying as the events of this
30:48
Speaker 5: last week have been. I have some sympathy. I sat
30:51
Speaker 5: in the government chair as well, And the tools that
30:55
Speaker 5: you have when you want to do the right thing,
30:56
Speaker 5: you want to treat people with humanity and apply the
30:59
Speaker 5: law properly.
31:00
Speaker 4: Which is your obligation.
31:02
Speaker 5: The tools available to people in the government are awful,
31:04
Speaker 5: absolutely unequal to the task.
31:07
Speaker 3: Yeah.
31:07
Speaker 1: So I've been thinking about this, too. And Dan and
31:09
Speaker 1: I were talking about this because obviously, you know, we've
31:11
Speaker 1: been there, too. There's some things that I still can't
31:15
Speaker 1: figure out, like why fly these migrants back or at
31:19
Speaker 1: least some of them, as is the case, back to Haiti?
31:22
Speaker 1: Particularly as if, as you said, a lot of them
31:25
Speaker 1: are coming from South American countries that they've been living
31:27
Speaker 1: in for years. And now you're going to send them
31:28
Speaker 1: back to Haiti, which has been just wracked by earthquakes,
31:32
Speaker 1: political violence. It's a dangerous place. And I don't understand
31:35
Speaker 1: the reasoning there. Couldn't they at least either if they
31:38
Speaker 1: have to deport them, send them back to the countries
31:40
Speaker 1: they came from or have them in Mexico or at
31:42
Speaker 1: least let them wait if they're applying for asylum?
31:45
Speaker 5: So if they are applying for asylum, they should be
31:48
Speaker 5: able to come to the United States. And I think
31:51
Speaker 5: it remains to be seen whether the administration is doing
31:53
Speaker 5: an effective enough job of letting those folks in.
31:55
Speaker 4: Those folks have a right to enter the US and
31:57
Speaker 4: they should.
31:59
Speaker 5: I think the dilemma for the administration is in order
32:03
Speaker 5: to return people from the countries where they have been
32:04
Speaker 5: living rather than Haiti, you need an agreement with those
32:08
Speaker 5: countries to do that. They need to be willing to
32:10
Speaker 5: take them. And it begs the question of, in the meantime,
32:15
Speaker 5: what happens to them? And unfortunately, the administration, I think,
32:19
Speaker 5: feeling the pressure to do something urgently, you know, made
32:23
Speaker 5: some decisions and sent people back to Haiti. And I've
32:27
Speaker 5: seen some scenes today of, unfortunately, people being let off
32:30
Speaker 5: of planes and their belongings.
32:31
Speaker 4: Having been thrown on the tarmac.
32:33
Speaker 3: It's horrifying.
32:34
Speaker 4: We should be doing much, much better.
32:37
Speaker 1: Why do you think they're still using Title 42, which
32:40
Speaker 1: is a COVID-related public health rule that allows the administration
32:43
Speaker 1: to expel migrants quickly before they can apply for asylum?
32:48
Speaker 5: Honestly, you know, I don't know for sure, but my
32:51
Speaker 5: guess is that they're struggling because the numbers are so
32:56
Speaker 5: high and because we're in a pandemic and frankly, because
33:00
Speaker 5: the political pressure is what it is, right? We all
33:03
Speaker 5: know that the I think of them as sort of
33:06
Speaker 5: the hounds of hell, right? The governor of Texas, the
33:08
Speaker 5: Republicans in Congress are going to criticize anything you do.
33:13
Speaker 5: And that the American public expects at least what happens
33:18
Speaker 5: at the border to be orderly and fair.
33:21
Speaker 4: And so those two things push against each other, right?
33:25
Speaker 5: The impulse to be generous and to let everybody in
33:28
Speaker 5: runs into some political obstacles. So the administration needs to
33:31
Speaker 5: be able to say, we're applying the law. imperfect as
33:34
Speaker 5: it is, meaning the folks who are eligible for asylum
33:40
Speaker 5: should be able to enter and everybody else is supposed
33:42
Speaker 5: to get expelled. And they have these multiple imperatives, right?
33:46
Speaker 5: Try to do the humane thing and the lawful thing,
33:48
Speaker 5: but also try to send the message, especially within the hemisphere,
33:54
Speaker 5: the door isn't open, right? You can't rush the border, right?
33:58
Speaker 5: There has to be a process and they're struggling to
34:00
Speaker 5: administer the process and Title 42, like it or not,
34:04
Speaker 5: is a tool that helps them at least maintain some
34:07
Speaker 5: degree of control. And that's at the expense, of course,
34:11
Speaker 5: of the humanitarian obligation as well.
34:14
Speaker 1: Dan, Cecilia mentioned the political challenges. Can you talk a
34:18
Speaker 1: little bit more about what those challenges are for the administration?
34:21
Speaker 1: I just mentioned all the criticism the Biden folks are
34:24
Speaker 1: getting for deporting too many migrants. Of course, they're also
34:27
Speaker 1: getting hit from the right in Republican politicians, Republican pundits
34:32
Speaker 1: for deporting too few.
34:34
Speaker 2: I mean, it's hard to sort of fathom a more
34:37
Speaker 2: complicated political issue than the situation at the border. Because normally,
34:43
Speaker 2: you know, someone would say like, these are bad politics
34:46
Speaker 2: because the place you never want to be in politics
34:49
Speaker 2: is with both sides being mad at you. And so
34:52
Speaker 2: you're in a bad political situation. So what do you do? Like,
34:54
Speaker 2: what is the approach? What's the best message? And there
34:56
Speaker 2: are And this is why I find this one so hard.
34:58
Speaker 2: I found it so hard when we were working with Cecilia,
35:01
Speaker 2: when this sort of spotted up again in Obama, when
35:03
Speaker 2: this happened in Obama's second term with sort of a
35:08
Speaker 2: surge in migrants heading to the border, is the political
35:11
Speaker 2: answer is solve the problem. But I've never seen a
35:14
Speaker 2: domestic policy challenge that is so insoluble as this one.
35:19
Speaker 2: There is no obvious answer because you have so many
35:22
Speaker 2: competing substantive imperatives where it's like, Yes, we need better facilities,
35:28
Speaker 2: but better facilities also help contribute to the message that
35:32
Speaker 2: you should come here. So how do you find the
35:35
Speaker 2: right way to make sure that people understand what's happening?
35:38
Speaker 2: You're not encouraging people, but then you are treating people humanly.
35:42
Speaker 2: I mean, the best you can do in this situation
35:45
Speaker 2: is try to do everything you can to communicate better
35:50
Speaker 2: and more transparently with everyone about what you're trying to
35:53
Speaker 2: do to solve or at least mitigate these huge logistical
35:56
Speaker 2: challenges you have, and then you are doing what you
35:59
Speaker 2: can to avoid, and this is so hard, avoid the
36:03
Speaker 2: scenes like the officers on horseback or the luggage being thrown.
36:08
Speaker 2: This is what comes so hard is that the culture
36:10
Speaker 2: within these immigration enforcement agencies is decades old, and the
36:15
Speaker 2: culture is that the people who come across the border
36:17
Speaker 2: are inherently a threat, and they are to be treated
36:19
Speaker 2: as such. There's this dehumanizing effect to that that leads
36:24
Speaker 2: to these sort of situations. And it's not like anyone
36:26
Speaker 2: in the White House sat there and said, or someone
36:28
Speaker 2: who was in Cecilia's former job and said, you know
36:30
Speaker 2: what the way to handle this is? It's this way. No,
36:32
Speaker 2: it's something that's happening like 19 levels below the political
36:37
Speaker 2: appointees at the DHS. And so I wish there was
36:40
Speaker 2: a good answer. The answer is, I think, to the
36:43
Speaker 2: extent you can do anything, it's better, more transparent communication
36:46
Speaker 2: and trying to do everything you possibly can to show
36:48
Speaker 2: that you are responding to the legitimate good faith criticism
36:52
Speaker 2: from people, from the advocates who are pushing for a
36:56
Speaker 2: better humanitarian response within the strictures of this really challenging situation?
37:00
Speaker 5: If there were a pause button, if you could hit
37:03
Speaker 5: pause and kind of stop what was happening and then
37:05
Speaker 5: try to fix it, the solutions here are really long-term solutions, right?
37:10
Speaker 5: That's part of the problem is that you have to
37:11
Speaker 5: deal with this problem in real time when the essence
37:13
Speaker 5: of what's happening is that we have a refugee crisis
37:16
Speaker 5: in our hemispheres. And the tools you have at the
37:19
Speaker 5: border are never going to fix a refugee crisis. Like
37:22
Speaker 5: you actually have to be engaged deeply in Haiti, in
37:26
Speaker 5: Central America, in Venezuela and the other places people are
37:29
Speaker 5: coming from in order to diminish the necessity to migrate.
37:34
Speaker 5: But you can't do that at the border. Like if
37:37
Speaker 5: in some ways, if four years of the Trump administration
37:41
Speaker 5: taking people's babies did not deter migrations, then there's nothing,
37:46
Speaker 5: there's no toughness you can do that will stop migration.
37:50
Speaker 5: It's being driven by something else. And the fix really
37:54
Speaker 5: is to deal with that something else, but that.
37:56
Speaker 4: Is not a quick fix.
37:57
Speaker 1: I would love to talk about that fix, even though,
38:00
Speaker 1: as you said, it's not a quick fix because You know,
38:03
Speaker 1: like you said, this is going to be happening now
38:06
Speaker 1: a lot, right? There's going to be climate refugees. A
38:09
Speaker 1: lot of these refugees are pandemic refugees because they came
38:12
Speaker 1: from Chile and Brazil where COVID.
38:14
Speaker 3: Has devastated those countries.
38:15
Speaker 1: And so we're going to be dealing with this for decades,
38:18
Speaker 1: migrants showing up at the border, and it's probably going
38:21
Speaker 1: to get worse. And if we had a system at
38:24
Speaker 1: the border that was not designed as it was for
38:26
Speaker 1: 30 years ago for single people coming over from Mexico
38:29
Speaker 1: to find work, but for families and refugees, what would
38:33
Speaker 1: that more orderly system look like? If you were unconstrained
38:37
Speaker 1: by politics, by legal issues, by bureaucracy, what would it
38:42
Speaker 1: look like?
38:43
Speaker 5: This is exactly the direction of the Biden administration's trying
38:47
Speaker 5: valiantly to go. And that is that we need to
38:51
Speaker 5: make decisions about who we think should be eligible for
38:54
Speaker 5: protection in the United States. Our asylum laws were built
38:57
Speaker 5: for the Cold War, and obviously we're in a very
38:59
Speaker 5: different environment. We need to decide whether fleeing climate change,
39:04
Speaker 5: fleeing gang violence counts as grounds for asylum. So assuming
39:09
Speaker 5: that we reach a decision on who we think we
39:11
Speaker 5: should accept, then we need a system in which you
39:15
Speaker 5: demonstrate that you have a fear of being returned and
39:18
Speaker 5: you get an answer relatively, you get representation because these are,
39:23
Speaker 5: you know, this is essentially a court process and you
39:26
Speaker 5: get an answer relatively quickly so that, the government can,
39:31
Speaker 5: can effectively do its job of open the door to
39:33
Speaker 5: the people who the doors should be open to. And
39:36
Speaker 5: then humanely addressing the conditions of the people who don't,
39:40
Speaker 5: who don't qualify, right. Working with the countries of origin,
39:44
Speaker 5: if you have to return people, to make sure that
39:46
Speaker 5: we're actually investing in returning people in a way that
39:49
Speaker 5: makes it survivable for them, right? And the frustrating thing is,
39:56
Speaker 5: none of that is impossible to do. The changes in
39:59
Speaker 5: the asylum process, the Biden administration's putting forward regulations actually
40:03
Speaker 5: to get us to a place where the decision isn't
40:05
Speaker 5: made by an immigration court five years from now, but
40:09
Speaker 5: rather by a trained asylum court, maybe two.
40:12
Speaker 4: Months from now. This is not, impossible.
40:16
Speaker 5: These are actually not intractable problems. But of course, some
40:20
Speaker 5: of these changes require some political will by the Congress
40:23
Speaker 5: and the, you know, as you guys richly know, Congress
40:28
Speaker 5: doesn't like to work on this issue. And in a way,
40:31
Speaker 5: the Republicans kind of have the Democrats by the throat here, right?
40:34
Speaker 5: They get, as long as they can keep from fixing
40:38
Speaker 5: the legal problems, the problems with the law and the policy,
40:42
Speaker 5: then the Republicans get to beat Democrats up for or
40:46
Speaker 5: trying to manage it.
40:47
Speaker 4: It's like the perfect crime.
40:48
Speaker 3: Yeah.
40:49
Speaker 1: I mean, let's turn to that because, you know, of course,
40:51
Speaker 1: this is all happening while Democrats are trying to pass
40:54
Speaker 1: immigration reform in Congress, which is tougher now that the
40:56
Speaker 1: Senate parliamentarian has ruled against their initial proposal. Dan, do
41:00
Speaker 1: you still think Schumer should fire the parliamentarian and maybe
41:03
Speaker 1: replace her with Someone like Cecilia who can be friendly
41:08
Speaker 1: to our immigration proposals. I know that was your proposal
41:12
Speaker 1: to fire the parliamentarian way back when.
41:13
Speaker 3: That was a message box that you had.
41:16
Speaker 2: Cecilia has had a lot of very hard jobs in
41:19
Speaker 2: her life, and I wouldn't try to foist another one
41:22
Speaker 2: on her if she were to want it. I would
41:24
Speaker 2: certainly– serve as a reference for that position.
41:28
Speaker 1: But I mean, this all- Lovett volunteered for it, yes,
41:31
Speaker 1: on Monday. And I think that Cecilia will be far
41:33
Speaker 1: better than Lovett. So I'm just, I'm trying to- Does
41:35
Speaker 1: he recognize it's a low profile position?
41:39
Speaker 2: You don't sit in the big chair. You sit in
41:41
Speaker 2: one of those little desks next to the pages, just
41:43
Speaker 2: so he's aware. I mean, the whole thing is so absurd, right?
41:47
Speaker 2: This is all dates, this is all about the party's
41:49
Speaker 2: unwillingness to eliminate the filibuster. Like we have A fake
41:52
Speaker 2: referee making fake rulings based on fake rules about what
41:55
Speaker 2: we can and can't do. And it's so stupid. Like
41:58
Speaker 2: my first choice would be fix the filibuster. I would
42:02
Speaker 2: love to fire the parliamentarian, but we still have the
42:03
Speaker 2: same problem, which is the same senators who don't want
42:06
Speaker 2: to fix the filibuster are not going to then turn
42:08
Speaker 2: around and say, pass a bill passed by– ruled as
42:15
Speaker 2: Byrd rule eligible by John Lovett. Like that's not– I
42:19
Speaker 2: struggle to see Kyrsten Sinema signing off on said plan.
42:23
Speaker 2: But I think the fact that we can't get this
42:25
Speaker 2: done just like we can't get minimum wage done despite
42:27
Speaker 2: having unified control of Congress speaks to the problem of
42:30
Speaker 2: the filibuster and the whole set of fake rules that
42:32
Speaker 2: govern the Senate.
42:34
Speaker 3: Cecilia, where do Democrats go from here on immigration reform?
42:37
Speaker 1: What do you think about their plan B, which is
42:40
Speaker 1: they're probably working on another proposal that they believe could
42:43
Speaker 1: pass muster with the parliamentarian. And if the parliamentarian rules
42:46
Speaker 1: against that, what options do the White House and Democrats
42:49
Speaker 1: in Congress have left?
42:52
Speaker 5: The Democrats are right to go back to the parliamentarian
42:54
Speaker 5: with another plan. I think that's a smart thing to do.
42:57
Speaker 5: It's the right thing to do. I also am not
42:59
Speaker 5: feeling very optimistic because if you read her decision, She,
43:03
Speaker 5: there was an ample pathway to get to yes. There
43:06
Speaker 5: have been four times in the last 20 years that
43:10
Speaker 5: major immigration legislation has passed on a reconciliation bill. There
43:14
Speaker 5: was a clear pathway to yes for her. And she
43:16
Speaker 5: had to kind of turn back flips to get to no.
43:19
Speaker 5: And that being the case, I'm not sure, I'm not
43:22
Speaker 5: feeling hugely confident that plan B is gonna be effective,
43:25
Speaker 5: although they should absolutely push and try for it. Look,
43:29
Speaker 5: I think short of firing the parliamentarian, and I agree
43:31
Speaker 5: with Dan that, That could blow up the whole thing
43:36
Speaker 5: and that you write the you're not going to get
43:38
Speaker 5: every Democratic senator on board with that.
43:40
Speaker 4: But you can't you they could vote to reject this decision.
43:44
Speaker 5: And in fact, we have the Democratic moderates in the
43:48
Speaker 5: Senate in support of the DREAM Act, which is what
43:50
Speaker 5: this provision is essentially legalizing people who, you know, were
43:56
Speaker 5: 17 when the DREAM Act was first proposed in like 1991.
43:58
Speaker 4: They're now pushing 40. Yeah. You know, it's long past
44:02
Speaker 4: time to get this done. Democrats are for getting this done.
44:04
Speaker 5: There still is a way to get it done, but
44:06
Speaker 5: they have to reject the parliamentarian's decision. And there's ample
44:09
Speaker 5: reason to do that. Failing that, you know, I fear Congress,
44:16
Speaker 5: the Senate won't pass the DREAM Act any longer. There
44:19
Speaker 5: used to be more than 60 votes for it, but
44:20
Speaker 5: a lot of the Republicans have changed their minds. That
44:24
Speaker 5: means the ball is back in the administration's court. And
44:26
Speaker 5: I am very familiar with the administrative tools that are
44:30
Speaker 5: available to the president And President Obama used the best
44:33
Speaker 5: ones already.
44:35
Speaker 4: And even then, we've been struggling in court to protect them.
44:40
Speaker 5: So the administration will have to do what they can
44:43
Speaker 5: to protect people from deportation. But I am here to
44:46
Speaker 5: tell you that those tools are also pretty terrible. The
44:50
Speaker 5: ability to protect DREAMers from deportation, give them the ability
44:54
Speaker 5: to work permanently in the United States, runs squarely through
44:57
Speaker 5: the Congress of the United States and nowhere else.
45:00
Speaker 3: All roads lead back to the filibuster.
45:03
Speaker 1: Dan, whether or not Democrats want to talk about immigration
45:05
Speaker 1: in the midterms, Republicans will certainly spend a lot of
45:07
Speaker 1: time attacking Biden on the issue.
45:09
Speaker 3: How should the party respond?
45:11
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's important to recognize two things about
45:13
Speaker 2: how the Republicans approach this. One is they do not
45:16
Speaker 2: care about these people at the border. So when Greg
45:18
Speaker 2: Abbott goes down there, they're trying to have it both ways.
45:21
Speaker 2: They want to call these people criminals and terrorists and
45:23
Speaker 2: gang members and threats and also then attack the Biden
45:26
Speaker 2: administration for not humanely treating these people that they dehumanize
45:29
Speaker 2: in their rhetoric. The second thing is that immigration is
45:32
Speaker 2: not an issue they care about. In either way, not
45:35
Speaker 2: too much immigration, too little immigration, fix it, don't fix it.
45:38
Speaker 2: It is a proxy for a larger argument designed to
45:42
Speaker 2: scare white people. It's replacement theory, right? It's what Tucker
45:45
Speaker 2: Carlson talks about every night. It's what Elise Stefanik put
45:47
Speaker 2: in one of her ads. This is the idea that
45:50
Speaker 2: hordes of non-white people are coming to take the political
45:53
Speaker 2: power of white people. It's how they fire up their base.
45:55
Speaker 2: And so the way we deal with this is not
45:57
Speaker 2: by buying the premise of the argument where we get
45:59
Speaker 2: into some sort of bidding war with the Republicans on
46:01
Speaker 2: border security. Because it's the speech Obama gave that I
46:05
Speaker 2: know Cecilia knows so well where he said, I think
46:09
Speaker 2: it was back in like 2009 or 2010, where if
46:11
Speaker 2: Obama said he was for a wall, Republicans would say
46:13
Speaker 2: he should build a moat. If Obama said he should
46:15
Speaker 2: build a moat, they put alligators in it or whatever
46:17
Speaker 2: it is. I think this is a, did you write it?
46:19
Speaker 3: That was my line. Yeah, yeah. But Lovett wrote that.
46:21
Speaker 3: The speech writer is also on the call as well.
46:23
Speaker 2: But I thought Lovett wrote that speech.
46:26
Speaker 3: Both of us. Yeah, we worked on that together. And Cecilia,
46:29
Speaker 3: all of us were involved in that one. Yes. See,
46:32
Speaker 3: there we go.
46:33
Speaker 2: And so you can't get in the bidding war. So
46:34
Speaker 2: it's to default back to the thing we always talk about,
46:36
Speaker 2: which is sort of the imperatives of the idea of
46:38
Speaker 2: the race class narrative, which is call out the Republicans
46:40
Speaker 2: for why they're trying to divide us. What are they
46:42
Speaker 2: trying to hide from? Who is helped by that division
46:45
Speaker 2: as opposed to accepting the premise of their argument on immigration?
46:48
Speaker 2: Because that's not what they're really talking about.
46:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, Cecilia, you and I have talked about this before
46:53
Speaker 1: for the wilderness, which is like Democrats have to make
46:55
Speaker 1: the case here, right? You can't just assume that if,
46:59
Speaker 1: because it's a divisive political issue, that if you just
47:01
Speaker 1: ignore immigration and don't talk about it, then you can
47:04
Speaker 1: somehow just make the race about the economy and everything
47:07
Speaker 1: will be fine.
47:08
Speaker 4: Yeah.
47:08
Speaker 5: I mean, Democrats have the opportunity to be the party
47:10
Speaker 5: that's about fixing a thing, which the vast majority of
47:13
Speaker 5: Americans want fixed. And frankly, Republicans have a vested interest
47:17
Speaker 5: in not fixing it, because if it's not fixed, then
47:19
Speaker 5: Tucker Carlson has something to talk about every day.
47:21
Speaker 3: Yeah.
47:22
Speaker 1: Cecilia, before we let you go, You have a new
47:24
Speaker 1: position as co-chair of Welcome.us, which is a group helping
47:28
Speaker 1: to settle Afghan refugees. Can you tell us a little
47:30
Speaker 1: bit about that work and what people can do to help?
47:33
Speaker 5: Yeah, so Welcome.us is both a campaign and a website,
47:36
Speaker 5: so I'd encourage people to look at it. We have
47:40
Speaker 5: an opportunity to help resettle the tens of thousands of
47:44
Speaker 5: people who escaped Afghanistan, who are coming to the United States.
47:48
Speaker 5: And while they will have needs in the moment of
47:51
Speaker 5: getting resettled, In a way, this is actually more about us, right?
47:54
Speaker 5: Being the same kind of country we pride ourselves in
47:57
Speaker 5: having been and resettling people who need us right now
48:01
Speaker 5: and offering them welcome, making them welcome and helping them succeed.
48:04
Speaker 5: We've done this at many times through our history after
48:07
Speaker 5: World War II, after the Vietnam War. We have never
48:10
Speaker 5: regretted the times when we have said, folks going through
48:13
Speaker 5: something hard right now, in this case, going through something
48:15
Speaker 5: hard because they helped us, need us, and we're going
48:18
Speaker 5: to make them welcome. This is an opportunity for anybody
48:21
Speaker 5: who wants to help You can go on welcome.us and
48:24
Speaker 5: find a way either through contributing or through opening your home,
48:28
Speaker 5: whatever it is.
48:29
Speaker 3: Outstanding.
48:30
Speaker 1: Cecilia Munoz, thank you so much for joining us. It
48:33
Speaker 1: was good talking to you. Great to see you as always.
48:35
Speaker 4: Thank you, Beau.
48:45
Speaker 1: Before we go, we want to take you down the
48:48
Speaker 1: endless rabbit hole of the latest right-wing conspiracies with a
48:51
Speaker 1: new segment we're calling shit your uncle's posting. Today's entry
48:56
Speaker 1: comes from the man who once held one of the
48:57
Speaker 1: most powerful and sensitive positions in the entire U.S. government,
49:01
Speaker 1: former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
49:04
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
49:05
Speaker 2: You know, somebody sent me a thing this morning where
49:07
Speaker 2: they're talking about putting the vaccine into salad dressing or salads.
49:11
Speaker 3: Have you seen this?
49:12
Speaker 2: Yes.
49:13
Speaker 3: Dan, to what bizarro world do you think he's referring
49:16
Speaker 3: to here? Are we in the bizarro world? Is that
49:18
Speaker 3: where you're seized dressing is spiked with Moderna? What the
49:24
Speaker 3: fuck is going on?
49:26
Speaker 2: Silly, silly Michael Flynn. Liberals would never, ever put the
49:32
Speaker 2: vaccine in salads. Do you know why? Because it's too obvious.
49:37
Speaker 3: Steak sauce.
49:38
Speaker 2: No.
49:38
Speaker 3: No. This is exactly, don't tell.
49:41
Speaker 2: Don't tell Michael Flynn, but it, if, and when we
49:43
Speaker 2: are sneaking the vaccine into things, it's going to be
49:46
Speaker 2: into those pseudoscience for virility pills that are being sold
49:51
Speaker 2: on Alex Jones's website.
49:52
Speaker 3: Oh, that's a good idea.
49:53
Speaker 1: Yeah.
49:54
Speaker 2: That is how we're, that is how we are going
49:56
Speaker 2: to weaponize the male inadequacy of the mega base to
50:00
Speaker 2: get them vaccinated.
50:01
Speaker 1: I would just say, I haven't, uh, I don't usually
50:03
Speaker 1: turn into Michael Flynn's speeches or his interviews, uh, But
50:06
Speaker 1: I also found it funny for those of you who
50:08
Speaker 1: are watching on video. Michael Flynn is wearing a t-shirt
50:12
Speaker 1: with three stars on it that says General Flynn. With his,
50:16
Speaker 1: I guess he was a three-star general. So then you
50:19
Speaker 1: wear a t-shirt about how you were a three-star general.
50:21
Speaker 3: What the fuck?
50:22
Speaker 1: I realize that's a very small point in all of this. Look,
50:26
Speaker 1: Flynn is set to go on tour this summer with
50:28
Speaker 1: a bunch of anti-vax doctors who promoted horse dewormer. Maybe
50:32
Speaker 1: that's another idea. Put the vaccine in the horse dewormer.
50:35
Speaker 3: Good idea.
50:36
Speaker 1: And also these doctors said that America's health problems were
50:39
Speaker 1: linked to alien DNA and demon sperm.
50:42
Speaker 3: This is all, this is real.
50:45
Speaker 1: Will Sommer at the Daily Beast also just reported that
50:47
Speaker 1: Eric Trump, the other one, the other son, Eric Trump
50:52
Speaker 1: will give the keynote at an anti-vax conference where QAnon
50:56
Speaker 1: supporters will be speaking. You think Democrats should maybe make
50:59
Speaker 1: note of all this as we hone our midterm message?
51:04
Speaker 3: I do.
51:04
Speaker 2: You know, we, you and I have talked about sort
51:06
Speaker 2: of this internal debate among sort of democratic operatives about
51:10
Speaker 2: what is the right narrative about Republicans. And there sort
51:13
Speaker 2: of were two choices, extremists or corporatists.
51:17
Speaker 4: Right.
51:17
Speaker 2: And I, I originally was a little more focused on corporatists,
51:21
Speaker 2: but I've come around to the idea. I think that
51:24
Speaker 2: our best, most compelling, most believable argument is the Republicans
51:28
Speaker 2: are too extreme and too dangerous to have power. And
51:31
Speaker 2: I think they're in, they're very biased. aggressive embrace of
51:36
Speaker 2: anti-vax disinformation and conspiracy theories is a way to do
51:40
Speaker 2: that that is easily understood by people. Because the overwhelming
51:44
Speaker 2: majority of Americans are vaccinated. Republicans have decided to make
51:47
Speaker 2: themselves the face of that unvaccinated minority. And so I
51:51
Speaker 2: think that if we want to paint them as extreme,
51:53
Speaker 2: using their support of the anti-vax movement is a way
51:58
Speaker 2: to do it that makes sense to people and is
52:00
Speaker 2: easily understood by people, and much more so than calling
52:02
Speaker 2: them like QOP or talking about this very esoteric, strange
52:06
Speaker 2: conspiracy theory. I think a more believable thing is they
52:09
Speaker 2: have been trying to keep people from getting vaccinated. And
52:11
Speaker 2: that is putting my children at risk, my life at risk,
52:13
Speaker 2: my school, my kid's school at risk, et cetera. And so, yeah,
52:16
Speaker 2: I think it should absolutely be a part of it.
52:18
Speaker 2: And there's a, we're not going to be short of
52:20
Speaker 2: data points to make that point over the next year
52:22
Speaker 2: and a half here.
52:23
Speaker 1: And it's also, it's not just extremism. It's like loony extremism, right?
52:27
Speaker 1: Which actually breaks through a lot more in the media cycle.
52:31
Speaker 1: Like The idea that Michael Flynn thinks that the libs
52:34
Speaker 1: are putting vaccines in your salad dressing. That's something that
52:39
Speaker 1: people are going to remember. And here's the scary part.
52:43
Speaker 1: Donald Trump runs for president again. Michael Flynn's on the team.
52:47
Speaker 1: Michael Flynn's not sitting that one out. He's going to
52:49
Speaker 1: be back on the team. He could be the fucking
52:51
Speaker 1: running mate.
52:51
Speaker 3: I don't know.
52:52
Speaker 1: He could be running the campaign. Michael Flynn is going
52:54
Speaker 1: to be part of that team. And that guy thinks
52:57
Speaker 1: that we're putting vaccines in your fucking salad dressings.
53:02
Speaker 2: It's so good. It's so good. It's so bad, but
53:04
Speaker 2: it's still funny.
53:06
Speaker 3: Oh, man. All right.
53:07
Speaker 1: Well, that's all the time we have for today. Thanks
53:09
Speaker 1: again to Cecilia Munoz for joining us. Everyone have a
53:12
Speaker 1: great weekend and we will talk to you next week.
53:15
Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
53:20
Speaker 1: Pate of America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
53:23
Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Flavia Casas
53:26
Speaker 1: and our associate producer is Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and
53:29
Speaker 1: edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer.
53:33
Speaker 1: Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Rustin,
53:37
Speaker 1: and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
53:40
Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, Yale Freed, and Nar Melkonian,
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