Latest / Pod Save America / “Trump’s running again, again.”

Transcript

“Trump’s running again, again.” · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Jon Levitt.
0:23
Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor. What are you laughing at?
0:25
Speaker 2: I'm just ready to dive into another fantastic episode of
0:28
Speaker 2: Hot Day of America.
0:28
Speaker 3: All the news is good today.
0:30
Speaker 1: That's the subject.
0:31
Speaker 2: I'm just a little, I'm a little tired. There's some
0:33
Speaker 2: sort of cat fight that breaks out behind my house. Really?
0:38
Speaker 2: For a couple nights. Like vicious.
0:40
Speaker 1: Like feral cats?
0:41
Speaker 2: Feral cats viciously fighting. And it wakes me up with a,
0:44
Speaker 2: it's really frightening. First of all, I thought it was
0:46
Speaker 2: an earthquake, but then I thought it was maybe a
0:47
Speaker 2: cat on my roof.
0:48
Speaker 3: You don't send pundit out there to let them know
0:49
Speaker 3: what's up?
0:50
Speaker 2: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. There's no good outcome for that.
0:53
Speaker 1: Have you looked through your 8X HD security camera from SimpliSafe?
0:58
Speaker 2: No, I brought that one inside.
1:01
Speaker 1: On today's pod, Donald Trump is back in Iowa and
1:05
Speaker 1: ready to run with the full support of the Republican establishment.
1:08
Speaker 1: The race in Virginia between Terry McAuliffe and Glenn Youngkin
1:10
Speaker 1: is way too close for comfort. And Congressman Adam Schiff
1:14
Speaker 1: drops by the studio to talk to Tommy and I
1:16
Speaker 1: about his new book, Midnight in Washington, How We Almost
1:19
Speaker 1: Lost Our Democracy and Still Could. It's a real feel-good
1:24
Speaker 1: sort of.
1:24
Speaker 3: It's always darkest before the dawn, I.
1:27
Speaker 4: Guess, or something.
1:29
Speaker 1: But first, we got some big Pod Save America scheduling news, everyone,
1:33
Speaker 1: so listen up. Because you're going to tweet at us
1:36
Speaker 1: when it happens and you forget that you heard this.
1:40
Speaker 1: Starting in two weeks... We'll be releasing this episode first
1:44
Speaker 1: thing Tuesday morning instead of late Monday afternoon. Again, that's
1:48
Speaker 1: Tuesday morning. First thing when you wake up, it's going
1:51
Speaker 1: to be right in your phones instead of late Monday afternoon.
1:54
Speaker 1: This is just a slight schedule change that's going to
1:56
Speaker 1: help us make sure we capture news on Monday mornings.
2:00
Speaker 3: All the biggest news is breaking on Monday these days.
2:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, which sometimes we miss and we record and it's
2:05
Speaker 1: a whole, you know, it's a whole thing.
2:07
Speaker 2: And also your boys want their Sundays back.
2:08
Speaker 3: All right.
2:09
Speaker 2: I don't hear any fucking complaints.
2:10
Speaker 1: That's what I was hoping someone would say. I was
2:12
Speaker 1: hoping someone would just be honest about it.
2:14
Speaker 2: I don't need an 8am meal from Jon Favreau saying,
2:16
Speaker 2: Trump bad. How? But this week, how?
2:22
Speaker 4: I mean, I.
2:25
Speaker 1: Think you might.
2:26
Speaker 3: Just as biff.
2:27
Speaker 1: One more thing before we start. What's new with Love
2:30
Speaker 1: It or Leave It? How are the outdoor Cine Lounge
2:32
Speaker 1: shows going?
2:32
Speaker 2: They've been awesome. It's been a blast. We're doing live
2:34
Speaker 2: shows in LA every Thursday night, leading to our Beacon
2:37
Speaker 2: show in New York on November 12th this week. We'll
2:40
Speaker 2: be joined by Akilah Hughes, Solomon Giorgio, Brandon Wardell, and
2:42
Speaker 2: Larry Wilmar, all returning champions. We have great shows every week, crooked.com
2:47
Speaker 2: slash events.
2:49
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the news. We've been talking
2:52
Speaker 1: a lot about Biden's agenda, which is incredibly important. But
2:54
Speaker 1: while we wait for Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to
2:57
Speaker 1: make up their fucking minds, it's starting to look like
3:00
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has made up his.
3:02
Speaker 3: Kyrsten Sinema apparently running in the Boston Marathon today.
3:05
Speaker 1: I was very disoriented by that news, but also the
3:08
Speaker 1: news that the Boston Marathon is today because, of course,
3:10
Speaker 1: we're still in COVID world. And I always think about
3:12
Speaker 1: April opening day.
3:14
Speaker 3: It's just marathon training. It's a pretty involved process, requires
3:16
Speaker 3: a lot of time and effort that could maybe be
3:18
Speaker 3: used better elsewhere.
3:20
Speaker 2: Like at a wine internship or.
3:22
Speaker 1: Writing a bill? Look, she's just certainly not helping with
3:24
Speaker 1: the negotiations in Congress. So maybe if she wants to
3:26
Speaker 1: run the marathon. Yeah, right away. Anyway, the twice impeached
3:30
Speaker 1: one term president held what he called a Save America.
3:34
Speaker 1: By the way, the Trademarks, there's getting a little close
3:37
Speaker 1: to our show here.
3:38
Speaker 3: Cease and desist, sir.
3:40
Speaker 1: Anyway, he held what he called a Save America rally
3:42
Speaker 1: at the Iowa State Fair, where he was joined by
3:45
Speaker 1: the state's top Republican officials for a speech in which
3:47
Speaker 1: he focused once again on his attempted coup and teased
3:50
Speaker 1: a second run for the presidency.
3:52
Speaker 5: And I'm telling you, the single biggest issue, as bad
3:55
Speaker 5: as the border is, it's horrible.
3:57
Speaker 4: Horrible, what they're doing.
3:58
Speaker 5: They're destroying our country. As bad as that is, the
4:01
Speaker 5: single biggest issue, the issue that gets the most the
4:05
Speaker 5: most pull, the most respect, the biggest cheers is talking
4:11
Speaker 5: about the election fraud of 2020 presidential election.
4:13
Speaker 4: Trump won!
4:13
Speaker 1: Trump won!
4:14
Speaker 4: Trump won!
4:14
Speaker 2: Trump won!
4:15
Speaker 3: Trump won!
4:15
Speaker 4: Trump won! Trump won!
4:16
Speaker 3: Trump won!
4:16
Speaker 2: Trump won!
4:16
Speaker 3: Trump won!
4:17
Speaker 2: Trump won! Trump won! Trump won! Trump won!
4:17
Speaker 1: Trump won! Trump won! Trump won!
4:18
Speaker 2: Trump won!
4:18
Speaker 4: Trump won! Trump won!
4:19
Speaker 2: Trump won! Trump won!
4:19
Speaker 1: Trump won! Trump won!
4:20
Speaker 2: Trump won! Trump won! Trump won!
4:20
Speaker 4: Trump won!
4:20
Speaker 2: Trump won! Trump won! Trump won! Trump won! Trump won!
4:21
Speaker 2: Trump won! Trump won!
4:22
Speaker 1: Trump won!
4:22
Speaker 4: Trump won!
4:22
Speaker 3: Trump won!
4:23
Speaker 5: Trump won!
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Speaker 1: Trump won!
4:23
Speaker 5: Trump won! Trump won!
4:24
Speaker 4: Trump won!
4:24
Speaker 5: Trump won! Trump won!
4:25
Speaker 4: Trump won!
4:25
Speaker 1: Trump won!
4:25
Speaker 4: Trump won!
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Speaker 5: Trump won!
4:26
Speaker 2: Trump won!
4:26
Speaker 4: Trump won!
4:26
Speaker 2: Trump won!
4:27
Speaker 4: Trump won! Trump won!
4:27
Speaker 2: Trump won!
4:28
Speaker 1: Trump won!
4:28
Speaker 2: Trump won! Trump won!
4:29
Speaker 4: Trump won!
4:29
Speaker 2: Trump won!
4:29
Speaker 4: Trump won!
4:30
Speaker 2: Trump won! Trump won! Trump won!
4:31
Speaker 1: Trump won! Trump won!
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Speaker 3: Trump won!
4:31
Speaker 5: Trump Make America great again again, because we already did it, right?
4:35
Speaker 5: We're going to make America great again again.
4:37
Speaker 1: How about that slogan? You guys on board? Tommy, what
4:41
Speaker 1: do you think?
4:43
Speaker 3: So make America great again again. It's hilariously stupid.
4:48
Speaker 1: It is.
4:49
Speaker 3: But it's exactly the kind of perfect amount of stupid
4:52
Speaker 3: that will make liberals mock it online and reinforce the
4:55
Speaker 3: message ad nauseum.
4:57
Speaker 1: Am I wrong?
4:58
Speaker 2: No, I mean, just I don't know. I think it's
5:01
Speaker 2: pretty memorable.
5:02
Speaker 4: We all know it.
5:02
Speaker 2: I'm not going to forget it.
5:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty good. So Make America Great Again was
5:06
Speaker 3: not his original line. He stole it from Reagan. But yeah,
5:10
Speaker 3: like we all remember it. And I think in a
5:12
Speaker 3: weird way, this kind of works pretty well when Biden's
5:15
Speaker 3: numbers have dropped and there's sort of a bit of
5:16
Speaker 3: this like COVID malaise feeling.
5:18
Speaker 2: I don't know.
5:18
Speaker 3: These rallies are his focus groups, right? We used to
5:20
Speaker 3: make fun of the 2008 Clinton campaign for like rolling
5:23
Speaker 3: out new slogans and painting buses. And Trump just like
5:25
Speaker 3: goes up in front of a bunch of people and
5:27
Speaker 3: riffs on stuff and whatever lands becomes his slogan.
5:31
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's tough to argue that, um,
5:35
Speaker 1: life was great in America between 2016 and 2020 when
5:38
Speaker 1: every single poll showed huge majorities of the country, um,
5:41
Speaker 1: saying the country was on the wrong track, but that
5:43
Speaker 1: was never really the point of MAGA.
5:45
Speaker 2: America is great when he's president.
5:47
Speaker 1: That's exactly it. The point that's, that's always been the
5:49
Speaker 1: point is that you can go all through the social life. Oh,
5:52
Speaker 1: what did he talk about? He's young. He's like, yearning
5:54
Speaker 1: for an America that, no, no, no. There's no thought
5:57
Speaker 1: behind this. There's no thought behind it. It's when I'm
5:59
Speaker 1: not president, the country sucks. When I'm president, the country's great.
6:01
Speaker 1: That's what the followers love. No need to go below
6:04
Speaker 1: surface level there.
6:05
Speaker 2: Right, and just, you know, because he is an avatar
6:08
Speaker 2: for their grievance, he has no, it's an identity-driven campaign,
6:11
Speaker 2: so when he is president, it is the victory for
6:13
Speaker 2: their identity. When he is not, their identity has been defeated.
6:16
Speaker 2: Shout out to some of my favorite slogans from the
6:19
Speaker 2: 2008 Hillary Clinton campaign. My favorite, of course, will always be,
6:22
Speaker 2: Strength plus experience equals change because that means you also
6:26
Speaker 2: have the corollary strength plus experience divided by change equals one,
6:31
Speaker 2: which has always been my favorite formula in all politics.
6:34
Speaker 1: Math equations make great political slogans. That's always been the case.
6:37
Speaker 3: Well, the best thing to do is to not make
6:38
Speaker 3: any choices and then just tack them together.
6:40
Speaker 1: Like John Kerry's 2004 slogan from the campaign I was on,
6:43
Speaker 1: stronger at home, respected in the world. Yep.
6:46
Speaker 4: Wow.
6:47
Speaker 1: What was the other Hillary one that we always love
6:49
Speaker 1: from Iowa that she put on the side of the bus?
6:52
Speaker 2: It just ends in time to pick a president.
6:54
Speaker 1: Real change, strength in the experience, time to pick a president.
6:56
Speaker 3: Big problems, real solutions, time to pick a president.
6:58
Speaker 1: There you go, Tommy.
7:00
Speaker 2: Which I just, I always loved. You just know you've
7:01
Speaker 2: kind of had a trunk situation of too many people
7:04
Speaker 2: throwing in ideas because... The fact that it is time
7:08
Speaker 2: to pick a president is what we all know going
7:10
Speaker 2: into a presidential election.
7:12
Speaker 1: So slogans aside, joining Trump on stage was Iowa's Republican governor,
7:16
Speaker 1: both Republican members of Congress, and 88-year-old Republican Senator Chuck Grassley,
7:21
Speaker 1: who accepted Trump's endorsement for another six-year term despite calling
7:25
Speaker 1: his actions on January 6th, quote, extreme aggressive and irresponsible.
7:29
Speaker 1: That was Chuck Grassley back then. Here's Chuck Grassley over
7:33
Speaker 1: the weekend.
7:34
Speaker 5: I'm thrilled to announce tonight that Senator Chuck Grassley has
7:39
Speaker 5: my complete and total endorsement for reelection.
7:43
Speaker 2: Chuck. I was born at night, but not last night.
8:01
Speaker 2: So if I didn't accept the endorsement of a person
8:05
Speaker 2: that's got 91% of the Republican voters.
8:10
Speaker 1: In Iowa, I wouldn't be too smart.
8:13
Speaker 2: I'm smart enough to accept that endorsement.
8:15
Speaker 1: I mean, points for honesty?
8:17
Speaker 3: That was the weirdest thing I've ever heard.
8:19
Speaker 2: I just loved it. Golly gee, I have to be
8:22
Speaker 2: here because of political expedience. I'm an 88-year-old man staring
8:26
Speaker 2: at the sunset years of my life, and I'm going
8:27
Speaker 2: to sell my fucking soul to be up here with
8:29
Speaker 2: this guy. I will die in office.
8:31
Speaker 3: That was basically what he said.
8:33
Speaker 1: That was basically what he said. That's the campaign. That's
8:36
Speaker 1: the Grassley campaign.
8:37
Speaker 2: I would rather supplicate myself to this monster than have
8:41
Speaker 2: even a moment of quiet in which to face the
8:44
Speaker 2: totality of my life.
8:45
Speaker 1: In its end. And perhaps that's what he's trying. Maybe
8:48
Speaker 1: he's just trying to avoid that.
8:50
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's rare that a politician literally reads a poll
8:53
Speaker 3: on stage. But there was just an Iowa poll by
8:54
Speaker 3: Ann Salter that found Trump at 53 percent approval, which
8:57
Speaker 3: is the best number he's ever had in Iowa, even
9:00
Speaker 3: when he was president.
9:01
Speaker 1: Well, and this tells you all you need to know
9:03
Speaker 1: about where the what Grassley is doing there. That same
9:07
Speaker 1: poll showed that two thirds of all voters want someone
9:11
Speaker 1: else besides Grassley to be senator.
9:13
Speaker 5: Yeah.
9:13
Speaker 1: And so, yeah, you see that number. Then you see
9:16
Speaker 1: the Trump approval and you're Chuck Grassley. You're like, yeah, sure.
9:21
Speaker 1: Why not? What do you think Grassley's embrace of Trump
9:24
Speaker 1: says about where the Republican Party is headed? Not only
9:27
Speaker 1: in 24, we can put 24 aside, but just in 22.
9:30
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it shows just what we've seen before,
9:34
Speaker 3: which is constant short term thinking. Because if you listen
9:37
Speaker 3: to the other parts of that speech, it was an
9:38
Speaker 3: hour and a half long speech. He got to the
9:40
Speaker 3: Grassley endorsement at 70 minutes into it. We got to,
9:42
Speaker 3: we dragged Chuck Grassley's old ass onto stage for less
9:45
Speaker 3: than a minute and then pushed him back off.
9:47
Speaker 2: 88 years old.
9:48
Speaker 3: But like what I don't know that these guys understand
9:50
Speaker 3: is that the MAGA movement wants to fucking destroy Mitch
9:54
Speaker 3: McConnell and the entire establishment. Anyone who has criticized him.
9:57
Speaker 3: Like I was listening to Steve Bannon's podcast on.
9:59
Speaker 1: The way to work.
10:00
Speaker 4: This morning.
10:00
Speaker 1: As you often do. As I do.
10:02
Speaker 3: Bannon says that McConnell's more dangerous to the MAGA movement
10:04
Speaker 3: than Pelosi and Schumer combined. He wants Trump to pull
10:07
Speaker 3: his endorsement from any Senate candidates who say they will
10:10
Speaker 3: vote for Mitch McConnell as leader. And next week he
10:12
Speaker 3: was previewing an interview with Peter Schweitzer about Mitch McConnell's wealth.
10:16
Speaker 1: Really?
10:17
Speaker 3: They're all in on just destroying the establishment. And, like,
10:20
Speaker 3: that's the drug deal that Chuck Grassley just made. Though
10:23
Speaker 3: I don't know that he knows that he made it.
10:25
Speaker 1: Well, and Grassley's a McConnell pal.
10:26
Speaker 4: Yes.
10:27
Speaker 1: And was getting some booze at the rally. There were
10:30
Speaker 1: some Trump fans booing him.
10:31
Speaker 3: Very limited booze. I saw people tried to play that.
10:34
Speaker 1: It was, like, three people. Well, but I think the—
10:37
Speaker 1: Two thirds of all voters who want someone new shows
10:40
Speaker 1: you that like the Trump, Grassley is not a natural
10:43
Speaker 1: favorite with Donald Trump's base at all.
10:45
Speaker 3: 91% of Republicans in Iowa in that poll like Trump,
10:48
Speaker 3: that's 10 points better than Grassley. So that's some weakness.
10:51
Speaker 1: That's where the boos are coming from.
10:53
Speaker 2: I think you see this, you saw this with Rubio
10:54
Speaker 2: doing the same thing. I think there's this sort of
10:56
Speaker 2: lie they tell themselves, which is I do this event.
10:59
Speaker 2: I kiss the ring. I give the speech, I embrace it,
11:03
Speaker 2: and that I can go back to being my normal self.
11:05
Speaker 2: I can be the kind of politician that I was.
11:07
Speaker 2: But of course, you know, be very careful what you
11:09
Speaker 2: pretend to be. You are what you pretend to be.
11:11
Speaker 2: There's no going back. Now they have fully embraced this.
11:13
Speaker 2: Now these are the people that he will feel beholden to.
11:16
Speaker 2: They are the core of the Republican Party moving forward.
11:18
Speaker 2: And once they're in office, they have to govern exactly
11:22
Speaker 2: as they campaigned. And so we're just sort of stuck
11:24
Speaker 2: in this doom loop with these people.
11:25
Speaker 1: I think the calculus for every single 22 candidate in
11:29
Speaker 1: a competitive race is that if you embrace Trump's endorsement,
11:33
Speaker 1: you avoid a primary and you have the best chance
11:36
Speaker 1: of getting his voters. And if you don't embrace his endorsement,
11:38
Speaker 1: you get shit on by Trump. You get a primary.
11:41
Speaker 1: You might not get the voters. So why? I can't
11:45
Speaker 1: imagine any of them in a competitive district that reject
11:47
Speaker 1: Trump's endorsement. Glenn Youngkin didn't, and he needs to reject
11:50
Speaker 1: it probably more than most.
11:51
Speaker 3: Certainly not in Iowa. Trump went to Iowa by what,
11:54
Speaker 3: like seven something?
11:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, something like that.
11:56
Speaker 3: He mopped up.
11:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, every Republican primary now is a machine that turns
12:01
Speaker 2: whatever you are into a Trump by the time you
12:03
Speaker 2: get to the end of it.
12:03
Speaker 3: It was interesting to me to hear the speech and
12:05
Speaker 3: hear him go, really hard against both the Build Back
12:09
Speaker 3: Better bill and the infrastructure bill. The first 20, 25
12:12
Speaker 3: minutes of the speech looked like it was on a prompter,
12:15
Speaker 3: and it was sort of a concerted message about crime,
12:17
Speaker 3: the border, inflation, China, Afghanistan, leftist, socialist, blah, blah, blah,
12:22
Speaker 3: all the stuff you hear. Then he said, as we speak,
12:24
Speaker 3: Joe Biden and the radical left Democrats in Congress are
12:27
Speaker 3: trying to ram through a $ 5 trillion wild spending binge
12:30
Speaker 3: that costs more than the entire sum of the United
12:32
Speaker 3: States has spent on any war in the history of
12:34
Speaker 3: our country. That was weird framing to me.
12:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. More than the war. Well, there was, you know,
12:41
Speaker 1: Politico reported that there's a bunch of Republicans who are
12:46
Speaker 1: a little nervous that Trump is just only focusing on
12:50
Speaker 1: in all of these rallies on the big lie and 2020,
12:54
Speaker 1: which again, he did like, as you pointed out, Tommy,
12:56
Speaker 1: he was like on script on message and this message
12:59
Speaker 1: about Biden and the country and Biden's record and radical
13:03
Speaker 1: left and all the, all the greatest hit.
13:05
Speaker 2: Violent criminals, bloodthirsty gangs, illegal aliens, deadly drug cartels, trans people.
13:10
Speaker 2: I don't know if he got to that, but he will.
13:11
Speaker 1: So he's got all those, but then the coverage becomes
13:13
Speaker 1: about him and the big lie because he, you know,
13:15
Speaker 1: wanders off message and focuses on that. And, you know,
13:19
Speaker 1: the Republicans think this is bad politics for them. Do
13:22
Speaker 1: you think that's true? Do you think they really believe that?
13:25
Speaker 3: I came away feeling like the big lie arguments are
13:29
Speaker 3: more effective than I thought, because it's a blizzard of
13:32
Speaker 3: random facts and accusations that are state by state about
13:36
Speaker 3: like chain of custody of ballots in Georgia and serial
13:41
Speaker 3: numbers on ballots here. And it's sort of like it
13:43
Speaker 3: just washes over you. And if you're not fully versed
13:46
Speaker 3: in this stuff, I'm sure you're like, oh, that sounds
13:48
Speaker 3: kind of bad. I don't know. Would I want Trump
13:52
Speaker 3: to be focusing on this if I were a Republican candidate?
13:55
Speaker 3: Absolutely not. But what choice do they have?
13:58
Speaker 1: I agree with that a lot.
14:00
Speaker 4: Right.
14:00
Speaker 2: I mean, even he's saying it.
14:01
Speaker 1: They don't have a choice.
14:02
Speaker 2: He kind of bounces around the words. But what he's
14:05
Speaker 2: saying when he gets to it, even in the clip
14:07
Speaker 2: you played is, Nothing is resonating more when I'm speaking.
14:10
Speaker 2: So I'm going to keep coming back to it because
14:11
Speaker 2: I feel like it's working. I think it's working for
14:13
Speaker 2: me when I talk about the big lie. That's where
14:15
Speaker 2: I feel the passion from the crowd.
14:16
Speaker 1: So I think it's all it's also the ultimate grievance
14:20
Speaker 1: for a politics of grievance that he's been, you know,
14:23
Speaker 1: practicing for the last several years. Right. You were robbed.
14:26
Speaker 1: You were cheated. You were silenced. And me running again
14:31
Speaker 1: is about us getting revenge on the people who cheated us.
14:34
Speaker 1: That is all you need to know. It's not about issues,
14:37
Speaker 1: not about anything else. So in some ways, I think
14:38
Speaker 1: he might have a better sense of his base than
14:42
Speaker 1: certainly these other Republicans, though they have another problem, which
14:44
Speaker 1: is getting back independent Republicans who went to Biden. And
14:47
Speaker 1: that might not be as effective with them. Totally.
14:49
Speaker 3: And he's squeezing McConnell here. I mean, he's out there
14:51
Speaker 3: saying everyone should vote against both of these the spending
14:54
Speaker 3: bills that Biden has put forward, but also that the
14:57
Speaker 3: debt ceiling is this powerful card and McConnell should use it.
14:59
Speaker 3: And that what he did recently cutting a deal was
15:01
Speaker 3: a huge cave and that that shouldn't happen again. Like
15:03
Speaker 3: this is a Scary bunch of political incentives for Mitch
15:06
Speaker 3: McConnell and for all these Republicans.
15:08
Speaker 1: So former Democratic Congresswoman Abby Finkenauer has said that she's
15:11
Speaker 1: running against Grassley because of what happened on January 6th.
15:15
Speaker 1: How much effort do you think Democratic candidates should be
15:17
Speaker 1: making to remind voters that Republican candidates are 100 percent
15:21
Speaker 1: behind the guy who incited a violent insurrection? Love it.
15:25
Speaker 1: Like how much of that how much of the message
15:27
Speaker 1: do you think that should be?
15:28
Speaker 2: We've talked about this. I don't I don't know the answer.
15:31
Speaker 2: I don't know what polls will say. I do know
15:33
Speaker 2: that it represents like an incredible break with our history
15:36
Speaker 2: and is one of the most significant and dangerous things
15:38
Speaker 2: any politicians have done throughout our entire lives. And by
15:41
Speaker 2: that standard, of course, it has to be central to it.
15:44
Speaker 2: How do you tie that back to the larger political
15:45
Speaker 2: agenda of Democrats and make this part of a larger
15:47
Speaker 2: message about economics? I'm not totally sure, but I do
15:50
Speaker 2: think that is the challenge. Like, how do you make
15:51
Speaker 2: people care about this? I think the reason Chuck Grassley
15:54
Speaker 2: feels comfortable being on that stage when right after January 6th,
15:57
Speaker 2: he was appalled by Trump at a time in which
15:59
Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell felt free to criticize him. tells you something
16:03
Speaker 2: about how short our memories are. And I don't know
16:05
Speaker 2: what you do in a situation which people really do forget.
16:08
Speaker 3: I am scarred by the fact that most voters, especially
16:11
Speaker 3: swing voters, hated impeachment. And they sort of hate looking
16:13
Speaker 3: back and the blame game stuff in Washington. But I also,
16:17
Speaker 3: like when I see Trump recording a video for Ashley
16:21
Speaker 3: Babbitt's family, the woman who was killed on January 6th
16:24
Speaker 3: when she was trying to climb through a window to
16:27
Speaker 3: get to the area where members of Congress were all hiding,
16:30
Speaker 3: it's clear that he thinks she's the victim. that his
16:32
Speaker 3: supporters were the victims, that he is supportive of what
16:35
Speaker 3: they did that day and is just sort of waiting
16:37
Speaker 3: for the right moment to fully, fully say it. And so, yeah,
16:40
Speaker 3: it does work. For me, at least, it raises the
16:42
Speaker 3: stakes for the January 6th committee. For someone like Abby,
16:45
Speaker 3: I agree. I would cynically poll, test the best messages
16:49
Speaker 3: and talk about those and not act like making this
16:51
Speaker 3: my focus is going to do anything if it doesn't
16:53
Speaker 3: help me win.
16:54
Speaker 1: He's making a martyr of an insurrectionist is what he's doing.
16:57
Speaker 1: It's insane. And it's not, look, I think, One thing
17:00
Speaker 1: we know for sure is that in January, when the
17:04
Speaker 1: insurrection happened, Trump's numbers were a lot lower. A lot
17:07
Speaker 1: more Republicans were criticizing him, a lot more elected Republicans.
17:11
Speaker 1: And part of why he's rebounded, like what you just said,
17:15
Speaker 1: love it, is that people's memories have faded. So one
17:18
Speaker 1: argument is remind people, right? And I think I agree
17:22
Speaker 1: with you, Tommy. I'm sort of scarred by the impeachment
17:24
Speaker 1: stuff too. But I do think at least the first impeachment,
17:27
Speaker 1: now we look back at it like, complicated story or
17:30
Speaker 1: whatever else. The second impeachment and the insurrection, I think,
17:34
Speaker 1: made a much bigger difference in people's minds, at least
17:37
Speaker 1: in the public perception.
17:38
Speaker 3: I think the insurrection did. I think there's no evidence
17:39
Speaker 3: that the impeachment did.
17:41
Speaker 1: I think it was all caught up in the same thing.
17:42
Speaker 1: It was all a couple of weeks.
17:43
Speaker 2: Well, one thing we know, whether or not the impeachment
17:45
Speaker 2: itself made this happen, the insurrection was so stark for
17:47
Speaker 2: people that a majority of people believed he should have
17:49
Speaker 2: been removed for office for having committed it.
17:52
Speaker 3: And these morons should have taken care of him politically
17:54
Speaker 3: when they had the chance. The McConnells of the world
17:56
Speaker 3: who are now getting attacked by him.
17:57
Speaker 2: But one thing we have learned after years of Donald
17:59
Speaker 2: Trump is when he is out of the spotlight, he
18:01
Speaker 2: is more popular. Like some of his best polling has
18:04
Speaker 2: come when he disappears. Some of his worst polling has
18:06
Speaker 2: come around ACA repeal and even around impeachment when we
18:09
Speaker 2: saw him at his absolute worst around Access Hollywood.
18:12
Speaker 1: That's a good point. I have a theory here that
18:15
Speaker 1: being banned from Twitter and like mainstream media coverage might
18:19
Speaker 1: have might be beneficial to him right now because he's
18:22
Speaker 1: sort of hiding out in the right-wing media swamp world.
18:25
Speaker 2: This is why Vice President Kamala Harris was absolutely wrong
18:28
Speaker 2: about the need to remove Donald Trump. I was hoping
18:33
Speaker 2: you'd go there.
18:34
Speaker 1: Keep that in.
18:35
Speaker 2: Listen, K-Hive, you and I, you know how much admiration
18:38
Speaker 2: and respect I have for how you have never forgotten
18:40
Speaker 2: my bad tweets.
18:42
Speaker 3: The Des Moines Register write-up of the Iowa poll talked
18:44
Speaker 3: about the whole, the theme of it is like absence
18:46
Speaker 3: makes the heart grow fonder and why his numbers are up,
18:48
Speaker 3: including with independence. And they'd mentioned that suggestion that being
18:51
Speaker 3: off social media might be helping him because people hated
18:54
Speaker 3: his tweets. I don't know. I think he can do
18:57
Speaker 3: a lot of damage on social media as well, but
18:59
Speaker 3: it was interesting.
19:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with that.
19:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, his popularity ebbed and flowed. He
19:04
Speaker 2: was on Twitter the entire time. This is like when
19:05
Speaker 2: people tell me to stop drinking Diet Coke because it
19:07
Speaker 2: doesn't help you lose weight. It's like, I've been fat
19:08
Speaker 2: on Diet Coke. I've been thin on Diet Coke. Diet
19:10
Speaker 2: Coke is not the issue. Like, The question is, the
19:14
Speaker 2: larger narrative is about how much time are we really
19:16
Speaker 2: focused on Donald Trump and his worst proclivities and his
19:18
Speaker 2: policy agenda? And how much of the time is it
19:20
Speaker 2: turned to Democrats, turned to Hillary Clinton or what have
19:23
Speaker 2: you at the moment?
19:24
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, like all his aides are trying to avoid, you know, well,
19:27
Speaker 3: not all of them. I think Kash Patel and some
19:29
Speaker 3: of the others are say they're cooperating with the January
19:32
Speaker 3: 6th committee. But Steve Bannon is loudly saying that he
19:35
Speaker 3: will assert executive privilege along with Trump, even though he
19:37
Speaker 3: hadn't worked at the White House for years when the
19:40
Speaker 3: January 6th attack occurred.
19:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's also, let's talk about the investigation now, because
19:45
Speaker 1: there is the news that you know, Bannon's rejecting a subpoena.
19:49
Speaker 1: Some of the other aides are cooperating, even though Trump
19:52
Speaker 1: told them not to. Trump's also trying to hide documents
19:55
Speaker 1: by claiming executive privilege. Fortunately, the White House just announced
19:59
Speaker 1: that President Biden will not invoke executive privilege for Trump.
20:03
Speaker 1: while 1-6 Committee Chair Benny Thompson and Vice Chair Liz
20:06
Speaker 1: Cheney threatened anyone who refuses to testify with criminal contempt
20:10
Speaker 1: of Congress. What do we think Trump's so afraid of
20:13
Speaker 1: people finding out?
20:14
Speaker 2: That it was a coordinated effort involving top officials and
20:16
Speaker 2: outside advisors, including top conservative legal experts, to overturn the
20:20
Speaker 2: election and stall Trump as president just by losing the election?
20:22
Speaker 1: I think you might be right.
20:24
Speaker 2: I think we kind of know what he's trying to hide.
20:26
Speaker 2: I also just think it's better to be fighting than
20:29
Speaker 2: than going along even if we have the basics already.
20:32
Speaker 3: At best, he'll drag it out.
20:33
Speaker 1: Well, I was wondering that. Don't you think Steve Bannon's
20:35
Speaker 1: dream here is that he's a martyr for getting criminal
20:40
Speaker 1: contempt of Congress and resisting the subpoena and all that bullshit?
20:43
Speaker 3: Steve Bannon is kind of a schlubby guy who's not
20:46
Speaker 3: that bright who needs two things. One, media attention. Two,
20:50
Speaker 3: a billionaire to back him. He lost the Mercer family.
20:52
Speaker 3: That was his billionaire that left. Now he's got this
20:54
Speaker 3: dissident Chinese billionaire who's backing everything he's doing and so
20:58
Speaker 3: he's kind of back.
20:59
Speaker 1: Yeah. There's a few things, you know, Trump's complicity in
21:03
Speaker 1: the insurrection, which you feel like is widely known, but
21:06
Speaker 1: there's plenty of details that could highlight how bad it
21:09
Speaker 1: was and how deep it was. Jonathan Karl has a
21:12
Speaker 1: new book out. You know, and some of the stuff
21:16
Speaker 1: in the book we've heard before. Trump loved the insurrection.
21:18
Speaker 1: He bragged about the crowd size. We've heard that before.
21:20
Speaker 4: I don't know.
21:21
Speaker 1: Have we heard that before?
21:21
Speaker 3: I thought that was new to me. Bragged about the
21:23
Speaker 3: crowd size on January 6th.
21:24
Speaker 1: I had heard that before. The one that I hadn't
21:27
Speaker 1: seen is that he refused multiple times to say in
21:31
Speaker 1: the video that his supporters should leave the Capitol. He
21:35
Speaker 1: also told the Department of Justice to say the election
21:37
Speaker 1: was corrupt and leave the rest to, quote, me and
21:39
Speaker 1: the Republican congressman. I think I had heard that before, too.
21:42
Speaker 1: This was a fun one that I hadn't heard.
21:43
Speaker 3: This one was good, yeah.
21:45
Speaker 1: Trump believed that wireless thermostats made in China for Google
21:48
Speaker 1: by a company called Nest might have been used to
21:51
Speaker 1: manipulate voting machines in Georgia. And Trump asked the director
21:55
Speaker 1: of national intelligence to look into it. I didn't realize
21:58
Speaker 1: that my nest could change votes again.
22:01
Speaker 3: Totally crazy. But like you rant about that in front
22:04
Speaker 3: of a crowd and they're like, oh, my God, I
22:06
Speaker 3: didn't know that the thermostat could do that.
22:07
Speaker 1: Like, I don't know.
22:08
Speaker 3: No one's fact checking this stuff in real time. It's
22:09
Speaker 3: just a brain worm. He just throws out little crazy
22:12
Speaker 3: theories and people believe them. I hate it.
22:15
Speaker 1: I mean, we talk about. I hate it. But we
22:17
Speaker 1: talk about like bringing this stuff back up and what
22:20
Speaker 1: it's going to do and whether it's going to have
22:22
Speaker 1: an effect. I don't know. Obviously, we're all partisans. You
22:25
Speaker 1: know who we're voting for. But when I read these
22:27
Speaker 1: stories about one six and new revelations about Trump, it
22:31
Speaker 1: does get me in a place at least where I'm like, fuck,
22:34
Speaker 1: we got to get serious here. This is very scary
22:36
Speaker 1: that this could happen again. Like it does. It does
22:38
Speaker 1: work a little bit. I do.
22:39
Speaker 2: And I do think one lesson from impeachment was even
22:42
Speaker 2: though a lot of what we learned was already reported.
22:45
Speaker 2: It was riveting and dramatic and important testimony that actually,
22:49
Speaker 2: I think, shook people just by dint of being good
22:52
Speaker 2: television and being really captivating and really capturing just how
22:55
Speaker 2: dangerous it was. So I think sometimes we are not
22:58
Speaker 2: good at imagining how these details will resonate if they're
23:01
Speaker 2: part of a big hearing, if they're part of a
23:02
Speaker 2: big press moment.
23:04
Speaker 3: My problem with that theory, though, is like, what is
23:06
Speaker 3: the endgame? We all watched these sociopaths literally storm the
23:10
Speaker 3: fucking Capitol, kick down doors, beat cops to death. People
23:14
Speaker 3: got shot. And here we are a few months later
23:16
Speaker 3: and the approval ratings back up higher than it ever
23:18
Speaker 3: was before.
23:18
Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
23:19
Speaker 3: There's no end game that prevents him from running again
23:21
Speaker 3: or letting his approval pop back up. This happened in
23:24
Speaker 3: impeachment as well. So like, I'm not opposed to like
23:27
Speaker 3: relitigating these things, having a on-camera conversation about what happened.
23:31
Speaker 3: I just, I guess I'm sort of skeptical that this
23:33
Speaker 3: stuff sticks long-term because it hasn't to date.
23:36
Speaker 1: So here's the question, because who knows what effect it's
23:39
Speaker 1: going to have. We can't predict that. You're the Democrats
23:41
Speaker 1: on the committee. How do you make sure that after,
23:44
Speaker 1: like you said, we had two impeachments that led Trump
23:47
Speaker 1: to be the likely nominee in 2024. After that, how
23:50
Speaker 1: do you make this a little bit more effective? How
23:52
Speaker 1: do you put out the best foot forward?
23:54
Speaker 3: I do think the fact that Thompson and Cheney are
23:56
Speaker 3: talking about threatening criminal contempt, which can get you a
23:58
Speaker 3: year in prison and like a hundred thousand dollar fine,
24:01
Speaker 3: could actually force people to testify that have not testified
24:05
Speaker 3: before and offer firsthand accounts of what might have happened
24:09
Speaker 3: that day. That, to me, is interesting. It requires, I think,
24:11
Speaker 3: a full floor vote to get to the criminal contempt.
24:14
Speaker 3: I don't know what that means, like to issue it,
24:17
Speaker 3: I guess, whatever.
24:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, or to vote on whether you enforce it.
24:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, to enforce it. But hearing those people on the
24:23
Speaker 3: record in front of a hearing is interesting. It would
24:25
Speaker 3: be new information, potentially.
24:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I hear you. I do think some of
24:30
Speaker 2: this is we are fighting against fundamentals that have been
24:33
Speaker 2: true for you know, the past five years of dealing
24:36
Speaker 2: with Trump, there is a massive right-wing propaganda machine that
24:39
Speaker 2: exists to paint Democrats as evil and pay paid Republicans
24:43
Speaker 2: as victims. And then there is a giant mainstream apparatus
24:46
Speaker 2: that teaches the controversy and treats Washington as a cynical
24:49
Speaker 2: and broken place. And into that kind of storm, we
24:54
Speaker 2: like throw these messages and watch them whirl around and
24:57
Speaker 2: come apart. But like, what else are we supposed to do?
25:02
Speaker 2: What are we, what, what else, what other options do
25:04
Speaker 2: we have? We have to fight within this horrible, ridiculous
25:06
Speaker 2: media ecosystem. And then, I don't know, do the best
25:09
Speaker 2: we can from the outside to pressure cable companies to
25:12
Speaker 2: drop Fox and OAN. Like that is where the real
25:15
Speaker 2: fight then has to turn. If what you're saying is
25:16
Speaker 2: these messages don't make a difference, I completely agree. We
25:19
Speaker 2: are stuck with the system we have.
25:21
Speaker 1: I also think in some ways the media narrative is
25:25
Speaker 1: a zero sum game, right? So if, if we're getting
25:27
Speaker 1: close to November of 22, what would you rather the
25:30
Speaker 1: headlines be? Um, Democrats still fighting each other about the
25:34
Speaker 1: Build Back Better agenda or the 1-6 committee is talking about,
25:38
Speaker 1: you know, Trump's complicity in inciting an insurrection? And if
25:41
Speaker 1: I just had to pick.
25:41
Speaker 3: Certainly that straw man of the worst case versus a
25:44
Speaker 3: better case is, yeah, that's an easy pick. But like
25:46
Speaker 3: if they pass the Build Back Better agenda and they
25:48
Speaker 3: do something, they pass the infrastructure bill, like then that's
25:51
Speaker 3: more of the actual conversation about what you should be highlighting.
25:54
Speaker 3: I don't know the answer. I think it's a data
25:55
Speaker 3: driven decision. It's probably state by state.
25:57
Speaker 2: At least we can all agree that the worst headline
25:58
Speaker 2: for us coming out of next week would be activists
26:00
Speaker 2: stop Kyrsten Sinema from getting Gatorade midway through her marathon.
26:05
Speaker 3: Which I think they're going to do. Are they going
26:06
Speaker 3: to try to do that? No, there's people like they're
26:08
Speaker 3: quote unquote bird dogging her throughout the course and protesting
26:12
Speaker 3: her throughout the 26.2 miles.
26:13
Speaker 1: Even me, you just put me back in a headspace
26:15
Speaker 1: that's like, what the fuck are Democrats doing when I
26:17
Speaker 1: had previously been a headspace about... Hey, let's make sure
26:20
Speaker 1: that fucking Trump doesn't win again.
26:22
Speaker 3: Are you anti-marathon bird-dogging?
26:24
Speaker 1: No, I think it's... Don't make me... Yeah, I hope
26:26
Speaker 1: they all fucking trip her and then give her some
26:28
Speaker 1: toilet paper for when she goes into her next bathroom.
26:30
Speaker 2: We're going to Rosie Ruiz Kirsten Sinema.
26:32
Speaker 1: I don't know any of that stuff.
26:33
Speaker 2: Some activists are going to come in in the first mile,
26:36
Speaker 2: follow her for a while, then come in at the
26:37
Speaker 2: 10th mile, share the bid.
26:39
Speaker 1: I do think on the committee, though, you have the committee.
26:41
Speaker 1: It's happening, right? There's going to be hearings. You make
26:43
Speaker 1: it about the future threat, not just about the past.
26:45
Speaker 3: Right.
26:45
Speaker 1: You've got to what could happen next. You make it
26:48
Speaker 1: about Trump's complicity as much as possible. Tie him to it.
26:51
Speaker 1: And you also have to fucking tie Republicans who like
26:54
Speaker 1: Grassley flip flopped on Trump. Make them own it.
26:57
Speaker 2: Right.
26:58
Speaker 1: Make them own it every single day. And the other
27:00
Speaker 1: thing is. I think you have to make it about
27:02
Speaker 1: the entire coup, not just the insurrection. So the attempt
27:06
Speaker 1: to overturn the election and the threat that Republicans and
27:09
Speaker 1: especially Trump will try to overturn elections, not just in 2024,
27:13
Speaker 1: but also in the midterms in 2022. So I think
27:15
Speaker 1: that's and you do all that. Do I think it's
27:17
Speaker 1: going to change anything? Exactly. I'm probably more doubtful like
27:21
Speaker 1: you are, Tommy, but I think we have the investigation.
27:23
Speaker 1: You might as well make the best of it.
27:24
Speaker 2: And we win and lose on the margins these days.
27:26
Speaker 3: Of course. I mean, I think that All the Ashley
27:29
Speaker 3: Babbitt video to me ups the stakes of the January
27:32
Speaker 3: 6th committee in a big way. It doesn't tell me
27:34
Speaker 3: that like candidates should be talking about.
27:36
Speaker 1: This every day. Well, I also I also think we
27:39
Speaker 1: can talk about politics and what's going to be popular
27:42
Speaker 1: and what polls well, but at some point it's pretty
27:44
Speaker 1: fucking scary. that Donald Trump could very well be the
27:48
Speaker 1: Republican nominee and potentially be like 40,000 votes away from
27:52
Speaker 1: winning the presidency again. And you might as well talk
27:54
Speaker 1: about that threat because it's coming.
27:56
Speaker 2: But, and I do think part of this, our politics.
27:58
Speaker 1: Aside, like put the poll down and just talk about it.
28:00
Speaker 4: Right.
28:00
Speaker 2: And I do think like part of this frustration because
28:03
Speaker 2: it's turning on messaging is because what we really like
28:06
Speaker 2: to see is Democrats in Congress collectively unanimously recognizing this
28:11
Speaker 2: as the threat that it is. And then what we'd
28:13
Speaker 2: be talking about is the effort to Pass a version
28:16
Speaker 2: of H.R. 1 to pass reforms to the Electoral College,
28:19
Speaker 2: to the Electoral Count Act. Like there's a host of
28:21
Speaker 2: reforms we desperately need. But people like Joe Manchin, Kyrsten
28:24
Speaker 2: Sinema are kind of sleepwalking through this crisis. And we
28:29
Speaker 2: are left with the best that we can do, which
28:31
Speaker 2: is trying to message to people how important it is
28:32
Speaker 2: that they turn out anyway.
28:34
Speaker 1: Well, and not to make it more complicated, but you
28:36
Speaker 1: pass H.R. 1 and a lot of the things that
28:38
Speaker 1: Trump could do to overturn the next election don't get fixed. Right.
28:42
Speaker 1: Which is another problem. You pass the new better version.
28:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, the new better version.
28:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, which helps a little bit, but still, it's brutal.
28:57
Speaker 2: All right.
28:58
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Virginia, where nearly half a million people
29:00
Speaker 1: have already cast their votes in a way too close
29:02
Speaker 1: for comfort election that's just three weeks away on November 2nd.
29:06
Speaker 1: Five thirty eight polling average has former Democratic Governor Terry
29:08
Speaker 1: McAuliffe leading the Trump endorsed private equity CEO Glenn Youngkin
29:12
Speaker 1: by just two and a half points. Forty seven point
29:15
Speaker 1: six percent to forty five point one percent. The race
29:18
Speaker 1: for control of Virginia's legislature is believed to be just
29:21
Speaker 1: as close. This is all despite Joe Biden winning the
29:23
Speaker 1: state by 10 points in 2020. and Virginia Republicans embracing Trumpism,
29:28
Speaker 1: with Youngkin recently calling for a cyber ninja style audit
29:32
Speaker 1: of the state's voting machines, and the Republican candidate for
29:34
Speaker 1: lieutenant governor, Winsome Sears, refusing to reveal her vaccination status.
29:39
Speaker 1: Very cool. Uh, what's going on guys? Why do you
29:42
Speaker 1: think this race is so close? Love it.
29:44
Speaker 2: There was an Emerson poll that I thought captured something interesting,
29:47
Speaker 2: which had said that by a larger margin, 55% to
29:50
Speaker 2: 44% voters expect, uh, Terry McAuliffe to win. There's a
29:54
Speaker 2: kind of like, um, kind of, uh, uh, uh, complacency
29:59
Speaker 2: among Democrats and a kind of exhaustion amongst Democrats.
30:02
Speaker 3: Yeah.
30:02
Speaker 1: I hadn't heard that statistic and it made me feel
30:04
Speaker 1: actually better. Yeah.
30:06
Speaker 2: And then the other piece of this is, you know,
30:09
Speaker 2: the Washington Post looked at some of what happens when
30:11
Speaker 2: Trump is on the ballot when he is not. The
30:12
Speaker 2: Trump effect was most evident in big spites and turnout
30:15
Speaker 2: in heavily Democratic areas such as Fairfax, Arlington and Alexandria
30:18
Speaker 2: in the D.C.
30:18
Speaker 4: Suburbs.
30:19
Speaker 2: And so, you know, Youngkin is running as this sort
30:21
Speaker 2: of suburban norm court business dad. Meanwhile, he's trying to
30:24
Speaker 2: fan the flames of the base with critical race theory
30:26
Speaker 2: and and anti-trans stuff, and anti-COVID stuff. And everybody across
30:30
Speaker 2: the state are seeing all these ads that make him
30:31
Speaker 2: seem like he's not that big a deal. And so
30:33
Speaker 2: it's just, in this off-year election, we are desperate to
30:36
Speaker 2: try to convince Democrats that this is real, this is happening,
30:38
Speaker 2: McAuliffe can lose, and it is important.
30:40
Speaker 1: And back to our last conversation, as you said, in
30:44
Speaker 1: some of these suburbs, Democrats turn out when Trump is
30:47
Speaker 1: on the ballot. This is why it's maybe a good
30:50
Speaker 1: idea for Democrats to talk more about Trump and the
30:52
Speaker 1: threat from Trumpism.
30:53
Speaker 3: I like suburban normcore business, Dad.
30:56
Speaker 4: Yeah.
30:57
Speaker 2: And very tall, as we talked about.
30:58
Speaker 3: Why do we do these off-year elections? It's so stupid.
31:01
Speaker 1: I mean, people.
31:02
Speaker 3: Just Virginia and New Jersey. All these stories that people
31:04
Speaker 3: keep saying, like, we're exhausted by these elections. We're sick
31:07
Speaker 3: of this. Of course you are. You've been voting every
31:08
Speaker 3: single year.
31:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, Virginia has a pretty rough... They should think about that.
31:11
Speaker 3: And the mood music is just bad for Democrats right now.
31:13
Speaker 3: I mean, Biden's approval is down. It's been down since August.
31:16
Speaker 3: COVID isn't going away. There's broader, like, economic concerns. I
31:18
Speaker 3: think that, more than anything, is behind this. And it's
31:20
Speaker 3: creating this sort of enthusiasm deficit for Terry in the
31:24
Speaker 3: Democratic base versus Yunkin's. like sort of partial MAGA base.
31:28
Speaker 3: We're not sure if they're full. He's dancing around where
31:31
Speaker 3: he stands.
31:31
Speaker 1: He's doing a lot of dancing.
31:32
Speaker 2: He's trying to do both things, right? He's trying to
31:33
Speaker 2: seem normal to the people that want a normal governor,
31:35
Speaker 2: and he's trying to kind of do the critical race pantomime.
31:39
Speaker 2: to the people that are Trumpy.
31:41
Speaker 1: And the audit. The audit is a big deal. The
31:43
Speaker 1: audit's interesting.
31:44
Speaker 3: The critical race theory is new, but not new, right?
31:48
Speaker 1: Critical race theory is.
31:49
Speaker 3: The new term of art. It's a new boogeyman du jour.
31:53
Speaker 1: It's like MS-13. It's like MS-13, right? This race is MS-13, yeah.
31:57
Speaker 1: But what they're really, the TV ads.
31:59
Speaker 3: Right now are about a comment Terry McAuliffe made about
32:02
Speaker 3: whether parents should have a say in what's in public
32:04
Speaker 3: school curriculums, and that is a decades-old fight.
32:08
Speaker 1: Right.
32:09
Speaker 3: Public school funding versus charter school funding fight is a
32:11
Speaker 3: perennial fight between Democrats and Republicans. So part of it
32:14
Speaker 3: is just sort of like you got a new flavor
32:16
Speaker 3: to this.
32:17
Speaker 2: MS-1619. Is that anything?
32:20
Speaker 4: Oh, I see.
32:21
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. It's not anything.
32:23
Speaker 3: That's upsetting because that's going to be in an ad somewhere.
32:25
Speaker 2: It's not anything.
32:26
Speaker 1: It's not anything.
32:27
Speaker 2: Don't worry.
32:27
Speaker 1: It's not anything. So I said almost half a million
32:30
Speaker 1: people have voted so far. What, if anything, can we
32:33
Speaker 1: learn about the race from the early vote?
32:37
Speaker 3: I don't know. Is there an answer to that question?
32:39
Speaker 1: I have no idea.
32:42
Speaker 3: Of course we know.
32:43
Speaker 1: What do you think it is? We know.
32:45
Speaker 3: What do you think the early vote means?
32:46
Speaker 2: We think it's significant in the ways you do, probably.
32:50
Speaker 1: I brought that up because there's a lot of early
32:52
Speaker 1: vote numbers floating around, and I want to give people
32:54
Speaker 1: some context around this. Virginia is a state where there's
32:57
Speaker 1: no party registration data, so you don't know. Like in
33:01
Speaker 1: California with the recall... We knew from the ballots, which
33:04
Speaker 1: were Democratic ballots and which were Republican ballots. We don't
33:06
Speaker 1: know that from Virginia. Sorry, just trying to educate some
33:11
Speaker 1: folks here. That's number one. The other big one is
33:13
Speaker 1: the state made it a lot easier for people to
33:16
Speaker 1: early vote since the last gubernatorial election in 2017. A
33:18
Speaker 1: great thing. But that's why it's really hard to compare.
33:22
Speaker 1: Between the 2017 early vote and the 2021 early vote.
33:25
Speaker 4: There was no way to know.
33:26
Speaker 2: It was a fucking scam question.
33:29
Speaker 3: It's like double the number of people who have early voted.
33:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot more people.
33:33
Speaker 3: Yeah.
33:33
Speaker 1: But there is one little thing to watch here. What
33:38
Speaker 1: do you got? In the heavily Democratic Northern Virginia suburbs, Alexandria, Arlington,
33:44
Speaker 1: Fairfax Counties, Um, they currently are making up just 17%
33:49
Speaker 1: of the early vote so far. In 2017, they made
33:52
Speaker 1: up 33% of the total early vote.
33:54
Speaker 2: Listen, you fellow Azubers, get those fucking ballots in.
33:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a little, that's a little more nerve wracking
34:01
Speaker 1: because that's more apples to apples. It's time we go
34:04
Speaker 1: Ballston to the walls. Is that something?
34:07
Speaker 2: Is that something? Listen, for those outside of the metro D.C. area,
34:12
Speaker 2: Boston is an area in northern Virginia. It's also a
34:14
Speaker 2: metro stop. It's where Hillary Clinton's campaign was located in 2007, 2008.
34:19
Speaker 1: Maybe remind some of those voters that Glenn Youngkin has
34:21
Speaker 1: been endorsed four times now by the guy who just
34:24
Speaker 1: made a video trying to make Ashley Babbitt a martyr,
34:28
Speaker 1: an insurrectionist who tried to attack the building where probably
34:31
Speaker 1: many people in northern Virginia work. Yeah, that might be
34:34
Speaker 1: something to do. Terry McAuliffe has been saying he's frustrated
34:37
Speaker 1: with Democrats in Washington for not passing the bipartisan infrastructure
34:40
Speaker 1: bill and that he thinks the $ 3. 5 trillion price tag
34:44
Speaker 1: is a little high for Build Back Better. What do
34:47
Speaker 1: you think that's all about? Anyone got a guess as
34:50
Speaker 1: to why Terry's doing that?
34:51
Speaker 2: Why a gubernatorial candidate says Washington sucks.
34:55
Speaker 3: Exactly.
34:56
Speaker 2: A couple of theories.
34:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's giving the Heisman to the Washington Democrats who
35:02
Speaker 3: are fighting amongst themselves. Yeah.
35:04
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, they're pissed at Washington. They want action.
35:06
Speaker 1: And honestly, I saw people getting upset about the $ 3. 5
35:09
Speaker 1: trillion thing. It's a free shot for Terry.
35:12
Speaker 3: He knows where this is headed.
35:13
Speaker 1: It's not going to end up at $ 3. 5 trillion. So
35:15
Speaker 1: now he gets credit for being like, I thought it
35:18
Speaker 1: was too high.
35:18
Speaker 3: I'm sure there's some genuine sentiment there. His political incentives
35:22
Speaker 3: are one month long. He's saying, pass something that I
35:25
Speaker 3: could run on right now. The rest of us are
35:26
Speaker 3: fighting about how much climate change money will be in
35:28
Speaker 3: the bill for a decade from now. But he also
35:31
Speaker 3: knows that in Northern Virginia- transportation funding, something that might
35:34
Speaker 3: alleviate traffic, that's a big deal. That's a thing people
35:37
Speaker 3: care about and will vote on.
35:38
Speaker 1: I mean, we've been saying nonstop how popular the Build
35:41
Speaker 1: Back Better bill is and how crazy it is for
35:44
Speaker 1: people like Josh Gottenheimer and them to say that the
35:47
Speaker 1: infrastructure bill should be passed first. Does it give you
35:49
Speaker 1: pause at all that Terry McAuliffe, who's obviously steeped in
35:52
Speaker 1: the polling in the Virginia race, is like, hmm, maybe
35:55
Speaker 1: we should pass infrastructure?
35:56
Speaker 2: It actually doesn't because I don't think what he's saying
35:58
Speaker 2: is I think we shouldn't pass this despite the obvious
36:01
Speaker 2: popularity of the bill in my state. I think he
36:03
Speaker 2: is dealing with the political reality that we've spent the
36:05
Speaker 2: last two months talking about a top line number and
36:07
Speaker 2: nobody fucking knows what's in it. And it's not his
36:09
Speaker 2: job to educate the entire country or the state of
36:11
Speaker 2: Virginia as to what the democratic agenda in Congress is.
36:14
Speaker 2: And he's just trying to win this race. I wish
36:16
Speaker 2: more people knew how much it did for healthcare and
36:18
Speaker 2: childcare and a whole host of other things, but they don't.
36:20
Speaker 3: And he's just saying, hey guys, I got an election
36:21
Speaker 3: in a month. Throw me a bone here.
36:24
Speaker 1: It makes me think that Man, I really hope they
36:27
Speaker 1: fucking come to an agreement on Build Back Better and
36:29
Speaker 1: then pass both of those fuckers before the race in Virginia.
36:33
Speaker 1: Three weeks. I mean, they've said October 31st, that's the
36:36
Speaker 1: new deadline, but I really hope they get there because
36:39
Speaker 1: I do think if you have, back to the media narratives,
36:42
Speaker 1: if you have a bunch of headlines that Joe Biden
36:44
Speaker 1: saved his agenda from the dead and Democrats passed this
36:47
Speaker 1: thing a week before the Virginia race. Yeah, that's going
36:51
Speaker 1: to help Terry McConnell.
36:51
Speaker 2: Seems better than not having them.
36:52
Speaker 1: That's right.
36:53
Speaker 3: Looks like annoying infighting. Wait, the deadline is October 31st?
36:56
Speaker 1: That's the latest new deadline because that's the surface transportation
36:59
Speaker 1: bill that they reauthorized for 30 more days runs out.
37:02
Speaker 3: The Halloween metaphors are going to be insufferable.
37:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, you thought that the Biden shows up at the
37:07
Speaker 1: congressional softball game metaphors were horrible, but Halloween is going
37:11
Speaker 1: to be even worse.
37:12
Speaker 3: Don't do it to us.
37:13
Speaker 2: Pulled back better.
37:15
Speaker 3: Oh, Jesus Christ.
37:18
Speaker 1: Is that something?
37:19
Speaker 4: Is that something?
37:20
Speaker 1: We need a cut from this part of just all
37:22
Speaker 1: the time. Is that something? Is that anything?
37:25
Speaker 3: Riffing on slogans, I like it.
37:27
Speaker 1: Washington Post talked to some Democratic state legislators in Virginia
37:29
Speaker 1: who've been knocking on doors in swing districts, and they
37:32
Speaker 1: said that a lot of voters are saying they're tired
37:34
Speaker 1: of elections, they're tired of National Democrats, and that they
37:37
Speaker 1: don't think that Youngkin is as polarizing as Trump. What
37:40
Speaker 1: do you guys think are some of the most compelling
37:42
Speaker 1: arguments for why Democrats should keep the governorship and their
37:44
Speaker 1: majority in the Virginia Assembly? You're talking to organizers. They
37:48
Speaker 1: want advice. They're going door to door. What do you say?
37:50
Speaker 3: So we have 100 Virginia House of Delegates seats also up, right?
37:54
Speaker 1: Correct.
37:54
Speaker 3: We have a current 55 to 45 majority. Things that
37:58
Speaker 3: Virginians have gotten done, they've expanded voting rights. They've removed
38:02
Speaker 3: abortion restrictions, which is becoming more and more important after
38:05
Speaker 3: the Texas ruling and this Mississippi case the Supreme Court's
38:07
Speaker 3: looking at. They passed some gun safety laws. They abolished
38:10
Speaker 3: the death penalty, legalized marijuana, new protections for the LGBT community.
38:14
Speaker 3: So they've got a lot of stuff done. Build on that.
38:17
Speaker 1: If you thought as an American you're frustrated with Washington
38:20
Speaker 1: not doing shit, in Virginia all the Democrats did shit.
38:24
Speaker 1: They did it over the last couple years.
38:25
Speaker 2: Ban conversion therapy for kids as well. They expanded insurance
38:28
Speaker 2: protection for reproductive health. I would also point out too that,
38:31
Speaker 2: you know, Youngkin is trying to seem moderate as we
38:34
Speaker 2: talked about. He's running on this audit. He's running on...
38:37
Speaker 2: critical race theory, but also down the ballot, the Republican
38:40
Speaker 2: Party in Virginia is funding some of the most vicious
38:42
Speaker 2: and anti-Semitic attacks that you can see. I mean, they
38:44
Speaker 2: are taking Jewish candidates and they're making their noses bigger
38:47
Speaker 2: and putting them in front of a bunch of gold
38:49
Speaker 2: coins and mailing that out to people. That is who
38:51
Speaker 2: Youngkin is running with. That is the coalition he is
38:53
Speaker 2: trying to be elected with to govern. This will be,
38:56
Speaker 2: I don't care how he started out or I don't
38:58
Speaker 2: care what kind of posture he's trying to sell. This
39:01
Speaker 2: will be a radical right-wing governorship and a radical right-wing
39:05
Speaker 2: legislature if they.
39:06
Speaker 1: Get their way.
39:07
Speaker 3: Not subtle.
39:07
Speaker 1: I'll also go back to my hobby horse here, which
39:09
Speaker 1: is remind people how scary Republicans could be and what
39:13
Speaker 1: they could do to roll back all that progress. You know,
39:16
Speaker 1: one thing that I think is really indicative of who
39:18
Speaker 1: Glenn Youngkin is was when he told a bunch of activists,
39:23
Speaker 1: I'm not supposed to talk about abortion. But once I
39:27
Speaker 1: get into office, I will restrict abortion access. And I
39:31
Speaker 1: think on abortion, on a whole bunch of issues, he
39:35
Speaker 1: gets into office and we lose the assembly, all that
39:40
Speaker 1: progress that Tommy talked about is going to be rolled
39:42
Speaker 1: back by these Republicans. And they could help Trump steal
39:46
Speaker 1: the next election. He's proposing a cyber ninja style audit.
39:50
Speaker 1: Of Virginia election, even though there has already been an audit.
39:52
Speaker 2: There you get it.
39:52
Speaker 1: There was already an audit.
39:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, it already happened.
39:54
Speaker 1: In Virginia.
39:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, as the Supreme Court is chipping away
39:57
Speaker 3: at Roe v. Wade, these state-based abortion restriction laws become
40:00
Speaker 3: more and more dangerous.
40:01
Speaker 2: Correct.
40:02
Speaker 3: So we really keep an eye on.
40:03
Speaker 1: They'd also roll back vaccine requirements just as Virginia is
40:06
Speaker 1: starting to recover from the Delta wave. So that's not great.
40:09
Speaker 1: And I saw this just today. Young in an interview
40:12
Speaker 1: was asked about climate change. And he said he's, quote,
40:14
Speaker 1: not smart enough to know whether human activity is causing
40:17
Speaker 1: climate change. There's your moderate North Core suburban.
40:20
Speaker 3: Dad right there. And you're not very smart, sir. I
40:22
Speaker 3: love this from the Iowa poll, by the way. Trump
40:24
Speaker 3: had an 86% favorability with Iowans who are not vaccinated
40:28
Speaker 3: and won't get vaccinated. So if you're wondering why he
40:30
Speaker 3: won't come out in support of the vaccine and help
40:33
Speaker 3: get his base vaccinated, it's because he knows they don't
40:35
Speaker 3: want to do it and he's not going to take
40:37
Speaker 3: the hit politically.
40:37
Speaker 1: And same reason why, you know, the lieutenant governor candidate
40:43
Speaker 1: in Virginia is not revealing her vaccination status and why
40:46
Speaker 1: Youngkin is running against vaccine mandates, even though he's being like, oh,
40:49
Speaker 1: I think personally it's great to get the vaccine. Uh,
40:52
Speaker 1: but he wants that base as well. Um, anyway, this
40:55
Speaker 1: should be a wake up call in Virginia. Like we,
40:57
Speaker 1: we did a great job around California, making sure that
41:00
Speaker 1: everyone woke up, got involved, volunteered, uh, to make sure
41:03
Speaker 1: that the recall didn't succeed. We need that same level
41:06
Speaker 1: of effort, probably even more, uh, in Virginia. So we
41:09
Speaker 1: need everyone to get involved. You to figure out where
41:15
Speaker 1: you can donate, where you can volunteer. A reminder that today, Monday,
41:20
Speaker 1: is the last day to register to vote. Virginia does
41:23
Speaker 1: not have same-day registration, so make sure you check your
41:25
Speaker 1: status and sign up today. I don't know when you're
41:28
Speaker 1: listening to this, but you'll get a couple hours left
41:31
Speaker 1: to all your friends in Virginia. But yeah, it's a
41:35
Speaker 1: big deal in Virginia. I want everyone to wake up there.
41:37
Speaker 2: And not the most important part, but do you understand
41:39
Speaker 2: what kind of nationwide fucking political freakout we're in for?
41:42
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you. I forgot about that.
41:45
Speaker 5: Yes.
41:45
Speaker 3: I can't handle it.
41:46
Speaker 2: We can't deal with a freakout like that right.
41:47
Speaker 1: Now, for the takes. You thought the freakout over Nancy
41:50
Speaker 1: Pelosi pulling the vote on the BIF was bad, which
41:54
Speaker 1: it was? You ain't seen nothing. We lose Virginia, and
41:57
Speaker 1: you know what? It will be deserved. It will be deserved.
42:00
Speaker 1: If we lose Virginia... If if a lot of those
42:03
Speaker 1: moderates who voted for Joe Biden decide to vote for
42:07
Speaker 1: Glenn Youngkin or a lot of folks, Democrats have over
42:09
Speaker 1: Joe Biden decided to stay home. That does say something
42:12
Speaker 1: about where we're headed in the midterms. And it's and
42:14
Speaker 1: it's not good.
42:15
Speaker 2: So it's not a good place.
42:16
Speaker 1: Yeah. Vote Save America dot com slash Virginia. Go there
42:19
Speaker 1: now and see how you can help out. When we
42:21
Speaker 1: come back from the break, Tommy and I talk to
42:24
Speaker 1: California Congressman Adam Schiff. Congressman Adam Schiff, welcome back to
42:37
Speaker 1: the pod. Thank you.
42:38
Speaker 4: Thank you. It's great to be here in person.
42:40
Speaker 1: I know.
42:40
Speaker 4: I know.
42:40
Speaker 1: I think you're like our second in-person guest.
42:43
Speaker 3: Yeah.
42:43
Speaker 4: I don't know who the first was. Oh, I was
42:45
Speaker 4: going to say the first was going to be my warm-up,
42:47
Speaker 4: but that's not a warm-up.
42:48
Speaker 1: Oh, we got the California crew back. You've got a
42:53
Speaker 1: new book out called Midnight in Washington, How We Almost
42:56
Speaker 1: Lost Our Democracy and Still Could. It covers both impeachments,
42:59
Speaker 1: January 6th, a lot more. You wrote about a couple...
43:03
Speaker 1: Sort of bizarre meetings with Trump, as I imagine every
43:06
Speaker 1: meeting with Trump is. Could you talk a little bit
43:08
Speaker 1: about the one after Devin Nunes' famous midnight run?
43:13
Speaker 4: Yes. Well, this was a completely surreal experience. Nunes had
43:19
Speaker 4: gone on this midnight run in the middle of the
43:22
Speaker 4: night and supposedly gotten documents from a whistleblower that showed
43:26
Speaker 4: this Obama conspiracy to eavesdrop on the Trump administration. Of course,
43:31
Speaker 4: it was a whole charade because whatever he got, he'd
43:33
Speaker 4: gotten from the White House and went back to give
43:35
Speaker 4: it to the White House and nobody had seen what
43:36
Speaker 4: it was. And I was sitting in the bunker with
43:40
Speaker 4: the TV on watching a press conference and they announced
43:46
Speaker 4: that I would be coming to the White House to
43:47
Speaker 4: review the documents. And I looked at my staff and
43:49
Speaker 4: I said, I am? You know, they said I was
43:52
Speaker 4: invited and I'm like, really? That's news to me.
43:54
Speaker 3: And then is the bunker like just a skiff in
43:57
Speaker 3: the House Intel Committee?
43:58
Speaker 4: Yes.
43:58
Speaker 3: Yes.
43:59
Speaker 4: So three floors below the Capitol to where the Intelligence
44:02
Speaker 4: Committee meets and heavy vault doors and all the rest.
44:06
Speaker 3: Cool name.
44:07
Speaker 2: Oh, yes. Bunker.
44:08
Speaker 4: Yes. And so one of my staff walks in while
44:12
Speaker 4: this press conference is going on with a invitation from
44:15
Speaker 4: the White House to go to see these documents. And
44:19
Speaker 4: so I go to the White House. They won't let
44:22
Speaker 4: my staff come with me to see the documents. We're
44:25
Speaker 4: in this big fight over it. And so I'm at
44:31
Speaker 4: the National Security Council talking to John Eisenberg, the lawyer.
44:34
Speaker 4: He's trying to tell me that the agencies won't approve
44:38
Speaker 4: my staff director seeing the documents, even though we both
44:42
Speaker 4: know that's nonsense. And I call him out on it.
44:46
Speaker 4: And during the midst of this fight, Um, one of
44:49
Speaker 4: the president's staff comes in and says, the president wants
44:51
Speaker 4: to see you in the Oval Office, but pointing to
44:53
Speaker 4: my staff director says he can't come. And, um, I
44:59
Speaker 4: was frankly very worried that I would go to the
45:02
Speaker 4: Oval Office. Trump would then completely invent some phony conversation
45:07
Speaker 4: that never happened.
45:08
Speaker 1: And as he has done many times.
45:10
Speaker 4: Yes.
45:11
Speaker 1: Yes.
45:12
Speaker 4: And to his own staff, I would, I would have
45:14
Speaker 4: no witness. And, uh, So I argued with the guy
45:17
Speaker 4: for a while. And finally, I didn't want the White
45:20
Speaker 4: House to also say that I was unwilling to meet
45:22
Speaker 4: with the president. So I went. So I go into
45:25
Speaker 4: the Oval Office and there's Trump sitting behind this desk.
45:28
Speaker 4: This courageous is the name of this desk made from
45:32
Speaker 4: the timber of the ship. that went through the Arctic.
45:34
Speaker 4: It has a storied history.
45:36
Speaker 3: We got to talk about these desk names.
45:38
Speaker 1: It's not the Resolute Desk, then. I didn't know there
45:40
Speaker 1: was a desk.
45:41
Speaker 4: Well, I think it was, shoot.
45:44
Speaker 3: We'll take your word for it.
45:45
Speaker 1: Yeah.
45:45
Speaker 4: You know, maybe it was Resolute. You've been in there
45:47
Speaker 4: more often than we have. So he comes out behind
45:51
Speaker 4: the desk. And first of all, just seeing him behind
45:53
Speaker 4: the desk.
45:54
Speaker 1: Real bummer.
45:55
Speaker 4: Well, a bummer, but it's like, it was so strange
45:57
Speaker 4: that this person who did not belong behind that desk.
46:05
Speaker 4: You know, here was this guy who had played this
46:07
Speaker 4: successful businessman on TV when he wasn't successful. And now
46:11
Speaker 4: it was like he was playing the role of president
46:13
Speaker 4: when he wasn't really the president. But he comes behind
46:16
Speaker 4: the desk, shakes my hand. And the first thing he
46:19
Speaker 4: says is, you know, you would do a really good job.
46:22
Speaker 4: And when someone says that to you, your natural impulse
46:25
Speaker 4: is to say, well, so do you. But I couldn't
46:29
Speaker 4: bring myself to do it. And there was this very
46:32
Speaker 4: awkward pause, um, where I think I just said something like,
46:37
Speaker 4: thank you.
46:38
Speaker 1: And, uh, also, you know, that if you said something
46:41
Speaker 1: nice about him, that later when you're in a fight,
46:42
Speaker 1: he would tweet like shifty shift used to say great
46:45
Speaker 1: things about me all the time.
46:46
Speaker 4: And now he's like, yeah, well, in fact, during that meeting, uh,
46:49
Speaker 4: we got on the subject. I was trying to steer
46:51
Speaker 4: the conversation away from Russia. I didn't want to have
46:55
Speaker 4: him mischaracterize anything about Russia. Uh, so we talked about
46:58
Speaker 4: prescription drugs at one point. Um, He brought up Elijah Cummings,
47:02
Speaker 4: who had been one of the leading forces in terms
47:06
Speaker 4: of Medicare negotiating drug prices and bringing the price down.
47:10
Speaker 4: And he said, you know, Elijah says a lot of
47:13
Speaker 4: nice things about me. Now, I spent a lot of
47:16
Speaker 4: time with Elijah Cummings, and I never heard him say
47:20
Speaker 4: anything nice about the president. But so– Finally, the president says,
47:27
Speaker 4: you know, do you have everything you need? And I said, no,
47:30
Speaker 4: your staff won't let me see my staff director come
47:32
Speaker 4: with me to watch, look at the documents. And he says, well,
47:36
Speaker 4: I don't have a problem with it. And I thought
47:40
Speaker 4: at this point, I wasn't even aware there were people
47:42
Speaker 4: standing behind me in the Oval Office. But I hear
47:45
Speaker 4: this commotion behind me when the president says that he's
47:49
Speaker 4: fine with having my staff director review the documents with me.
47:52
Speaker 4: They start groaning.
47:53
Speaker 2: Yeah.
47:54
Speaker 4: And the president picks up on this and he says,
47:56
Speaker 4: you know, if they're okay with it, I'm okay with it.
47:57
Speaker 4: Of course, they were not okay with it. But the
48:00
Speaker 4: whole thing was just so otherworldly, just seeing him in
48:07
Speaker 4: that office where he so clearly didn't belong. And I
48:12
Speaker 4: had only one other meeting in the Oval Office with
48:14
Speaker 4: him during his tenure when the Iranians downed one of
48:19
Speaker 4: our drones.
48:20
Speaker 3: And Oh, that was the context for this one. Okay.
48:22
Speaker 2: Yes.
48:23
Speaker 4: And he had invited a number of the congressional leadership
48:28
Speaker 4: to talk about what the U.S. response ought to be.
48:32
Speaker 4: And I think his staff must have told him that
48:37
Speaker 4: the chairs of this committee and that committee and the
48:39
Speaker 4: ranking members were coming without telling him that I was coming.
48:44
Speaker 4: That he knew the chair of the intelligence committee was
48:47
Speaker 4: going to be there, but he didn't put two and
48:49
Speaker 4: two together. Because when he walked into the room, I
48:52
Speaker 4: was sitting across the table from where he sat down.
48:55
Speaker 4: He looked over and I was the first person he saw.
48:57
Speaker 4: I was there with McConnell and the Senate Intel leadership.
49:03
Speaker 4: And so he looks across the table and he sees
49:04
Speaker 4: me and just physically blanches. And he says.
49:09
Speaker 1: Your relationship had soured at this point.
49:12
Speaker 2: Yes.
49:13
Speaker 4: Long before this point. And he says, I'm glad you're here.
49:17
Speaker 4: And I said, well, I'm glad that I.
49:20
Speaker 3: Here.
49:20
Speaker 4: And we were waiting for the speaker who was stuck
49:25
Speaker 4: in the Capitol meeting with a visiting head of state
49:27
Speaker 4: and trying to make small talk. And during this meeting,
49:32
Speaker 4: the outgoing secretary of defense and the incoming Mark Esper
49:36
Speaker 4: were both there because it was the transition. And I'd
49:38
Speaker 4: known Esper for a long time. And he was not
49:42
Speaker 4: an ideologue, and I was kind of optimistic about, you know,
49:45
Speaker 4: what he might be like. I didn't know whether he
49:48
Speaker 4: had the gravitas for the job. I think, you know, frankly,
49:51
Speaker 4: the president didn't want anyone like Mattis again that could
49:55
Speaker 4: stand up to him. But anyway, so just to make
49:59
Speaker 4: small talk, I said, you know, Mr. President, I think
50:01
Speaker 4: you made a great choice with Mark Esper. I've known
50:04
Speaker 4: him a long time.
50:06
Speaker 3: Kiss of death for Esper.
50:09
Speaker 4: So– And the topic, the conversation moved on to other things.
50:13
Speaker 4: And then he comes back to it and he says,
50:16
Speaker 4: just how long have you known Esper?
50:17
Speaker 1: Oh, no. It's so funny.
50:19
Speaker 3: Everything is a conspiracy.
50:20
Speaker 4: I thought, oh, shit, I've killed his nomination.
50:22
Speaker 3: It is interesting. Like, look, credit to Trump for inviting
50:25
Speaker 3: a bipartisan group of officials to talk about that moment
50:29
Speaker 3: with Iran. I mean, later on, he authorized an assassination
50:34
Speaker 3: of a top Iranian general named Qasem Soleimani. and reportedly
50:38
Speaker 3: worked with the Israelis on all sorts of covert campaigns
50:41
Speaker 3: and assassinations and other efforts within Iran.
50:43
Speaker 1: But what was your sense.
50:45
Speaker 3: Of how hawkish he was in that moment in those
50:48
Speaker 3: discussions after that drone was shot down? Because I remember
50:50
Speaker 3: there was a Washington fever pitch of bloodlust for this
50:56
Speaker 3: poor robot that was taken out in the ocean.
50:59
Speaker 4: This was really interesting because I had the distinct impression,
51:04
Speaker 4: you know, watching the other cabinet officials there and Trump's
51:08
Speaker 4: language and body language that he was very reluctant to
51:13
Speaker 4: provoke a war with Iran and that he felt he
51:16
Speaker 4: was being pushed by Pompeo or Bolton or others. And
51:22
Speaker 4: and so he he was generally interested, I think, in
51:25
Speaker 4: hearing other views. Um, and when I had an opportunity
51:29
Speaker 4: to share my own, I emphasized that Congress had not
51:32
Speaker 4: authorized an attack on Iran, uh, that whatever we did,
51:35
Speaker 4: we should do in concert with the international community. Iran
51:38
Speaker 4: would love to split us off from the rest of
51:40
Speaker 4: the world, uh, and isolate us instead of them. And
51:44
Speaker 4: whatever we did had to be proportional. And, uh, it
51:47
Speaker 4: was fascinating. Bolton didn't say a word. Um, and the
51:50
Speaker 4: president never turned him, didn't want his opinion. It was
51:52
Speaker 4: apparent Pence didn't say a word until the very end
51:56
Speaker 4: of the, uh, meeting when I think he had to
51:58
Speaker 4: ask the president's permission to say something.
52:00
Speaker 3: Go to the bathroom.
52:03
Speaker 4: And whatever Pence said was so inconsequential, I can't even
52:05
Speaker 4: remember it. But interestingly, he ended up calling off whatever
52:12
Speaker 4: he had called on. So it does seem like the
52:15
Speaker 4: meeting had an impact on him. And this was interesting
52:19
Speaker 4: in two respects. One, that he actually was interested in
52:21
Speaker 4: a contrary view or having me there, which may not
52:25
Speaker 4: have been his intent, but But then later, when he
52:29
Speaker 4: did authorize this killing of Soleimani, this incredibly provocative act,
52:36
Speaker 4: which really went beyond anything that we were discussing in
52:39
Speaker 4: that meeting, I wondered what had changed. Because we were
52:48
Speaker 4: in the middle of the impeachment at that point, right
52:52
Speaker 4: around the trial time. And you could not foreclose the
52:56
Speaker 4: possibility at all that this was his effort to wag
52:58
Speaker 4: the dog, that whatever reluctance he had of a provocation
53:03
Speaker 4: with Iran in the face of his impeachment and the
53:06
Speaker 4: need to generate Republican support evaporated because at the end
53:11
Speaker 4: of the day, the only thing that mattered to Donald
53:13
Speaker 4: Trump was Donald Trump. Yeah.
53:15
Speaker 1: Did Kevin McCarthy really admit to you that he lied
53:20
Speaker 1: to the press about something you said?
53:22
Speaker 2: Yes.
53:23
Speaker 1: Yeah.
53:24
Speaker 4: I mean, everything I ever needed to know about him,
53:26
Speaker 4: I learned on a plane. This was 2010, and we
53:31
Speaker 4: were seated together on United Airlines flying back to the Capitol.
53:35
Speaker 4: I really don't think I'd spoken two words to him
53:37
Speaker 4: up until that time, not for any dislike, but his
53:40
Speaker 4: district is far from mine. We just never had any
53:42
Speaker 4: opportunity to speak. And we had that kind of conversation
53:45
Speaker 4: you have on a plane before the movie starts and
53:47
Speaker 4: you can escape. It was a total nothing burger who
53:51
Speaker 4: was going to win the midterms. And I said I
53:54
Speaker 4: thought the economy was going to be good and we
53:56
Speaker 4: were going to win the midterms. And he thought the
53:58
Speaker 4: Republicans were going to win the midterms.
53:59
Speaker 3: He got you there.
54:00
Speaker 4: 2010.
54:00
Speaker 3: That was a tough one for us.
54:03
Speaker 4: You know, his forecasting was better than mine. That's true. But,
54:09
Speaker 4: you know, the movie starts and that's the end of
54:12
Speaker 4: the conversation. We get to D.C. We go our separate ways.
54:17
Speaker 4: I don't remember what his position in the Republican Party
54:19
Speaker 4: at the time was, but he gave a press briefing
54:21
Speaker 4: that night unbeknownst to me. And he told the press
54:25
Speaker 4: that I had said that the Republicans were going to
54:28
Speaker 4: win the election, which was absurd and completely false.
54:32
Speaker 3: Literally the opposite.
54:33
Speaker 4: And literally the opposite. And so I didn't know about
54:36
Speaker 4: this that night because I had to wait till the
54:40
Speaker 4: newspaper came out in the morning to even know that
54:43
Speaker 4: he'd given a briefing. So, you know, one of the
54:45
Speaker 4: Hill papers comes out in the morning and it quotes
54:47
Speaker 4: McCarthy as saying, everybody knows Republicans are going to win
54:50
Speaker 4: the election. I sat next to Adam Schiff on the
54:53
Speaker 4: airplane last night, and even he admitted the Republicans were
54:56
Speaker 4: going to win the midterms.
54:58
Speaker 1: Just lying for lying's sake.
55:01
Speaker 4: It was breathtaking. And I made a beeline for the
55:06
Speaker 4: House floor and went right up to the middle of
55:08
Speaker 4: the House floor, and I said, Kevin, I would have
55:11
Speaker 4: thought if we were having a private conversation, it was
55:12
Speaker 4: a private conversation. But if it wasn't, you know you
55:15
Speaker 4: told the press the exact opposite of what I said.
55:18
Speaker 4: And he looks at me and he says, yeah, I know, Adam.
55:22
Speaker 4: but you know how it goes. And I'm like, no, Kevin,
55:25
Speaker 4: I don't know how it goes. You just make shit
55:27
Speaker 4: up and that's how you operate because that's not how
55:29
Speaker 4: I operate. But that is how he operates. And in
55:33
Speaker 4: that respect, he was really made for a moment like
55:35
Speaker 4: this when his party doesn't believe the truth matters at all.
55:40
Speaker 4: You make up your own alternate facts and you say anything,
55:45
Speaker 4: you do anything to get power, to keep power. And
55:50
Speaker 4: in that sense, McCarthy and Trump were really made for
55:53
Speaker 4: each other.
55:54
Speaker 3: I imagine McCarthy kind of pocketing his lie before he
55:57
Speaker 3: puts on like How to Train Your Dragon or whatever,
56:00
Speaker 3: whatever kids movie was out in 21. So you started
56:02
Speaker 3: this by mentioning, we talked about Devin Nunes, another member
56:05
Speaker 3: of the California delegation here. He's the ranking member on
56:09
Speaker 3: the Intel committee in the House side. That used to
56:12
Speaker 3: be a committee where there was more bipartisanship than in
56:16
Speaker 3: other parts of the Congress. But Nunes has gotten... extremely angry,
56:22
Speaker 3: extremely partisan, extremely litigious. He's suing a cow that made
56:27
Speaker 3: fun of him on Twitter.
56:28
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
56:29
Speaker 3: Still, I believe. He might be suing a couple cows.
56:32
Speaker 3: What happened to Devin Nunes in your... Has he always
56:36
Speaker 3: been like this? Were we confused?
56:38
Speaker 4: No, no. He hasn't always been like this. And in fact,
56:41
Speaker 4: for years and years, we got along very well. We
56:46
Speaker 4: worked together very well. He was... In the mold of
56:49
Speaker 4: a John Boehner country club Republican. In fact, one of
56:54
Speaker 4: my favorite expressions that Nunes used during the Tea Party
56:58
Speaker 4: movement is he described the Tea Party as lemmings with
57:01
Speaker 4: suicide vests. I remember that, yeah. And that was where
57:04
Speaker 4: he was coming from in the era before Trump. What happened,
57:09
Speaker 4: I think, to Devin Nunes is he got to know
57:12
Speaker 4: Trump during the campaign. He wasn't, I think, a supporter
57:14
Speaker 4: of Trump's, but Trump was in the Central Valley. They
57:18
Speaker 4: spent a couple of days together. And after the election,
57:22
Speaker 4: Trump offered him a position on the transition team. And
57:25
Speaker 4: he was helping to pick cabinet people. I'm told, I
57:28
Speaker 4: don't know whether it's correct, that he helped pick Mike Flynn,
57:32
Speaker 4: for example. Oh, wow.
57:33
Speaker 2: Good job.
57:34
Speaker 1: Thanks for that.
57:34
Speaker 4: Exactly.
57:35
Speaker 3: Egg on our face, too, for Obama having him in
57:38
Speaker 3: a job. Yeah.
57:39
Speaker 1: Anyway.
57:42
Speaker 4: And I think that when the election was over, And
57:47
Speaker 4: it was clear the Russians had intervened to help Trump.
57:50
Speaker 4: And there were all these unexplained contacts between the Trump
57:52
Speaker 4: campaign and the Russians. The investigation fell to our committee
57:57
Speaker 4: and he was chairing it at the time. And he
57:59
Speaker 4: had to try to both chair it and an independent investigation.
58:03
Speaker 4: And he still wanted to maintain his seat at Donald
58:05
Speaker 4: Trump's table, which would have been a difficult thing for
58:09
Speaker 4: anyone to do. But it was particularly difficult for Devin Nunes.
58:12
Speaker 4: And where things blew up is our very first open
58:17
Speaker 4: hearing of the Russia investigation was with James Comey. Now,
58:21
Speaker 4: Nunes and I knew because we were part of the
58:23
Speaker 4: Gang of Eight that there was an investigation into the
58:26
Speaker 4: Trump campaign that had been confidential. We did not know
58:30
Speaker 4: that Comey was going to make it public at that hearing.
58:33
Speaker 4: And so it was a bombshell to the public, and
58:36
Speaker 4: it was kind of shocking to us as well that
58:39
Speaker 4: this had now become public. And Of course, we now
58:43
Speaker 4: know the whole sordid double standard where the Clinton investigation
58:48
Speaker 4: was very much in the public and the Trump investigation
58:51
Speaker 4: was in secret. So Comey discloses this in this bombshell testimony.
58:58
Speaker 4: The very next night is when Nunes goes on the
59:01
Speaker 4: midnight run. And I have to imagine what happened is
59:05
Speaker 4: that the White House came down on him like a
59:08
Speaker 4: ton of bricks. We were as Democrats on the committee
59:11
Speaker 4: were very well prepared for the hearing with Comey. And
59:14
Speaker 4: we walked through methodically all of the issues that had
59:18
Speaker 4: come up, all of the ties that we knew about
59:20
Speaker 4: at the time between the Trump campaign and Russia, all
59:23
Speaker 4: of the things that needed to be investigated. And on
59:26
Speaker 4: top of that, you had this bombshell. the Republican members
59:28
Speaker 4: were completely fixated on leaks. And I think to the
59:32
Speaker 4: public that was watching, and I think to the president
59:34
Speaker 4: who was watching, uh, from down Pennsylvania Avenue, the hearing
59:38
Speaker 4: was an unmitigated disaster for Trump and the Republicans, at
59:42
Speaker 4: least that's how they viewed it. Um, and so they
59:45
Speaker 4: must've concocted this scheme of the, the midnight run in
59:49
Speaker 4: these documents and this bogus allegation that the Trump campaign
59:54
Speaker 4: was spied on by, uh, Obama. Um, When that blew up,
59:59
Speaker 4: which it blew up within a week when it was
1:00:01
Speaker 4: publicly revealed that the place that Nunes went to get
1:00:04
Speaker 4: these documents from the supposed whistleblower was the White House,
1:00:08
Speaker 4: it was so, I think, utterly humiliating that it really
1:00:14
Speaker 4: forged a much closer bond between Nunes and Trump and
1:00:17
Speaker 4: all of the Trump apologists and acolytes. And I think
1:00:23
Speaker 4: it was this really formative... event in his life that
1:00:29
Speaker 4: really bonded him to this hard right. But, you know,
1:00:37
Speaker 4: this is really what Midnight in Washington is about. It
1:00:41
Speaker 4: really tries to tell the story. I try to tell
1:00:43
Speaker 4: readers how people went through this transformation, how people that
1:00:47
Speaker 4: I worked with and admired and respected came to embrace
1:00:52
Speaker 4: this completely amoral president. That's right.
1:00:56
Speaker 1: Let me ask this question, thinking about all this. You
1:00:59
Speaker 1: helped impeach Donald Trump twice, once for inciting an insurrection
1:01:05
Speaker 1: that you are currently in the middle of investigating. Despite
1:01:08
Speaker 1: all of that, he is gearing up to run for
1:01:10
Speaker 1: president again with the full support of the Republican Party
1:01:12
Speaker 1: and probably half of its voters, at least. Does that
1:01:16
Speaker 1: ever make you wonder that maybe impeachments, investigations... everything that
1:01:23
Speaker 1: the DOJ has done, the FBI, like all of our institutions,
1:01:27
Speaker 1: all of the tools that we have to hold people
1:01:30
Speaker 1: in power accountable are useless at this point because the
1:01:33
Speaker 1: Republican Party is the way it is?
1:01:35
Speaker 4: No, they're not useless. And in fact, the system held,
1:01:40
Speaker 4: if barely, over the last four years. And I think
1:01:43
Speaker 4: that what we did to expose the president's misconduct in
1:01:47
Speaker 4: Ukraine and his incitement of insurrection and what the Justice
1:01:52
Speaker 4: Department and Bob Mueller did to expose what it did
1:01:56
Speaker 4: contributed to the public understanding of who he was and
1:01:59
Speaker 4: the danger that he was.
1:02:01
Speaker 1: And he lost.
1:02:03
Speaker 4: Now, the danger is still here. And as you say,
1:02:07
Speaker 4: it is It is really remarkable, maybe even unfathomable after
1:02:11
Speaker 4: all that, that he is still a viable candidate for president.
1:02:14
Speaker 4: I look at one scenario alone that shows you how
1:02:18
Speaker 4: far we've gone down the rabbit hole. Man runs for
1:02:21
Speaker 4: president on a platform of building a wall that Mexico
1:02:25
Speaker 4: is going to pay for. An absurd promise to begin with.
1:02:30
Speaker 4: He becomes president. Of course, Mexico doesn't pay for a wall.
1:02:33
Speaker 4: A wall doesn't really get built. So his closest advisors,
1:02:37
Speaker 4: Steve Bannon among them, start raising money from his own
1:02:41
Speaker 4: supporters to pay for the wall and then they steal it.
1:02:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, total grift.
1:02:46
Speaker 4: And Trump pardons them. They're stealing from his own people
1:02:50
Speaker 4: and he pardons them.
1:02:52
Speaker 1: But it does seem like the only check on his
1:02:56
Speaker 1: power now and the power of the Republican Party is
1:02:58
Speaker 1: people voting. Laws, institutions, none of that's really holding. Like
1:03:04
Speaker 1: you said, he- He lost, but he lost because people voted.
1:03:08
Speaker 1: He didn't lose because he was impeached and removed from
1:03:10
Speaker 1: office or anyone was held accountable or anyone like that.
1:03:14
Speaker 1: I worry that we get to the point where Trump
1:03:16
Speaker 1: gets the nomination and then we're back to the election
1:03:19
Speaker 1: being about 40,000 votes in three swing states.
1:03:22
Speaker 4: And that's it. Well, you know, the Republican Party right
1:03:25
Speaker 4: now is a cult, an autocratic cult around the person
1:03:31
Speaker 4: of the former president. As long as that's what the
1:03:34
Speaker 4: GOP is, they just need to be beaten. There's no
1:03:37
Speaker 4: negotiating with them. There's no working with them on the big,
1:03:41
Speaker 4: big ticket items because they're just in a different place.
1:03:46
Speaker 4: They're celebrating the Viktor Orbans of the world. They're having
1:03:49
Speaker 4: their conferences in Budapest because wannabe dictator is now their model.
1:03:55
Speaker 4: And as long as that's the case, we have to
1:03:58
Speaker 4: fight tooth and nail to save our democracy, which means–
1:04:03
Speaker 4: We need to fight tooth and nail to get H.R.
1:04:05
Speaker 4: 1 passed and the voting rights legislation passed. And we
1:04:10
Speaker 4: need to pass the Protecting Our Democracy Act. And we
1:04:12
Speaker 4: need to make sure that we overcome any obstacle put
1:04:16
Speaker 4: in our way to mobilize our people to get out.
1:04:20
Speaker 4: There's not much persuasion going on. It's about mobilizing your people.
1:04:25
Speaker 4: And right now, we need to feel that sense of
1:04:27
Speaker 4: mission that this is about mobilizing to save our democracy.
1:04:31
Speaker 4: The system held, but barely. And what they're doing now
1:04:36
Speaker 4: in legislatures around the country in disenfranchising people and equally
1:04:41
Speaker 4: pernicious and stripping independent elections officials of their powers and
1:04:45
Speaker 4: giving them over to partisan legislatures and boards, they are
1:04:50
Speaker 4: setting up to do insurrection by other means. On the
1:04:55
Speaker 4: January 6th Select Committee, you know, we are very mindful
1:05:00
Speaker 4: of the fact that there may be another violent attack
1:05:02
Speaker 4: on the Capitol. But my own feeling is if there is,
1:05:06
Speaker 4: it will fail like the last one. If we lose
1:05:09
Speaker 4: our democracy, it's gonna be what's going on around the
1:05:11
Speaker 4: country right now. In setting up to succeed, for the
1:05:15
Speaker 4: Republicans to succeed, where they failed in the last presidential election,
1:05:19
Speaker 4: that is to overturn the results if they lose. That
1:05:22
Speaker 4: to me is the most pressing risk.
1:05:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, violent agreement at this table, like don't doubt
1:05:29
Speaker 3: for one second your sincerity, but you're right. I mean,
1:05:33
Speaker 3: the system held, but the system is being tinkered with
1:05:35
Speaker 3: and changed as we speak in state legislatures. And, you know,
1:05:39
Speaker 3: like you're full-throated about the need for HR1 to pass,
1:05:42
Speaker 3: but it seems dead in the water. No one, we've
1:05:45
Speaker 3: got Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, others in the Senate who
1:05:47
Speaker 3: will not budge on the filibuster. So people like us,
1:05:50
Speaker 3: we feel like we're tearing our hair out. You know,
1:05:52
Speaker 3: like we're like the political Cassandras of 2020, right? you
1:05:56
Speaker 3: can see this train coming mix a couple of metaphors here.
1:05:59
Speaker 3: We're all about to get just destroyed by gerrymandering voter suppression,
1:06:04
Speaker 3: voter subversion laws. And, you know, these institutionalists dinosaurs in
1:06:10
Speaker 3: the Senate won't do what needs to be done to
1:06:12
Speaker 3: change things. And I guess I'm just sort of being
1:06:15
Speaker 3: pissed off out loud, but I'm wondering what you'd say
1:06:17
Speaker 3: to activists who sort of share this frustration that we feel. Yeah.
1:06:21
Speaker 4: Well, look, I, I, I share the sense of alarm. Um,
1:06:25
Speaker 4: I had lunch with a couple of friends of mine,
1:06:27
Speaker 4: married couple, both in their mid-90s a month ago. And
1:06:31
Speaker 4: I asked them, have you ever seen anything like this?
1:06:35
Speaker 4: And they said, we've never been more concerned about the
1:06:37
Speaker 4: fate of our country and our democracy than we are now.
1:06:40
Speaker 4: We remember the Depression and World War II and Vietnam
1:06:44
Speaker 4: and Korea. We never, during any of those times, wondered
1:06:47
Speaker 4: whether the country would go on as a democracy, but
1:06:50
Speaker 4: we do worry about it now. And, you know, I
1:06:53
Speaker 4: wrote this book because I wanted to sound the alarm
1:06:55
Speaker 4: about this, but I also wrote the book because I
1:06:57
Speaker 4: want to give people optimism that there is a path
1:07:00
Speaker 4: out of this. And to me, what I found most
1:07:04
Speaker 4: inspiring over this really dark time are seeing some of
1:07:07
Speaker 4: those heroic people who did step up and who ought
1:07:10
Speaker 4: to be an encouragement to all of us. I remember
1:07:13
Speaker 4: vividly watching Marie Ivanovich walk into this hearing room. someone
1:07:20
Speaker 4: who had been attacked and vilified by the president and
1:07:22
Speaker 4: Giuliani and by others to the point where she was
1:07:27
Speaker 4: called as our ambassador to get on the next plane
1:07:31
Speaker 4: out of Ukraine because they couldn't vouch for her safety anymore.
1:07:35
Speaker 4: And she comes in, she sits down at this witness
1:07:38
Speaker 4: table alone, staring down the most hostile Republican members in
1:07:44
Speaker 4: the Congress, some of whom, one of them was put
1:07:46
Speaker 4: on the committee just to be a hostile member, Jim Jordan. And,
1:07:52
Speaker 4: you know, she had surfed in these dangerous places around
1:07:54
Speaker 4: the world. She had been told by the president's people
1:07:59
Speaker 4: and the State Department not to testify. And she defied them.
1:08:04
Speaker 4: And had she not done that, we might never have
1:08:06
Speaker 4: known the full story of what the president did in
1:08:09
Speaker 4: withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid from
1:08:12
Speaker 4: an ally at war with Russia to help them, to
1:08:15
Speaker 4: get them to help them cheat in the election. people
1:08:18
Speaker 4: like her ought to give us hope. And the thing
1:08:24
Speaker 4: is that none of us are in a position like
1:08:26
Speaker 4: she is to make that kind of a difference, but
1:08:29
Speaker 4: we're all in a position to make a difference. And
1:08:33
Speaker 4: we just need to find out where we can do
1:08:35
Speaker 4: that in our lives. And if we do that, we're
1:08:40
Speaker 4: going to get through this. But the more we do,
1:08:44
Speaker 4: will determine how long it's going to take to get
1:08:47
Speaker 4: through this time. I have no doubt we will look
1:08:49
Speaker 4: back on this as a successful democracy about an awful
1:08:55
Speaker 4: gauntlet we ran through as a country. We will wonder
1:08:58
Speaker 4: how it was possible. But we will look back on this.
1:09:03
Speaker 4: When you're in the midst of it, it's hard to
1:09:04
Speaker 4: see how it comes to an end. But we'll get
1:09:08
Speaker 4: through this. And it will require us all, especially the
1:09:13
Speaker 4: activist core, not to despair. We don't have the luxury
1:09:17
Speaker 4: of despair. As the speaker likes to say, we don't agonize,
1:09:21
Speaker 4: we organize. We have to organize.
1:09:24
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I've been an optimist forever, worked for
1:09:27
Speaker 1: Barack Obama. It's hard not to be.
1:09:31
Speaker 4: And you're a Red Sox fan, so that's not been easy.
1:09:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're all Red Sox fans here, so we get
1:09:34
Speaker 1: that too. No, but I'm just trying to see the
1:09:37
Speaker 1: path out, right? Have you guys talked about a backup
1:09:40
Speaker 1: plan on voting rights? There's all these great ideas. We
1:09:43
Speaker 1: know what it takes to protect our democracy, not just
1:09:46
Speaker 1: because some people stand up once in a while, which
1:09:47
Speaker 1: is admirable, but like in a systemic way with laws,
1:09:50
Speaker 1: you have to protect our democracy act that you're trying
1:09:52
Speaker 1: to push. We got voting rights legislation. People have talked
1:09:54
Speaker 1: about amending the electoral act to make sure that there's,
1:09:58
Speaker 1: you know, we're not overturning elections, but none of this
1:10:01
Speaker 1: is getting done before the 2022 elections or even the
1:10:04
Speaker 1: 2024 elections with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema there. Joe
1:10:07
Speaker 1: Manchin's not even going to remove the filibuster to fucking get,
1:10:10
Speaker 1: you know, prevent default at this point. So like, have
1:10:14
Speaker 1: you talked to Speaker Pelosi or anyone else in leadership
1:10:17
Speaker 1: about like, what are we going to do to protect
1:10:19
Speaker 1: our democracy in advance of the midterms in 2024 if
1:10:23
Speaker 1: we can't get anything else done? Or is it just, hey,
1:10:25
Speaker 1: we got to organize and we got to get out
1:10:27
Speaker 1: the vote, which is what the White House has sort
1:10:28
Speaker 1: of been saying.
1:10:29
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:10:30
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I think there are a couple of tracks.
1:10:34
Speaker 4: One of the most important, and I think the president
1:10:37
Speaker 4: is exactly right about this, is making sure that we
1:10:40
Speaker 4: have a positive record of achievement for the American people
1:10:44
Speaker 4: to run on in the midterms. And that means passing
1:10:48
Speaker 4: the Build Back Better Act and the infrastructure bill, which
1:10:51
Speaker 4: we will get done. And it won't be pretty. It
1:10:54
Speaker 4: hasn't been pretty already, but it will get done. And
1:10:57
Speaker 4: when it gets done, that will be huge for the
1:10:59
Speaker 4: American people. And this is, I think, fully integral to
1:11:04
Speaker 4: saving our democracy, too, because One of the reasons we
1:11:07
Speaker 4: are where we are and our democracy is so on
1:11:10
Speaker 4: edge is that the economy, the global economy has changed
1:11:13
Speaker 4: so dramatically in the last few decades with globalization and
1:11:17
Speaker 4: automation and millions of people in the middle class desperately
1:11:22
Speaker 4: worried about falling out of the middle class. That produced
1:11:27
Speaker 4: very ripe, fertile soil for a despot, for a demagogue,
1:11:32
Speaker 4: someone with a quick answer to their difficulties, that answer being,
1:11:35
Speaker 4: It's because of all the people who don't look like you.
1:11:38
Speaker 4: And a democracy at the end of the day, it
1:11:40
Speaker 4: has to prove that it can deliver. And so these
1:11:45
Speaker 4: bills that would really deliver for the American people in
1:11:48
Speaker 4: a way we haven't seen since the New Deal, I
1:11:50
Speaker 4: think are also part of the pro-democracy agenda. But in
1:11:54
Speaker 4: addition to the near-term plan of getting those bills passed,
1:11:58
Speaker 4: we need a midterm plan, and not just for the midterms,
1:12:01
Speaker 4: but we need a plan to end the gerrymander. which
1:12:06
Speaker 4: makes the House unrepresentative of a majority. It essentially guarantees
1:12:11
Speaker 4: minority rule for large periods of each decade until we
1:12:14
Speaker 4: can overcome it. We need to rebalance the Senate so
1:12:18
Speaker 4: it's more representative of the American people, so you don't
1:12:21
Speaker 4: have 23% of the people in the country controlling 60%
1:12:24
Speaker 4: of the votes in the Senate. We need to do
1:12:26
Speaker 4: away with the filibuster, and we need to get to
1:12:28
Speaker 4: that point in the multi-state compact where we effectively do
1:12:32
Speaker 4: away with the Electoral College. so that the majority elects
1:12:35
Speaker 4: the president, the majority controls the Senate, and the majority
1:12:38
Speaker 4: controls the House. As long as we have a minority
1:12:41
Speaker 4: controlling things, how long can a democracy persist if a
1:12:47
Speaker 4: minority of the voters are running the country? And so
1:12:54
Speaker 4: in addition to the very near-term imperative of getting these
1:12:59
Speaker 4: New Deal bills passed, we We're going to need to
1:13:04
Speaker 4: make these structural changes. And in terms of what happens
1:13:08
Speaker 4: if we can't get HR1 passed and what happens if
1:13:11
Speaker 4: we can't get the voting rights stuff through, we are
1:13:16
Speaker 4: pursuing both the legislative track and the filibuster track, the
1:13:22
Speaker 4: do whatever we can to persuade the mansions and the
1:13:24
Speaker 4: cinemas track. But also we are trying to develop a
1:13:29
Speaker 4: Stacey Abrams-like effort in all 50 states. We're not waiting
1:13:33
Speaker 4: to see whether we succeed in the legislative path because
1:13:36
Speaker 4: we can't. What she demonstrated is you can't wait until
1:13:39
Speaker 4: election time to develop a relationship suddenly with people who
1:13:42
Speaker 4: want to vote for you. So those things are going
1:13:45
Speaker 4: on contemporaneously. I really do think, and I've communicated this
1:13:49
Speaker 4: to the White House, that we need to bring a
1:13:54
Speaker 4: sense of urgency, though, to the voting rights issue as
1:13:59
Speaker 4: if it's existential to our democracy because it is. And
1:14:02
Speaker 4: it's existential now. to the presidency. If they can gerrymander
1:14:07
Speaker 4: their way into the majority and the clock is ticking,
1:14:11
Speaker 4: and Kevin McCarthy, God forbid, should ever get anywhere near
1:14:13
Speaker 4: the Speaker's office, they may succeed where they failed in
1:14:17
Speaker 4: overturning the election. Last question.
1:14:21
Speaker 1: I know you're now the DCCC Battleground Finance Chair. Can
1:14:25
Speaker 1: you commit to sending us fewer emails with all capital
1:14:29
Speaker 1: letters screaming at us to donate?
1:14:32
Speaker 4: And text that's a really tough one all right it
1:14:36
Speaker 4: is all right who's.
1:14:37
Speaker 1: Opening that shit come on i'm gonna donate i will
1:14:41
Speaker 1: donate i'll donate more if you stop emailing yeah no
1:14:44
Speaker 1: i think you.
1:14:44
Speaker 4: Should what if i just cut down on the capital letters.
1:14:47
Speaker 1: But yeah like just like our democracy is over alarm
1:14:50
Speaker 1: alarm emoji that kind of stuff yeah that's what i'm
1:14:53
Speaker 1: looking at fewer emojis well unlike kevin mccarthy um We
1:14:57
Speaker 1: will make sure that everyone knows you said that we
1:14:58
Speaker 1: will win the midterms.
1:15:00
Speaker 4: We will win the midterms.
1:15:01
Speaker 1: In 2021, it's broadcast for all to hear.
1:15:03
Speaker 4: Let me just give people a bit of optimism about that.
1:15:08
Speaker 4: We had a special election a couple months ago in
1:15:10
Speaker 4: New Mexico, as you know. Our candidate not only won,
1:15:13
Speaker 4: but did better than Biden performed in the district. And
1:15:18
Speaker 4: that's early, but it's suggestive that our people are still
1:15:22
Speaker 4: highly motivated to turn out. Without Trump on the ballot,
1:15:25
Speaker 4: their people are less motivated. We need to make sure
1:15:30
Speaker 4: we can only control our own voters. We need to
1:15:33
Speaker 4: make sure that we communicate with them, that we give
1:15:36
Speaker 4: them the information, the reason to vote, that we perform
1:15:41
Speaker 4: for them. We can only do our part. And I'm
1:15:45
Speaker 4: confident if we do that, we will hold on to
1:15:48
Speaker 4: the House. We'll gain ground in the Senate. We can
1:15:50
Speaker 4: do away with the filibuster if we haven't already. And
1:15:54
Speaker 4: we can begin the process of turning the page and
1:15:59
Speaker 4: restore our democracy.
1:16:01
Speaker 1: We will end on that note of optimism. Congressman Adam Schiff,
1:16:04
Speaker 1: thanks for joining.
1:16:05
Speaker 4: Pleasure. Thanks for having me.
1:16:11
Speaker 1: Thanks to Adam Schiff for joining us. And I hope
1:16:14
Speaker 1: you all have a great day and we'll talk to
1:16:16
Speaker 1: you on Thursday.
1:16:17
Speaker 2: Build back, boot her.
1:16:20
Speaker 3: I was thinking more like Biden's spooky agenda or spooky fall. Also,
1:16:25
Speaker 3: the terrifying agenda.
1:16:27
Speaker 1: The death of the agenda. The graveyard. Yeah, we get
1:16:30
Speaker 1: all that. You forgot about all that, too. Trick or treat.
1:16:33
Speaker 3: There's like a candy metaphor, like plucking all the items
1:16:35
Speaker 3: out of the bill.
1:16:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, more trick than treat for Biden and the Democrats.
1:16:38
Speaker 1: There we go. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
1:16:45
Speaker 1: The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is
1:16:48
Speaker 1: Flavia Casas. Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez
1:16:52
Speaker 1: is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
1:16:56
Speaker 1: Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator,
1:16:59
Speaker 1: Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Brian Semmel, Caroline Reston, Madison Hallman,
1:17:05
Speaker 1: and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
1:17:08
Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, and Milo Kim, who film and
1:17:11
Speaker 1: upload these episodes as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.