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"Biden cancels student debt!" · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Jon Favreau
0:23
Speaker 1: is out of the office this week, but we are
0:24
Speaker 1: very excited to have Melissa Marie. the co-host of the
0:27
Speaker 1: amazing Strict Scrutiny Podcast joining me today. Melissa, thanks for
0:30
Speaker 1: being here.
0:31
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
0:33
Speaker 1: We're very excited to have you because today we're going
0:35
Speaker 1: to talk about quote-unquote law things, and it's very important
0:38
Speaker 1: to have a quote-unquote law person here to talk about it.
0:40
Speaker 1: So this is great.
0:42
Speaker 2: Law-ish.
0:43
Speaker 3: Law-ish.
0:44
Speaker 1: It's law-adjacent things, which is still a zone that John
0:48
Speaker 1: and I should never enter on our own. So thank
0:50
Speaker 1: you for chaperoning me through this.
0:51
Speaker 2: Well, I just want to put out there that John
0:53
Speaker 2: Lovett did get a really good score on the LSAT.
0:55
Speaker 2: So he could technically step in at any time here.
0:58
Speaker 1: Well, I would like to point out that I took
1:00
Speaker 1: not one, not two, but three common law classes when
1:03
Speaker 1: I was in college. So I feel like I'm at
1:05
Speaker 1: least on the outside looking in, but I'm kind of
1:07
Speaker 1: in the zone.
1:08
Speaker 2: I mean, you could be on the Supreme Court with
1:10
Speaker 2: that background. Don't count yourself out.
1:14
Speaker 1: Technically and constitutionally, I could be.
1:15
Speaker 3: Okay.
1:16
Speaker 1: On today's show, Donald Trump kind of sort of mounts
1:20
Speaker 1: a defense in the rapidly moving criminal investigation into his
1:23
Speaker 1: habit of illegally storing highly classified documents at his beach house.
1:27
Speaker 1: President Joe Biden makes a huge and long awaited decision
1:30
Speaker 1: to cancel up to $ 20, 000 of student debt. White House
1:33
Speaker 1: Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will come on to tell us
1:35
Speaker 1: all about it. And finally, Arizona Secretary of State Kitty
1:39
Speaker 1: Hobbs will join me to talk about her campaign for governor.
1:42
Speaker 1: against the most MAGA of MAGA candidates. But first, as
1:46
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1:50
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2:51
Speaker 1: slash crookedmedia. That was exhausting. I honestly don't know how
2:55
Speaker 1: John does it every week, twice a week. All right,
2:58
Speaker 1: let's get to the news. We are learning more and
3:00
Speaker 1: more about Mar-a-Lago and what exactly was in Trump's possession.
3:03
Speaker 1: According to a May 10th letter to Trump lawyers from
3:05
Speaker 1: the National Archives, Trump tried to delay the FBI's review
3:09
Speaker 1: of the records he turned over in January. There were
3:11
Speaker 1: 700 pages of classified documents in his possession. And some
3:16
Speaker 1: of them contained what a source told the Washington Post were, quote,
3:19
Speaker 1: the most sensitive secrets we hold. All right, Melissa. First,
3:25
Speaker 1: I just got to ask, who among us has it
3:28
Speaker 1: misplaced 700 classified documents?
3:31
Speaker 2: I mean, Dan, who among us hasn't taken the nuclear
3:34
Speaker 2: football home because you had to do some work? later
3:38
Speaker 2: that night. I mean, this is an easy mistake to make.
3:43
Speaker 1: I mean, 700.
3:45
Speaker 4: Yes.
3:45
Speaker 1: I mean, you go home, you're watching Jeanine Pirro. You
3:49
Speaker 1: might have to launch a tactical nuclear strike. So you
3:51
Speaker 1: have to have it.
3:52
Speaker 2: You got to bring, you got to have it with you. Yeah.
3:54
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a work from home WFH, right? Not WTF, WFH. Yes.
4:03
Speaker 1: Um, in terms of a potential criminal prosecution as we
4:07
Speaker 1: look at this letter. Help us understand what's more significant,
4:12
Speaker 1: the amount of documents, the types of secrets held in
4:15
Speaker 1: the document, or the fact that it appears that Trump
4:18
Speaker 1: lawyers lied about having the documents to begin with.
4:22
Speaker 2: Maybe none of that, right? Oh, interesting. Twist. One of
4:28
Speaker 2: the things I thought was really revealing about this letter,
4:31
Speaker 2: and again, the idea that the Trump people wanted this
4:34
Speaker 2: letter out in public is Utterly baffling to me because
4:37
Speaker 2: I think it's incredibly damning for the former president. But
4:40
Speaker 2: one of the things the letter documents and makes quite
4:43
Speaker 2: clear is that there was this constant back and forth
4:46
Speaker 2: with the former administration about the return of the documents,
4:50
Speaker 2: whether the documents, in fact, were privileged, who held the privilege.
4:54
Speaker 2: And The picture that you get coming out of this
4:57
Speaker 2: is that there's almost a willful and intentional effort to
5:03
Speaker 2: keep the documents out of the hands of the National Archives,
5:06
Speaker 2: to not return them. And if you think about some
5:09
Speaker 2: of the statutory predicates that were identified in that search
5:14
Speaker 2: warrant for Mar-a-Lago, among them is the Espionage Act. And
5:18
Speaker 2: one of the elements of the Espionage Act is willfully
5:22
Speaker 2: refusing to turn over documents that are sensitive to the
5:27
Speaker 2: national security. And just a lot of what you see
5:30
Speaker 2: documented in this letter seems to be about willful, intentional,
5:35
Speaker 2: purposeful retention of sensitive items.
5:39
Speaker 1: We've been debating back and forth on this show for
5:40
Speaker 1: the last two weeks about why Trump might have wanted
5:44
Speaker 1: these documents. He is not someone who is known to
5:47
Speaker 1: care about policy. He famously did not read his briefings,
5:52
Speaker 1: classified or otherwise. There was even some anecdotes in some
5:55
Speaker 1: of these books that he preferred pictures and over words
5:59
Speaker 1: in his documents.
6:01
Speaker 2: I mean, who doesn't? Who doesn't, Dan?
6:04
Speaker 1: That's right. In today's meme economy, there would be a
6:06
Speaker 1: much more efficient way to get President's briefed up on
6:10
Speaker 1: very sensitive things.
6:11
Speaker 2: Why can't the Constitution just be gifts, Dan?
6:13
Speaker 4: Really?
6:14
Speaker 1: That's right. Do you have a theory about why he
6:19
Speaker 1: might have wanted these? Anything you have gotten from any
6:22
Speaker 1: of the various statements or documents that suggest why he–
6:24
Speaker 1: because he very clearly– this was not an accident. He
6:26
Speaker 1: clearly fought hard to keep these, as you pointed out.
6:28
Speaker 1: But do you have any thoughts on why that might be?
6:31
Speaker 2: So why release the letter? I can only imagine that
6:35
Speaker 2: the release of the letter is part of this sort
6:38
Speaker 2: of grievance-style politics where he has imagined himself the victim
6:44
Speaker 2: of a dark Brandon slash Biden-led campaign to bring him down,
6:49
Speaker 2: even though he's not doing anything but hanging out with
6:53
Speaker 2: 700 pages of classified documents at his beach club. That's
6:58
Speaker 2: the only reason I can think of for releasing this.
7:01
Speaker 2: Why have the documents? That, I think, is a different question.
7:05
Speaker 2: And I can't help but read that happening without sort
7:10
Speaker 2: of reflecting back on the first Trump impeachment where the
7:15
Speaker 2: whole question, I mean, this is like now we're really
7:17
Speaker 2: reaching into the vault. The first Trump impeachment was all
7:20
Speaker 2: about whether or not the president had withheld aid to
7:24
Speaker 2: the Ukraine in exchange for the president of the Ukraine
7:28
Speaker 2: Zelensky providing him with damning information about who he then
7:33
Speaker 2: identified as his political rival, Joe Biden and anyone in
7:36
Speaker 2: Joe Biden's family. I think we saw in that impeachment,
7:41
Speaker 2: that first impeachment, someone who it was alleged would go
7:45
Speaker 2: to any lengths to best a political opponent, including using
7:50
Speaker 2: whatever resources of the United States were at his disposal. And,
7:54
Speaker 2: you know, when I think about these 700 pages of
7:56
Speaker 2: classified documents, That's what I think about. Were they there
8:00
Speaker 2: because he viewed them as being at his disposal for
8:06
Speaker 2: leveraging and perhaps obtaining an advantage in something else that
8:10
Speaker 2: we don't even know about? So there's no good reason
8:14
Speaker 2: for someone to have 700 pages of classified documents in
8:17
Speaker 2: what is likely a very humid basement in Mar-a-Lago. I
8:21
Speaker 2: grew up in Florida. I guarantee you it's an incredibly
8:23
Speaker 2: humid basement. But Again, I think you can't think about
8:27
Speaker 2: it without sort of reflecting back on some of the
8:30
Speaker 2: different episodes in this man's tenure as president where we
8:33
Speaker 2: just saw a lot of unorthodox use of American resources
8:38
Speaker 2: and alleged unorthodox uses of American resources.
8:43
Speaker 1: The other reason that I think Trump may have quite
8:47
Speaker 1: stupidly released this letter is, and I can't believe I'm
8:50
Speaker 1: about to say what I'm going to say because it
8:51
Speaker 1: makes me really question a lot of my life decisions,
8:53
Speaker 1: but John Solomon, who is a noted conspiracy theorist crank
8:59
Speaker 1: who wrote a lot of the fan fiction about Trump
9:02
Speaker 1: in Ukraine during the first impeachment, went on Steve Bannon's
9:07
Speaker 1: podcast to talk about the letter. And John Solomon, in
9:09
Speaker 1: addition to being someone who was fired from the Hill
9:13
Speaker 1: for lying, which is basically– the Hill is a place
9:15
Speaker 1: you can't get fired from. It's like getting– it's just
9:20
Speaker 1: like hard to imagine that ever happening to someone. Solomon
9:24
Speaker 1: is also Donald Trump's hand-picked representative to the National Archives.
9:29
Speaker 1: He is the person who was supposed to communicate with
9:31
Speaker 1: the National Archives about various documents, like President Obama, when
9:36
Speaker 1: he was writing his memoir, was constantly getting papers from
9:40
Speaker 1: the National Archives to look at. And there was this
9:41
Speaker 1: very specific process with lawyers and high-level staff members who
9:45
Speaker 1: were communicating, and they were being returned all that. And
9:47
Speaker 1: Trump has this complete nut job doing it. But so
9:49
Speaker 1: John– John Solomon went on CBN's podcast. And just the
9:53
Speaker 1: way we know that Trump released this letter is it
9:56
Speaker 1: was released on John Solomon's website, which I'm sure is.
9:59
Speaker 2: Like– Very normal. Very normal.
10:01
Speaker 1: It's super normal. That's a traditional legal way of getting
10:04
Speaker 1: information out is on a website that's probably banned in
10:08
Speaker 1: a lot of places. But in it, John Solomon argued
10:13
Speaker 1: that the letter proved that Joe Biden masterminded– signed off on,
10:21
Speaker 1: was somehow involved in the raid at Mar-a-Lago. And just
10:26
Speaker 1: so we can dispense with that, and you may have
10:28
Speaker 1: more to add here, but the specific mention of President
10:32
Speaker 1: Biden in the letter has to do with the claims,
10:35
Speaker 1: the completely ridiculous claims of executive privilege that former President
10:41
Speaker 1: Trump was trying to make over these documents. Presidents are
10:43
Speaker 1: the ones who make decisions about executive privilege, just as
10:46
Speaker 1: it was President Biden who made decisions about what documents
10:49
Speaker 1: would be released to the January 6th committee and those
10:51
Speaker 1: sorts of things. It has nothing to do with the raid.
10:53
Speaker 1: You need like several spools of red string to get
10:57
Speaker 1: to where they're going. But it was part of this
11:00
Speaker 1: effort to try to blame Biden, as you said, to
11:02
Speaker 1: make himself the victim of some conspiracy.
11:05
Speaker 2: Well, so let me just like make one amendment to
11:07
Speaker 2: what you said. And I agree with all of that.
11:09
Speaker 2: This is part of the victimization narrative that is being spun.
11:14
Speaker 2: It was not a raid of.
11:15
Speaker 1: Mar-a-Lago, right?
11:16
Speaker 2: I think that's important to underscore. There was a validly
11:20
Speaker 2: obtained and executed search warrant. Like someone had to go
11:24
Speaker 2: to a judge and provide probable cause for the search.
11:28
Speaker 2: And that was all provided. And it was all on
11:30
Speaker 2: the up and up. And so to say that it
11:32
Speaker 2: was a raid, I think does play into this narrative
11:34
Speaker 2: that he is somehow a victim who has been wronged,
11:37
Speaker 2: which I don't think is the case. But Again, I
11:40
Speaker 2: do think this is part of this narrative where he
11:43
Speaker 2: has been besieged and beleaguered and Joe Biden is a
11:48
Speaker 2: puppet master orchestrating everything.
11:50
Speaker 1: And the other part of this, and this sort of
11:53
Speaker 1: goes with everything that Trump has done, right? It's everything
11:56
Speaker 1: he said. They planted the evidence. They planted the evidence,
12:00
Speaker 1: but the evidence they planted... was not actually a crime
12:03
Speaker 1: because I had this mysterious, magical standing order to declassify everything.
12:07
Speaker 2: I declassified it before it was planted, which was the
12:11
Speaker 2: most prescient thing I've ever done because I'm a genius.
12:14
Speaker 4: Yes.
12:15
Speaker 1: All of those things is all part of the embodiment
12:20
Speaker 1: of the Trumpian right-wing media strategy that Steve Bannon once
12:23
Speaker 1: called flood the zone with shit, which is you just
12:25
Speaker 1: throw everything you possibly can, even if it is ridiculous, contradictory, absurd,
12:32
Speaker 1: at the wall, distract the media, distract Democrats, hope that
12:36
Speaker 1: less engaged voters just throw up their arms and say,
12:40
Speaker 1: who the fuck knows what to believe. And to also
12:43
Speaker 1: give as many very thin reeds to all the people
12:48
Speaker 1: who are predisposed to stick with Trump, to give them
12:52
Speaker 1: a reason to stick with Trump, to hang on to,
12:53
Speaker 1: to stick with Trump. And It doesn't matter how ridiculous,
12:57
Speaker 1: that's sort of what they're doing. The problem they face is,
13:03
Speaker 1: and this is where I really want to get your take,
13:04
Speaker 1: is when that has worked quite successfully in the past,
13:08
Speaker 1: including in both impeachments, it is because it was happening
13:12
Speaker 1: in the realm of politics, where the audience was voters
13:18
Speaker 1: in a deeply polarized country, powered by right-wing propaganda, or
13:23
Speaker 1: Congress and the Senate where you had politicians who had
13:26
Speaker 1: political incentives to behave certain ways. Where I think Trump
13:31
Speaker 1: is struggling here is this is not a case that
13:34
Speaker 1: is necessarily going to take place in the realm of politics.
13:37
Speaker 1: He's not trying to persuade Susan Collins to stick with
13:40
Speaker 1: her party, or Lisa Murkowski to stick with her party,
13:42
Speaker 1: or give some talking points to Lindsey Graham. This is
13:44
Speaker 1: going to happen in the court of law. And so
13:48
Speaker 1: in that context, there's been this running debate among people
13:53
Speaker 1: on Twitter, which is obviously very important, about whether the
13:56
Speaker 1: Department of Justice simply executed this legally authorized court approved
14:03
Speaker 1: search warrant that was done in a very peaceful fashion,
14:05
Speaker 1: not a raid, because they needed to get these documents back,
14:08
Speaker 1: which seemed to be quite sensitive, or because it's part
14:11
Speaker 1: of an actual effort to seek evidence for a potential
14:14
Speaker 1: criminal case against them. Is there anything you've learned over
14:17
Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks that gives you a clue
14:19
Speaker 1: as to which direction you think this is going?
14:21
Speaker 2: So I love the distinction that you draw between law
14:24
Speaker 2: and politics. I also love the idea of just flinging
14:28
Speaker 2: shit at the wall because it reminds me of going
14:30
Speaker 2: to the Oakland zoo, which has this chimpanzee enclosure. And
14:34
Speaker 2: basically these chimpanzees literally just fling fecal matter at each
14:38
Speaker 2: other all day. So I just like had this image
14:40
Speaker 2: of Steve Bannon, like in an enclosure, just flinging.
14:43
Speaker 1: Well, I, I would say I am a, my family
14:45
Speaker 1: is a member of the Oakland zoo. So we caught,
14:47
Speaker 1: we are very frequent viewers of, uh, said, uh, it's
14:50
Speaker 1: very popular in my family. Uh, the chimpanzee enclosure.
14:54
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I lived in Oakland for a long
14:56
Speaker 2: time and spent a lot of time at the Oakland Zoo.
14:58
Speaker 2: So I have seen all of this, the chimpanzee media
15:01
Speaker 2: strategy up close. But I think you're right. This will
15:06
Speaker 2: play out differently because it's not being reviewed in the
15:10
Speaker 2: court of public opinion, but instead in a court of law.
15:14
Speaker 2: And I think you're seeing some of the limitations of
15:16
Speaker 2: that strategy already. So, you know, for example, we know
15:21
Speaker 2: that on Monday, the former president, filed a complaint in
15:26
Speaker 2: the Southern District of Florida before Judge Eileen Cannon, who
15:30
Speaker 2: is a Trump appointee, to basically have a special master
15:35
Speaker 2: review the boxes and, you know, make his own determination
15:38
Speaker 2: about what could be returned to the president, but also
15:40
Speaker 2: to have some of these documents returned to the former
15:44
Speaker 2: president because they are, quote unquote, his. And Judge Cannon
15:48
Speaker 2: is who is a Trump appointee, kind of wrote back
15:52
Speaker 2: in this sort of letter order. Actually, it wasn't a letter.
15:58
Speaker 2: She sort of clapped back in this order to the
16:02
Speaker 2: litigants that they had to basically rewrite their filing in
16:08
Speaker 2: a way that was actually legible to the equivalent of
16:15
Speaker 2: what even is this? Like WTF? Like you wrote a
16:18
Speaker 2: complaint asking for relief. You didn't specify the kind of
16:21
Speaker 2: relief you wanted. You didn't specify a theory of law
16:24
Speaker 2: that you could predicate your case on. You didn't identify
16:28
Speaker 2: any evidence that made you entitled to this kind of relief.
16:32
Speaker 2: It's just seriously WTF? What even is this? And again,
16:37
Speaker 2: if you read that complaint, it is basically a 20-page
16:40
Speaker 2: rant about that's intended to be a press release, talking
16:44
Speaker 2: about the Biden witch hunt, talking about all these things,
16:47
Speaker 2: like he's a victim. It's not a legal filing. And
16:50
Speaker 2: she kind of said, this is not a legal filing.
16:53
Speaker 2: If you're going to do this in a court of law,
16:56
Speaker 2: you actually have to do law. And so that to
17:00
Speaker 2: me is one of the chief distinctions. They're not going
17:02
Speaker 2: to be able to get away with the kind of
17:04
Speaker 2: shit-flinging media strategy that I think works in politics, in
17:09
Speaker 2: a court of law, even before someone who is on
17:13
Speaker 2: the bench because Donald Trump appointed them. I mean, there
17:16
Speaker 2: might even be limits to what he has done as
17:19
Speaker 2: president to shape the judiciary in the way these kinds
17:22
Speaker 2: of filings will be received by the court. So that,
17:26
Speaker 2: I think, is the most important distinction here. And I
17:29
Speaker 2: think we're going to see that play out.
17:31
Speaker 1: One of the funniest parts about that is, and I'm
17:34
Speaker 1: getting this from a New York Times article from the
17:36
Speaker 1: other day, which is in that Tuesday hearing, the judge
17:40
Speaker 1: told Trump's attorneys, who according to the New York Times,
17:43
Speaker 1: neither of them were licensed to practice in the state
17:45
Speaker 1: of Florida.
17:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a whole thing about whether they had
17:47
Speaker 2: done the proper requirements for pro hoc vice, which is
17:50
Speaker 2: how you get to practice in the Southern District of Florida.
17:52
Speaker 4: Yeah.
17:53
Speaker 1: And according to the judge said, quote, a sample motion
17:56
Speaker 1: can be found on the court's website since they had
17:58
Speaker 1: filled out all the paperwork wrong. It's just so It's like,
18:02
Speaker 1: I'm assuming you never want to hear that as an
18:04
Speaker 1: attorney sitting before a judge. Download the sample motion from
18:08
Speaker 1: the website.
18:09
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it's also, I think it says a
18:11
Speaker 2: lot about the kind of legal counsel that's available to
18:14
Speaker 2: him right now. And that, I think, is a real question.
18:18
Speaker 2: During the first impeachment and even in the second impeachment,
18:22
Speaker 2: he had access to lawyers who were, I think, very
18:27
Speaker 2: good lawyers. Say what you want about Pat Cipollone, he
18:30
Speaker 2: is a good lawyer. Same for Pat Philbin. They know
18:35
Speaker 2: how to do this even if they're doing it on
18:37
Speaker 2: behalf of someone who might be a sociopath and potential
18:41
Speaker 2: autocrat in the making. But this filing, is not something
18:47
Speaker 2: I would ever want to see one of my students
18:49
Speaker 2: file in court. I mean, it's just so devoid of
18:52
Speaker 2: any substance or any of just the traditional markers of
18:56
Speaker 2: an actual legal filing that it would make you wonder,
18:59
Speaker 2: is this the extent of your professional acumen? Who trained you?
19:02
Speaker 2: This is bad.
19:04
Speaker 1: John and I talked about this last week, but there's
19:06
Speaker 1: been a lot of reports that Trump is really struggling
19:09
Speaker 1: to find quality attorneys to represent him, which is unusual
19:15
Speaker 1: in the sense that Politically connected, rich, even obviously guilty
19:22
Speaker 1: politically connected and rich, particularly white men, never have trouble
19:26
Speaker 1: finding attorneys. Do you have any theories as to why
19:29
Speaker 1: he can't get some person who understands how to motion
19:34
Speaker 1: to represent him?
19:35
Speaker 2: Like someone who understands how to wave into a district
19:38
Speaker 2: where they're not actually licensed to practice?
19:39
Speaker 1: Yes, yes. Really complicated, high-level constitutional interpretation like that.
19:47
Speaker 2: So I think one thing is, we've famously heard that
19:49
Speaker 2: he doesn't pay his lawyers. Michael Cohen talked about getting
19:53
Speaker 2: stiffed on the bill by Donald Trump. That surely has
19:57
Speaker 2: to be part of it. But I also think at
19:59
Speaker 2: this point in time, there are real reputational costs to
20:04
Speaker 2: representing the former president. And I'm not saying that that
20:08
Speaker 2: is necessarily a good thing. I truly believe in the
20:11
Speaker 2: Sixth Amendment, anyone who is facing criminal liability deserves vigorous counsel.
20:17
Speaker 2: And I believe that for everybody, because I don't think
20:19
Speaker 2: that's a constitutional commitment you can be itinerant about. But
20:22
Speaker 2: I do think that given the adjacency to the insurrection,
20:28
Speaker 2: everything that has happened, the two impeachments, I think there
20:30
Speaker 2: are reputational costs to any lawyer who steps up to
20:35
Speaker 2: represent Donald Trump. And I think those reputational costs are
20:38
Speaker 2: real and people are weighing them. But I also think
20:41
Speaker 2: there has to be some consideration that this is a
20:44
Speaker 2: client who is unlikely to listen to you, a client
20:47
Speaker 2: who thinks that he knows best. And in pushing for
20:52
Speaker 2: his preferred outcome, this is a client who may likely
20:55
Speaker 2: lead you into some ethical thickets that may compromise your
20:59
Speaker 2: ability to practice law in the future, may even compromise
21:03
Speaker 2: your ability to live freely because he could get you
21:06
Speaker 2: into trouble in terms of your own criminal liability. I mean,
21:10
Speaker 2: with that National Archives letter, the whole discussion of the
21:14
Speaker 2: lawyer signing off on the document saying, okay, this is it,
21:18
Speaker 2: we've given you everything, and perhaps the knowing that, in fact,
21:22
Speaker 2: that is not true, that's a real problem. That's an
21:25
Speaker 2: exposure to criminal liability. And I imagine there are a
21:27
Speaker 2: lot of people who are like, you know what? There
21:29
Speaker 2: are plenty of people to represent. I don't have to
21:31
Speaker 2: do this.
21:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that you hit right at it, which is,
21:35
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is like a super spreader of criminality, right?
21:40
Speaker 1: You come near him, you work for him, your odds
21:43
Speaker 1: of needing an attorney, of being indicted.
21:46
Speaker 2: Of being interviewed- MAGA, making attorneys get attorneys. That's what
21:51
Speaker 2: it stands for. I have said this over and over again.
21:54
Speaker 1: They are all, all of his attorneys, White House counsel,
21:57
Speaker 1: private attorneys, we're all seeing their deposition videos in the
22:00
Speaker 1: January 6th hearing. And it's very specifically- You don't know
22:07
Speaker 1: if he is telling you the truth and you are
22:09
Speaker 1: put in a position of signing an affidavit based on
22:13
Speaker 1: false information. I mean this person also– a lot of
22:15
Speaker 1: people who work around Trump, even if they are members
22:17
Speaker 1: of the bar, also lie on his behalf all the time.
22:19
Speaker 1: So maybe this person knew they were lying. But either way,
22:22
Speaker 1: if you're– I imagine if you're an attorney or someone
22:25
Speaker 1: else with any other options in life, you might choose
22:29
Speaker 1: to avoid– catching crimes from Donald Trump by being in
22:34
Speaker 1: his general presence, right?
22:36
Speaker 2: Getting a dime dropped on you. Exactly. You don't want that.
22:39
Speaker 1: But let's just, I just want to take advantage of
22:41
Speaker 1: having you, once again, a noted legal expert here on
22:45
Speaker 1: a podcast devoid of legal experts on most days.
22:48
Speaker 2: I think you're selling love at short.
22:49
Speaker 1: This is fair.
22:50
Speaker 3: Fair.
22:50
Speaker 1: Well, he's on vacation, and he's never listened to the
22:52
Speaker 1: Thursday Pod, so he'll have no idea I said this.
22:55
Speaker 1: But what do you think is going to happen next here?
22:58
Speaker 1: What should we be looking for as this case proceeds,
23:02
Speaker 1: or this investigation proceeds, I guess is the right way
23:04
Speaker 1: to say it.
23:05
Speaker 2: I didn't answer your question about what's the DOJ doing.
23:08
Speaker 2: I think that question leads inexorably to this question. I
23:13
Speaker 2: don't know what the strategy is for the DOJ. Is
23:15
Speaker 2: it simply to recover the documents or rather to gather
23:18
Speaker 2: evidence that makes it more likely than not that a
23:21
Speaker 2: criminal prosecution could be mounted. I think this is where
23:26
Speaker 2: the realm of politics and the realm of law sort
23:29
Speaker 2: of get inverted. I think that the fact that all
23:31
Speaker 2: of this is coming out right now, that there's 700
23:34
Speaker 2: pages of documents, many of them are incredibly sensitive. Like
23:38
Speaker 2: someone said, these are like the most important secrets that
23:40
Speaker 2: the nation holds. Like, I think it's going to be
23:43
Speaker 2: really hard for the Department of Justice to simply say,
23:46
Speaker 2: we got everything.
23:48
Speaker 1: Right?
23:48
Speaker 2: We did a damage assessment. It's all good. Let's move on.
23:51
Speaker 2: I think it's going to be really hard for people
23:54
Speaker 2: to just move on without any sense of accountability. At
23:57
Speaker 2: a minimum, I think there's definitely going to be legislation
24:01
Speaker 2: about how presidential records are kept and how they're retained
24:06
Speaker 2: more than what we have now. The Presidential Records Act
24:09
Speaker 2: that we have now is a vestige of the aftermath
24:13
Speaker 2: of Watergate. I think we're going to get more legislation
24:16
Speaker 2: around these kinds of questions coming out of this. But
24:19
Speaker 2: I think there are going to be a lot of
24:20
Speaker 2: people who rightly will demand accountability. Like the idea that
24:24
Speaker 2: you had this back and forth with the National Archives,
24:28
Speaker 2: the FBI is involved. We had to have surveillance video
24:31
Speaker 2: to figure out who's coming in and out of this
24:34
Speaker 2: place where you're keeping these documents. I think a lot
24:36
Speaker 2: of people are going to say like, that can't be
24:39
Speaker 2: how we do national security. That can't be what a
24:42
Speaker 2: former president, someone who has a fiduciary obligation to the
24:46
Speaker 2: nation and the national security. That can't be how he
24:49
Speaker 2: conducts himself. And I think people are going to want accountability.
24:52
Speaker 2: And that may very well be in the form of
24:55
Speaker 2: criminal prosecution. Whether the DOJ takes that step, I think,
24:59
Speaker 2: is another question. But I think there are going to
25:00
Speaker 2: be people demanding it.
25:02
Speaker 1: Putting us, like, obviously, I can't comment with any substance
25:07
Speaker 1: on how they would make such a case, whatever it is.
25:09
Speaker 1: But just from the optics perspective of this, how do
25:13
Speaker 1: you not... proceed in a prosecution of a former president
25:20
Speaker 1: who knowingly and willfully took documents and then allegedly tried
25:26
Speaker 1: to hide them after signing legally enforceable documents and saying
25:32
Speaker 1: that they did not have those in a world in
25:34
Speaker 1: which the Department of Justice has prosecuted reality winner for
25:39
Speaker 1: something much smaller, has aggressively and I think in many
25:42
Speaker 1: cases inappropriately gone after people who have leaked classified information
25:47
Speaker 1: to reporters. Obviously, we have a two-tiered or multi-tiered system
25:53
Speaker 1: of justice in this country where politically connected people do
25:58
Speaker 1: not pay the same price that those who are not
25:59
Speaker 1: politically connected do. But this is such an obvious, painful
26:02
Speaker 1: case that not pursuing this would seem like a very,
26:05
Speaker 1: very hard thing to explain if it is as, at
26:08
Speaker 1: least it appears to the non-lawyers on this podcast, as
26:10
Speaker 1: open and shut as it seems, right?
26:13
Speaker 2: So I definitely think that if there is a decision
26:17
Speaker 2: to not go forward with a prosecution, it will, I think,
26:21
Speaker 2: lay bare the fact that there are various tiers of
26:24
Speaker 2: justice here that operate in different ways for different people,
26:27
Speaker 2: depending on their level of political connectedness. I think one
26:31
Speaker 2: other thing that we can't overlook here is just sort
26:33
Speaker 2: of DOJ norms around launching a prosecution. And these are
26:39
Speaker 2: prudential norms. Launching a prosecution... close to an impending election.
26:44
Speaker 2: If you count the days between when the search of
26:48
Speaker 2: Mar-a-Lago took place and when the midterm elections are supposed
26:51
Speaker 2: to happen, I think it's about 90 or 91 days.
26:55
Speaker 2: And typically the DOJ norms that you don't do a
26:58
Speaker 2: prosecution close to an election and close is usually between
27:01
Speaker 2: two or three, like two or three months out from
27:06
Speaker 2: an election. So I wonder, just given the timing, whether
27:10
Speaker 2: that wasn't purposeful. They waited until the outer reach of
27:14
Speaker 2: that in order to do the search and conduct the search.
27:17
Speaker 2: And it may mean that we don't hear anything else
27:20
Speaker 2: about what comes out of the search and where DOJ
27:23
Speaker 2: is on its next steps until after the midterm elections.
27:27
Speaker 2: And that might be shaped by whether, at that point
27:31
Speaker 2: in time, we know if former President Trump is now
27:34
Speaker 2: current candidate Trump. And that may also shape the decision
27:38
Speaker 2: about how to go forward in terms of accountability. So
27:42
Speaker 2: I think there are a lot of prudential concerns here.
27:45
Speaker 2: This is not to be an apologist for the DOJ,
27:47
Speaker 2: but to sort of identify some of the things I
27:49
Speaker 2: think they're likely thinking about. But again, you're exactly right.
27:54
Speaker 2: A lot of people have gone to jail for a
27:57
Speaker 2: lot less than this.
27:59
Speaker 1: It would be really– I understand why the Department of
28:02
Speaker 1: Justice may not– we're getting to the point where it
28:04
Speaker 1: would be very weird to announce some next step here
28:08
Speaker 1: this close to an election. But what would be really,
28:12
Speaker 1: I think, terrible if Donald Trump's announcement of his candidacy
28:17
Speaker 1: for president, something he already has said he's already basically announced.
28:23
Speaker 1: Not that we're prosecuting FFC violations, but he's in a
28:25
Speaker 1: real legal gray area about his next candidacy, given what
28:30
Speaker 1: he said publicly. But if the world view is that
28:34
Speaker 1: you can't be indicted for criminal defense while president because
28:37
Speaker 1: of the OLC opinion from many years ago, but you
28:39
Speaker 1: also can't be indicted for a criminal offense committed while
28:42
Speaker 1: you weren't president because you were running for president, we're
28:45
Speaker 1: going to end up with a lot more people running
28:46
Speaker 1: for president in this country if that is the case.
28:49
Speaker 1: We have the Republican Party is going to announce just
28:51
Speaker 1: to avoid prosecution for various insurrection related crimes.
28:55
Speaker 2: Well, I think it just sort of shows that these
28:57
Speaker 2: norms were created and conceived of at a time when
29:02
Speaker 2: you just couldn't imagine a president of the United States
29:05
Speaker 2: or someone running for president like doing anything that could
29:08
Speaker 2: be considered crime adjacent or criming in full. I mean, like,
29:13
Speaker 2: you know, presidents don't do crimes. And, you know, maybe
29:16
Speaker 2: that's entirely out the window. And we're just like, you know,
29:19
Speaker 2: some sweet summer child who is reflecting on a bygone
29:22
Speaker 2: day when, you know, you didn't crime while president.
29:26
Speaker 1: Or while running for governor. I mean, just all across
29:30
Speaker 1: the board. I mean, we even had in the last election,
29:34
Speaker 1: in the 2018 election cycle, two sitting– two members, Republican
29:37
Speaker 1: members of Congress who were under active indictment who ran.
29:40
Speaker 1: and won their election. Now they did, they did retire
29:43
Speaker 1: after being convicted, but were able to win election under indictment.
29:48
Speaker 1: So we're definitely in a, in a new era here. Okay. Finally,
29:54
Speaker 1: let's end on a little bit of good news here.
29:56
Speaker 1: A lot of pundits declared in the immediate aftermath of
29:59
Speaker 1: the thing we are not calling a raid, that this
30:02
Speaker 1: would fire up the Republican base and be a political
30:04
Speaker 1: boon for the Republican Party. But on Tuesday night in
30:07
Speaker 1: New York, Democrat Pat Ryan easily won a special election
30:10
Speaker 1: against a quality opponent in a district that Biden won
30:12
Speaker 1: by two and a half points. So, Melissa, do you
30:16
Speaker 1: think it's possible the leader of the Republican Party stealing
30:19
Speaker 1: nuclear secrets may not be the political win that the
30:21
Speaker 1: pundits thought?
30:22
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's possible that some people may
30:25
Speaker 2: have been like, hmm, Sounds shady, right? This is not
30:28
Speaker 2: going to be the boom. Not everyone buys the grievance
30:31
Speaker 2: victimization narrative, like Joe Biden didn't make you do this.
30:35
Speaker 2: And I also think it's not simply that the prospect
30:40
Speaker 2: of retaining 700 pages worth of classified information is not
30:45
Speaker 2: appealing to the electorate. I mean, I think there are
30:47
Speaker 2: just a lot of aspects of the Republican platform right
30:49
Speaker 2: now that are unappealing to broad swaths of the public, right?
30:55
Speaker 2: So The stance on reproductive freedom, for example, the effort
30:59
Speaker 2: to limit the opportunity of individuals to participate in the
31:03
Speaker 2: electoral process, probably not a big winner. So I think
31:06
Speaker 2: there's just a lot of places where people are just like,
31:08
Speaker 2: you know what, I'm not down for that. It may
31:10
Speaker 2: also be the case that the Ryan race took place.
31:16
Speaker 2: in a jurisdiction that has a very active Democratic electorate
31:21
Speaker 2: or portion of the electorate. And they were especially turned
31:24
Speaker 2: out for the primaries. I mean, we had a lot
31:27
Speaker 2: going on in New York at that time. A lot
31:31
Speaker 2: of things could have been at play. But I do
31:32
Speaker 2: think this idea that there is some sector of the
31:37
Speaker 2: public that just isn't buying into what the Republican Party
31:41
Speaker 2: is selling right now is a real thing. And I
31:43
Speaker 2: think we saw it in Kansas. And I think we
31:46
Speaker 2: saw it last Tuesday. And maybe we'll see it going forward.
31:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think Pat Ryan won because of this
31:56
Speaker 1: new criminal investigation of Trump. But what it did not do,
32:01
Speaker 1: based on this one specific race, is change the trajectory
32:04
Speaker 1: that Democrats have been on for the last few months.
32:06
Speaker 2: No, I think that's right.
32:08
Speaker 1: This is the fourth special election in a row where
32:09
Speaker 1: Democrats have outperformed their 2020 numbers. And so the idea
32:13
Speaker 1: that this was going to put a stop to the
32:15
Speaker 1: momentum that has been growing, starting with the Dobbs decision
32:19
Speaker 1: and then proceeding through this recent bit of success for
32:23
Speaker 1: Democrats and lower gas prices, et cetera, is that this
32:25
Speaker 1: is not– it is probably at best for the Republicans
32:28
Speaker 1: neutral and at worst slightly detrimental. But It is not
32:34
Speaker 1: a sleeper issue. It seems like the people, if it
32:37
Speaker 1: was going to be this red wave that's going to
32:40
Speaker 1: fire everyone up, you would have seen some indications of
32:42
Speaker 1: that here. And that did not happen. So it appears that,
32:45
Speaker 1: at least as of today in American politics, getting your
32:51
Speaker 1: home visited to by the FBI is not yet a
32:55
Speaker 1: win for your party. So we can all sleep well
32:57
Speaker 1: knowing that.
32:58
Speaker 2: Not a win. I like how you said that, visiting.
33:01
Speaker 2: by the FBI.
33:02
Speaker 1: I am working really hard to get raid out of
33:05
Speaker 1: my vocabulary because, yes, as you pointed out, it was
33:08
Speaker 1: court approved. It was peaceful. They even wore cargo shorts.
33:10
Speaker 1: I'm not sure why that was mandatory, but they.
33:13
Speaker 2: Were- It's Florida. You have to wear cargo shorts and
33:16
Speaker 2: a short sleeve shirt everywhere.
33:17
Speaker 1: I mean, do you need, I mean, did they need additional,
33:19
Speaker 1: I guess they need additional pockets because there were 700
33:22
Speaker 1: documents to find that- Yeah.
33:23
Speaker 2: You roll them up, you stick them in your side
33:25
Speaker 2: pocket to get it out.
33:27
Speaker 1: Yes, that's probably how Trump got them out of the
33:28
Speaker 1: White House, to be honest with you. All right, Melissa Marie,
33:32
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us, for filling in
33:35
Speaker 1: for John and giving us actual knowledge on legal issues.
33:40
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
33:42
Speaker 1: When we come back, White House Press Secretary Corrine Jean-Pierre.
33:54
Speaker 1: In an executive order yesterday, President Biden made history by
33:57
Speaker 1: canceling $ 10, 000 in student loan debt for all Americans, making
34:00
Speaker 1: less than $ 125, 000 a year, and $ 20, 000 for Pell Grant recipients.
34:05
Speaker 1: Here to talk about this big news is the White
34:06
Speaker 1: House Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre. Karine, welcome to Pod Save America.
34:10
Speaker 5: Hey, Dan.
34:11
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me. I have been
34:13
Speaker 4: wanting to be on the show for a long time,
34:15
Speaker 4: and I know it's not easy to get on, so
34:18
Speaker 4: I appreciate you. Allowing little old me on. So thank
34:22
Speaker 4: you so much. I appreciate the opportunity.
34:23
Speaker 1: You're the White House press secretary. You have an open
34:27
Speaker 1: invite to our podcast.
34:29
Speaker 4: I appreciate it.
34:30
Speaker 1: Tell us about this announcement, what it means, who's impacted,
34:35
Speaker 1: and how do people go get, sign up for this
34:38
Speaker 1: debt relief? Where do they go to get the help?
34:41
Speaker 3: Okay.
34:43
Speaker 4: So, and you, thank you for laying it out pretty
34:46
Speaker 4: well for me. So I'll just kind of piggyback on
34:48
Speaker 4: what you just said, Dan. Yes, this is a historic,
34:52
Speaker 4: historic announcement. This has not been done by any other
34:55
Speaker 4: president before, which is doing this, the work and keeping
35:02
Speaker 4: his campaign promise of doing that $ 10, 000 debt relief. And
35:08
Speaker 4: he just didn't stop there. It is up to 20,000.
35:13
Speaker 4: And the president wanted to make sure that he did
35:15
Speaker 4: this in a fiscally responsible way, in a balanced way.
35:19
Speaker 4: And that's what you saw yesterday, because it's not just
35:23
Speaker 4: the 10,000 for people who are making less under 125,000.
35:27
Speaker 4: And then if you add the Pell Grant borrowers, that
35:33
Speaker 4: will add for them up to 20,000. If you think
35:36
Speaker 4: about Pell Grant borrows, I was a Pell Grant recipient
35:39
Speaker 4: when I was going through undergrad. And It is for households.
35:43
Speaker 4: Just think about this. For households, for folks who don't know,
35:46
Speaker 4: some folks may have gone through the same thing and
35:48
Speaker 4: know this personally. If you're a household making $ 60, 000, well,
35:53
Speaker 4: it's mostly Pell Grant recipients or folks who are nearly
35:59
Speaker 4: making $ 60, 000 per household, and half of the Pell Grant
36:03
Speaker 4: borrowers are at $ 30, 000 per household. That's a big deal
36:07
Speaker 4: because this is a targeted, targeted effort for folks who
36:11
Speaker 4: really need that extra breathing room, as you hear the
36:13
Speaker 4: president say often. So that's that piece. And then there's
36:17
Speaker 4: two more other pieces I want to talk about really quickly,
36:19
Speaker 4: and I'll give it back to you, Dan, is the
36:21
Speaker 4: other piece is that the pause that we have had
36:25
Speaker 4: since the previous administration, and it's been extended under this
36:28
Speaker 4: administration a couple of times, is going to be lifted
36:32
Speaker 4: at December 31st. So we wanted to do this about
36:35
Speaker 4: the same time. So to give people, continue to give
36:39
Speaker 4: people a little bit of breathing room. And the third
36:41
Speaker 4: thing is there is a reform component People have been
36:45
Speaker 4: asking us, well, what happens to the folks who are
36:48
Speaker 4: going to come, who are in high school or who
36:51
Speaker 4: are going to be future borrowers? Doing this reform piece,
36:55
Speaker 4: we got to understand this student loan piece, the system
37:01
Speaker 4: is just not working. It is a broken system. So
37:04
Speaker 4: we wanted to make sure that for future borrowers and
37:07
Speaker 4: current borrowers, we are taking that 5% cap. I'm sorry,
37:13
Speaker 4: that 10% cap, and we're bringing it down to 5%.
37:18
Speaker 4: So you are going to, if you're a construction worker
37:21
Speaker 4: and you pay, I don't know, 200 bucks a month
37:24
Speaker 4: for your student loan, it will now be 100 bucks
37:28
Speaker 4: a month. So that is incredibly important as well to
37:32
Speaker 4: make sure that we're giving relief and we're thinking about,
37:35
Speaker 4: the president wanted to think about future borrowers as well.
37:38
Speaker 4: So this is exciting. This is historic. We are proud.
37:41
Speaker 4: of what we have been able to do. And it's
37:43
Speaker 4: just going to help so many, so many Americans and families.
37:48
Speaker 1: If you're a person who qualifies for this debt relief,
37:52
Speaker 1: either under student loans or Pell Grants, is there a
37:54
Speaker 1: place you go to sign up? And if those applications
37:58
Speaker 1: aren't online yet, any sense of when they will be?
38:01
Speaker 4: So, as you know, you've been you've been you've sat
38:04
Speaker 4: in this in this building before. And so this was
38:07
Speaker 4: a directive that was done by the Department of Education.
38:11
Speaker 4: This is an administrative action, as you know. So the
38:15
Speaker 4: Department of Education is going to run this process. There
38:18
Speaker 4: is a Web site. That is set up. What I
38:20
Speaker 4: tell people to go is to whitehouse.gov. There's a separate website,
38:24
Speaker 4: but the whitehouse.gov is pretty simple, too. There's a banner
38:28
Speaker 4: right at the top of the website. You click on
38:32
Speaker 4: that banner. It takes you to the actual website, directs
38:35
Speaker 4: you to the website that talks about the debt relief
38:38
Speaker 4: program that we just announced yesterday. And then you can
38:41
Speaker 4: sign up. to get email updates so that you know
38:46
Speaker 4: exactly what you need to do. The Department of Education
38:48
Speaker 4: is going to do all that work. They are working
38:51
Speaker 4: through that process. They will have an application for people
38:54
Speaker 4: to sign up for. There's about 8 million people that we,
38:59
Speaker 4: the administration, has automatic information on, that we just have information.
39:05
Speaker 4: So that will automatically, they'll see that relief pretty quickly.
39:10
Speaker 4: But then others have to kind of check and make
39:12
Speaker 4: sure and go through the process. And that's going to
39:14
Speaker 4: happen through the Department of Education.
39:16
Speaker 1: Now, predictably, this announcement calls Republicans to flip their lid.
39:22
Speaker 1: They're screaming about fiscal responsibility and helping certain people, and
39:27
Speaker 1: not helping others. What is your guys' response to the
39:30
Speaker 1: overall Republican critique that we, everyone listening to this knows
39:34
Speaker 1: it's complete and total bullshit, but I want to hear
39:37
Speaker 1: it from the White House as to what is your
39:41
Speaker 1: response to what the Republicans have been sort of screaming
39:43
Speaker 1: about in response to this plan?
39:45
Speaker 4: It is so ironic. It is incredibly ironic. And I
39:50
Speaker 4: say this because how irresponsible were they back in 2017
39:56
Speaker 4: when they gave a tax cut to the wealthy? Two
39:59
Speaker 4: trillion dollars, two trillion dollars didn't have a way to
40:02
Speaker 4: pay for it. And it was for the wealthy. And
40:06
Speaker 4: the way that worked out is 85 percent of that
40:12
Speaker 4: tax cut. went to folks, Americans who were making more
40:18
Speaker 4: than $ 75, 000 a year, And what we are talking about
40:21
Speaker 4: with what the president announced yesterday is that 90% of
40:27
Speaker 4: the benefits is going to go to people who are
40:29
Speaker 4: making less than $ 75, 000. So you see the reverse of
40:34
Speaker 4: what we are trying to do. We care about the
40:37
Speaker 4: little guy. We care about the people who have been
40:41
Speaker 4: left behind, who have been crushed and crippled by the
40:45
Speaker 4: economy the last two years. We know that the president
40:47
Speaker 4: has done so much work to turn the economy back on.
40:50
Speaker 4: But it is such, I mean, it is, we are
40:52
Speaker 4: happy to have that conversation. We are happy to have
40:54
Speaker 4: that discussion because again, when we were talking about those
40:58
Speaker 4: PPP loans back during the beginning of the pandemic that
41:03
Speaker 4: was going to small businesses, no one said anything when
41:06
Speaker 4: we were forgiving loans because of the PPP loans. No one,
41:11
Speaker 4: no one on that side said anything about it. Now
41:13
Speaker 4: that we're trying to help doing this in a targeted way,
41:17
Speaker 4: helping people that really need the help, oh, now we
41:21
Speaker 4: hear this is a problem.
41:23
Speaker 1: In general, we can't take critiques seriously from people who
41:27
Speaker 1: fought like hell to keep huge corporations paying zero dollars
41:31
Speaker 1: in taxes. They're not really credible messengers on this. But
41:33
Speaker 1: there are some critiques that I think I would love
41:35
Speaker 1: to get your take on because they're less on their
41:38
Speaker 1: face ridiculous than the Republican ones. One is that this
41:42
Speaker 1: is going to increase college tuition and address college affordability.
41:45
Speaker 1: Like this is obviously one piece of a larger college
41:48
Speaker 1: affordability plan that the president campaigned on and has worked on,
41:51
Speaker 1: you know, going back to when I worked in that
41:54
Speaker 1: building with him. Could you just talk about what else
41:56
Speaker 1: the president wants to do to address the larger problem
41:59
Speaker 1: of college affordability?
42:00
Speaker 4: And that is something that Secretary Cardonas, who is, as
42:04
Speaker 4: you know, the Secretary for the Department of Education, is
42:07
Speaker 4: taking very seriously and keeping a close eye on that.
42:10
Speaker 4: He has said he's going to crack down on those
42:14
Speaker 4: efforts if we see those happening, which people clearly were expecting.
42:20
Speaker 4: that to happen, that is not surprising that that would happen.
42:23
Speaker 4: And so he has put forth some real programs to
42:28
Speaker 4: keep an eye on that and to take action if
42:31
Speaker 4: it warrants or when it warrants. The other pieces, the
42:34
Speaker 4: other things that this president has done, which has been historic,
42:37
Speaker 4: and you're right, it's not just been this past 19 months,
42:40
Speaker 4: it has been with the Obama-Biden administration. That is something
42:44
Speaker 4: that we all cared about, he cared about with President Obama.
42:50
Speaker 4: and did the work there in a way that was
42:53
Speaker 4: effective for people who needed the help. But the thing
42:58
Speaker 4: that I wanted to just also mention is the president
43:02
Speaker 4: has also $ 32 billion. He's been able to take away
43:11
Speaker 4: loan debt for about 1.6 million Americans. That's something that
43:15
Speaker 4: he was able to do very early on. That's $ 32
43:17
Speaker 4: billion in for 1.6 million Americans. That's incredibly important. When
43:23
Speaker 4: you think about HBCUs, the historically Black college and universities,
43:28
Speaker 4: we're talking about $ 6 billion because of the American Rescue Plan, which,
43:33
Speaker 4: by the way, only Democrats voted for and helped turn
43:36
Speaker 4: the economy back on during one of the hardest, toughest
43:41
Speaker 4: times for Americans because of this once-in-a-generation pandemic. And so
43:45
Speaker 4: the HBCU investment is at $ 6 billion, which is also
43:49
Speaker 4: a historic amount to invest. So we have done extra,
43:54
Speaker 4: extra work and taken extra steps to make sure that
44:00
Speaker 4: people who have been feeling the crunch with tuition increases
44:05
Speaker 4: or high costs can get a little bit, also a
44:07
Speaker 4: little bit more breathing room. From the American Rescue Plan,
44:09
Speaker 4: which I just mentioned, there's about $ 40 billion that was
44:12
Speaker 4: put in there so colleges and universities could help young
44:16
Speaker 4: people who were really at need to make sure that
44:19
Speaker 4: their costs were lowered as well. Again, only Democrats, only
44:23
Speaker 4: Democrats voted for the American Rescue Plan.
44:26
Speaker 1: That seems to be a real theme these days and
44:29
Speaker 1: a lot of things that help working people. The president
44:32
Speaker 1: has said that fighting inflation is his top priority. He
44:34
Speaker 1: just signed the Inflation Reduction Act. It's not just Republicans.
44:37
Speaker 1: There are some economists, including Democratic economists, who've argued that
44:42
Speaker 1: this decision would impact when it could potentially increase inflation.
44:48
Speaker 1: What are the White House economists and economic advisors thinking
44:50
Speaker 1: about why that's not the case?
44:52
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we don't think that's the case. And we've
44:54
Speaker 4: heard from experts as well, including Wall Street experts who
44:58
Speaker 4: have said it will not have a meaningful impact on inflation. Look,
45:03
Speaker 4: one of the things that we have talked about, and
45:05
Speaker 4: I believe I said this at the beginning, and if
45:08
Speaker 4: I did, I apologize for repeating myself, is that we have,
45:13
Speaker 4: you know, this president has been very, very keyed in
45:16
Speaker 4: and tuned in on the deficit reduction, right? The first,
45:21
Speaker 4: and this is part of deficit deduction is indeed part
45:26
Speaker 4: of fighting inflation. They go hand in hand in many ways.
45:29
Speaker 4: When you want to fight inflation, one of the things
45:31
Speaker 4: they can do is reduce the debt. And in the
45:33
Speaker 4: first year, we saw in this administration $ 380 billion of
45:37
Speaker 4: deficit reduction. By the end of this fiscal cycle, which
45:41
Speaker 4: ends in October, we'll see $ 1. 7 trillion in deficit deduction.
45:48
Speaker 4: And that is because of the work that this administration
45:51
Speaker 4: has done to make sure that that happened. And so
45:55
Speaker 4: you have seen how how seriously we take this. We
45:59
Speaker 4: want to make sure when we put out this plan,
46:01
Speaker 4: we wanted to make sure that it was fiscally balanced
46:05
Speaker 4: and smart, but also was done in a targeted way
46:08
Speaker 4: to truly, truly help Americans.
46:11
Speaker 1: There have also been some critiques here, including from some Democrats,
46:15
Speaker 1: that this obviously affects only people who went to college,
46:20
Speaker 1: not the millions and millions of Americans who did not
46:22
Speaker 1: go to college. Maybe, I think once again, that is
46:25
Speaker 1: taking this executive order out of the larger context of
46:29
Speaker 1: the Biden economic link. Can you talk a little bit
46:30
Speaker 1: about some of the things that this administration wants to
46:33
Speaker 1: do to help working middle-class people that, oh, I don't know,
46:36
Speaker 1: maybe Republicans may be blocking in the Senate?
46:40
Speaker 4: Well, there is one bill that just got signed by
46:42
Speaker 4: this president that was certainly blocked by Republicans, which is
46:46
Speaker 4: the Inflation Reduction Act. And here's the thing about this, Dan.
46:50
Speaker 4: If Republicans truly cared about about fighting inflation, they would
46:54
Speaker 4: have voted or supported the only inflation bill that was
46:58
Speaker 4: in front of them a few weeks ago, which is
47:01
Speaker 4: this Inflation Reduction Act, which is going to do wonders.
47:04
Speaker 4: It fights special interests, right? We've been fighting, Democrats have
47:08
Speaker 4: been fighting special interests, wealthy, wealthy special interests, like pharma,
47:12
Speaker 4: for example, for decades. And what the Inflation Reduction Act
47:16
Speaker 4: is going to do, now that it is law, it's
47:19
Speaker 4: going to lower costs of pharmaceutical drug costs for our seniors.
47:24
Speaker 4: Just think about it. Our seniors, I mean, I know people,
47:28
Speaker 4: I have friends who pay, who have to help. And
47:31
Speaker 4: actually the president did this when his mom was getting older.
47:36
Speaker 4: She had to pay thousands of dollars a month, a
47:39
Speaker 4: month on prescription drugs. And what this will do, and
47:43
Speaker 4: this is so many seniors that this affect, this will
47:45
Speaker 4: cap the year payment to 2000. But Republicans voted against that.
47:52
Speaker 4: They voted against lowering prescription drugs for our seniors because
47:58
Speaker 4: they were in the pockets of big pharma, because they
48:00
Speaker 4: were in the pockets of the special interest. Big pharma
48:03
Speaker 4: spent tens of millions of dollars to make sure that
48:08
Speaker 4: this bill didn't go through. And that's what they've been
48:09
Speaker 4: doing for decades. And let's not forget the climate stuff
48:12
Speaker 4: in there. Historical investments going to really make a big,
48:17
Speaker 4: big dent in what we're trying to do to deal
48:20
Speaker 4: with a climate crisis or climate change.
48:24
Speaker 1: This has obviously been a period of great progress, a
48:28
Speaker 1: season of substance, I think, as Ron Klain has called it,
48:31
Speaker 1: for the Democrats in this administration between passing the Inflation
48:34
Speaker 1: Reduction Act, Veterans Benefits, the CHIPS Act, et cetera. There's
48:40
Speaker 1: so many.
48:41
Speaker 4: So many.
48:41
Speaker 1: So many. I can't even list them. Congress is working somehow.
48:46
Speaker 4: Somehow.
48:49
Speaker 1: What are you guys going to turn your attention to
48:51
Speaker 1: now as summer comes to an end, fall happens, we
48:53
Speaker 1: have this looming midterm or some things that our listeners
48:57
Speaker 1: should be expecting to see from this White House, more
48:59
Speaker 1: executive actions, more attempts at legislation?
49:01
Speaker 5: Yeah.
49:02
Speaker 4: No, it's all good questions. Look, the president is going
49:04
Speaker 4: to continue to do the work for the American people.
49:06
Speaker 4: There are things that, for example, his BBB, the Build
49:10
Speaker 4: Back Better agenda, that's where the Inflation Reduction Act actually
49:14
Speaker 4: comes from. That is part of that. When you think
49:16
Speaker 4: about elder care, when you think about child care, all
49:19
Speaker 4: things that he's still very much committed to that we
49:21
Speaker 4: know is going to give some relief to families, to
49:24
Speaker 4: single moms, to parents out there who really need that help,
49:28
Speaker 4: especially in taking care or someone taking care of an
49:30
Speaker 4: elder parent. Those are real issues that Americans have to
49:34
Speaker 4: deal with. So that's still important to him. He's going
49:36
Speaker 4: to continue to work on these issues. And in the
49:39
Speaker 4: next several weeks, the next several days, you're going to
49:42
Speaker 4: see the president and Democrats out there. To your point,
49:46
Speaker 4: we have successes. We have the receipts, as the young
49:50
Speaker 4: people say, because I'm getting really old now, but the
49:53
Speaker 4: receipts to show the American people that, hey, look, this
49:57
Speaker 4: is what we have done. This is what we're doing.
50:00
Speaker 4: And we're going to continue to do that work. But
50:02
Speaker 4: we want to explain to you what the American Rescue
50:04
Speaker 4: Plan did, why it was able to put shots in
50:06
Speaker 4: arms and get the economy going again, why it was
50:09
Speaker 4: able to save small businesses, why it was able to
50:11
Speaker 4: open up schools again. We want to talk about the
50:14
Speaker 4: bipartisan infrastructure law. Let's not forget that is an historical investment,
50:19
Speaker 4: and it was bipartisan, which people said it couldn't happen,
50:22
Speaker 4: for our roads, for our bridges, for our tunnels. We're
50:25
Speaker 4: going to go out and talk about that and all
50:27
Speaker 4: of the amazing things, the CHIPS Act with the manufacturing
50:30
Speaker 4: and strengthening our supply chain, making sure we're strengthening our
50:33
Speaker 4: national security. The benefits, right, the benefits for veterans, expanding
50:39
Speaker 4: benefits for veterans, which hasn't been done in so long,
50:42
Speaker 4: making sure we're taking care of our folks who put
50:45
Speaker 4: their lives on their line for us, for our nation.
50:48
Speaker 4: Think about, again, the Inflation Reduction Act, all of those things.
50:53
Speaker 4: And let's not forget the bipartisan gun reform that hadn't
50:58
Speaker 4: been done in decades. And you were here, Dan. You
51:01
Speaker 4: were here when it was so hard. All of the things,
51:04
Speaker 4: the horrible mass shootings that we saw during the last
51:09
Speaker 4: administration happened. And we couldn't get anything done. And how
51:12
Speaker 4: hard President Obama and Vice President Biden at the time
51:17
Speaker 4: worked so hard to make sure that we were protecting communities.
51:20
Speaker 4: Now we're taking a step. We've taken a step to
51:23
Speaker 4: get to a better place where we're, you know, going
51:27
Speaker 4: to school doesn't have to be so scary. Going to
51:29
Speaker 4: a grocery store doesn't have to be so scary. There's
51:31
Speaker 4: still work to be done, but at least we're taking
51:33
Speaker 4: a step in the right direction.
51:35
Speaker 1: Okay, last question for you. I'm not even sure if
51:37
Speaker 1: you can answer this.
51:38
Speaker 4: Oh, boy.
51:39
Speaker 1: I have read that President Biden has seen the dark
51:44
Speaker 1: branded memes. He's briefed on them. Having worked with President
51:47
Speaker 1: Biden before, I'm really trying to imagine that conversation. Is
51:51
Speaker 1: there anything you can tell me about how he learned
51:53
Speaker 1: about this, his reaction to it, how you guys explained
51:56
Speaker 1: it to him?
51:57
Speaker 4: It's so funny. I was not there when that happened.
52:00
Speaker 4: If they haven't, I actually don't know. My guess is
52:03
Speaker 4: maybe his grandkids may have probably brought it up to him.
52:07
Speaker 4: I don't know. That's just my guess. But it's wild.
52:12
Speaker 4: I saw something. It's like going viral. People are sending
52:16
Speaker 4: me dark branded things. all the time. But it is
52:23
Speaker 4: something to behold. Wow. I don't know what to say
52:26
Speaker 4: about it.
52:28
Speaker 1: The grandkids is a great guess. That would be- That's
52:30
Speaker 1: my guess. And I was tasked with trying to explain
52:34
Speaker 1: dark Brandon to Joe Biden. I would definitely send the
52:37
Speaker 1: grandkids in. They're younger, they're hipper. He definitely listens to them.
52:40
Speaker 1: So that makes a lot of sense.
52:42
Speaker 4: They're his grandkids. He loves them. Of course, to your point,
52:45
Speaker 4: of course, he would listen to them. That's my guess.
52:48
Speaker 4: I don't know.
52:50
Speaker 1: That sounds credible to me. Corinne, thank you so much
52:53
Speaker 1: for joining us today. And we'd love to have you
52:55
Speaker 1: back again soon.
52:56
Speaker 4: Oh, this was so much fun. Dan, thank you for
52:58
Speaker 4: the opportunity to give me an opportunity to talk about
53:02
Speaker 4: all the great things that we're doing here.
53:03
Speaker 1: All right.
53:03
Speaker 2: Bye, guys.
53:04
Speaker 1: Good luck out there. Bye.
53:05
Speaker 4: Bye.
53:15
Speaker 1: Joining us now is the Secretary of State from Arizona.
53:18
Speaker 1: She's also running to become Arizona's next governor, Katie Hobbs.
53:21
Speaker 1: Welcome to the pod.
53:22
Speaker 5: Hi, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
53:25
Speaker 1: You were serving as Secretary of State during the 2020
53:27
Speaker 1: election when Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by just 10,000 votes.
53:30
Speaker 1: Arizona became ground zero in the big lie.
53:34
Speaker 3: It is.
53:35
Speaker 1: Where the center of the battle for democracy is. How
53:38
Speaker 1: did your experience as Secretary of State in that election
53:42
Speaker 1: impact your decision to run for governor in 2022?
53:47
Speaker 5: It was absolutely foundational in my decision to run on.
53:51
Speaker 4: Two fronts.
53:52
Speaker 5: First of all, we are facing unprecedented attacks on our
53:55
Speaker 5: democracy from every angle. And it's all fueled by the
54:00
Speaker 5: former president's big lie. The fact that he is running
54:03
Speaker 5: all of these election denier or backing all these election
54:06
Speaker 5: deniers running in offices up and down the ballot here
54:11
Speaker 5: in Arizona and His entire slate of candidates swept the
54:16
Speaker 5: Republican primaries, including my opponent, Carrie Lake, who has made
54:20
Speaker 5: election denial the center of her campaign. And on the
54:24
Speaker 5: other side of that, Arizonans want to move on from
54:27
Speaker 5: the 2020 election. We're facing some serious challenges and nobody,
54:33
Speaker 5: I'm the only one offering solutions for how we can
54:36
Speaker 5: tackle those challenges and talking about how we can bring
54:38
Speaker 5: people together to solve these problems and continue to move
54:42
Speaker 5: our state forward instead of being stuck in an election
54:45
Speaker 5: that happened two years ago.
54:48
Speaker 1: After a number of election officials, yourself included, in Arizona
54:52
Speaker 1: and around the country, stood up against the big lie
54:55
Speaker 1: and the people trying to throw out people's votes. We
54:58
Speaker 1: heard about this during the January 6th hearing. There were
55:00
Speaker 1: threats against election workers. I know you continue to get
55:04
Speaker 1: these threats. I understand that you actually got a very
55:05
Speaker 1: serious threat earlier this month Your team has shared that
55:09
Speaker 1: audio with us. Let's take a listen, and we'll talk
55:11
Speaker 1: about it afterwards.
55:12
Speaker 3: This message is for traitor Katie Hobbs. You've drug your feet.
55:17
Speaker 3: You've done nothing to protect our election for 2020. You're
55:23
Speaker 3: committing election fraud. You're starting to do it again from
55:27
Speaker 3: day one. You're the enemy of the United States. You're
55:32
Speaker 3: a traitor to this country, and you better put your
55:36
Speaker 3: fucking affairs in order. because your days are extremely numbered.
55:44
Speaker 3: America's coming for you, and you will pay with your life,
55:47
Speaker 3: you communist fucking traitor bitch.
55:50
Speaker 1: That is obviously a very disturbing and scary message. I
55:54
Speaker 1: can only imagine what it was like to receive that.
55:57
Speaker 1: What's your response to it, and what do you say
55:59
Speaker 1: to the people who are helping fuel, including your opponent,
56:03
Speaker 1: are helping fuel these conspiracy theories and these threats against
56:06
Speaker 1: people who are simply trying to do their job to
56:08
Speaker 1: protect democracy?
56:09
Speaker 5: I mean, we are in very dangerous times right now.
56:14
Speaker 5: As you mentioned, it is elected officials and other political
56:19
Speaker 5: leaders who are fueling these kinds of threats of violence
56:23
Speaker 5: and who continue to feed the big lie. And so
56:27
Speaker 5: when everyday people who are being misled by these lies
56:30
Speaker 5: are don't see action being taken because there's nothing to
56:34
Speaker 5: take action for. There's no evidence of fraud. We conducted
56:38
Speaker 5: the safest and most secure election in our state's history.
56:41
Speaker 5: And my opponent continues to call for me to be arrested.
56:45
Speaker 5: And when that doesn't happen, where's the point where people
56:48
Speaker 5: decide to take things into their own hands? I mean,
56:50
Speaker 5: you heard his words saying that I'm a traitor and
56:53
Speaker 5: that America is coming for me. And our so-called leaders
57:00
Speaker 5: are egging this on and refusing to see how dangerous
57:06
Speaker 5: or ignoring how dangerous their behavior is and their rhetoric is.
57:11
Speaker 1: Your opponent, Kari Lake, is, in my opinion, perhaps the
57:13
Speaker 1: most dangerous candidate running for office in the country right now.
57:17
Speaker 1: She has fueled the threats like the one we just heard.
57:20
Speaker 1: She is spreading lies. But she is also someone who
57:24
Speaker 1: is a former news anchor who has a long-term relationship
57:27
Speaker 1: with the voters in that state. What is your strategy
57:31
Speaker 1: for centering the campaign on her extremisms and informing the
57:37
Speaker 1: voters of Arizona why she would be such a dangerous
57:40
Speaker 1: choice to be governor?
57:41
Speaker 5: Well, you're exactly right that she is incredibly dangerous. And
57:45
Speaker 5: it's not just because of her rhetoric and her focus
57:48
Speaker 5: on these election conspiracies, but it's the actual things she
57:51
Speaker 5: said she would do as governor and her extreme positions
57:54
Speaker 5: on critical issues like abortion. She fully supports criminalizing abortion.
58:00
Speaker 5: with no exceptions for rape or incest or even the
58:02
Speaker 5: life of the mother. Her proposals would kill women, and
58:09
Speaker 5: that is not being hyperbolic. She's suggested that everyday Arizonans
58:13
Speaker 5: should be able to own rocket launchers, which are weapons
58:17
Speaker 5: of war that are designed to cause extreme destruction. And
58:21
Speaker 5: when given the chance to back down from these positions,
58:25
Speaker 5: she's doubled down on them. And so she's clearly dangerous.
58:29
Speaker 5: And so our focus is making sure that Arizonans know that,
58:32
Speaker 5: but also that I'm the sanity in this equation, that
58:38
Speaker 5: this election is not about Republicans or Democrats, it's about
58:40
Speaker 5: sanity versus chaos. And that we have real issues to tackle.
58:46
Speaker 5: And I have a record of working across the aisle
58:49
Speaker 5: to tackle problems. And that's the kind of leadership I'll
58:52
Speaker 5: bring to the governor's office to continue to move our
58:54
Speaker 5: state forward.
58:56
Speaker 1: I would like to just put a, just, ask one
58:59
Speaker 1: follow-up question that she supports allowing Arizonans to have rocket launchers.
59:03
Speaker 1: Did I hear that correctly?
59:05
Speaker 5: Yes.
59:05
Speaker 1: Yes.
59:06
Speaker 5: And she said this at some point during the primary
59:10
Speaker 5: when she was trying to bolster her Second Amendment cred
59:14
Speaker 5: and said this, like trying to say the most extreme
59:18
Speaker 5: thing that's so extreme you can't even believe it. But
59:22
Speaker 5: when fact checking an ad that we put out saying this,
59:26
Speaker 5: she said, oh, yeah, I support all weapons. and didn't
59:29
Speaker 5: back down.
59:31
Speaker 1: Okay. So now allowing 18-year-olds to buy assault weapons is
59:37
Speaker 1: the rhino position of the Republican Party. A true Republican
59:40
Speaker 1: supports rocket launchers or any other weapon. That's great. That
59:42
Speaker 1: is good to hear. Obviously, you're going to spend a
59:46
Speaker 1: lot of time in your campaign communicating with Arizonans about
59:50
Speaker 1: the stakes in this election, what her policies would mean
59:52
Speaker 1: for them. But for our listeners who are not in
59:54
Speaker 1: Arizona– who may want to help your campaign. Can you
59:57
Speaker 1: just help explain what dangers we face in the 2024
1:00:01
Speaker 1: election if we go into a close race in Arizona
1:00:05
Speaker 1: where Kari Lake is the governor, Mark Fincham, a member
1:00:08
Speaker 1: of the Oath Keepers, is the Secretary of State, and
1:00:11
Speaker 1: what that looks like and why democracy hinges in some
1:00:13
Speaker 1: ways on your race?
1:00:15
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely.
1:00:16
Speaker 5: And thank you for asking that question. So first of all,
1:00:18
Speaker 5: we are going to win this race. We've gotten support
1:00:22
Speaker 5: from across the country because people know how important Arizona is.
1:00:26
Speaker 5: And we will continue to accept support at katiehabs.org. So
1:00:31
Speaker 5: thank you so much for that. But there is so
1:00:34
Speaker 5: much at stake. And you see the former president focusing
1:00:38
Speaker 5: on swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, because they're
1:00:43
Speaker 5: key to clinching the presidency in 2024. And he wants
1:00:48
Speaker 5: folks like Carrie Lake to be in positions over certifying
1:00:52
Speaker 5: elections so that they can overturn the will of the voters,
1:00:57
Speaker 5: break the rules if they don't like the outcome. That's
1:01:01
Speaker 5: what we're facing. We're facing a choice between, it's the
1:01:06
Speaker 5: future of free and fair elections in our country that
1:01:09
Speaker 5: are on the ballot in 2022.
1:01:10
Speaker 1: You know, obviously Arizona was an incredibly close state in 2020.
1:01:16
Speaker 1: It's a state that Republicans didn't want many years in advance.
1:01:18
Speaker 1: What role is Donald Trump's support of your opponent and
1:01:23
Speaker 1: the rest of the Republican ticket they're playing? How are
1:01:25
Speaker 1: Arizonans reacting to that? Is that helpful to them? Is
1:01:28
Speaker 1: it hurtful to them? Is it something you're talking about?
1:01:30
Speaker 5: Well, I think Carrie Lake's electorate that gave her the
1:01:35
Speaker 5: nomination for the Republican Party is not representative of the
1:01:39
Speaker 5: majority of our state. That being said, this is still
1:01:42
Speaker 5: going to be an incredibly close race. a Democrat doesn't
1:01:46
Speaker 5: win in Arizona by a landslide. And, but from what
1:01:51
Speaker 5: I've talked to folks about, they are ready to move
1:01:54
Speaker 5: on from the 2020 election. They are tired of Arizona
1:01:57
Speaker 5: being a laughingstock, being the butt of late night comedy
1:02:00
Speaker 5: television jokes, and having, being ground zero, as you said,
1:02:07
Speaker 5: for the fallout from the 2020 election. And so, So
1:02:12
Speaker 5: they're tired of it. They want to move on. And
1:02:14
Speaker 5: I think they really get what's at stake in this election.
1:02:17
Speaker 5: And and and so Donald Trump's involvement here and in
1:02:22
Speaker 5: other states is really driving home that that extreme rhetoric,
1:02:27
Speaker 5: that election denial that most people know is not real
1:02:32
Speaker 5: and and alienating them from from everyday voters. Carrie Lake
1:02:37
Speaker 5: certainly is continuing to feel that rhetoric before the primary election.
1:02:42
Speaker 5: She started saying there were huge amounts of fraud that
1:02:46
Speaker 5: she had evidence of if she lost the race. Clearly,
1:02:50
Speaker 5: she didn't, but we know she's coming back with that
1:02:53
Speaker 5: after the general.
1:02:53
Speaker 1: She's going to bring the cyber ninjas back. Is that right?
1:03:00
Speaker 4: Yeah.
1:03:01
Speaker 1: This is one of the most unique midterm electoral environments
1:03:04
Speaker 1: we've ever had. Traditionally, the party in power, Democrats, would
1:03:09
Speaker 1: suffer in this election, but a lot has changed in
1:03:12
Speaker 1: recent months. How are you focusing your message or communications
1:03:16
Speaker 1: with voters? Obviously, as we mentioned, you're running against a
1:03:20
Speaker 1: big lie candidate. Arizona's at the center of the battle
1:03:24
Speaker 1: for democracy. Abortion has also been top of mind for
1:03:29
Speaker 1: a lot of voters. Your opponent's extreme record on abortion,
1:03:30
Speaker 1: but we're also existing in an environment with record high inflation,
1:03:34
Speaker 1: a very confusing economy. What is the story you're telling voters?
1:03:38
Speaker 1: How do you work through all those issues to have
1:03:39
Speaker 1: a coherent narrative about why you and why not your opponent?
1:03:44
Speaker 5: So, yeah, and that's a question we get a lot.
1:03:46
Speaker 5: And I think it's really clear. This is a race
1:03:50
Speaker 5: for Arizona. It's a race between myself and Carrie Lake,
1:03:53
Speaker 5: not the White House and Republicans. Certainly those things are
1:03:58
Speaker 5: playing out. Arizonans are concerned about affordability. It's one of
1:04:02
Speaker 5: the top issues I hear from people that's being directly
1:04:06
Speaker 5: impacted by inflation. We put out a plan to help
1:04:08
Speaker 5: address that and put money back in the pockets of
1:04:11
Speaker 5: working families without raising taxes and give them some immediate
1:04:15
Speaker 5: relief from these economic problems we're seeing. In Arizona, inflation
1:04:22
Speaker 5: is being largely driven by the housing market. We're going
1:04:24
Speaker 5: to focus on how we bring those costs down so
1:04:27
Speaker 5: that Arizonans can afford rents or new home purchases. So that's,
1:04:33
Speaker 5: we're focusing on these real issues and how we address them,
1:04:39
Speaker 5: which my opponent has no plans to do, no serious
1:04:42
Speaker 5: plans to do. Arizonans are absolutely concerned about continued access
1:04:47
Speaker 5: to safe and legal abortion, which we don't have in
1:04:49
Speaker 5: the state right now. There's no abortion providers providing services
1:04:53
Speaker 5: right now. That's not only compromising necessary healthcare for people
1:04:57
Speaker 5: seeking abortions, but Routine pregnancy care. I had a miscarriage.
1:05:03
Speaker 5: My doctor performed a DMC.
1:05:05
Speaker 4: It was the best.
1:05:05
Speaker 5: Option for my health. These are common in miscarriages. And
1:05:11
Speaker 5: women's health care is being compromised because of these policies.
1:05:16
Speaker 5: And it's not extreme to say that what my opponent
1:05:20
Speaker 5: is proposing, full criminalization of abortion, is going to put
1:05:25
Speaker 5: women's lives at risk. We need to invest in public education.
1:05:31
Speaker 5: My opponent wants to put cameras in every public school
1:05:35
Speaker 5: classroom to monitor what teachers are doing, which would open
1:05:38
Speaker 5: the doors for predators to spy on all of our children.
1:05:46
Speaker 5: And we have serious issues when it comes to water
1:05:49
Speaker 5: and our leaders have kicked the can down the road
1:05:52
Speaker 5: for too long. We need to tackle that head on.
1:05:55
Speaker 5: And my opponent has proposed piping water to Arizona from
1:05:58
Speaker 5: the Mississippi River, which is not a feasible alternative at all,
1:06:05
Speaker 5: but there are some real things we can do that
1:06:08
Speaker 5: would have an impact and address the crisis immediately. And
1:06:13
Speaker 5: those are the things I'm talking to folks about and
1:06:17
Speaker 5: how we can, again, move our state forward versus offering
1:06:22
Speaker 5: a lot of extreme rhetoric and not addressing the real
1:06:27
Speaker 5: issues that we're facing.
1:06:29
Speaker 1: So to put a button on this, your opponent is
1:06:34
Speaker 1: pro-big lie, pro-election theft, anti-access to abortion, pro-rocket launcher, and
1:06:41
Speaker 1: has no serious plan for inflation or water. Is that correct?
1:06:46
Speaker 4: That sums it up, yeah.
1:06:48
Speaker 1: Good, good. So let's just, just one more time for
1:06:51
Speaker 1: the folks listening. If they want to support Katie Hobbs,
1:06:55
Speaker 1: protect democracy, make sure Donald Trump's favorite candidate does not
1:06:59
Speaker 1: become governor of a critical battleground state. Where do they
1:07:02
Speaker 1: go to help your campaign?
1:07:04
Speaker 5: Katie Hobbs.org is the website you can donate. You can
1:07:08
Speaker 5: sign up to volunteer. We can absolutely use out of
1:07:10
Speaker 5: state volunteers for phone banking. Um, so please help us.
1:07:15
Speaker 5: We can win this race. Uh, I'm ahead in the polls.
1:07:18
Speaker 5: The most recent poll has me leading by three points.
1:07:21
Speaker 5: I've never lost an election. I'm the first Democrat to
1:07:24
Speaker 5: win secretary of state in 24 years here. I've got
1:07:28
Speaker 5: a track record to protect and the stakes are too
1:07:31
Speaker 5: high to lose now. So we're in this to win it.
1:07:35
Speaker 5: And your help will absolutely.
1:07:38
Speaker 2: Help get us there.
1:07:39
Speaker 1: Secretary Hobbs, thank you so much for joining us and
1:07:41
Speaker 1: good luck on the campaign trail.
1:07:43
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having me.
1:07:50
Speaker 2: Hot Save America is a Crooked Media production.
1:07:52
Speaker 1: The executive producer is Michael Martinez.
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1:07:58
Speaker 2: Olivia Martinez and Hayley Muse. It's mixed and edited by
1:08:01
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1:08:05
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Speaker 2: Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to
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