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“Legislative cosplay.” · 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, Tommy did a quick interview today
0:26
Speaker 1: with Bernie Sanders about the Senate vote that just happened
0:30
Speaker 1: to end our support for the war in Yemen. He
0:33
Speaker 1: also talked to him about Venezuela, so check that out.
0:36
Speaker 1: And then after that, you'll hear my interview with friend
0:39
Speaker 1: of the pod, Adi Barkin, who traveled to D.C. this
0:42
Speaker 1: week to testify at the very first congressional hearing on
0:45
Speaker 1: Medicare for All. But first, we've got a lot of
0:48
Speaker 1: news to talk about, from William Barr's Senate testimony to
0:51
Speaker 1: a thrilling new bipartisan infrastructure plan to the democrats prospects
0:56
Speaker 1: of taking back the senate in 2020 uh also be
1:00
Speaker 1: sure to check out a very lively episode of pod
1:02
Speaker 1: save the world where tommy and ben talked about the
1:04
Speaker 1: escalating situation in venezuela the trump administration's designation of the
1:08
Speaker 1: muslim brotherhood as a terrorist organization and whether the russians
1:12
Speaker 1: are using beluga whales as spies what.
1:18
Speaker 2: Cool seems plausible.
1:20
Speaker 1: I have to say, Ben and Tommy walked out of
1:22
Speaker 1: the studio yesterday after Pod Save the World, and Rhodes
1:26
Speaker 1: looks at me and he's like, you know, I don't
1:27
Speaker 1: say this often, but it was a really good episode. Very,
1:33
Speaker 1: very proud of himself.
1:34
Speaker 2: That is so funny on 100 levels.
1:36
Speaker 1: I know. There was also a very cool new episode
1:41
Speaker 1: of With Friends Like These last week, where Anna-Marie Cox
1:43
Speaker 1: talked with author Stephanie Land. about her experiences as a
1:47
Speaker 1: maid and how those myths affect policy and perceptions of
1:50
Speaker 1: low-income people. It's a great episode with friends like these,
1:54
Speaker 1: so definitely check that out. All right, let's get to
1:57
Speaker 1: the news, Dan. On Tuesday, we learned that Special Counsel
2:00
Speaker 1: Robert Mueller wasn't too happy with Attorney General William Barr's
2:03
Speaker 1: characterization of Mueller's report in his now infamous four-page letter.
2:07
Speaker 1: On March 27th, the Special Counsel wrote to the Attorney
2:11
Speaker 1: General that Barr's letter, quote, did not fully capture the context, nature,
2:16
Speaker 1: and substance of Mueller's work, and that as a result,
2:19
Speaker 1: there is, quote, public confusion that threatens to undermine public
2:24
Speaker 1: confidence in the outcome of the investigation. Mueller urged Barr
2:28
Speaker 1: to immediately release the summaries his team had prepared and
2:31
Speaker 1: followed up with a phone call to the Attorney General.
2:34
Speaker 1: On Wednesday, in front of the Senate, Barr called the letter, quote,
2:37
Speaker 1: a little bit snitty during his testimony to the Judiciary Committee. Dan,
2:44
Speaker 1: how significant is it that Mueller wrote this letter in
2:47
Speaker 1: the first place? Why did he write it?
2:50
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's very significant because I was listening
2:53
Speaker 2: to Garrett Graff, who's a reporter who has covered Mueller
2:59
Speaker 2: as closely as anyone over the years. And Garrett was
3:02
Speaker 2: on CNN last night, and he said he has read
3:05
Speaker 2: every public utterance that Mueller has made, written, spoken, speeches, etc.,
3:11
Speaker 2: And with one exception, this is the most sternly worded,
3:15
Speaker 2: angriest letter that Mueller has written. The other one was
3:18
Speaker 2: about the release of a suspect in the Lockerbie Pan
3:22
Speaker 2: Am bombing, which was sort of the signature case that
3:25
Speaker 2: Mueller had worked on, the one he cared most passionately about.
3:27
Speaker 2: So the fact that he put this in writing is
3:29
Speaker 2: a huge deal. Bill Barr is someone who weirdly, I guess,
3:33
Speaker 2: once was a friend of Mueller's. He could have easily
3:35
Speaker 2: called him, but he put it in writing for a reason,
3:38
Speaker 2: which is so that he could document in real time with,
3:43
Speaker 2: you know, essentially with a date and timestamp on it,
3:46
Speaker 2: his concerns about what was happening. So as, so we
3:48
Speaker 2: could get to a moment like today where people could
3:50
Speaker 2: look back and say, this isn't, this isn't like three
3:53
Speaker 2: months later, he does an interview or testifies in front
3:56
Speaker 2: of Congress. If anyone could ever get their shit together
3:58
Speaker 2: to make that happen and says it it's, we now
4:01
Speaker 2: know that in the immediate aftermath, when we were all
4:03
Speaker 2: concerned about this, Bob Mueller was also concerned about it,
4:05
Speaker 2: validating our concerns with both Barr's behavior and, and the
4:10
Speaker 2: way in which the media acted as a stenographer for
4:14
Speaker 2: Barr's cover-up of what Mueller actually found.
4:18
Speaker 1: So, I mean, should this letter have come out sooner?
4:22
Speaker 1: Was Mueller played by Barr? And, like, what could he
4:26
Speaker 1: have done to prevent Barr's mischaracterization of his report? Because,
4:30
Speaker 1: you know, I heard a lot of people yesterday say
4:32
Speaker 1: Mueller's gotten played, and I think there's some truth to that,
4:34
Speaker 1: but I was trying to think, all right, what steps
4:37
Speaker 1: could Mueller have taken knowing that his perspective at the
4:40
Speaker 1: time that he delivers the report to Barr is, I
4:44
Speaker 1: sort of respect this guy. This guy is a friend
4:46
Speaker 1: of mine. Now, of course, at that point, Mueller should
4:49
Speaker 1: have also known that Barr wrote this, you know, 20-something
4:52
Speaker 1: page memo before he got the job about why the
4:54
Speaker 1: president can't obstruct justice. So maybe there are a few
4:57
Speaker 1: flags in Mueller's mind here. But what steps could he
5:02
Speaker 1: have taken to avoid this, do you think?
5:05
Speaker 2: He could have released this letter when it happened. He
5:07
Speaker 2: could have spoken publicly when it happened. He shouldn't have
5:10
Speaker 2: waited weeks for it to come out. It has been
5:13
Speaker 2: two weeks since this report came out. It has been
5:15
Speaker 2: over a month since the original Barr letter. And one
5:20
Speaker 2: of the reasons that– as people like us and others
5:24
Speaker 2: were screaming about the media coverage, which took everything Barr
5:30
Speaker 2: said as fact– we were saying this, wait for the report,
5:35
Speaker 2: wait for the report, wait for the report. And what
5:36
Speaker 2: a lot of people were saying was if Mueller did
5:39
Speaker 2: not agree with what Barr was saying, we would know.
5:43
Speaker 2: But point in fact, he didn't agree with what Barr
5:46
Speaker 2: was saying, but we didn't know. So Mueller's silence was
5:49
Speaker 2: taken as validation of Barr's approach. And I think Mueller's
5:53
Speaker 2: approach here bespeaks a larger problem that I don't want
5:58
Speaker 2: to say Democrats because Mueller is not a Democrat. He
6:01
Speaker 2: is a Republican, but even more than that, he is
6:03
Speaker 2: a nonpartisan public servant. But if you sort of divide
6:08
Speaker 2: the world from the people who will do whatever what
6:10
Speaker 2: Trump wants and the people who think Trump is a
6:12
Speaker 2: real danger to the country, our side is getting played
6:15
Speaker 2: left and right because we refuse to acknowledge that they
6:19
Speaker 2: break all the rules. They stomp over all the norms.
6:23
Speaker 2: They will do anything and everything to win. And we
6:25
Speaker 2: are playing by these Marquis of Queensberry rules, and we're
6:28
Speaker 2: getting our ass kicked left and right. The way Mueller
6:30
Speaker 2: handled this is the way you handle it in a
6:32
Speaker 2: normal situation. But we are well beyond fucking normal here.
6:36
Speaker 2: And this was a loss. He did get played. We
6:40
Speaker 2: all got played. And as we'll talk about soon, the
6:42
Speaker 2: Democrats in the House are in the process of getting
6:44
Speaker 2: played right before our eyes.
6:46
Speaker 3: Yeah.
6:46
Speaker 1: Mueller is an institutionalist who is confronting people who do
6:50
Speaker 1: not believe in institutions and believe that they can trample
6:53
Speaker 1: them at any moment. And that is sort of the fundamental...
6:56
Speaker 1: mismatch here. And you have people like Mueller and law
7:00
Speaker 1: enforcement who are, like you said, nonpartisan, who are sort
7:05
Speaker 1: of losing this battle to preserve and defend our institutions.
7:10
Speaker 1: And then you have Democrats who are also seemingly unwilling
7:14
Speaker 1: to play hardball. And then you have Donald Trump and
7:19
Speaker 1: a bunch of Republican lackeys and Trump loyalists who are
7:23
Speaker 1: willing to do anything. And Part of the reason they
7:26
Speaker 1: do this is because they know no matter what they do,
7:30
Speaker 1: they will still get their side covered fairly in the news.
7:36
Speaker 1: And it will be, well, not fairly, but they'll still
7:39
Speaker 1: get both sides out of it, right? Democrats will do
7:43
Speaker 1: this and Republicans will do this. And so they're like, well,
7:45
Speaker 1: we can do whatever we want because, you know, people
7:49
Speaker 1: will still find fault with the Democrats.
7:52
Speaker 2: It's so frustrating.
7:53
Speaker 1: If you've ever.
7:55
Speaker 2: been involved in any sort of competitive enterprise, you know
7:58
Speaker 2: you can't win if you adhere to the rules. The
8:01
Speaker 2: other side doesn't. And then there is no referee or
8:05
Speaker 2: umpire to penalize the other side for not adhering to
8:10
Speaker 2: the rules. Now, I am not arguing we should be
8:14
Speaker 2: like Trump, we should be like Barr, but we have
8:16
Speaker 2: to adjust our strategies to recognize who Trump and Barr are.
8:20
Speaker 2: We have to stop fucking pretending that that these are
8:23
Speaker 2: normal times. They are not. We are in a incredibly
8:27
Speaker 2: high stakes, apocalyptic moment for American democracy. And I have
8:32
Speaker 2: been screaming mostly silently into the void all morning. And
8:36
Speaker 2: by that, I mean tweeting.
8:39
Speaker 1: So when Barr appeared in front of the Senate on
8:42
Speaker 1: April 10th, Senator Chris Van Hollen asked, did Bob Mueller
8:47
Speaker 1: support your conclusion? Barr said, I don't know. whether Bob
8:51
Speaker 1: Mueller supported my conclusion. During a hearing on April 9th,
8:56
Speaker 1: Charlie Crist, representative from Florida, asked Barr about reports that
8:59
Speaker 1: some members of Mueller's team were, quote, frustrated that Barr's letter, quote,
9:03
Speaker 1: does not adequately or accurately portray the report's findings and
9:07
Speaker 1: asked him if he knew what they were referencing. Barr said, no,
9:11
Speaker 1: I don't. I suspect they probably wanted more put out.
9:15
Speaker 1: I suspect they probably wanted more put out. Dan, did
9:18
Speaker 1: William Barr lie to Congress on multiple occasions? Yes, he did.
9:22
Speaker 2: I think that, and we now know Nancy Pelosi thinks that,
9:25
Speaker 2: because according to reports today, she said in an internal
9:29
Speaker 2: Democratic meeting that Barr committed a crime.
9:33
Speaker 1: Yeah.
9:34
Speaker 2: The Attorney General lied to Congress in order to help
9:39
Speaker 2: provide political protection to the President of the United States.
9:43
Speaker 2: That is a serious fucking deal and should be treated
9:45
Speaker 2: as such.
9:46
Speaker 1: So let's talk about yesterday's hearing at the Senate Judiciary Committee,
9:49
Speaker 1: where the attorney general offered no apologies, no real explanations
9:53
Speaker 1: to any of the questions raised by muller's letter and
9:55
Speaker 1: pretty much acted like he was donald trump's personal lawyer
9:59
Speaker 1: uh suggesting that the white house quote fully cooperated with
10:03
Speaker 1: muller's investigation even though muller specifically documents that the president
10:07
Speaker 1: obstructed justice by trying to end that investigation that's not
10:10
Speaker 1: full cooperation that's the opposite of full cooperation How many
10:17
Speaker 1: times did you yell at the television screen during Barr's testimony?
10:20
Speaker 1: Because Tommy and I were actually yesterday in the office
10:23
Speaker 1: just screaming.
10:26
Speaker 2: I was yelling at Barr. I was yelling at the Democrats.
10:31
Speaker 2: I was yelling at the Republicans. I mean, it was
10:33
Speaker 2: a thoroughly exhausting experience. And were it not, as I'm
10:37
Speaker 2: sure we'll discuss, for Kamala Harris at the end, I
10:41
Speaker 2: might have just driven off into wilderness and stayed there forever.
10:46
Speaker 1: That's a great segue. One moment that stood out to
10:49
Speaker 1: me as well was when Kamala Harris got Barr to
10:51
Speaker 1: admit that he didn't review all the underlying evidence in
10:55
Speaker 1: Mueller's report before he concluded in his letter that, quote,
10:59
Speaker 1: the evidence developed during the special counsel's investigation is not
11:02
Speaker 1: sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of
11:05
Speaker 1: justice offense. Didn't look at the evidence, but the evidence
11:10
Speaker 1: is not sufficient. I mean, Dan, what other moments besides
11:16
Speaker 1: that one stood out to you during the course of
11:18
Speaker 1: the testimony?
11:19
Speaker 2: I mean, the whole thing was mind-boggling. The things that
11:23
Speaker 2: Barr said were just truly mind-boggling that someone would actually
11:28
Speaker 2: say these things in public. And we can talk about
11:30
Speaker 2: how Bill Barr, establishment lion that he is, became this
11:34
Speaker 2: way at some point. But the most astounding to me
11:37
Speaker 2: was Bill Barr, the Attorney General of the United States,
11:39
Speaker 2: believes that a president... can take steps to stop an
11:43
Speaker 2: investigation into that president if he or she believes that
11:47
Speaker 2: they are being falsely accused. Now, let's just play with
11:51
Speaker 2: this logic puzzle for one second. If the president ends
11:56
Speaker 2: the investigation, no one will ever know whether the accusations
11:59
Speaker 2: were false. Therefore, the president can end any investigation they want,
12:05
Speaker 2: whether they're real or not, because there can be no consequences.
12:08
Speaker 2: We can never know whether the actual crime was committed.
12:10
Speaker 2: It is a wild position to take, and it is
12:13
Speaker 2: one that I would wager, John, just bear with me
12:17
Speaker 2: for a second here. I would wager that if and
12:19
Speaker 2: when a Democrat is president, presuming that ever happens again,
12:23
Speaker 2: Barr and the Republicans will not hold that position.
12:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, you think? I mean, here's the thing. It is
12:33
Speaker 1: obviously absurd for the Attorney General of the United States—
12:36
Speaker 1: to have a legal theory that he talks about publicly
12:40
Speaker 1: that the president of the United States is allowed to
12:42
Speaker 1: shut any investigation down based on his own personal belief,
12:46
Speaker 1: just a leap of faith on what he feels about
12:48
Speaker 1: the investigation. That's fucking nuts. But Barr also repeatedly says
12:53
Speaker 1: there is no underlying crime. There was no underlying crime. Now,
12:56
Speaker 1: of course, The president who ends the investigation doesn't know
13:00
Speaker 1: whether there's an underlying crime committed by any of the
13:03
Speaker 1: other people that were being investigated, like Michael Flynn, like
13:06
Speaker 1: Paul Manafort, like any of the other people. But even
13:09
Speaker 1: putting that aside, there was a fucking underlying crime, and
13:12
Speaker 1: no one is talking about this. The president of the
13:14
Speaker 1: United States was ultimately implicated in a federal crime. He
13:18
Speaker 1: committed a campaign felony with Michael Cohen, directed him to
13:21
Speaker 1: commit a campaign felony. That's not Democrats saying that. That's
13:24
Speaker 1: fucking federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York
13:27
Speaker 1: have said that he's individual one and that he was
13:29
Speaker 1: an unindicted co-conspirator in that crime. So, yes, there was
13:34
Speaker 1: a motive for Donald Trump to shut down the investigation
13:37
Speaker 1: because he was worried that the investigation would uncover a crime.
13:40
Speaker 1: It was the crime he helped Michael Cohen commit right
13:43
Speaker 1: before the election that helped him cheat in order to
13:45
Speaker 1: win the election by covering up the Stormy Daniels story.
13:48
Speaker 1: I don't understand this. I feel like I'm fucking crazy.
13:51
Speaker 1: It's like.
13:53
Speaker 2: I mean, and it's– as we've pointed out before, Bob
13:57
Speaker 2: Mueller says this in his report. He anticipates this argument
14:01
Speaker 2: from Bill Barr in the Trump world and says that
14:06
Speaker 2: even if he was innocent of quote-unquote collusion, even though
14:10
Speaker 2: we know collusion is not a crime– let's not even
14:12
Speaker 2: say– innocent is not the right word. He is not
14:14
Speaker 2: fucking innocent of anything. Even if you could not– Mueller
14:17
Speaker 2: could not prove an active conspiracy between Trump's dipshit son,
14:21
Speaker 2: his dilettante son-in-law, and the Russian government– He can still
14:25
Speaker 2: be guilty of obstruction because the president was very clearly
14:28
Speaker 2: worried about other crimes and other embarrassments. And you can
14:32
Speaker 2: be guilty of obstruction of justice if you try to
14:33
Speaker 2: obstruct an investigation, prevent them from uncovering other things, even
14:36
Speaker 2: if those other things aren't crimes.
14:37
Speaker 3: Right.
14:52
Speaker 2: Even if you put that aside, even if you pretend
14:53
Speaker 2: like that didn't happen, which seems like everyone has fucking done,
14:57
Speaker 2: then even if you do that, then it is still
15:02
Speaker 2: a crime to try to stop the investigation if your
15:04
Speaker 2: worthy investigation will uncover non-criminal but ultimately embarrassing details about yourself.
15:09
Speaker 2: People have done this and gotten in trouble legally over
15:13
Speaker 2: time to try to prevent investigations that uncover adultery or
15:17
Speaker 2: family secrets or other crimes. types of embarrassing information you
15:22
Speaker 2: don't want in the public. And so, yes, he can
15:24
Speaker 2: very well be guilty of obstruction of justice, even without
15:28
Speaker 2: a crime. We like, this is like, ask Martha fucking
15:30
Speaker 2: Stewart who went to jail for this very thing. If
15:34
Speaker 2: only there was a high profile example of a celebrity
15:37
Speaker 2: from television who went down for something like this.
15:41
Speaker 1: Someone who was on the celebrity print and apprentice. In fact, yes, yes.
15:46
Speaker 1: Multiple celebrity apprenticed guys. stars accused of obstruction of justice,
15:51
Speaker 1: committed obstruction of justice. So this is all looking back, right,
15:56
Speaker 1: about the crimes that Trump has committed in the past
16:00
Speaker 1: and being held accountable for. But there was also something
16:03
Speaker 1: that Barr said in this hearing that affects the future.
16:06
Speaker 1: Barr did not deny, did not deny that Trump continues
16:10
Speaker 1: to pressure the Justice Department to investigate his political enemies.
16:14
Speaker 1: And now we know why. He did not deny that
16:17
Speaker 1: because last night in the New York Times, we found
16:19
Speaker 1: out that Donald Trump, the president of the United States,
16:21
Speaker 1: has suggested to the attorney general that he investigate Joe Biden.
16:27
Speaker 1: So we are now already, we are already seeing that
16:31
Speaker 1: Trump has decided because he is getting away with all
16:33
Speaker 1: of the shit that he has done in the past,
16:35
Speaker 1: the things he did to win the election, the things
16:38
Speaker 1: he did to cover up what he did to win
16:39
Speaker 1: the election. Now he's saying, fuck it. I can use
16:43
Speaker 1: the Attorney General, I can use the Justice Department, I
16:45
Speaker 1: can use law enforcement to do whatever I want, and
16:47
Speaker 1: I'm going to investigate my potential 2020 political opponent. And basically,
16:52
Speaker 1: Barr didn't deny that that was happening yesterday when he
16:54
Speaker 1: was under oath.
16:56
Speaker 2: No, he just drooled on himself under the withering questioning
16:59
Speaker 2: of Kamala Harris.
17:02
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you think that the Democrats on
17:04
Speaker 1: the committee did? Obviously, Kamala Harris was outstanding. I mean,
17:07
Speaker 1: this is, I know that she has done this for
17:10
Speaker 1: a living and she's a prosecutor, but still it was,
17:15
Speaker 1: even knowing all that, it was an outstanding performance watching her.
17:18
Speaker 1: And I urge everyone to go watch the video of
17:22
Speaker 1: Senator Harris drilling Barr for a couple of minutes because
17:26
Speaker 1: it was quite impressive. What do you think about the
17:29
Speaker 1: rest of the Democrats?
17:31
Speaker 2: I mean, this isn't even really the fault of individual Democrats.
17:38
Speaker 2: It's just It was not great. Like, can there not
17:41
Speaker 2: be a meeting where they all get in a room
17:43
Speaker 2: and they said, here are the subject areas that we
17:45
Speaker 2: would like to get to the bottom of. Why don't
17:48
Speaker 2: you each take some? I don't understand.
17:50
Speaker 1: And do that.
17:51
Speaker 2: Like, let's coordinate. Like, I just, like, that, the absence
17:55
Speaker 2: of that, I'm sure that meeting probably did happen, but, like,
17:58
Speaker 2: what happened after that meeting I'm curious about. I am
18:02
Speaker 2: just frustrated by the, like, you have five minutes left.
18:08
Speaker 2: or whatever it is, to question the Attorney General about
18:12
Speaker 2: his efforts to cover up obstruction of justice crimes from
18:16
Speaker 2: the President of the United States, one of the most
18:17
Speaker 2: serious things ever. No one wants your opening statement. Why
18:21
Speaker 2: would you waste one second of your five minutes speaking?
18:27
Speaker 2: That is not going to be on the news. It
18:29
Speaker 2: is not like no one's going to print out the
18:31
Speaker 2: congressional record and frame it and send it to voters.
18:33
Speaker 2: It just makes zero sense. This is true of Democrats
18:36
Speaker 2: and Republicans in the House and the Senate, but particularly
18:39
Speaker 2: the Senate. They're in love with hearing themselves talk. And
18:42
Speaker 2: that is a mistake. It's not just that Kamala Harris
18:46
Speaker 2: is better at this than all of them. And some
18:48
Speaker 2: people did better than others. Some were very bad. Some
18:50
Speaker 2: were fine. Some were good. But Kamala Harris didn't give
18:53
Speaker 2: an opening statement. She basically said hello to Attorney General
18:57
Speaker 2: Barr and asked him a fucking killer question. And when
19:00
Speaker 2: he was babbling and trying to delay in doing this
19:04
Speaker 2: relatively clever trick he does of pretending to not understand
19:08
Speaker 2: the question or to buy himself, to eat clock and
19:11
Speaker 2: buy himself time to come up with a, what he
19:13
Speaker 2: thinks to be a legally okay, but ultimately misleading answer.
19:18
Speaker 2: So he wants to find himself in that ultimate gray
19:19
Speaker 2: area between truth and crime. He, she just pushed him
19:23
Speaker 2: and she was like, I have another question for you.
19:24
Speaker 2: And she's like, she maximized her time. That is what
19:27
Speaker 2: we should do. Like that, like that, like we should
19:29
Speaker 2: just like, that's the way to do it. We have been,
19:31
Speaker 2: Operating by the same flawed model of hearings for as
19:36
Speaker 2: long as I've been in politics, and I'm sure longer
19:37
Speaker 2: than that. Just ask good questions, maximize your time, don't
19:41
Speaker 2: give speeches.
19:43
Speaker 1: I totally agree. And it's not just the opening statements either.
19:46
Speaker 1: It's like, don't ask questions that you're asking directly. just
19:50
Speaker 1: for like a messaging purpose. You know, like there'll be
19:54
Speaker 1: riffs like, Mr. Attorney General, do you think it's okay
19:57
Speaker 1: that the president committed all these crimes? You know, it's like,
20:00
Speaker 1: you're not trying to like have a performance here. You're
20:04
Speaker 1: actually trying to get him to answer tough questions. And
20:06
Speaker 1: there's plenty of tough questions to ask. I mean, Kamala
20:09
Speaker 1: only had five minutes, but she probably could have gone
20:12
Speaker 1: on for 30 and elicited other damning responses from William
20:17
Speaker 1: Barr during that time. And I don't know that anyone
20:19
Speaker 1: else really did that.
20:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't great. I say hopefully, but I'm not
20:26
Speaker 2: optimistic that people can learn the lessons before Bob Mueller
20:31
Speaker 2: comes to the next hearing. Although Lindsey Graham did suggest
20:34
Speaker 2: that Bob Mueller may never come to the Senate, so
20:36
Speaker 2: who the fuck knows.
20:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, getting to that. Well, we should note first
20:39
Speaker 1: that Republicans on the committee spent their time and questioning
20:43
Speaker 1: on your standard Fox News conspiracies about Hillary Clinton, Peter Strzok,
20:48
Speaker 1: Lisa Page, all their favorite deep state all-stars. Their strategy
20:52
Speaker 1: has been to argue that Mueller's investigation was actually a
20:56
Speaker 1: treasonous crime perpetrated by Democrats. What do you think of
20:59
Speaker 1: that strategy?
21:00
Speaker 2: It's smart. This is how Trump won, which is feed
21:06
Speaker 2: conspiracy theories to the base and just throw so much
21:10
Speaker 2: shit around that the folks in the middle say, well,
21:13
Speaker 2: it's all confusing. I don't know who's right. I don't
21:16
Speaker 2: have any really way of finding out. Certainly the media
21:18
Speaker 2: isn't capable of telling me. So I'm going to default
21:21
Speaker 2: to my natural expectations, which is both sides are corrupt liars.
21:26
Speaker 2: And when the public thinks that both sides are corrupt liars,
21:31
Speaker 2: That inures to the advantage of the corrupt liar in
21:33
Speaker 2: the race, which happens to be Trump and the Republicans
21:35
Speaker 2: in this case. So this was effective yesterday, it was
21:38
Speaker 2: effective in 2016, and it is what they're going to
21:40
Speaker 2: do in 2020, and we're going to have to figure
21:42
Speaker 2: out how to fight it.
21:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they all know that they don't really
21:47
Speaker 1: want to waste their time trying to defend Trump, Trump's actions,
21:51
Speaker 1: Trump's crimes, Trump's abuses of power. Why would they defend
21:54
Speaker 1: that when they can just go on the offensive and
21:57
Speaker 1: and accuse the other side of what they're being accused of.
22:02
Speaker 1: It's that simple. That's sort of how they roll. So
22:07
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, after the hearing was over, Lindsey Graham
22:09
Speaker 1: told reporters he will not be calling on Mueller to testify, saying, quote,
22:13
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do anymore. Enough already. It's over.
22:16
Speaker 1: A few hours later, William Barr canceled his testimony to
22:19
Speaker 1: the House Judiciary Committee that was supposed to be held today, Thursday,
22:22
Speaker 1: because he didn't want to be questioned by lawyers. Barr
22:26
Speaker 1: also missed a deadline to deliver the full unredacted Mueller
22:28
Speaker 1: report to the committee. So, Dan, what's your reaction to this?
22:32
Speaker 1: And what should Democrats do next? Where do we all
22:36
Speaker 1: go from here, knowing that the Trump administration has decided
22:40
Speaker 1: to obstruct the congressional investigation into the president's obstruction of
22:45
Speaker 1: justice and other potential crimes? Basically, they're trying to obstruct
22:50
Speaker 1: all investigation. They're stonewalling. They don't want witnesses to testify,
22:54
Speaker 1: they're not turning over documents. Like, what do Democrats do
22:58
Speaker 1: from here?
23:00
Speaker 2: I think we should endeavor to find a non-political bipartisan
23:06
Speaker 2: deal we can all work on together to heal the
23:08
Speaker 2: wounds of division in this country.
23:13
Speaker 1: I mean, but like, does this, does this change your
23:17
Speaker 1: view on impeachment? Or, I mean, I know your view has,
23:19
Speaker 1: I don't want to, Your view has not been hard
23:22
Speaker 1: and fast on impeachment, but has your view evolved at all?
23:25
Speaker 1: Or what are you thinking in terms of the impeachment process?
23:28
Speaker 2: Well, let me just sort of back up and give
23:30
Speaker 2: you a non-depressingly sarcastic answer to your question, which is
23:35
Speaker 2: we have to recognize this situation for what it is.
23:37
Speaker 2: It is a national crisis. It is a crisis of
23:40
Speaker 2: our democracy. It is a constitutional crisis. There is no
23:43
Speaker 2: two ways about it. The president has co-opted every element
23:47
Speaker 2: of his government and his party to cover up crimes,
23:53
Speaker 2: very serious crimes. And we have to respond to such.
23:57
Speaker 2: This is not a normal world, right? Even the rules
24:00
Speaker 2: of Watergate do not apply here. Because we've said this before,
24:04
Speaker 2: that if this Republican Party was in charge of the
24:07
Speaker 2: House and the Senate when Watergate happened, then Nixon would
24:11
Speaker 2: not have been forced to resign from office. He would
24:12
Speaker 2: have served out his term and people in Washington, D.C.
24:15
Speaker 2: would be flying out of Nixon Airport right now. We
24:18
Speaker 2: have to recognize the danger the clear and present danger
24:21
Speaker 2: that Trump and this Republican Party present to America. And
24:24
Speaker 2: so how do we respond to that? Look, we have
24:27
Speaker 2: limited tools. We have to use all of them. This
24:28
Speaker 2: idea that the House is going to spend another two
24:33
Speaker 2: days negotiating with Bill Barr over both the release of
24:38
Speaker 2: the full model, providing access to the full model report,
24:42
Speaker 2: and his own testimony is fucking absurd. They are trying
24:46
Speaker 2: to burn clock in order to hope that country and
24:50
Speaker 2: the voting public turns their mind and turns their eyes
24:52
Speaker 2: in another direction. And so the second Barr sent his
24:56
Speaker 2: letter last night saying he wasn't coming, they should have
24:58
Speaker 2: sent a subpoena. The second the clock ticked past the
25:01
Speaker 2: deadline for release of the Mueller report, they should have
25:05
Speaker 2: filed a contempt citation. We have to do all the things.
25:07
Speaker 2: I think the next step for Democrats is to open
25:10
Speaker 2: impeachment inquiry into Barr for two reasons. One, We cannot,
25:16
Speaker 2: we absolutely cannot let this sort of behavior stand. Because
25:18
Speaker 2: as you mentioned, as it relates to Joe Biden, Barr
25:21
Speaker 2: has refused to recuse himself from the other investigations. So
25:24
Speaker 2: he is the person who will decide whether the U.S.
25:30
Speaker 2: Department of Justice charges Trump associates in Trump's inauguration, in
25:35
Speaker 2: Trump's businesses, etc. All of those, every one of those decisions,
25:38
Speaker 2: all the work done by the Southern District of New
25:39
Speaker 2: York goes through Bill Barr. And I don't know about you,
25:42
Speaker 2: but I get a sense that he may not be
25:43
Speaker 2: on the level. And we know that the president, the
25:47
Speaker 2: president's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and Bill Barr are having conversations
25:51
Speaker 2: about launching investigations into Trump's political opponents for the purpose
25:56
Speaker 2: of helping him win the election. This cannot stand. We
25:58
Speaker 2: have to do something about it. Doing it in the
26:00
Speaker 2: context of an impeachment inquiry would give the Democrats more
26:03
Speaker 2: leverage to put pressure on the Republicans and find out more,
26:10
Speaker 2: use legal means to find out more about what is
26:12
Speaker 2: happening there. And so I think that is a good
26:16
Speaker 2: first step. And the reason I would go that step
26:18
Speaker 2: first is for as much as we know Trump has
26:21
Speaker 2: committed impeachable offenses, it would make us great to impeach him.
26:26
Speaker 2: And we can have the debate that basically you and
26:29
Speaker 2: me and Tommy and John and Brian have all day
26:31
Speaker 2: long about when and why to impeach. It's a moot
26:34
Speaker 2: point as long as Democrats are divided on that issue,
26:37
Speaker 2: which they are both divided on publicly and they're So
26:41
Speaker 2: I think that you're going to get more consensus around
26:45
Speaker 2: an impeachment into Barr while you continue to do the
26:49
Speaker 2: other investigations and try to figure out whether you can
26:52
Speaker 2: build a unified front within the House of Representatives, Democratic
26:56
Speaker 2: caucus and House of Representatives to impeach Trump.
26:59
Speaker 1: I am all for impeaching William Barr, for sure. I
27:04
Speaker 1: would like to see joint impeachment proceedings that attempt to
27:09
Speaker 1: impeach both William Barr and Donald Trump. Look, whether the
27:13
Speaker 1: impeachment of Donald Trump happens this month, next month, four
27:17
Speaker 1: months from now, I think there is no way out
27:20
Speaker 1: of this at this point. Like, we now know that
27:24
Speaker 1: Donald Trump believes it is OK to abuse his office
27:27
Speaker 1: in the following ways. He will shut down investigations, criminal
27:30
Speaker 1: investigations into his own conduct. He will open criminal investigations
27:36
Speaker 1: into his political opponents who try to challenge him. He
27:39
Speaker 1: abuses his power all the time. He uses his office
27:43
Speaker 1: to enrich himself. He tells border patrol agents down at
27:47
Speaker 1: the border that they should break the law and that
27:50
Speaker 1: if judges try to stop them, they should just ignore
27:53
Speaker 1: judges because they're under Donald Trump's command. He is basically
27:58
Speaker 1: promising that if he is given four more years, he
28:01
Speaker 1: will act even more as an authoritarian as he is
28:04
Speaker 1: right now. This is going to happen whether we impeach
28:07
Speaker 1: him or not, right? And I also realize that We're
28:12
Speaker 1: not going to get the votes in the Senate from
28:14
Speaker 1: the Republicans because they're going to stand by him. But
28:17
Speaker 1: I do think impeachment proceedings, at the very least, will
28:20
Speaker 1: focus the country's attention on not just what he's done
28:24
Speaker 1: that was laid out in the Mueller report, but all
28:26
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump's abuses of power. And then we can
28:29
Speaker 1: message this going into the impeachment proceedings by saying, like,
28:32
Speaker 1: we don't expect that Senate Republicans are actually going to
28:35
Speaker 1: do the right thing, put country before party, and vote
28:38
Speaker 1: to convict Donald Trump. but we at least want to
28:41
Speaker 1: put them on record before 2020 as to whether they
28:44
Speaker 1: think this behavior is acceptable or not. And then for
28:48
Speaker 1: however many months, the eyes of the nation will be
28:50
Speaker 1: on a series of impeachment proceedings that will highlight all
28:53
Speaker 1: the crimes that Donald Trump has committed. And then once
28:57
Speaker 1: he is impeached by the House and expectedly exonerated by
29:02
Speaker 1: the Senate, he will go into the election... being a
29:05
Speaker 1: president who was impeached for the following behavior. And everyone
29:07
Speaker 1: will know what that behavior and conduct is because it'll
29:10
Speaker 1: have been all over the country. And voters will have
29:12
Speaker 1: that much more information before they go to the poll.
29:14
Speaker 1: For me, it's like impeachment may not work. I mean,
29:17
Speaker 1: it's not going to result in him getting removed from
29:20
Speaker 1: office before 2020. But like you just said, we have
29:23
Speaker 1: to use every tool we have because if we fully believe,
29:28
Speaker 1: and if Democrats fully believe this, who've been elected, who
29:31
Speaker 1: are in Congress right now, if they believe that this
29:33
Speaker 1: is a national emergency that Trump represents a national emergency,
29:36
Speaker 1: then we have to start fucking acting like it. If
29:38
Speaker 1: you don't believe he's a national emergency, then stop the rhetoric,
29:41
Speaker 1: stop the hyperbole, and go about doing other things. But
29:44
Speaker 1: if you actually believe that he has committed crimes and
29:47
Speaker 1: this is a national emergency, you have to do everything
29:49
Speaker 1: in your power to act like it and do something.
29:52
Speaker 1: I mean, it's... Whew. I mean.
29:56
Speaker 2: The only thing I would say to that is, like, yes,
29:58
Speaker 2: you're all right. The challenge we have is you go
30:02
Speaker 2: into impeachment with the Democratic caucus that you have, not
30:05
Speaker 2: the Democratic caucus that you want.
30:07
Speaker 1: But I think you have to put pressure on that caucus.
30:09
Speaker 2: And if there is true division within Democrats, which there
30:13
Speaker 2: appears to be, then... You can't go to war with
30:17
Speaker 2: divided troops, right? If there was no fucking lesson of
30:20
Speaker 2: Game of Thrones, then this is it. And currently they're divided.
30:25
Speaker 2: So to get where you want to go, there has
30:29
Speaker 2: to be a process to get Democrats united to it.
30:32
Speaker 2: You can't rush that. Which is, I think, if I
30:35
Speaker 2: know anything about Nancy Pelosi's strategy over the years, is
30:37
Speaker 2: that she has a process to get people where she
30:42
Speaker 2: wants to go. and make them think they got there
30:45
Speaker 2: on their own, and you can't beat them into it.
30:47
Speaker 2: And so I think that is what I see to
30:50
Speaker 2: be the underlying strategy behind our approach, which is we
30:54
Speaker 2: can't do it now because large numbers of our caucus,
30:57
Speaker 2: large numbers, think this is a bad idea. Now, we
31:01
Speaker 2: can discuss whether we've elected all the wrong people or
31:04
Speaker 2: all of that, but if that is the facts on
31:06
Speaker 2: the ground, that has to be addressed before you can
31:08
Speaker 2: get where you're going. Otherwise, we will only read stories
31:11
Speaker 2: about Democrats divided over impeachment for a number of months
31:15
Speaker 2: until the resolution fails.
31:17
Speaker 1: So, so I totally agree with that. I guess what
31:19
Speaker 1: I'm saying is it's one of the reasons that a
31:23
Speaker 1: lot of these house members are not on board with
31:25
Speaker 1: impeachment yet is they think it is not that important
31:27
Speaker 1: to the people who elected them. And so if, you know,
31:31
Speaker 1: if you're out there and you believe it's important to
31:34
Speaker 1: not just hold the president accountable for his crimes, but
31:38
Speaker 1: prevent impeachment, potential abuses of power that could affect the
31:41
Speaker 1: 2020 election because he's dead set on investigating his political
31:45
Speaker 1: opponent during an election so he can win a second election.
31:49
Speaker 1: If you want to prevent that, if you think that's important,
31:51
Speaker 1: then it's time to reach out to your members of
31:53
Speaker 1: Congress and tell them that it's important because, you know,
31:56
Speaker 1: it's nearly impossible to change the minds of most elected Republicans.
31:59
Speaker 1: It is not impossible to change the minds of most
32:02
Speaker 1: elected Democrats. These are largely reasonable people who listen to
32:06
Speaker 1: the people who elected them, who listen to activists. And
32:09
Speaker 1: now is the time to make your voice heard. Because if,
32:11
Speaker 1: as you say, Dan, Nancy Pelosi is trying to get
32:14
Speaker 1: them to that better place so that they're all on
32:17
Speaker 1: board together, which I believe they should be, then, you know,
32:20
Speaker 1: you're going to help Nancy Pelosi do her job by
32:22
Speaker 1: reaching out to her and to every other Democrat in
32:25
Speaker 1: Congress and let them know that this is important. It's bad.
32:28
Speaker 1: Did you... This is sort of an aside, but.
32:29
Speaker 2: Do people talk about this every week until Trump cancels
32:33
Speaker 2: the 2020 election?
32:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably. Did you... I know I sent this around
32:38
Speaker 1: last night as I was preparing for the pod. I
32:39
Speaker 1: was just texting everyone as I was catching up on
32:41
Speaker 1: the news. Did you see Hillary Clinton on Rachel Maddow?
32:45
Speaker 2: I saw the clips of it afterwards.
32:48
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton, it was amazing. She goes through this whole
32:51
Speaker 1: scenario and she's like, basically what we're saying is in
32:54
Speaker 1: the Mueller report, it says Trump invited a foreign power
32:57
Speaker 1: to interfere in the election when he asked Russia for
33:01
Speaker 1: my emails, right? She's like, so now we're saying that
33:03
Speaker 1: even though that's not a crime, technically a crime, that
33:06
Speaker 1: it's okay, that it's okay to do that. She's like,
33:09
Speaker 1: so imagine, imagine if a Democratic candidate for president came
33:13
Speaker 1: on TV just like this and said, China, it would
33:17
Speaker 1: be very interesting if you went after Donald Trump's tax
33:19
Speaker 1: returns and publicized them. Imagine if that happened. And it
33:23
Speaker 1: was funny because she's basically doing the hypothetical situation that
33:28
Speaker 1: she's talking about. And you're like, oh God, what if
33:31
Speaker 1: China responds to Hillary Clinton doing that? But it very
33:34
Speaker 1: smartly points out the absurdity of the situation right now,
33:37
Speaker 1: where we've now crossed a Rubicon into presidential candidates of
33:41
Speaker 1: either party can openly invite foreign powers to interfere in
33:46
Speaker 1: our election to help other candidates win. I mean, it's crazy.
33:51
Speaker 1: We just, we can't let this stand.
33:53
Speaker 2: This is, I mean, it says there's, I mean, back
33:57
Speaker 2: in like more normal times of politics and people would
33:59
Speaker 2: be like, Which show is more realistic about life in
34:03
Speaker 2: the White House, life in politics? The smart answer is
34:07
Speaker 2: Veep because it at least highlights at an absurd level
34:12
Speaker 2: the absurdities of politics. But we've reached a new level
34:15
Speaker 2: where this is actually a plot line on Veep. This
34:17
Speaker 2: is exactly what is happening on Veep right now.
34:19
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, Dan, fortunately, all this consternation over whether or
34:31
Speaker 1: not to impeach our criminally implicated president hasn't prevented Democrats
34:34
Speaker 1: from finding ways to work with him. Isn't that nice?
34:38
Speaker 1: It's one of the most tired jokes on Twitter, but
34:40
Speaker 1: this week was actually infrastructure week at the White House,
34:44
Speaker 1: where Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer met with Donald Trump
34:46
Speaker 1: and agreed to work on a $ 2 trillion legislative package
34:49
Speaker 1: for bridges, highways, broadband, water, and power grid infrastructure. Dan,
34:54
Speaker 1: why did this meeting happen? What was the Democratic strategy
34:58
Speaker 1: in seeking a deal on infrastructure with Donald Trump the
35:01
Speaker 1: year before his reelection?
35:05
Speaker 2: This is one of the most bananas things that I
35:07
Speaker 2: have ever seen.
35:08
Speaker 3: Happen in my life.
35:10
Speaker 1: We just watched the bar hearing yesterday.
35:12
Speaker 2: If this meeting happened in the midst of the efforts
35:15
Speaker 2: to pass the tax cut or repeal the Affordable Care Act,
35:19
Speaker 2: I would have thought it was fucking crazy. Like, just like,
35:21
Speaker 2: why are we rewarding Trump with this? Like, But doing
35:25
Speaker 2: it at a time in which there is an internal
35:27
Speaker 2: debate within the Democratic Party and in the country about
35:31
Speaker 2: whether this president has committed impeachable offenses to then drive
35:34
Speaker 2: to the White House, sit down with him, not talk
35:38
Speaker 2: about his crimes, do legislative cosplay around an infrastructure deal
35:44
Speaker 2: that has zero chance of passing, and then heading out
35:47
Speaker 2: to the microphones to announce this deal and talk about
35:51
Speaker 2: how excited you are to work with him is fucking insane.
35:54
Speaker 1: It is insane.
35:55
Speaker 2: It is a stick in the eye of the base.
35:58
Speaker 2: It makes zero sense to me. I will offer the
36:03
Speaker 2: caveat that Nancy Pelosi very rarely does things that turn
36:08
Speaker 2: out to be as stupid as I think this is.
36:11
Speaker 2: So it is possible that there is some hidden strategy
36:14
Speaker 2: here that is so deviously and secretly brilliant that we
36:19
Speaker 2: cannot see it. So I will hold out that possibility.
36:21
Speaker 2: But absent that, This is nuts, just nuts.
36:26
Speaker 1: So I completely agree with that, but I will offer
36:29
Speaker 1: the most generous interpretation of a potential strategy from Nancy Pelosi,
36:34
Speaker 1: just for the sake of our listeners. So, so Donald
36:39
Speaker 1: Trump says that he's, you know, is interested in infrastructure
36:42
Speaker 1: and Pelosi and Schumer say, okay, we're going to go
36:45
Speaker 1: present our plan and it's going to be a plan.
36:48
Speaker 1: Basically they have said they had, they laid out some, um,
36:52
Speaker 1: they laid out what they want in the plan, what
36:53
Speaker 1: the plan has to have, right? And they say, okay,
36:56
Speaker 1: it has to be paid for with tax increases. You
36:59
Speaker 1: have to find tax increases somewhere and Democrats want them
37:02
Speaker 1: on wealthy people in order to pay for infrastructure. It
37:06
Speaker 1: has to include strong labor protections, has to include investments
37:10
Speaker 1: in renewable energy so that the infrastructure actually helps fight
37:13
Speaker 1: climate change. So we're going to have all these demands
37:16
Speaker 1: on infrastructure. And then Donald Trump is like, I like
37:19
Speaker 1: the infrastructure deal. And look, I had an infrastructure deal
37:21
Speaker 1: that I hated. Gary Cohn came up with it and
37:23
Speaker 1: it was bullshit. And he's right. It was because it
37:26
Speaker 1: relied mostly on sort of like private investment that was
37:28
Speaker 1: going to materialize out of nowhere when you actually need
37:31
Speaker 1: real government spending to build roads and bridges and the like.
37:34
Speaker 1: So Donald Trump in the meeting says, sure, yeah, I
37:38
Speaker 1: like your infrastructure plan. So Pelosi is probably thinking to herself, OK,
37:41
Speaker 1: there's no way in hell this ever passes the Republican
37:45
Speaker 1: Senate that a bunch of Republican senators are going to
37:47
Speaker 1: go for tax increases to pay for infrastructure. Mitch McConnell's
37:50
Speaker 1: never going to let that fly. So then once it fails,
37:54
Speaker 1: we can say, well, Democrats tried to work with this
37:56
Speaker 1: president on a $ 2 trillion infrastructure package because we're actually
38:00
Speaker 1: focused not just on impeachment, but on creating jobs. And
38:03
Speaker 1: this president and the Republican Party, because they only care
38:06
Speaker 1: about their wealthy donors and they only care about the rich,
38:08
Speaker 1: they let it fail. We're trying. They're not. So that
38:12
Speaker 1: to me, I guess, is the most generous interpretation of
38:15
Speaker 1: what her strategy might be.
38:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. I know– I can intuit based on years of
38:21
Speaker 2: watching Schumer what his strategy is, which is let's make
38:25
Speaker 2: the Republicans in the Senate kill this and we're running
38:27
Speaker 2: against a bunch of Republicans' incumbents. Like last cycle– It's
38:33
Speaker 2: a Senate strategy. Democrats had to protect their incumbents. This
38:35
Speaker 2: time Republicans have to. So if you can say that
38:38
Speaker 2: Republican Jody Ernst or Tom Tillis or Cory Gardner oppose
38:43
Speaker 2: an infrastructure deal in order to protect tax cuts, then– great.
38:49
Speaker 2: Then like somehow that that would be some sort of
38:51
Speaker 2: silver bullet. But that, I think that is not clever
38:54
Speaker 2: enough by half, right? Like that's one of those ideas
38:56
Speaker 2: that masquerades as clever, but just is truly unclever. It just,
39:02
Speaker 2: it like, don't do this now. This is the wrong
39:06
Speaker 2: time to do this. Remember when Trump was elected and
39:08
Speaker 2: anytime anyone did anything, like even use the words like president,
39:12
Speaker 2: like half of Twitter would yell at you and say,
39:14
Speaker 2: you're normalizing Trump. And it was sort of, it was
39:17
Speaker 2: kind of dumb. It was a dumb argument. But this
39:19
Speaker 2: is actually Democrats normalizing Trump. We've just been delivered a
39:24
Speaker 2: 400-page report that lays out in exquisite detail an effort
39:27
Speaker 2: to commit multiple crimes to obstruction. to abuse power. And
39:32
Speaker 2: your next stop before you even decide that you're going
39:35
Speaker 2: to subpoena the actual report is to have a meeting
39:38
Speaker 2: about cutting a legislative deal. That to me is just
39:43
Speaker 2: a mistake. There is an element of you have to
39:48
Speaker 2: pay tribute and manage relations with the base. Because the
39:52
Speaker 2: base is what got you elected. The base helped deliver
39:54
Speaker 2: this Democratic majority. And part of the reason they did
39:58
Speaker 2: that was you could provide a check on Trump. Now,
40:00
Speaker 2: this doesn't mean that you should never work with Trump,
40:02
Speaker 2: you should never do anything, but the timing of this
40:04
Speaker 2: makes zero sense, especially around something that's not going to happen.
40:07
Speaker 2: It cannot happen. Mitch McConnell has said it's not going
40:10
Speaker 2: to happen. I mean, it's just there's nothing that we
40:12
Speaker 2: have seen in the last two years. Fuck the last
40:15
Speaker 2: two years. The last 25 years of Republican politics to
40:18
Speaker 2: suggest that this can happen. So I don't know. It
40:23
Speaker 2: makes no sense to me. It really doesn't make sense
40:25
Speaker 2: to me.
40:25
Speaker 1: I mean, I look at this infrastructure legislative cosplay like
40:32
Speaker 1: I look at the worry over impeachment, which is like
40:36
Speaker 1: sometimes you just have to get your head out of
40:39
Speaker 1: the polling data and just do what's right and also
40:43
Speaker 1: do what seems like common sense. Like, The president has
40:48
Speaker 1: committed obstruction of justice, says the special counsel. He is
40:52
Speaker 1: now trying to obstruct an investigation into that. He is
40:54
Speaker 1: abusing his power left and right. We are in a
40:57
Speaker 1: national emergency. We just have to act like that. It
41:00
Speaker 1: is not time to sit and have meetings about infrastructure.
41:03
Speaker 1: It is not time to sit and worry about whether
41:04
Speaker 1: we hold this one in contempt or wait three days
41:07
Speaker 1: for this subpoena or wait to do this or wait
41:09
Speaker 1: to do that. It is all happening before our eyes,
41:14
Speaker 1: and we either have to act like that Or just,
41:16
Speaker 1: I don't know.
41:17
Speaker 3: Give up.
41:18
Speaker 1: Because trying to game out everything in a political, well,
41:22
Speaker 1: people care about jobs and they care about health care,
41:24
Speaker 1: so we have to do this and this is a
41:25
Speaker 1: messaging bill and we have to hold Senate Republicans on
41:28
Speaker 1: this vote. It's good to have a strategy. It is
41:32
Speaker 1: good to pay attention to public opinion. I'm not saying that.
41:35
Speaker 1: But you can easily overthink this stuff. And I think
41:37
Speaker 1: the Democrats have clearly gone in the direction of overthinking
41:41
Speaker 1: it at this point.
41:43
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the problem is a lot of
41:44
Speaker 2: people are like, you have to walk and chew gum.
41:47
Speaker 2: And so like, yes, investigate the president, but also do
41:49
Speaker 2: legislative stuff. But what that means is doing things like
41:52
Speaker 2: having the Medicare for all hearing or passing bills to
41:55
Speaker 2: strengthen the ACA or passing bills to repeal parts of
41:58
Speaker 2: the tax cut or the, the HR one, the bill
42:02
Speaker 2: to do political and electoral reform like that. That's the
42:05
Speaker 2: chewing gum part of this, right? The chewing gum part
42:07
Speaker 2: is not go to the white house and, and, I
42:09
Speaker 2: don't even know, like, I don't know how to extend
42:11
Speaker 2: the gum-chewing metaphor anymore, but don't do that.
42:14
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about 2020. But let's talk about
42:19
Speaker 1: the Senate for once. So Democrats currently hold 47 Senate
42:23
Speaker 1: seats and will have to defend Doug Jones' seat in
42:28
Speaker 1: ultra-conservative Alabama, which means that we probably need to flip
42:32
Speaker 1: four Republican Senate seats in order to hold a majority
42:36
Speaker 1: if we also hold the presidency. The top targets... are Colorado, Arizona, Maine,
42:41
Speaker 1: North Carolina, Iowa, Texas, and Georgia, in roughly that order,
42:45
Speaker 1: though you may disagree. But the party needs candidates first,
42:50
Speaker 1: and some of the biggest potential recruits are sitting this
42:52
Speaker 1: one out. Stacey Abrams announced this week that she'd be
42:55
Speaker 1: taking a pass on a run for the Senate in
42:57
Speaker 1: Georgia against David Perdue, saying, quote, my responsibility is not
43:01
Speaker 1: simply to run because the job is available. I need
43:03
Speaker 1: to run because I want to do the job. Dan,
43:06
Speaker 1: before we even get to Stacey Abrams, How difficult do
43:10
Speaker 1: you think taking back the Senate will be?
43:14
Speaker 2: It is possible that we can take back the Senate,
43:17
Speaker 2: but it's going to take a lot of luck, a
43:20
Speaker 2: lot of good work. It's hard. We're going to have
43:24
Speaker 2: to pick up Senate seats in states that Trump is
43:27
Speaker 2: almost certainly going to win. And that is hard. Our
43:31
Speaker 2: path to have a good year is much harder than
43:35
Speaker 2: the Republicans' path last year, where they were mostly... They
43:39
Speaker 2: had enough seats in the states that Trump won by
43:41
Speaker 2: double digits in some cases, and we have to win
43:45
Speaker 2: either very purple states or likely red states. And that
43:49
Speaker 2: is hard. It's possible, but it is hard.
43:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, because that list I just read, you think, okay, Colorado, Arizona,
43:57
Speaker 1: and Maine are three states. Arizona is a state that
44:00
Speaker 1: Donald Trump won in 2016, but of course, Kyrsten Sinema
44:03
Speaker 1: won statewide Senate race in 2018. So potentially- the Democrat
44:08
Speaker 1: in 2020 could win Arizona. And you think, okay, that
44:11
Speaker 1: gets you three. But also, by the way, Susan Collins,
44:14
Speaker 1: extremely popular in Maine, despite what Twitter and all the
44:18
Speaker 1: rest of us think. And so that's going to be
44:21
Speaker 1: a tough one too. But then even if you get
44:22
Speaker 1: those three, probably you need the fourth. And then you're
44:26
Speaker 1: looking at North Carolina, where it's going to be an
44:29
Speaker 1: uphill climb. Obviously, Barack Obama won that state in 2008,
44:31
Speaker 1: but Democrats haven't really done that well since. Iowa, another
44:36
Speaker 1: state that we lost by double digits in 2016. Texas,
44:42
Speaker 1: you know, another one that's maybe close. Obviously, Beto came
44:45
Speaker 1: close in 2018. But, you know, in a presidential year,
44:48
Speaker 1: all the conservatives and all the grassroots Republicans are coming
44:51
Speaker 1: out in that state. That's going to be hard, too.
44:53
Speaker 1: And same thing with Georgia. So it's tough. It's a
44:57
Speaker 1: very tough map. So what do you make of Stacey
45:00
Speaker 1: Abrams' decision not to run?
45:04
Speaker 2: There are few politicians that all of us at Pod
45:08
Speaker 2: Save America love more than Stacey Abrams. I think she
45:11
Speaker 2: is just unbelievable. She is exactly who should have been
45:15
Speaker 2: governor of Georgia. She would have made a great senator
45:19
Speaker 2: from Georgia. She would make a great presidential candidate. She
45:23
Speaker 2: should be at the top of every vice presidential list.
45:27
Speaker 2: She is wonderful. It is very important that none of us,
45:33
Speaker 2: we cannot, we should not, we will not hold her
45:35
Speaker 2: to a different standard than we held Beto or Julian
45:38
Speaker 2: Castro or anyone else, any of these other people who
45:40
Speaker 2: chose to run for president or do something else instead
45:43
Speaker 2: of run for the Senate. It is her choice. And
45:45
Speaker 2: if she is reluctant to do it, that is wise
45:47
Speaker 2: not to do it because reluctant Senate candidates are losing
45:50
Speaker 2: Senate candidates 100% of the time.
45:52
Speaker 1: Totally. Totally agree with that. I mean, I think her
45:56
Speaker 1: explanation is perfect on this. I need to run because
46:01
Speaker 1: I want to do the job, not just because the
46:02
Speaker 1: job is available. I have to say I'm a little
46:06
Speaker 1: tired of people on Twitter acting like they are Senate
46:10
Speaker 1: strategists and they can just move around candidates like they're
46:13
Speaker 1: pieces on a chessboard and just like put them in
46:15
Speaker 1: races and that they're suddenly going to win, you know, like,
46:19
Speaker 1: because look, in 2018, was Beto O'Rourke at the top
46:24
Speaker 1: of the list of the national party trying to recruit
46:26
Speaker 1: Senate candidates? No, he was barely on the radar and
46:30
Speaker 1: suddenly comes out of nowhere to almost win this race.
46:32
Speaker 1: There are probably other better works out there. And Stacey
46:35
Speaker 1: Abrams is out there in Georgia and Texas and some
46:39
Speaker 1: of these States. And am I worried about recruitment? Yeah, absolutely.
46:44
Speaker 1: But I do think in this day and age when,
46:48
Speaker 1: you know, suddenly you can build up a Twitter following,
46:50
Speaker 1: you can raise money online much easier. Like the idea
46:54
Speaker 1: that the only recruitment strategy is Chuck Schumer going around
46:58
Speaker 1: and reading resumes and trying to get big names is
47:01
Speaker 1: is sort of silly to me. And, you know, I
47:03
Speaker 1: saw Chris Murphy made this point in a Politico story
47:06
Speaker 1: about this. He said, we sometimes are way too obsessive
47:08
Speaker 1: about getting big, big-name recruits. Our big-name recruits in previous
47:12
Speaker 1: cycles haven't done so hot, a.k.a. Phil Bredesen in Tennessee, right?
47:16
Speaker 1: That was supposed to be the big-name recruit. We got Bredesen.
47:18
Speaker 1: We got him to do it. We're going to win Tennessee.
47:20
Speaker 1: And he was not a great candidate and lost by
47:24
Speaker 1: way more than Beto O'Rourke and more than most of
47:27
Speaker 1: the other candidates.
47:30
Speaker 2: I think it is important that we have good candidates.
47:32
Speaker 2: And I think it's very important you point out that
47:34
Speaker 2: big name candidates and good candidates are not the same
47:36
Speaker 2: thing and are oftentimes very different things. And Chris Murphy
47:39
Speaker 2: is exactly right. Big name candidates. And it's not just
47:42
Speaker 2: this past cycle. I mean, I'm not sure another candidate
47:45
Speaker 2: was winning Tennessee this cycle. So this is like Phil
47:47
Speaker 2: Bredesen probably did better than a generic Democrat would. But
47:51
Speaker 2: whether it is Russ Feingold in Wisconsin in 2016 or
47:55
Speaker 2: Evan Bayh or Chuck Hagel, we have rerun people many times,
48:01
Speaker 2: and they have not done well. And it's in part
48:04
Speaker 2: because it's hard to be the candidate of change if
48:07
Speaker 2: you're the famous longtime politician of a state. And usually,
48:11
Speaker 2: in seat and incumbent, you have to be the candidate
48:13
Speaker 2: of change, not just the candidate of the establishment of
48:16
Speaker 2: a different era. So I think the other important thing
48:21
Speaker 2: to recognize here is that the most important factor that
48:25
Speaker 2: will determine whether we take the Senate or not is
48:28
Speaker 2: not which candidates we recruit. Although it's important not to
48:31
Speaker 2: have bad candidates, right? Like a bad candidate can lose.
48:33
Speaker 2: But it is how well our presidential candidate does. In 2008,
48:38
Speaker 2: when Democrats won, when Barack Obama won, all of the
48:41
Speaker 2: close Senate races tipped in the Democrats' favor. In 2012,
48:45
Speaker 2: when Barack Obama won re-election, all of the Senate races,
48:49
Speaker 2: including in states Obama did not win like North Dakota did,
48:52
Speaker 2: Indiana and Missouri tipped in Democrats' favor. In 2016, we
48:57
Speaker 2: lost the Pennsylvania and Wisconsin Senate races that we very
49:01
Speaker 2: much should have won and we wouldn't be in this
49:02
Speaker 2: fucking mess right now had we won because Hillary Clinton
49:04
Speaker 2: lost those states. And so this is also sort of
49:08
Speaker 2: gets to the absurdity of the infrastructure strategy, which is
49:13
Speaker 2: the best way to keep the House or expand our
49:15
Speaker 2: House majority, the best way to get the Senate majority
49:17
Speaker 2: is to run the best campaign we can against Trump,
49:20
Speaker 2: is to make him as weak as possible now so
49:23
Speaker 2: that we can defeat him later. And that is the
49:26
Speaker 2: only way to do it. And so, yes, we want
49:28
Speaker 2: good candidates. Yes, I think it's disappointing that some of
49:30
Speaker 2: these candidates have decided not to run. But more important
49:34
Speaker 2: than anything else is how Trump does, how a not
49:39
Speaker 2: just the White House, but the other branches of government
49:41
Speaker 2: as well.
49:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with that. To go through the different
49:45
Speaker 1: states and the different candidates we have, it looks like
49:49
Speaker 1: in Colorado, there are a number of potential challenges to
49:53
Speaker 1: Cory Gardner. So it seems like we are heading to
49:56
Speaker 1: a good place in Colorado. There'll probably be a primary
49:58
Speaker 1: because it seems like there's going to be a couple
49:59
Speaker 1: of Democrats that might challenge each other to challenge Gardner.
50:03
Speaker 1: In Arizona, we have a very good recruit in Mark Kelly,
50:07
Speaker 1: um so arizona looks good in maine you know we
50:12
Speaker 1: we need some good recruits against susan collins it seems
50:15
Speaker 1: like um uh hannah pingree who was a former speaker
50:20
Speaker 1: of the house in maine and also the current house
50:23
Speaker 1: speaker in maine sarah gideon might challenge susan collins so
50:27
Speaker 1: you know and then maybe there'll be others as well
50:29
Speaker 1: i think north carolina is sort of worrisome i haven't
50:32
Speaker 1: heard any names come out of north carolina In Iowa,
50:36
Speaker 1: we don't have a recruit for Joni Ernst yet, though J.D.
50:40
Speaker 1: Scholten has made some noise, who ran against Steve King
50:42
Speaker 1: as a potential candidate. In Texas, we do have a
50:45
Speaker 1: candidate now, MJ Hager, who had one of the best
50:49
Speaker 1: ads of the 2018 cycle and almost knocked off an
50:52
Speaker 1: incumbent there, is now going to run against John Cornyn,
50:55
Speaker 1: and it doesn't look like she's going to have a
50:56
Speaker 1: primary because Joaquin Castro decided against running. So now we
51:01
Speaker 1: have a good candidate in Texas, and then in Georgia,
51:04
Speaker 1: we need a candidate. Any thoughts on that? Did I
51:08
Speaker 1: miss any?
51:09
Speaker 2: I wanted to add Kentucky to the list.
51:11
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
51:11
Speaker 2: Now, I am 100% acknowledging that winning Kentucky in a
51:19
Speaker 2: presidential year is challenging. But there was a poll out
51:21
Speaker 2: last week that shows McConnell has an 18% approval rating.
51:25
Speaker 2: He is less popular than Ponscombe. I promise, I don't
51:28
Speaker 2: know who the best candidate is. I know there were
51:31
Speaker 2: some efforts to talk about Amy McGrath running. I don't
51:33
Speaker 2: know where that stands. There might be other people. Matt Jones,
51:37
Speaker 2: who's a very interesting sports radio host there, has talked
51:42
Speaker 2: about running in the past and has sort of really
51:46
Speaker 2: proudly and bravely taken on McConnell a lot over the
51:49
Speaker 2: last couple years. Whoever it is, I promise you this.
51:52
Speaker 2: You have a shot. It's a long shot, but it's
51:54
Speaker 2: a shot. But the world is made up of people who...
51:57
Speaker 2: I've taken long shots. And I promise you, you will
51:59
Speaker 2: be very well funded because there will be real appetite
52:02
Speaker 2: for the person who wins against Mitch McConnell.
52:05
Speaker 1: We will help.
52:06
Speaker 2: And he shouldn't get a free fucking pass either. His
52:09
Speaker 2: conduct is both pre-Trump, during Trump. Mitch McConnell is the.
52:15
Speaker 1: He's an asshole for all seasons.
52:16
Speaker 2: He's terrible about America. And there should be a debate
52:20
Speaker 2: about that. That should be held to account. He should
52:21
Speaker 2: not get to run around the country free and clear
52:24
Speaker 2: in a reelect.
52:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I agree with that. Some people are worried
52:28
Speaker 1: about timing. Just for perspective, Jackie Rosen, who's now Senator
52:34
Speaker 1: in Nevada, and Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona, they announced their
52:40
Speaker 1: candidacies in July for Rosen and September for Sinema the
52:45
Speaker 1: year before the election. So, yeah, it's getting close to
52:49
Speaker 1: the time where we want candidates to announce that they're
52:52
Speaker 1: running in the Senate, but They probably have a few
52:54
Speaker 1: more months to really firm things up. And I'm sure Schumer's.
52:56
Speaker 2: Working on it. Yeah, I sort of think a year
52:58
Speaker 2: out is where the panic should set in. Because you
53:00
Speaker 2: just want time to raise the money, build name ID,
53:02
Speaker 2: build the organization. I mean, if we get people in now,
53:06
Speaker 2: that was great. Even though Beto did not win, being
53:09
Speaker 2: in that race for essentially two years was to his
53:12
Speaker 2: great advantage. That's how he was able to build the
53:14
Speaker 2: organization that he built in that race.
53:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.
53:18
Speaker 3: Finally.
53:19
Speaker 1: Colorado Senator Michael Bennett announced on Thursday that he's running
53:22
Speaker 1: for president. He's the 21st candidate to join the race
53:26
Speaker 1: and the seventh member of the Senate. Just a few
53:28
Speaker 1: weeks ago, he shared that he'd been diagnosed with prostate
53:30
Speaker 1: cancer and then he'd get in the race if surgery
53:32
Speaker 1: went well and he was healthy enough to do it.
53:34
Speaker 1: Now he is healthy and fully in the race. Bennett's
53:37
Speaker 1: a former school superintendent who's been in the Senate for
53:39
Speaker 1: the past 10 years. He's got a moderate legislative record
53:42
Speaker 1: and he was part of a bipartisan group that tried
53:44
Speaker 1: to forge a compromise on immigration. He acknowledged in an
53:46
Speaker 1: announcement video today that, quote, you probably don't know me
53:49
Speaker 1: because I don't do cable news every night, which is
53:53
Speaker 1: a line that I love. Dan, what do you think
53:56
Speaker 1: of Michael Bennett and 21 candidates being in the race?
54:03
Speaker 2: I find the Bennett decision to be very interesting because
54:07
Speaker 2: unlike some of the other people who are running these
54:12
Speaker 2: much obviously longer shot races, Bennett is someone who has
54:17
Speaker 2: not proven to be overly ambitious in his time, who's
54:20
Speaker 2: not proven to be in a hurry to get somewhere else,
54:22
Speaker 2: is not someone, as he points out, who is thirsty
54:26
Speaker 2: for retweets and cable news hits. He is an incredibly thoughtful,
54:30
Speaker 2: incredibly serious senator. I would bet that if you polled,
54:35
Speaker 2: you did a secret poll of Obama's inner circle senior
54:40
Speaker 2: staff of the last decade about who their favorite senator is,
54:45
Speaker 2: Harry Reid would be first, and Michael Bennett would be second.
54:50
Speaker 2: He's just a very thoughtful, interesting guy. He is not
54:53
Speaker 2: someone that I would believe would just simply jump into
54:57
Speaker 2: this race just for shits and giggles. He's thought about this.
55:03
Speaker 2: It's not clear to me what his path is. It's
55:04
Speaker 2: not clear to me what his case is. But he's
55:07
Speaker 2: thoughtful about politics. I'm interested in this just because of
55:12
Speaker 2: my experience with Michael Bennett. he's a serious person and
55:16
Speaker 2: so it's just it's it's i'm surprised by this but
55:19
Speaker 2: i'm curious about it.
55:21
Speaker 1: Yeah uh tommy and i sat down with him during
55:24
Speaker 1: uh the health care battle when we were in dc
55:27
Speaker 1: and we were interviewing a bunch of folks around the
55:29
Speaker 1: first time that they tried to repeal the aca and
55:33
Speaker 1: i i find him like very thoughtful very smart you
55:36
Speaker 1: know we had a disagreement because he is talking about
55:39
Speaker 1: people who don't want to get rid of the filibuster,
55:41
Speaker 1: Michael Bennett does not want to get rid of the filibuster.
55:43
Speaker 1: And I remember when we talked to him, he was
55:45
Speaker 1: making a case to us that we have to be
55:47
Speaker 1: better than Republicans. We have to protect institutions. You know,
55:50
Speaker 1: we shouldn't be acting, you know, towards Supreme Court justices
55:54
Speaker 1: like the Republicans have done to Merrick Garland. So I
55:58
Speaker 1: think I probably have a lot of substantive disagreements with
56:00
Speaker 1: him about institutions and process and how to strategize against
56:05
Speaker 1: a party that's become radicalized. But he makes good arguments,
56:10
Speaker 1: he's thoughtful, he's fair, and so, you know, we'll see.
56:13
Speaker 1: It's also, by the way, another interesting part about this
56:16
Speaker 1: choice is he's running against his former boss, who was
56:20
Speaker 1: just here at Pod Save America the other day, John Hickenlooper.
56:23
Speaker 1: He was John Hickenlooper's chief of staff, and then went
56:26
Speaker 1: on to go be, you know, superintendent of schools, and then,
56:29
Speaker 1: of course, U.S. senator for the last 10 years, but
56:32
Speaker 1: Talk about all the different overlap in this primary among
56:36
Speaker 1: these 21 candidates. We now have two candidates running who
56:38
Speaker 1: are both from Colorado and one worked for the other one.
56:43
Speaker 2: I would say one thing just about the 21 candidates running,
56:48
Speaker 2: which is when you say, not you, Jon Favreau, but you,
56:52
Speaker 2: the royal you, I guess, say there are 21 candidates running,
56:57
Speaker 2: it suggests, it treats them all sort of equally, right?
57:00
Speaker 2: And I think it's very important to separate the people
57:04
Speaker 2: who have announced they're running for president and the people
57:07
Speaker 2: who are actually running for president. And this is not
57:11
Speaker 2: suggesting that some of these candidates are on a vanity
57:16
Speaker 2: exercise or anything like that. But running for president, to
57:20
Speaker 2: be a true candidate for president, means you have to
57:23
Speaker 2: be running serious, well-organized, well-funded efforts in the first four
57:30
Speaker 2: primary states. Anything else is just a– you're not– you
57:35
Speaker 2: can have a business card that says presidential candidate, but
57:37
Speaker 2: you're not actually someone who is going to be president.
57:40
Speaker 2: And I do think in how we think about this
57:43
Speaker 2: and discuss it, at some point there's going to be
57:46
Speaker 2: a line where we're going to know who is actually
57:49
Speaker 2: doing the real thing and who is not. And it's
57:51
Speaker 2: not fair that money impacts that. I think that's a
57:54
Speaker 2: real flaw in our system. But especially in our grassroots
57:58
Speaker 2: online donation world– There is a relationship between political support
58:02
Speaker 2: and financial support that is at least closer than it
58:05
Speaker 2: used to be. So right now, of that 21, less
58:09
Speaker 2: than half have shown any indication of the ability to
58:13
Speaker 2: run a serious presidential candidate, to actually have a plan
58:16
Speaker 2: to accumulate the delegates you need to be the Democratic
58:19
Speaker 2: nominee for president. And I just think that's important to
58:23
Speaker 2: emphasize that and use that. as sort of a dividing
58:27
Speaker 2: line as we think about the different candidates. There are
58:29
Speaker 2: candidates who are running serious campaigns. There are candidates who
58:32
Speaker 2: are not yet running serious campaigns, but maybe have shown
58:35
Speaker 2: some potential to do so. And then there are candidates
58:37
Speaker 2: who've been in the race for a while who showed none.
58:39
Speaker 2: Now it's early, but it ain't that early.
58:41
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I won't make you name names. We'll hold
58:45
Speaker 1: off on that for a while. But I will ask,
58:49
Speaker 1: do you think in the minds of some of these
58:51
Speaker 1: candidates who maybe don't have real organizations in those early
58:56
Speaker 1: states right now. That they're thinking, well, Trump didn't have
59:00
Speaker 1: a big organization in these early states. He was sort
59:04
Speaker 1: of this gadfly when he first got into the race,
59:07
Speaker 1: albeit one with almost universal name ideas. because everyone in
59:11
Speaker 1: the country knows who Donald Trump is. So that's a
59:12
Speaker 1: huge difference between him and some of these other candidates. But,
59:15
Speaker 1: you know, he didn't start with a big organization. He
59:18
Speaker 1: didn't have this like real serious campaign staff. He didn't
59:21
Speaker 1: have like a real strategy at first. And then, because
59:24
Speaker 1: he caught on via media attention, then he sort of
59:26
Speaker 1: backfilled the campaign as he went on. Do you think
59:28
Speaker 1: that's what a lot of these candidates are thinking? Like,
59:30
Speaker 1: I could end up like Donald Trump too?
59:33
Speaker 3: Yes.
59:33
Speaker 2: I think there is this theory that if Donald Trump
59:36
Speaker 2: can win the presidency, anyone can win the presidency.
59:39
Speaker 3: Yeah.
59:40
Speaker 2: And that fuels some of this. And there is some
59:44
Speaker 2: truth to the idea that in the internet social media age,
59:48
Speaker 2: you could be one viral moment away from leaping Up
59:53
Speaker 2: to a top tier. Right. One viral moment fundamentally changed
59:58
Speaker 2: at least the financial status of Beto O'Rourke's Senate campaign
1:00:02
Speaker 2: and changed his life. Absent that Colin Kaepernick clip, it's
1:00:06
Speaker 2: not clear that he would be running for president right now.
1:00:09
Speaker 4: Right.
1:00:10
Speaker 2: You know, absent a very clever and aggressive media strategy,
1:00:15
Speaker 2: it would be absurd that the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is...
1:00:22
Speaker 2: in that top tier or top tier-ish, or has shown
1:00:26
Speaker 2: the ability to raise the money, at least, to put
1:00:28
Speaker 2: together a serious campaign. And I do think some people
1:00:31
Speaker 2: also look at Pete Buttigieg and they say, if he
1:00:33
Speaker 2: can find a way to hack the system to get
1:00:36
Speaker 2: to the top tier, then why can't Eric Swalwell or
1:00:39
Speaker 2: Tim Ryan or Michael Bennett or Andrew Yang, who has
1:00:43
Speaker 2: found a way to get into the debates, while others
1:00:45
Speaker 2: have not yet? Right, so I think there is some
1:00:48
Speaker 2: of that. I think that the Trump example, displays an
1:00:52
Speaker 2: ignorance of how the Democratic nomination process differs from the
1:00:56
Speaker 2: Republican process. In the Democratic process, and we can have
1:01:00
Speaker 2: a debate about whether the first state should be a
1:01:02
Speaker 2: caucus and whether that state should be as white as
1:01:05
Speaker 2: Iowa is. That is a very fair debate and should
1:01:08
Speaker 2: be had. But as it currently stands, that is the
1:01:10
Speaker 2: first state. And the Democratic caucus process is a massive
1:01:14
Speaker 2: organizational challenge because there is a viability threshold where if
1:01:19
Speaker 2: a candidate doesn't get to 15% in an individual site,
1:01:22
Speaker 2: then you have to be able to get in a
1:01:25
Speaker 2: capacity to not just know your first choice voters, but
1:01:28
Speaker 2: to add to your second choice. The accumulation of delegates
1:01:32
Speaker 2: post the caucus of the county convention, it is a
1:01:34
Speaker 2: huge effort. The Republican caucus does not operate that way.
1:01:37
Speaker 2: The Democratic nomination process proceeds through proportional allocation of delegates
1:01:43
Speaker 2: and votes, which means you have to be much more
1:01:44
Speaker 2: sophisticated in how you run your race. It takes longer.
1:01:48
Speaker 2: Republicans have winner take all, which is how someone like
1:01:50
Speaker 2: Trump can win. So yes, there is this meta truth
1:01:53
Speaker 2: that Trump won. He's a fucking moron. Therefore, any fucking
1:01:57
Speaker 2: moron could be president. Or you could sit there and
1:01:59
Speaker 2: look at him and say, I'm a lot smarter than Trump.
1:02:01
Speaker 2: Why can't I be president? But it's just that both
1:02:05
Speaker 2: ignores the incredibly unique circumstances of Trump and who he is,
1:02:09
Speaker 2: because he wasn't some unknown person. He was a person
1:02:13
Speaker 2: with universal name ID. He was incredibly popular with the
1:02:16
Speaker 2: Republican base. In the 2012 election, in the midst of
1:02:19
Speaker 2: his birther, crusade, he floated himself as a potential presidential
1:02:25
Speaker 2: candidate and was polling at the top of the polls.
1:02:28
Speaker 2: So this is not the story of a political Horatio
1:02:33
Speaker 2: Alger story of someone who came from nowhere. It's someone
1:02:35
Speaker 2: who was at the top and then won. And so
1:02:38
Speaker 2: it's a bad example to guide your own political strategy
1:02:42
Speaker 2: because it's ignorant of how Trump won and it's ignorant
1:02:44
Speaker 2: about how the democratic process works. End of rant.
1:02:47
Speaker 3: No, I agree.
1:02:48
Speaker 1: And I think if you're wondering... who the Democratic candidates are,
1:02:52
Speaker 1: who are actually running real serious races, sort of like
1:02:55
Speaker 1: look at who has a serious Iowa staff, a serious
1:02:59
Speaker 1: New Hampshire staff, who's like hired a lot of field
1:03:01
Speaker 1: organizers and real staff in those early states. And you'll
1:03:06
Speaker 1: get a hint of even if they're down in the
1:03:08
Speaker 1: polls or up in the polls or whatever, they at
1:03:10
Speaker 1: least have the potential to really capitalize on whatever media
1:03:14
Speaker 1: momentum they may get along the way, because they actually
1:03:17
Speaker 1: have an organization on the ground that can Carry them
1:03:20
Speaker 1: to victory. Okay. When we come back, you'll hear Tommy's
1:03:25
Speaker 1: interview with Senator Bernie Sanders.
1:03:34
Speaker 5: As a special surprise, we're bringing a little Pod Save
1:03:36
Speaker 5: the World to this Thursday. Pod Save America, download and
1:03:39
Speaker 5: subscribe now. So joining us is Vermont Senator and presidential
1:03:43
Speaker 5: candidate Bernie Sanders. So Senator Sanders, the Senate just voted
1:03:47
Speaker 5: to override the president's veto of a resolution that would
1:03:49
Speaker 5: have forced President Trump to pull U.S. support for the
1:03:52
Speaker 5: Saudi-led civil war in Yemen. Unfortunately, that vote failed. But
1:03:56
Speaker 5: I think it's interesting that opposition to Trump's Yemen policy
1:03:59
Speaker 5: is now bipartisan. Basically, Republicans and Democrats seem to agree
1:04:03
Speaker 5: that Trump's Yemen policy is bad and that his Fed
1:04:06
Speaker 5: nominees are basically assholes. Why do you think that Yemen
1:04:10
Speaker 5: has become this bipartisan issue?
1:04:12
Speaker 3: Well, first off, what happened when we passed both in
1:04:16
Speaker 3: the House and the Senate bipartisan resolutions for the first
1:04:20
Speaker 3: time in 45 years using the War Powers Act, This
1:04:24
Speaker 3: is an enormous step forward in having the Congress reclaim
1:04:29
Speaker 3: its constitutional responsibility for rulemaking. We have ceded that on
1:04:35
Speaker 3: the Democratic administrations and Republican administrations. So this is, while
1:04:39
Speaker 3: I am saddened, although not surprised that we couldn't override
1:04:43
Speaker 3: Trump's veto, let's not underestimate that we're making tremendous progress
1:04:47
Speaker 3: in getting Congress now to accept its constitutional responsibilities. I
1:04:53
Speaker 3: think in terms of Yemen, I wish that I could
1:04:57
Speaker 3: tell you that the primary reason for support was that 85,000
1:05:04
Speaker 3: children have already died in that war and that the U.N.
1:05:07
Speaker 3: estimates that hundreds of thousands more are going to die
1:05:11
Speaker 3: and that millions are facing famine. I wish I could
1:05:15
Speaker 3: tell you that was the reason. But that is only
1:05:19
Speaker 3: the partial reason. The other reason, of course, was the
1:05:21
Speaker 3: murder in cold blood of Jamal Khashoggi in the Turkish,
1:05:27
Speaker 3: in the Saudi embassy in Turkey. And to see a guy,
1:05:31
Speaker 3: a leader, Mohammed bin Salman, commit an atrocious murder and
1:05:36
Speaker 3: dismember this guy because he was a modest critic of
1:05:39
Speaker 3: the regime, I think a lot of people said, you
1:05:41
Speaker 3: know what? maybe we should distance ourselves a little bit
1:05:44
Speaker 3: from this regime.
1:05:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. And I agree.
1:05:46
Speaker 5: It's an enormous step forward for Congress. And thank you
1:05:49
Speaker 5: for your leadership on this issue.
1:05:50
Speaker 3: It really has been important.
1:05:53
Speaker 5: So is there a next step that you think Congress
1:05:55
Speaker 5: can take to choke off funds for these operations or
1:05:57
Speaker 5: otherwise force Trump out of Yemen?
1:06:00
Speaker 3: The answer is yes. And what I think is exciting,
1:06:03
Speaker 3: and it's the point that you made, this was, in truth,
1:06:06
Speaker 3: a bipartisan effort. While all the Democrats voted for it,
1:06:10
Speaker 3: And we only had seven Republicans. I do want to
1:06:13
Speaker 3: say that people like Senator Mike Lee of Utah, a
1:06:15
Speaker 3: conservative Republican, played a very consistent and strong role on this.
1:06:23
Speaker 3: And he is in part responsible for our success. And
1:06:26
Speaker 3: I think there are more Republicans who are prepared to
1:06:30
Speaker 3: come on board under the argument that a president does
1:06:37
Speaker 3: not have war-making uh... in the president cannot on his
1:06:41
Speaker 3: own put our troops uh... in danger board that is
1:06:44
Speaker 3: a couple of the the congress's our responsibility so to
1:06:48
Speaker 3: answer your question you know this is the beginning of
1:06:50
Speaker 3: the end and i think you can see people like uh...
1:06:53
Speaker 3: mike lee and rand paul chris murphy and myself and
1:06:56
Speaker 3: others work together ought to see where we go from
1:06:59
Speaker 3: here and certainly uh... amendments as part of the uh...
1:07:03
Speaker 3: defense authorization act uh... or one vehicle are continuing ought
1:07:09
Speaker 3: to use the war powers act is another vehicle as
1:07:12
Speaker 3: you know the united states is now uh... it uh...
1:07:15
Speaker 3: involved we have troops fighting at seven different countries uh...
1:07:20
Speaker 3: and you know there are troops uh... in many other
1:07:23
Speaker 3: countries uh... around the world and all fighting on their
1:07:26
Speaker 3: a dubious uh... one party.
1:07:30
Speaker 5: You mentioned the Khashoggi murder. You know, I think Democrats
1:07:34
Speaker 5: this week have been very frustrated by Attorney General Barr's
1:07:37
Speaker 5: refusal to really work with Congress and testify and allow
1:07:41
Speaker 5: for oversight. I mean, by law, the White House was
1:07:43
Speaker 5: obligated to submit a report to Congress in February about
1:07:47
Speaker 5: who was responsible for Jamal Khashoggi's murder, but they simply refused.
1:07:51
Speaker 5: Do you see any recourse for that kind of illegal stonewalling?
1:07:56
Speaker 3: Look, you have, and I think most of us understand,
1:08:00
Speaker 3: you have a president now with very strong authoritarian tendencies,
1:08:06
Speaker 3: who I think sees Congress as more of a hindrance,
1:08:12
Speaker 3: not as an equal branch of government, who thinks that
1:08:16
Speaker 3: he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants it.
1:08:18
Speaker 3: He can lie his way through it, stonewall his way
1:08:21
Speaker 3: through it. uh... but not work with congress in a
1:08:24
Speaker 3: way that the constitution mandate uh... and you know uh...
1:08:29
Speaker 3: i think we don't like them every step of the
1:08:32
Speaker 3: way i think you know you can see members committees
1:08:34
Speaker 3: opinion and fighting in the courts to make sure that
1:08:37
Speaker 3: they get the people to testify and look at the
1:08:39
Speaker 3: information that they need uh... but at the end of
1:08:42
Speaker 3: the day uh... you have a lawless president uh... and
1:08:46
Speaker 3: i think it has to be defeated and uh... the
1:08:50
Speaker 3: most effective way, I think, of addressing that. Agreed.
1:08:54
Speaker 5: So, Senator, on top of the Khashoggi murder, Saudi Arabia
1:08:57
Speaker 5: recently announced that they've executed 105 people.
1:09:00
Speaker 1: This year.
1:09:01
Speaker 5: There were at least three minors at the time of
1:09:02
Speaker 5: their alleged crimes. They were reportedly tortured into making confessions.
1:09:06
Speaker 5: I mean, I ask this with humility because my former boss,
1:09:09
Speaker 5: President Obama, did a lot of business with Saudi Arabia.
1:09:11
Speaker 5: But do you think it's time to fundamentally rethink whether
1:09:14
Speaker 5: the Saudis are an ally.
1:09:16
Speaker 3: Or I have thought that for a long, long time.
1:09:20
Speaker 3: And I think if you remember my campaign against Clinton,
1:09:23
Speaker 3: that was one of the areas where we disagreed. Look,
1:09:26
Speaker 3: let's be clear about what Saudi Arabia is. You have
1:09:30
Speaker 3: a leader there, Mohammed bin Salman, who most people think
1:09:35
Speaker 3: was actively involved in the cold-blooded murder of Khashoggi. You
1:09:40
Speaker 3: have a guy who led, when he was defense minister,
1:09:44
Speaker 3: the same guy of Saudi Arabia, He was the one
1:09:48
Speaker 3: who created this war, the Saudi-led war in Yemen. And
1:09:51
Speaker 3: I don't know if you've seen the recent UN report.
1:09:53
Speaker 3: They're estimating that if this war continues, by the end
1:09:57
Speaker 3: of 2019, several hundred thousand people are going to be dead.
1:10:02
Speaker 3: Civilians are going to be dead. And there's fear of
1:10:05
Speaker 3: widespread starvation and cholera epidemic. I mean, this is the
1:10:10
Speaker 3: greatest humanitarian disaster on the face of the planet, which
1:10:13
Speaker 3: was created by Mohammed bin Salman. You've got a government
1:10:18
Speaker 3: there that doesn't treat women as second-class citizens. They treat
1:10:22
Speaker 3: them as third-class citizens. You've described the execution of over
1:10:26
Speaker 3: 30 people at the same time, people who are tortured.
1:10:30
Speaker 3: This is a country that does not accept for one
1:10:32
Speaker 3: second the idea that people have a right to dissent. Now,
1:10:36
Speaker 3: why are we allied with them? And this is a
1:10:38
Speaker 3: country that is fomenting problems all over that region. and
1:10:43
Speaker 3: you know for whatever reason and you know we can
1:10:45
Speaker 3: go on and talk about this for a long time
1:10:47
Speaker 3: some years ago many years ago way before trump way
1:10:50
Speaker 3: before obama it was decided that saudi arabia was a
1:10:53
Speaker 3: wonderful ally and iran was our intractable enemy and that
1:10:58
Speaker 3: was the way it was and i think it's time
1:11:00
Speaker 3: to rethink that iran has enormous problems you know that
1:11:03
Speaker 3: better than i do uh... but i think it is
1:11:06
Speaker 3: time for us to play a level-handed uh... approach have
1:11:10
Speaker 3: a level-handed approach bring these people together But certainly, to
1:11:14
Speaker 3: answer your question, yes, the time has long overdue to
1:11:17
Speaker 3: understand that a despotic, treacherous regime in Saudi Arabia should
1:11:21
Speaker 3: not be an unquestioned ally of the United States of America.
1:11:26
Speaker 5: Final question for you. The violence in Venezuela is really frightening,
1:11:30
Speaker 5: and You know, the Trump administration seems all in on
1:11:33
Speaker 5: a coup. They are openly talking about military options and intervention.
1:11:37
Speaker 5: How worried are you about this White House going to
1:11:39
Speaker 5: war in Venezuela? And is there anything Congress can do
1:11:41
Speaker 5: to stop them?
1:11:42
Speaker 3: Well, you know, when you're dealing with a guy like Trump,
1:11:47
Speaker 3: you have a right to be worried about anything and everything.
1:11:51
Speaker 3: The idea, I mean, given our history of intervention in
1:11:56
Speaker 3: country after country in Latin America, the overthrow of Valdez,
1:11:59
Speaker 3: the overthrow of the government, of brazil guatemala other countries
1:12:03
Speaker 3: the idea that we would intervene militarily in venezuela uh...
1:12:09
Speaker 3: is literally unbelievable it's beyond you know it's absurd so
1:12:14
Speaker 3: yes i will do everything that i can and again
1:12:16
Speaker 3: this is an issue getting back to the world powers
1:12:18
Speaker 3: act i'm not sure where in the constitution that says
1:12:21
Speaker 3: that the president of the united states has the right
1:12:24
Speaker 3: to send troops uh... to venezuela or anybody else anyplace
1:12:28
Speaker 3: else without the approval of the United States Congress. And
1:12:32
Speaker 3: we have got to be very vigorous. You know, you
1:12:35
Speaker 3: know and I know that it's so easy to send
1:12:38
Speaker 3: in troops, whether to Iraq or anyplace else, and then
1:12:40
Speaker 3: you have all of the unintended consequences which take place.
1:12:44
Speaker 3: So I think our job in Venezuela is to demand
1:12:49
Speaker 3: international supervision of a free and fair election, to do
1:12:53
Speaker 3: everything we can to prevent a horrific civil war in
1:12:57
Speaker 3: our country, not provoke one. So I will do everything
1:12:59
Speaker 3: I can to see the U.S. troops not get involved
1:13:02
Speaker 3: in a civil war in Venezuela.
1:13:04
Speaker 5: Hopefully we can tie Elliott Abrams down and not let
1:13:06
Speaker 5: him on an airplane anytime soon, because I don't want
1:13:09
Speaker 5: to see that guy down there. Senator Sanders, thank you
1:13:11
Speaker 5: so much for all the work you've done on Yemen,
1:13:13
Speaker 5: and thanks for talking with me today. I really appreciate it.
1:13:15
Speaker 3: Well, thank you very much. Keep up the good work.
1:13:23
Speaker 1: So many of you have heard us talk to our friend,
1:13:26
Speaker 1: activist Adi Barkin. many times before on this pod. This
1:13:31
Speaker 1: will be the first time that he's on the pod
1:13:33
Speaker 1: speaking through a computer, which he did during his testimony yesterday.
1:13:39
Speaker 1: And he's doing now because his ALS has progressed and
1:13:44
Speaker 1: so he can no longer use his voice. He has
1:13:48
Speaker 1: some great technology set up where he can actually look
1:13:51
Speaker 1: at a screen and type out with his eyes basically
1:13:55
Speaker 1: what he wants to say and then a computer will
1:13:58
Speaker 1: say it. So that's what you'll be hearing next. And
1:14:02
Speaker 1: this is my interview with Adi Barkin. Adi, thank you
1:14:06
Speaker 1: so much for joining us. Really appreciate you making the time.
1:14:10
Speaker 1: I know you just came back from a very long trip.
1:14:14
Speaker 1: You testified this week in the first hearing the House
1:14:17
Speaker 1: has ever held on Medicare for All. What did it
1:14:20
Speaker 1: mean to you that this hearing took place, first of all,
1:14:23
Speaker 1: And why was it so important for you to be there?
1:14:25
Speaker 1: I know it wasn't easy for you to get to Washington, D.C.
1:14:29
Speaker 1: from California.
1:14:30
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me on the show, John. Yes, it
1:14:34
Speaker 4: wasn't an easy trip. But I wanted to do it
1:14:37
Speaker 4: because I have experienced firsthand how broken our country's health
1:14:40
Speaker 4: care system is. And I want to do what I
1:14:43
Speaker 4: can to help fix it in the hope that someday
1:14:46
Speaker 4: soon nobody will be in this position again. Right now.
1:14:50
Speaker 4: I pay $ 9, 000 out of pocket for full-time care, because
1:14:54
Speaker 4: insurance doesn't cover home care. That's absurd. No one should
1:14:59
Speaker 4: have to do that, I hoped my testimony would wake
1:15:02
Speaker 4: the conscience of some lawmakers, particularly moderate Democrats, and get
1:15:07
Speaker 4: them to support Medicare for All. But even more importantly,
1:15:12
Speaker 4: I wanted to help galvanize the movement, and encourage folks
1:15:15
Speaker 4: around the country to join this righteous struggle.
1:15:19
Speaker 1: So, Adi, when you ask people what they think about
1:15:22
Speaker 1: Medicare for All, the good news is you typically get
1:15:25
Speaker 1: a healthy majority of Americans who say they're supportive. And
1:15:29
Speaker 1: then a number of polls have done this. When you
1:15:31
Speaker 1: tell people that it will eliminate private health insurance or
1:15:35
Speaker 1: require tax increases or potentially lead to delays in some
1:15:38
Speaker 1: tests and treatments for some people, you see the support
1:15:42
Speaker 1: drop quite dramatically. How do we overcome these concerns? which
1:15:48
Speaker 1: will obviously be amplified by millions of dollars of advertising
1:15:52
Speaker 1: from Republicans and insurance companies and people like that. How
1:15:56
Speaker 1: do we overcome those concerns?
1:15:58
Speaker 4: You know this as well as anyone, John. Republicans and
1:16:02
Speaker 4: insurance companies will call our plan socialist. They'll say it's
1:16:06
Speaker 4: the end of the world no matter what's in it.
1:16:09
Speaker 4: Even if it's a plan drafted by a Republican governor,
1:16:12
Speaker 4: like with the Affordable Care Act. So I've come to
1:16:15
Speaker 4: look at the question this way forget what they'll say
1:16:18
Speaker 4: about us. Let's help people understand exactly how broken our
1:16:22
Speaker 4: healthcare system is today, one in which we spend more
1:16:25
Speaker 4: per capita than any other industrialized nation on earth, but
1:16:29
Speaker 4: our health outcomes rank towards the bottom. Let's ask ourselves
1:16:33
Speaker 4: what will actually solve those problems. Let's ask ourselves what
1:16:37
Speaker 4: policy will actually bring down the cost of prescription drugs.
1:16:42
Speaker 4: What policy will ensure every single American is covered and
1:16:45
Speaker 4: has medical care? What policy will cut the exorbitant administrative
1:16:50
Speaker 4: costs out of our current health care system and cut
1:16:53
Speaker 4: out the middleman insurance companies that are raking in record
1:16:56
Speaker 4: profits while 30 million Americans remain uninsured? And when you
1:17:01
Speaker 4: look at it that way, Medicare for All is clearly
1:17:03
Speaker 4: the right approach. As for how to pass it, we'll
1:17:07
Speaker 4: do it the way we pass everything. will mobilize a
1:17:10
Speaker 4: grassroots army that scares politicians more than the insurance companies
1:17:14
Speaker 4: scare them.
1:17:16
Speaker 1: So some Democrats have suggested that one way to overcome
1:17:20
Speaker 1: the potential concerns that people have with Medicare for All
1:17:24
Speaker 1: is with either a Medicare buy-in, which allows people to
1:17:29
Speaker 1: buy into a Medicare program or a public option, or
1:17:33
Speaker 1: others have suggested there's a plan that would You know,
1:17:36
Speaker 1: Medicare for America that would automatically enroll every newborn, every
1:17:39
Speaker 1: uninsured American, everyone who gets their insurance through the ACA
1:17:43
Speaker 1: exchanges into a single payer Medicare program and then give
1:17:47
Speaker 1: every other American in every business the choice to enroll
1:17:50
Speaker 1: in that program. Why, in your view, would that be
1:17:55
Speaker 1: with those other programs that sort of rely on public
1:17:57
Speaker 1: options or a slower transition to Medicare for all? Why
1:18:02
Speaker 1: would those be insufficient? Great question.
1:18:05
Speaker 4: I think there are three reasons to prefer Medicare for
1:18:08
Speaker 4: All over the incremental approaches. First, only Medicare for All
1:18:13
Speaker 4: will get everyone the care they need. Under the alternate
1:18:16
Speaker 4: plan you mentioned, many people will still be denied care
1:18:20
Speaker 4: by their for-profit insurance company, or will avoid getting needed
1:18:23
Speaker 4: care because of high copays and deductibles. Second, only Medicare
1:18:28
Speaker 4: for All will drive down costs. It will save us
1:18:32
Speaker 4: hundreds of billions of dollars per year in administrative and
1:18:35
Speaker 4: billing costs and it will make life dramatically easier for
1:18:38
Speaker 4: healthcare providers by allowing them to focus on delivering care,
1:18:42
Speaker 4: not getting reimbursed. In addition, shifting to global billing from
1:18:47
Speaker 4: fee-for-service will give providers the freedom to focus on on
1:18:50
Speaker 4: prevention and holistic medicine rather than running tests and procedures.
1:18:54
Speaker 4: None of that will happen under a public option. Finally,
1:18:58
Speaker 4: there is the political reality. There is no way any
1:19:02
Speaker 4: of these proposals will pass without a huge grassroots movement
1:19:05
Speaker 4: behind them. And that only exists for Medicare for All.
1:19:10
Speaker 4: Nobody is going to march or engage in civil disobedience
1:19:13
Speaker 4: in support of a public option. I know it's popular
1:19:17
Speaker 4: among the centrist Democrats and think tanks said, but they
1:19:20
Speaker 4: are just genetically predisposed to compromise with themselves. You remember
1:19:25
Speaker 4: how well that worked out during the Obamacare fight, don't you, John?
1:19:30
Speaker 4: The reason those Democrats prefer that approach to Medicare for
1:19:33
Speaker 4: all is because they think it has a better chance
1:19:35
Speaker 4: of passing. They think Medicare for All is just too
1:19:39
Speaker 4: ambitious to do all at once. But remember, the creation
1:19:43
Speaker 4: of Medicare itself was a huge, tectonic shift in healthcare
1:19:47
Speaker 4: policy in this country. We've got to remember we've done
1:19:50
Speaker 4: big and ambitious things before. And we need to stop
1:19:54
Speaker 4: looking at things like pundits calculating odds of passage, instead
1:19:58
Speaker 4: of asking ourselves what we really believe. Let's not assume
1:20:02
Speaker 4: Medicare for All can't pass. Let's instead ask ourselves, Do
1:20:07
Speaker 4: we believe health care should be a right for everybody
1:20:09
Speaker 4: in this country, or not?
1:20:14
Speaker 1: So, obviously insurance companies will be opposed to this. That
1:20:17
Speaker 1: we know. How do we get hospitals, doctors, and other
1:20:22
Speaker 1: health care providers on board? Or do we need to?
1:20:26
Speaker 4: A lot of doctors are already in favor of Medicare
1:20:29
Speaker 4: for All. One group, Physicians for a National Health Program,
1:20:34
Speaker 4: has been leading this fight for decades... and they have
1:20:37
Speaker 4: fantastic resources for all your wonky listeners out there. Small
1:20:41
Speaker 4: businesses too. Doctors got into their profession because they wanted
1:20:46
Speaker 4: to care for people and save lives, under our current system,
1:20:50
Speaker 4: too many of them have to deny care to people
1:20:52
Speaker 4: they can cure, simply because something isn't covered by insurance.
1:20:57
Speaker 4: A doctor who was sitting at the hearing this week
1:20:59
Speaker 4: said as much, and said that in his experience, there's
1:21:02
Speaker 4: nothing worse than watching a patient walk out of a
1:21:05
Speaker 4: hospital sick with something he could have cured simply because
1:21:08
Speaker 4: of coverage gaps. Medicare for All has become immensely popular
1:21:13
Speaker 4: with the majority of the American people because it's good
1:21:16
Speaker 4: for just about everyone in our society, except for insurance
1:21:20
Speaker 4: company and pharmaceutical executives who are making immense, obscene profits
1:21:25
Speaker 4: at the expense of public health.
1:21:27
Speaker 1: Adi, what are your early impressions of how the 2020
1:21:31
Speaker 1: candidates are handling not only this issue, but other issues
1:21:34
Speaker 1: as well. Who's impressing you right now?
1:21:37
Speaker 4: I'm heartened to see that Medicare for All is quickly
1:21:39
Speaker 4: becoming the Democratic Party's standard position on health care policy.
1:21:44
Speaker 4: All of the senators running have co-sponsored Bernie's Medicare for
1:21:48
Speaker 4: All bill. Obviously, Senator Sanders has been a leader on
1:21:52
Speaker 4: this issue for decades and helped make it as popular
1:21:55
Speaker 4: as it is today. And I want to continue the
1:21:58
Speaker 4: conversation with some of the candidates who aren't quite there yet.
1:22:02
Speaker 4: because my experience has led me to believe firmly that
1:22:05
Speaker 4: Medicare for All is the only way to ensure high quality,
1:22:08
Speaker 4: universal health care coverage in this country. So I hope
1:22:12
Speaker 4: to be having those conversations, and doing everything I can
1:22:15
Speaker 4: to push the party to be better on this issue.
1:22:19
Speaker 4: For so many of us, this is a life and
1:22:21
Speaker 4: death issue, which is why I want us to get
1:22:24
Speaker 4: it right. More generally, I think Elizabeth Warren has been phenomenal.
1:22:29
Speaker 4: She is putting out such visionary policy. on housing, monopoly power,
1:22:34
Speaker 4: and the tech industry, bank regulation, taxes, anti-corruption and democracy,
1:22:40
Speaker 4: student debt, and free college. Just fantastic stuff. And she
1:22:45
Speaker 4: is showing a willingness to actually fight the corporations that
1:22:48
Speaker 4: are causing these problems.
1:22:50
Speaker 3: I agree.
1:22:51
Speaker 1: She's been very impressive on the policy front and also
1:22:54
Speaker 1: connecting all those policies into a larger story about the economy. Um,
1:22:58
Speaker 1: Are there any issues that aren't a part of the
1:23:00
Speaker 1: presidential conversation right now that you think should be or
1:23:03
Speaker 1: that candidates should be talking more about?
1:23:06
Speaker 4: I would love to hear more from candidates about foreign
1:23:08
Speaker 4: policy and things like global development and intellectual property law.
1:23:14
Speaker 4: But otherwise, I'm impressed by the breadth of the discourse.
1:23:18
Speaker 1: Adi, you wrote for The Nation last fall that the
1:23:21
Speaker 1: cure for what ails American democracy is more American democracy
1:23:25
Speaker 1: and that voting is not nearly enough. What does this moment,
1:23:29
Speaker 1: from now until next November 2020, really call for in
1:23:33
Speaker 1: your opinion?
1:23:35
Speaker 4: I really believe we are at a crossroads in this moment.
1:23:38
Speaker 4: We will either become a society that works exclusively for
1:23:41
Speaker 4: the rich and powerful, or we will enact large-scale structural
1:23:45
Speaker 4: reforms that restore fairness to our economy and political system.
1:23:50
Speaker 4: Each of us is called to do everything we can
1:23:52
Speaker 4: to ensure our society winds up in the right place. Yes, vote.
1:23:57
Speaker 4: but we need to do more than just that. March,
1:24:00
Speaker 4: if you still can. Show up to community meetings. Run
1:24:05
Speaker 4: for office, especially if the thought of that really scares you.
1:24:09
Speaker 4: The wealthy and the powerful in this country want nothing
1:24:12
Speaker 4: more than for us to tune out, they're investing heavily
1:24:15
Speaker 4: in cracking down on our right to vote, on our
1:24:18
Speaker 4: ability to run for office without them, even on our
1:24:21
Speaker 4: ability to protest. They want us to get cynical and
1:24:24
Speaker 4: lose hope, because that only solidifies their grip on all
1:24:28
Speaker 4: of this. We need to fight that instinct, hold on
1:24:31
Speaker 4: to hope, and keep fighting for a better future.
1:24:35
Speaker 1: That's the only.
1:24:36
Speaker 3: Way out of this.
1:24:39
Speaker 1: Adi, you've got a memoir coming out in the fall,
1:24:41
Speaker 1: which I'm very excited about. I can't wait to read.
1:24:45
Speaker 1: When you went about writing your own story that people
1:24:47
Speaker 1: could read years from now, that your son, that Carl
1:24:50
Speaker 1: could read years from now, what did you want that
1:24:53
Speaker 1: story to say?
1:24:54
Speaker 4: Yes. The memoir is called Eyes to the Wind, and
1:24:58
Speaker 4: people can pre-order it now. It's about a lot of
1:25:01
Speaker 4: things life and death, hope and activism, and my personal
1:25:05
Speaker 4: journey through all of this. I want people to know
1:25:08
Speaker 4: that however bleak things look, and believe me when I
1:25:11
Speaker 4: say I understand the meaning of the word bleak, that
1:25:14
Speaker 4: there is still truly hope. When I rolled out of
1:25:17
Speaker 4: the Capitol this week, I genuinely felt hopeful, because I
1:25:21
Speaker 4: feel our society tilting in the direction of justice. This
1:25:25
Speaker 4: is an uphill fight, no doubt, but I'm inspired by
1:25:29
Speaker 4: all the activism I've seen over the past few years,
1:25:32
Speaker 4: especially from people who have never before been part of
1:25:35
Speaker 4: the political process joining up and saying they believe in
1:25:38
Speaker 4: health care as a human right. I want people to
1:25:41
Speaker 4: know they need to hold on to hope and keep
1:25:43
Speaker 4: fighting for the better world we all know is possible.
1:25:47
Speaker 1: Adi, thank you so much for joining Positive America as always.
1:25:52
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that we got a chance to talk today,
1:25:55
Speaker 1: and I hope we can talk again soon. And thank
1:25:58
Speaker 1: you so much for all that you're doing to fight
1:26:00
Speaker 1: for justice and opportunity. We really appreciate it.
1:26:04
Speaker 3: Thanks, John.
1:26:05
Speaker 4: Yes, it's been great to connect. Talk soon.
1:26:13
Speaker 1: Thanks to Adi Barkin and Bernie Sanders for joining us today.
1:26:16
Speaker 1: And everyone have a great weekend, and we'll see you
1:26:19
Speaker 1: next week.
1:26:19
Speaker 3: Bye, everyone.
1:26:26
Speaker 5: So so