Latest / Pod Save America / "50 Shades of MAGA."

Transcript

"50 Shades of MAGA." · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, the January 6th committee highlights how Trump's
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: attempted coup led to threats of violence against anyone who
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: refused to go along. Strict Scrutiny's Melissa Murray joins to
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: talk about the Supreme Court's terrible gun decision. And Zay Dorn,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: the host of Crooked Media's new series, Mother Country Radicals,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: joins to talk about political radicalization in the 70s and today.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: But first, just a few housekeeping notes. You'll hear Dan's
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: interview with Melissa in a bit, but all the Strict
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Scrutiny hosts are also doing an emergency pod today to
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: provide in-depth analysis of the Supreme Court's gun decision. So
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: you can check that out in the Strict Scrutiny feed.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: right after you finish listening to us. And if you
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: haven't heard, this year's Crooked Media Pride Fund will support
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: three incredible organizations, the Transgender Education Network of Texas, Trans Lifeline,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: and Equality Florida. All three organizations provide community building, gender affirming,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: and life-saving resources to the queer and transgender community all
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: year long. So we are very excited to be helping out.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: To learn more and pitch in, please visit crooked.com slash
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: pride fund. All right, let's get to the news. On
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: last week's episode of Insurrection, the January 6th committee revealed
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: how Donald Trump pressured Mike Pence to go along with
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: his coup. On Tuesday's episode, the committee revealed how Trump
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: and his accomplices pressured state election officials from Arizona to
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Georgia to go along with his coup. Today's episode we
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: are recording this Thursday morning will be about how Trump
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: pressured the Department of Justice to go along with his coup.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: And the recurring theme that's come up in these last
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: two hearings, at least, is that anyone who stood up
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: to Trump, anyone who refused to go along with his
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: illegal plan, wasn't just harassed. They were threatened. Their families
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: were threatened. Their lives were put in danger. That was
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: true of Pence. It was true of Georgia Secretary of
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican Trump voter who testified that
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: people broke into his son's widow's home to harass her.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: It was true of Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, another
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Republican Trump supporter, who testified that his wife and gravely
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: ill daughter had to worry about what will happen on
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Saturdays because that's the day that people show up outside
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: their home to threaten them and call Bowers a pedophile.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: And it was especially true of Georgia election workers Shea
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman, whose lives were threatened
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: to the point where Moss's grandmother was ambushed and Freeman
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: had to leave her home. Here's a clip of their testimony.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: A lot of threats, wishing death upon me, telling me
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: that I'll be in jail with my mother, and saying
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: things like, be glad it's 2020 and not 1920. It's
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: affecting my life in a major way, in every way,
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: all because of lies.
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: I've lost my name and I've lost my reputation. I've
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: lost my sense of security. All because a group of people,
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: starting with number 45 and his ally, Rudy Giuliani, decided
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: to scapegoat me and my daughter, Shay, to push their
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: own lies about how the presidential election was stolen.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Dan, your reaction to Tuesday's testimony?
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: It's just such an important reminder that what politicians say matters, right?
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: It's not just trolling or owning the libs or trying
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: to go viral or excusing your own loss. It matters.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: And people died because of it. People's lives were threatened
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: and the Capitol was ransacked. And I think that's one
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: thing these hearings have done masterfully and importantly is which
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: is remind us of what happened because of the big lie.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: Because I think because it's such a, this, you know, traumatic,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: unique experience, we've sort of like numbed ourselves to it
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: over the last year and a half. And whether it
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: was the footage from that first hearing or hearing about
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: how close the mob came to Mike Pence or hearing
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: from these election workers and, you know, and the Republicans
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: who stood in the way of Trump's insurrection, what that
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: meant for them is a reminder of just how dangerous
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: a game the Republican Party is playing because almost to
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: a person, they continue to push the lies that led
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: to this violence and these threats, continue to enable the
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: behavior and the people who led to this violence and
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: these threats. And it is happening right before us. I
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: think it's very important for all of us to recognize
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: just how dangerous it is.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Listening to Shea's testimony in particular was probably, I'd say,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: the angriest and most upset I've been since January 6th.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: And I couldn't shake it, and I was trying to
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: figure out why. And I think a big part of
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: it was hearing how frightening the threats were. A big
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: part of it was hearing how racist the threats were.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: But I think what made me most upset was that
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: these two women were just doing everything that we want
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: good citizens to do in this country. Like, they weren't
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: just voters. They were poll workers. They weren't there to
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: swing the election to Democrats or Republicans. They just wanted
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: to make the election work. They just wanted to make
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: sure that every vote was counted. And maybe that's because
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: their parents and grandparents grew up at a time when
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: they weren't allowed to vote. And they realized that people
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: fought and died for that right. And so they wanted
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: to do the work to protect it. And now these
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: monsters have tried to scare them and scare others away
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: from performing one of the most basic obligations of citizens
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: in a democracy. And look, like, I get that politics
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: feels awful right now. You know, like people are angry
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: and they're upset and they're just done with it. But
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: this is exactly what Trump and those MAGA assholes want.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: They want us to be angry. They want us to
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: be cynical. They want us to give up. They want
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: us to turn against each other And that's how they win.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: That's how they win. And I don't think we should
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: make it easy for them. Because fuck them. So, you know,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: if you want to keep these MAGA assholes out of
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: power and stop them from fucking with our elections, go
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: to votesaveamerica.com slash midterms and you can sign up to
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: do more than just vote. You can volunteer. You can organize.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: You can donate. We have plenty of stuff for you
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: to do. Also, Uh, our, our friend is, um, uh, is,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: was the lawyer for, for Shay and Ruby. And, um,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: he was alerting me to, to go fund me links
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: that I tweeted out this morning and which are links and, and,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: and go fund me accounts to help them put their
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: lives back together. So if you want to help Shay
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: and Ruby, if you, if you were moved by their testimony, um,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: you can, I tweeted out this morning, we'll tweet it
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: out again at the end of the episode, they've already
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: raised over $ 400, 000, which is, which is amazing. But also,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: you know, nothing can I think can replace what what
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: they've lost that sense of security. And as Ruby was saying,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: her reputation. But anyway, it was it was fucked up.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: I want I want to come back to this this
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: recurring theme of threats and harassment toward anyone who stood
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: up to Trump. But I also want to get your reaction, Dan,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: to the committee's focus on the the MAGA plot to
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: send fake Trump electors to Congress. and their decision to
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: play the audio of Trump's call with Raffensperger, where he
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: asked him to find 11,700 votes. What do you think
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: the legal and political significance of laying out all that
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: testimony and evidence was on Tuesday?
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Well, let's start with the Raffensperger call, where we now
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: know from previous testimony that Trump had been told repeatedly,
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: shown data and otherwise, that the votes that he was
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: asking Raffensperger to find did not exist. He knew, he
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: clearly had the knowledge based on what we know, that
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: he was asking Raffensperger to commit fraud on his behalf
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: in order to hand him the presidency. And that is
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: under investigation right now by the Fulton County District Attorney.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: There's an impaneled grand jury. This is an area of
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: real potential legal jeopardy for Trump and his aides. And
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: we have it on tape. And this is a tape
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: as damning as anything that came out in the Watergate hearings.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: It is– whether they're– lawyers will have to– and grand
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: juries will have to make a decision about whether you
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: can prove a crime, but from a pure point of guilt, moral, political, historical,
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: this is the most smoking gun we've had.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: We've had it for a while.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Probably in American history, right? He is on tape committing
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: a crime, no subtlety, no plausible deniability. He is doing it.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, when we were in Oakland, we were
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: debating with Melissa about like, you know, Trump's intent and
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: you have to prove what was on his mind. And he,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: did he really believe that there was voter fraud? And
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: did he really believe he was just availing himself of
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: all his options? And did he know it was illegal?
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: But when you hear him say to Raffensperger, Hey man,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: just find me the votes. That's not someone who's like Hey,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I think there was fraud We're going to need to
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: do something, we're going to need to take it to
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: court No, no, no, no, it's just find me the
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: votes man Just find me the fucking votes I also
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: think it was interesting that there's the Raffensperger call And
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: obviously as you mentioned There's that Fulton County investigation going
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: on But the Justice Department just delivered a bunch of
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: grand jury subpoenas on Wednesday to state officials who were
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: connected to the fake elector plot in other states as well, right?
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: Absolutely.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: And so that's the other part of this. And I
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: think that is incredibly critical. As these hearings have gone on,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: there's been this growing focus on Trump's knowledge and participation
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: in a plan to send fake electors to Congress to
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: create a fig leaf in order to overturn the election.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: And that is a– I mean the word fake here
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: is very critical. This is a conspiracy to commit fraud.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Once again, a ponderous former judge somewhere in America is
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: going to have to make a decision about whether you
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: can actually convict a person of the crime commitments we have.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: But let's be clear what he was trying to do here.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: And so this is– Trump knew about it. His aides
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: knew about it and they participated in it. And that's
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: a big deal. And what's funny about this is, is
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: this is not a– there's no real mystery to what
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: happened here. Like, so as you mentioned, this department of
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: justice said for grand jurisprudence, one of the guys who
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: received the subpoena is a Trump campaign aid who is
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: caught on video, uh, working, passing along the fake, the
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: slate of quote unquote, fake electors. And he's doing that
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: wearing a Trump campaign sweatshirt with his name on it.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: And how did, how did the committee get this, uh, video?
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: You know, was there a secret source of a subpoena? No,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: the Arizona Republican party tweeted it out. So this was
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: happening in full view for everyone to see. And the
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: question is, will there be legal consequences? There absolutely should
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: be political consequences for what happened here. Someone else will
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: decide the legal, but they tried to defraud the country
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: to put in place a person who lost the election.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: That is an absolutely, that is an open and shut case.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: That is very clear. Everyone has testified to it. Everyone
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: has admitted to it. And can Democrats therefore make the
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: case that that is a reason, one of the many
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: reasons why this political party that is on board with
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: said scheme, which has protected the people guilty of it
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: from any sort of legal political accountability, should ever be
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: in power again. And that's the real question here.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: And I think the political consequences are key too, because
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: I don't want us to get so hung up on
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: the legal implications that, look, at some point, some jury
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: is going to hear this evidence and make a decision.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: But there's a much bigger jury that gets to make
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: a decision in 2022, in 2024, and that's everyone who's
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: fucking registered to vote. So I don't want to lose
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: sight of that because we can't necessarily control what an
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: actual jury does or what prosecutors does. We can hope,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: we can follow along and stuff like that, but we
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: can't control it. We can control what all of us
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: do about this, who we tell about it, who we
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: try to persuade about it, who we try to get
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: out to vote. And speaking of that, let's go to,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: the committee also showed texts where Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson's
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: staff tried to hand Mike Pence a package of Fake
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Trump electors, to which Pence's staffer responded in the text,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: do not give that to him.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Once again, in the text.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: In the text.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: We just constantly text about our crimes.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Excuse me, I have fake electors for the coup. Where
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: can I deliver the fake electors for the coup? Can
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I give them to the vice president? No, do not
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: give the vice president the fake electors for the coup.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: The vice president is anti-coup.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, please direct these messages to the group thread titled Coup.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, do you think this will have legal implications
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: for Johnson? Or, back to the political conversation, would you
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: focus on this issue more? If you were the Democratic
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Senate candidate running against him in November, he is up
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: and he's maybe the most vulnerable Republican senator up right now.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, I understand why we and everyone listening, everyone
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: we talk to are so obsessed with the idea of
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: legal consequences for Trump and the people involved in this.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: Very clearly, crimes were committed here. And for the system
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: to feel like it works, the people who... who implement
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: an attempted violent overthrow of our government should face legal consequences.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: We also- Hear, hear.
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: That's right.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Look, look, it's a crazy theory.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: It's not kind of out there.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: Hard to agree.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: But we also should recognize that Donald Trump, Ron Johnson, rich, white,
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: politically connected men in America tend to face legal consequences
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: at a much lower rate than the rest of America.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: And so it's very possible- They're not going to face
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: legal consequences here. But that doesn't mean, per your earlier point,
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: that Ron Johnson, who is up for reelection this fall
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: in a state that Joe Biden won, Ron Johnson, who's
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: one of the least popular senators in America, should not
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: face political consequences as we did. Now, I don't think
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: the crux of the campaign against Ron Johnson should be
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: about one of his aides trying to give papers to
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: an aide to Mike Pence. But his continued advocacy for
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: the big lie, his willingness to– stand by a violent
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: overthrow of our country as an example. It's one data
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: point in a larger argument about his MAGA extremism that
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: is out of touch with the country and is out
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: of touch with Wisconsin. So I think this is another
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: way in which to make the larger argument against Ron Johnson,
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: which he often makes for us every time he.
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: Opens his mouth.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, he's one of my nominees
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: for America's dumbest senator. I realize there's some stiff competition
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: in that race.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: If we don't do well in this election, we're going
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: to have to really reorder that because there are some
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: real contenders on the ballot this fall.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: But I do think you can make a case that,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: you know, Ron Johnson ran as this businessman who was
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: going to go clean up Washington. And now he can't
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: focus on problems that people care about because he's too
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: busy trying to keep Donald Trump in power and kissing
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Trump's ass and being as extremist as possible. He's become
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: way out of step with Wisconsin voters. That's the case
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: that I would say.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: He broke his own term limits pledge so he could
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: stay in the Senate. to help Donald Trump steal the
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: next election.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: That's what he cares about. Donald Trump doesn't care about Wisconsin.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: So let me ask you, what do you make of
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Brad Raffensperger and Rusty Bowers? Raffensperger clearly isn't a Trump
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: fan anymore, but he did support the voter suppression legislation
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: that Georgia Republicans passed after 2020. Bowers not only supports
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: that kind of legislation, he said after the hearing, he
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: still might vote for Donald Trump in 2024. What the fuck?
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Rusty Bowers, who looks like Ed Harris needs to play
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: you in the movie version. I missed the first hour
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: of the hearing. I sat down, I'm like, what is
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Ed Harris doing? But everyone was like, oh, wow, Rusty Bowers.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: And look, I give a lot of leeway to like-
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: People who look like Ed Harris? No, Republicans who hold
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: positions that I abhor, but have decided on the issue
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: of Donald Trump and the future of democracy to be
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: on the right side of history. And I kind of
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: thought that Rusty Bowers was headed there. And then he
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: was like, nah, I still might vote for him. And
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: I'm like, what are you doing, man? What are you doing?
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: What do you think about that?
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: I think that like the color gray, there are 50
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: shades of MAGA. Like, there are just degrees here, right?
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Really shooting for the episode title today, huh?
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't think we could do that. But this
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: is what happens when I do a lot of my
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: pod prep like 12 hours in advance. And then I
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: get wedded to a really bad joke and I can't
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: let it go.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: You know what?
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: I laugh.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: That's good.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: That's really all I was hoping for. Even if it's
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: a pity laugh, I'll take it.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: I'm an easy laugh. I will say. That's true.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, there are only two of us talking to
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: each other. Now, if you didn't laugh, it'd be super
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: fucking awkward. Okay. You were right. Like we, Brad Raffensperger, Bowers,
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: a bunch of people, there are a handful of Republicans
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: who deserve credit for the courage they showed at this
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: moment of decision in 2020.
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: Like, absolutely.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. And I'm very glad that if it's a choice
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: between Brad Raffensperger as Secretary of State of Georgia or
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Jody Heiss, the big lie believer that Donald Trump endorsed,
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: Brad Raffensperger is better. But you know what's better than
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Brad Raffensperger? A Democrat that doesn't support voter suppression laws.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: You know what's better than Rusty Bowers? A Democrat Speaker
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: of the House in Arizona. And so these are good
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: reminders that it is possible for Republicans to show courage.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: We should applaud them when they do. But our democracy
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: cannot depend on a small handful of courageous Republicans, right?
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Is that ultimately that's, you know, even the brave Republicans
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: support voter suppression. Even the Republicans who wouldn't let Donald
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Trump steal the last election may help him win the
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: next one. And which is why ultimately the only way
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: to deal with this sort of behavior is to beat
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: the Republicans, even the ones who were courageous in 2020.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: That is the only option we have.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we have a great Democrat who'd be a better
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Secretary of State than Brad Raffensperger. Bean Wen, she's been
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: right on Pod Save America. She just got the nomination
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: for Secretary of State there. Go vote for Bee. But look,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: I actually don't, like whenever I see these debates about
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: is this Republican who's turned on Trump a hero or not,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: like I don't find the debates very useful. to start
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: ranking what their specific level of political courage is to
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: figure out which shade of MAGA.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: There we go.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: Thank you. Thank you.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Thank you. There you go. Well, look, I think the
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: defining issue of our time is whether you support people
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: who want to overturn our elections or whether you're willing
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: to fight those people. I detest voter suppression policies. I
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: also think that throwing out votes is a different and
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: even bigger threat than making it harder to vote. It
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: is an existential threat to every other issue that we
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: care about. We have people throwing out votes and installing
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: people in power. None of the other issues we care
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: about we can make progress on. It's all done at
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: that point. So if you're willing to fight the people
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: who don't even want to bother counting the votes, you
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: can be on our team. We'll fight you on everything
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: else later.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: We focus a lot. Look, this is a tendency in
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the media that does this, too. You focus on individuals.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: You focus on individuals because that's where the drama and
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: the character and the story is. And is this person
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: a hero? Does this person have courage? Are they not?
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: There's a much bigger issue at stake here, right, which
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: is the pro-democracy coalition that elected Joe Biden in 2020
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: has to remain together in 2022 and 2024. And that
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: coalition is bad. very big and very diverse politically, ideologically
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: in every, every which way. And there's a lot I
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: disagree with, with other people in that coalition about particularly people,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: the further you drift to the right in that coalition.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: But again, we have to all hang together or else
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: there is no democracy. So like, Who gets like a
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: merit badge in the Republican Party? I don't really care
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: much about.
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's been such a dumb binary debate throughout
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: the Trump years where it's whenever there's a Republican who
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: shows courage and does something that– opposing Trump or whatever,
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: they're standing up to the insurrection, that if you praise them,
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: you are therefore endorsing everything they've ever stood for, right?
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: As opposed to just being a temporary ally– in the
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: fight for democracy. And you can praise Brett Raffensperger for
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: his courage and also support his Democratic opponent in the fall, right?
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: You can say some of these never-Trump Republicans are helpful
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: in making the case to other never-Trump Republican voters without
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: saying we're going to point them to our cabinet and
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: they're going to be the new leaders of the Democratic Party.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: That's just a fake, stupid debate. We can have a
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: little nuance to this.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Reporters love this because they live to call people who
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: participate in politics hypocrites. And so you get a bunch
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: of reporters who are like, new liberal hero, Liz Cheney.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: It's like, no one fucking called her a hero. She's
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: doing some good work on the Trump stuff. She's standing
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: up when she should have stood up. She's showing some
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: political cards. Great. She's no one's fucking hero.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: Well, John, you've been offline a lot, if you will.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: And there are a lot of people on Twitter who
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: are calling her a hero.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: We're not.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: But a lot, trust me, I've been out in the
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: country the last few weeks and a lot of Democrats
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: are calling her a hero.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, please tell me no elected Democrats.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Right, but she can also be heroic and brave in
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: this instance. I think she's shown tremendous courage and has
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: put her career on the line.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Once again, we don't support all positions. This is exactly
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: why I hate this debate. This is exactly why I
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: hate this debate. Anyway, one of the major takeaways from
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: these hearings is that Trump's coup didn't succeed because a
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: relatively small group of political leaders and election officials held
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: the line. And they held the line against tremendous pressure
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: from Trump and violent threats from some of his supporters.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: These were people, these were Democrats, Republicans, nonpartisan poll workers
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: like Shea Moss, even Trump supporters like Bowers. And I
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: think you can argue that at least for Trump and
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: his MAGA goons, that 2022 is about making sure that
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: that group of bipartisan and nonpartisan political leaders and election
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: officials is replaced with MAGA loyalists. Do you think enough
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: people understand that's the strategy and those are the stakes?
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Do you think the hearing is helping more people understand that?
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: I do think the hearing is helping with that, but
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: I do not think it– clearly enough, people do not
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: know that those are the stakes. They do not fully
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: understand just how dangerous, well-thought-out and well-funded the Republican plan
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: to take over the election apparatus in this country is.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Like I'm not here to promote, well, maybe I'm here,
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: but I will promote your conversation with Jennifer Senior.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Oh, I thought you were going to be battling the
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: big lie.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, no.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: I was not.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: I was going to promote offline.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, thank you.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: You had a very good interview with Jennifer Senior from
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: The Atlantic who wrote a fascinating profile of Steve Bannon,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: who is, as you said, obsessed with Pod Save America,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: as he should be, but gets into just how he
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: is using his platform to organize a precinct by precinct
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: takeover of the election apparatus in this country so that
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: at every level, the Republicans can make sure that there
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: are no Brad Raffenspergers or Rusty Bowers or nonpartisan election
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: workers to stand in the way of the next insurrection.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: And that is happening. And it's very clear that most
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Democrats do not know that. Most people in the country
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: do not know that. You can see that in the
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: discrepancy in funding for Republican Secretary of State candidates and
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Democratic Secretary of State candidates. So the discrepancy in funding
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: between what Republican And right-wing super PACs are putting into
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: party-wide efforts to recruit an army of poll workers. And
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: the very smart grassroots efforts by groups like Run for
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Something and others, but pale in comparison to the funding
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: sources that the right has. There is an asymmetry in this.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: And if we do not catch up quickly, we're going
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: to find ourselves in a very different situation after the
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: 2024 election.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Yes. One place I do think The committee might be
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: making progress as views about Trump. There was a new
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: UNH poll out yesterday of New Hampshire voters who say
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: they're likely to vote in the 2024 Republican primary. So
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: last October, the same poll showed Trump in the lead
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: with 43%, DeSantis with 18%, and everyone else in single digits.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: This week's poll shows Ron DeSantis in the lead with 39%,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Trump with 37%, and Mike Pence, Mike Pence more than
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: doubling his past showing from 4% to 9%. He's coming.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Watch out for my pen. Dan, how much do you
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: attribute that movement to these hearings?
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Well, look, John, no poll has ever been wrong. We
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: should treat this one individual singular poll.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: This one poll of this sample of just a few
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: hundred New Hampshire voters. I actually don't know what the
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: sample size was.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Every poll should be treated as if the top lines
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: were inscribed on a stone tablet sent down from the Mount.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: We should take it as the gospel.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: I have no idea if this poll is right. It
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: is– if you look at the overall trend of some
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: of these Republican primary pollings, two things are clear. A
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: large plurality of Republicans want someone other than Donald Trump
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: to run in 2024 and that Ron DeSantis has been
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: growing in sort of every subsequent poll to the point
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: where he is– maybe perhaps in New Hampshire. We'll know
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: when the more polling is done, has overtaken Trump. A
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: lot of people were pretty excited about this, but I
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: think we should not pat ourselves on the back that
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Republican voters have seen it, have come to terms with
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: what's happened in this country and decided to replace a
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: dumb insurrectionist with a less dumb insurrectionist. I don't think
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: that's a great thing. We're just swapping one authoritarian for
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: the other. I think there are two– let's just for
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: the sake of argument say this poll is accurate and
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: that Trump is suffering in the eyes of Republican voters.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: The hearings are obviously why that's happening, and I think
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: there are two sort of reasons that undergird that. The
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: first is it's bad for Trump when Trump is in
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: the news. It reminds people of all of his flaws.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: He has benefited greatly from being essentially silent for the
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: last year and a half. That has been very good,
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: particularly with Republican voters. He's like a Rorschach test.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: His staff had wanted to take his Twitter feed away
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: from him for years. The Twitter feed has been taken
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: away and they were correct. It was a good thing
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: for him.
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: And then the other reason is to the extent Donald
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Trump is back in the news, he is talking about
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: two things, the past and himself. And Ron DeSantis, he's
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: in the news, is talking about the future. It's a dark, dystopian, bigoted,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: authoritarian future, but it is the future, and he's not
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: really talking about himself. And so Trump is backward-looking and self-obsessed.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: And so you can see why that could make some
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Republican voters either like him less or think he is
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: a less viable candidate to take on Joe Biden in 2024.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: And so it is possible that just the mere focus
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: on Trump from this committee is bad for Trump, both
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: with the public writ large and Republican voters perhaps more specifically.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Well, then I think one... big question to think about
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: before we move on is what all this means for
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: the rest of the MAGA Republicans and the MAGA movement. Um,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: you point out, you know, just if, if somehow Trump loses,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: but we get Ron DeSantis, that's not exactly a happy
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: ending here. Um, so, and I think all this brings
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: us back to the, the recurring theme of, of threats
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: and violence that we've, that we've heard in these hearings.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: You know, in addition to what we heard on Tuesday, uh,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: We also learned that MAGA supporters threatened the lives of
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Republican committee member Adam Kinzinger, his wife, and their five-month-old baby.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: We also saw a new campaign ad where former Missouri
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: governor and current Senate candidate Eric Greitens holds a shotgun
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: and encourages people to go rhino hunting. Republican in name only.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: That's rhino. Florida Senator Rick Scott gave a speech over
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: the weekend where he said that the American left has become, quote,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: the enemy within. And, you know, MAGA Republicans... Trump supporters,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Dan Crenshaw and John Cornyn, were booed, confronted, and called
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: traitors at the Texas Republican Convention, where the state party
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: adopted a platform that declares Joe Biden's victory illegitimate, says
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: that homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice, says the Voting
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Rights Act of 1965 should be repealed, and that Texas
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: should hold a vote in 2023 on seceding from the union.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: I guess the question is, what do we do about
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: a political movement that has Resorted to threats of violence
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: and harassment. particularly one that has largely taken over one
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: of our two major political parties? I mean, this seems
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: to be where we are right now. A large faction
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: of the Republican Party has been taken over by a
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: movement that is growing ever more extremist by the day.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: This has been a trend that's been happening for a
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: long time. This is the root of a lot of
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: the Tea Party response to the election of the first
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: black president. It was at the core of Donald Trump's birtherism,
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump's candidacy, the big lie, et cetera, and it's
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: all happening. And I think over the course of much
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: of that decade and a half of time, there was
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: this thought and hope that Republicans would solve this problem
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: among themselves, that there would be some courageous Republican who
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: would stand up to these forces and move the party
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: in a different direction. There was sort of this hope
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: that maybe the voters would do it for him in
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: 2016 if Trump had lost that election. Maybe they would
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: do it in 2020 if Trump had lost overwhelmingly and
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: that the party could look inward. And there are obviously
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: elected Republicans who would prefer that their party not act
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: like this. But none of them have the courage to
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: say anything about it. And so they continue to coddle it.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: Even benefit from it because they need the sort of
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: the enthusiasm and juiced out turnout that comes from inviting
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: this dangerous fringe into their rapidly shrinking base. And you
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: can see why they do it because they keep getting
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: away with it, right? Think about it. Like the Republican
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: president incited a violent riot on the Capitol. And what
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: has happened to him since then? Nothing. What about his
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: party that helped spread that lie and continues to spread
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: that lie? They're favored to win the House and the
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Senate right now. So why would they do anything different?
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: They think it is in their political interest to welcome
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: this extremist, violent fringe into their party to elevate it
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: and to coddle it. And the only thing we can
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: do here, and it's not an easy answer, it's not comforting,
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: is we, the pro-democracy majority in this country, has to
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: beat them. We have to beat them again and again
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: and And again, until they recognize that they're not going
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: to do the right thing on their own. They're going
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: to do what's in their political interest. And we have
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: to show them that they will pay a political price
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: for acting like this, for pushing these conspiracy theories, for
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: sanctioning this violence. And until we do that, we're going
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: to continue to be in this exact hinge point for democracy.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: And so it's not easy. It's not pleasant, it's not comforting,
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: but we have to make them pay a political price
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: for it until they're going to keep doing this until
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: they do.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: And I think the fundamental challenge here, particularly in this election, is,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: you know, you say we, we as in people who
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: are very engaged in politics, people who listen to this podcast,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: people who watch MSNBC, people who go volunteer, organize, donate.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Most people in this country are not engaged in politics.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Most people don't pay close attention to politics. And I
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: think the question is, how do you get people to
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: care about this, this threat to democracy that's out there,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: more than they care about inflation? Because in their lives,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: they're seeing the cost of gas and groceries go up,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: and they may think that these threats of violence are
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: something that happens somewhere else, that it's being overblown, that
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: it's exaggerated, that politics has been screwed up for years anyway,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: and Washington's a mess. And what I really care about
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: is the fact that I can't afford something. And I
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: think our You know, we can all be mad about
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: that and roll our eyes about that, but it's the
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: truth of what people are feeling. And I think it's
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: incumbent on us to persuade them otherwise, to persuade people
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: that this is actually a big fucking deal. In fact,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: the biggest fucking deal.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: And I think I very much agree with you, but
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: I do want to sort of hone in on one point,
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: which is I don't think it's do you care about
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: inflation or do you care about democracy? because I think
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: we're going to lose that battle. And it's just not
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: how people's brains work. They don't make political decisions in silos. Like,
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: I'm going to care about my wallet, or I'm going
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: to care about my culture. I'm going to care about
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: my country. I'm going to care about my kitchen table issues.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: It's much more nuanced than that. Here's the question. Who
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: do you think is going to solve the challenges facing
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: this country, whether it's high gas prices, high grocery prices,
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: income inequality? Is it going to be a party that
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: is obsessed with book bans, bullying trans kids, refighting the
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: last election, believes in conspiracy theories. So then there's going
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: to be people who will fight for you, right? Like
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: we have to make this about who is going to
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: fight for you and who is fighting for themselves. And
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: if you do that, we have a chance. And it
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: is hard. Like I'm not saying that there is a
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: magic solution. There's some secret message. There was a lot
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: of political headwinds, but the, we, we have to tell
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: a story about who the Republicans are. And part of
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: that story should lead people down the accurate, true path
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: that this party does not give a shit how high
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: your gas prices are.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: They do not care. They care about themselves and their power.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: And that's, that's an easier, that's an open door to
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: push on right there.
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Because like, you know, just to give you guys again,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: a preview of this season of the wilderness, which will
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: be out in September, uh, Um, I've, I'm going to
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: do a bunch of focus groups. I've already done focus
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: groups in Virginia and, and, uh, in Pittsburgh. And when
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: you talk about issues that matter, you know, unfortunately there
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: were voters in the, in the Pittsburgh group. These are all, uh,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: most of them are Democrats. Most of them are planning
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: on voting, uh, not very engaged. And, uh, most of
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: them were like, yeah, they too much attention being paid
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: on January 6th. That was in the past. And what
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: we really care about is inflation. When you start talking
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: about both parties, um, You know, what they say about
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Democrats is like Democrats can't get their shit together, which,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: you know, is a topic of conversation on this podcast
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: all the time. But when you ask them about Republicans,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: they start saying extreme, crazy, care only about themselves, don't
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: care about us. And I do think getting it into
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: that choice frame and away from the like, what issue
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: do you really care about is probably the best chance
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: that we have. When we come back, Dan will talk
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: to Strict Scrutiny's Melissa Murray. about the Supreme Court's gun decision.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: This morning, the Supreme Court released a major opinion on
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: a Second Amendment case. The conservative majority sided with gun manufacturers.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: Here to help us understand what the court did and
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: what it all means is Strict Scrutiny's Melissa Murray. Melissa,
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: welcome back to Positive America.
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: Thanks for having me. How are you?
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: Less good than I was about three hours ago, I think.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: But my days go downhill on Supreme Court decision days.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: So I imagine yours probably do as well.
• 36:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's only going to get worse from here.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems that way. This is the appetizer of terribleness.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: The amused boosh of terribleness.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, there we go. All right. Just very simply for
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: all of us non-lawyers doing this interview and listening to it,
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: can you just explain to us what the Supreme Court
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: did and what it means?
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: So the case was brought by two gun owners in
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: New York state who sought a concealed carry permit. And
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: New York is one of the handful of states that
• 37:03
  Speaker 5: is a quote unquote may issue state, which is to
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: say that you can get a concealed carry permit. But
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: in order to do so, you have to demonstrate a
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: special need. And the problem that the court found here
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: with that permitting scheme from New York is that it
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: gives a lot of discretion to state and local officials
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: to decide what needs are special enough to warrant getting
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: the permit that would allow you to carry a concealed
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: weapon in a public space. And so in this decision,
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: which was written by Justice Clarence Thomas, incidentally, the decision
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: was handed down on his birthday. So Happy birthday to him,
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: I guess. And he's been jonesing for a big Second
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: Amendment case for a long time. So this is actually
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: quite a birthday present. They invalidated the New York licensing scheme.
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: They said very clearly that the Second Amendment permits a
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: right to keep and bear arms in public settings. It
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: had previously been. held in a case from 2008 called
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: Heller versus the District of Columbia that the Second Amendment
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: protected a right to keep and bear arms related to
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: the home. Now this allows you to go beyond the
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: home to public spaces. But they didn't say it was
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: sort of an unfettered free-for-all in the public sphere. So
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: they noted that that there might still be opportunities for
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: states to limit the carrying of weapons and concealed weapons
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: in public spaces in quote-unquote sensitive areas. But they didn't
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: really say what these sensitive areas might be, although they
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: did note that areas that had previously been identified as
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: sensitive included places like polling places, maybe schools and federal
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: buildings and quote unquote courthouses. So it's great that where
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: they work will be continued to be regarded as a
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: sensitive place. But, you know, I think what this decision
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: actually does is set up and tee up a range
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: of litigation to try and determine what this right to
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: keep and bear arms in public actually means and what
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: authority states and local governments have to actually restrict the
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: carrying of weapons in public settings. Like what are, in fact,
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: those sensitive areas where the state can appropriately regulate?
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: And so we don't know I guess the New York
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: governor said she was considering calling back in the legislature
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: to rewrite the law to try to meet this new test.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: Is there any sense of what that could possibly be?
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Are we just going to be in a case of
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: states pushing up against it until we find what is
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: a permissible level of state power to protect its citizens
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: in this situation?
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: So it's worth me laying out what this new test is.
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: So previously, the idea had been in this Heller case
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: that the Second Amendment permitted this right to keep and
• 39:55
  Speaker 5: bear arms. But then there was some sort of means
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: and ends testing. So, yes, you could have the you
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: had a right to bear arms, but it wasn't an
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: unfettered right, meaning that the state could use. appropriately regulate
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: it so long as their imposition on your right wasn't excessive,
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: given what they were trying to accomplish, right? In this case,
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: the court actually says, we start with the premise that
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: the Second Amendment affords this right to keep and bear arms,
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: and we kind of jettison the idea that there is
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: any kind of presumptive opportunity for the state to think
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: about whether it can meaningfully infringe upon that right. Like
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: the starting place is the second amendment protects this right.
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: And the only kinds of state regulations that are consistent
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: with the Second Amendment are those regulations that would be
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: consistent with the historical understanding of what the framers would
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: have understood as reasonable regulation. So if you want to
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: have a reasonable regulation, states, get back to 1789 and
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: figure out whether what you're doing in 2022 is is
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: consistent with what the states and other regulators would have
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: done at the time the second amendment was drafted. So
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: it's a kind of backwards looking opinion, no pun intended.
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: It actually physically requires us to look backwards to think
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: about what restrictions would have been okay in 1789 and
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: when the second amendment was drafted. And so that's the
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: task that the New York legislature has to deal with.
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: And to be clear, it sets a really high bar,
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: I think, for legislatures going forward, because what would have
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: been reasonable to a legislature at the time the constitution
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: was drafted is obviously very different from what the legislatures
• 41:49
  Speaker 5: of today face in terms of the threats of gun violence,
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: the kinds of threats that they are responding to. And
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: it's an entirely different world. The real irony here is that, um,
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: even as the court is telling us that we have
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: to look backwards to what the framers would have understood
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: as a reasonable restriction on the Second Amendment, we don't
• 42:09
  Speaker 5: have to think about the Second Amendment as only enshrining
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: a right to bear the kinds of arms that were
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: available in 1789. So the historicizing is incredibly selective. So
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: your AR-15 is fine, but in order to regulate it,
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: you have to go back to 1789.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: How close are we to the Supreme Court allowing states
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: to require us to house militias in our homes right
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: because that seems to have been very high on the
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: minds of the people who wrote that amendment back then
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: and i'm joking there obviously but so that's.
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: Actually the third amendment the quartering of soldiers but um
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: all related to this idea that they were very concerned
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: about the tyranny of government um I think with this court,
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: this is a really maximalist six to three court. I
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: think anything's possible. So, you know, get your guest room
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: ready for the militia like it could happen. But, you know,
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: what's actually really interesting is the lineup here and the
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: time with which the court took. to actually issue this decision.
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: So the oral argument occurred in November of 2021, and
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: it was very obvious in November that there were five
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: votes to strike down the New York scheme. And really
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: the only question was, what were they going to do
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: about quote unquote sensitive places like the New York subway,
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: just as Kagan brought up the subway repeatedly in her
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: colloquies with the lawyers. So that really was the only question. And,
• 43:38
  Speaker 5: you know, for weeks, we've been waiting for this decision.
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: It's the only decision left from that November sitting. And,
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: you know, I speculated on Pod Save America at one
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: point that, you know, perhaps the The reason we had
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: not gotten this opinion was because, you know, we had
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: these horrific shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde and in other
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: communities around the country. And maybe the court was just
• 44:01
  Speaker 5: sort of like, you know what, let's slow our roll.
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: We can't actually be ghoulish and expand the Second Amendment
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: while people are literally still mourning the deaths of 19 children.
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: You know, now we're almost a month. I think today
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: is just a day shy of the month anniversary of
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: that horrific shooting in Uvalde. We have the Senate poised
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: to take up some gun regulations. And this opinion does
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: not endanger any of those regulations in any way. Maybe
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: the court thought that this was an appropriate moment to
• 44:33
  Speaker 5: release it. And so maybe they were just sitting on
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: it until the heat died down a little. But there
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: are actually some interesting concurrences here. And one of the
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: interesting concurrences comes from Justice Kavanaugh, who was also joined
• 44:44
  Speaker 5: in that concurrence by the chief justice. And They really
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: hammer in on this theme that there's still room for
• 44:51
  Speaker 5: states and localities to restrict the public carrying of firearms
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: in quote unquote sensitive areas. And so, again, rank speculation
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: that the ladies of strict scrutiny have been engaged in.
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: We were wondering if maybe the reason they waited on
• 45:05
  Speaker 5: this opinion was because the chief and. Justice Kavanaugh were
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: trying to get this separate concurrence together, which may have
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: the effect of perhaps limiting a little bit the maximalist
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: energy of this majority opinion.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: Because do they in there either imply or state directly
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: that the laws in a lot of states would meet
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: this test? Is that correct?
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: So.
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: Well, so exciting here. Everything's in the footnotes, Dan. You
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: got to read the footnotes. So they note that New
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: York is one of a handful of states. Interestingly, they're
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: all blue states, California, New Jersey. They also happen to
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: be six states that comprise about 25% of the population
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: of the United States. So they're just like, we're just
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: striking down these six states, but- those laws actually impact
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: about a quarter of the population of the country. So
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: it's incredibly significant. They suggest that the other 43 jurisdictions,
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: which are quote unquote, shall issue jurisdictions, which is to
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: say that there are requirements to get a concealed carry permit,
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: but on the whole, the state, if you meet them,
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: will issue the permit to you. There's a footnote where,
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: you know, they suggest that maybe even having those threshold
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: requirements might eventually be called into question. So shall issue states,
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: the majority of states that have these sort of threshold
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: requirements for concealed carry permits are fine for now. But,
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: you know, I wonder if this footnote suggests that they're
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: ready and inviting perhaps litigation that would suggest that even
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: those threshold requirements intrudes too much on the second amendment
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: rights of gun owners.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: And then you brought up the 2008 Heller decision. And
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: could you just There is this sense in all of
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: the Republican rhetoric around this, the conservative response to this decision,
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: that the right to bear arms has been as understood
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: by the Supreme Court as a constitutional right since the
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: beginning of the republic. But that is not actually the case.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: It's a more complicated, more recent story. Can you just
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: explain sort of what the Heller decision meant and why
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: it's so significant and why it's important to recognize that
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: the court's current understanding of the right to bear arms
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: is much more recent than I think people think?
• 47:16
  Speaker 5: Sure. So it's worth noting the text of the Second Amendment.
• 47:20
  Speaker 5: So the text of the Second Amendment says, a well-regulated
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: militia being necessary to the security of a free state,
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: the right of the people to keep and bear arms
• 47:31
  Speaker 5: shall not be infringed. So there's this sort of prefatory
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: clause and then this operative clause about the right to
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: bear arms. The prefatory clause is this piece about the militia.
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: For most of our constitutional history, the court has interpreted
• 47:45
  Speaker 5: the Second Amendment as permitting a right to bear arms
• 47:48
  Speaker 5: in conjunction with militia service because of that prefatory clause.
• 47:54
  Speaker 5: In 2008, in the Heller decision, in a five to
• 47:57
  Speaker 5: four decision, the court essentially concluded that, you know, the
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: prefatory clause that mentions militia service was kind of like,
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: they just threw that in there, a surplusage, like no
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: big thing, no big deal, nothing to see here. And
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: that any earlier decision, including a decision from the 1930s,
• 48:15
  Speaker 5: that actually limited the right to bear arms because it
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: was linking it to militia service was actually wrong. And
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: so that happened in 2008. For much of our constitutional history,
• 48:27
  Speaker 5: we have observed this right to bear arms. We've just
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: linked it to the requirement of militia service. So it's
• 48:32
  Speaker 5: not just like every individual gets a right to keep
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: and bear arms. It's in conjunction with this militia service
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: right In 2008, the court essentially makes a stunning and
• 48:45
  Speaker 5: unprecedented departure from that interpretation of the Second Amendment, determines
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: that the Second Amendment in its plain meaning has nothing
• 48:54
  Speaker 5: to do with malicious service. That was just like stuff
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: they added in. And in fact, it stands for the
• 49:01
  Speaker 5: principle that individuals have a right to keep and bear
• 49:05
  Speaker 5: arms in the context of home for traditional purposes like
• 49:08
  Speaker 5: home defense. And now today, they have expanded it a
• 49:13
  Speaker 5: little further, not only home defense, but also the possibility
• 49:17
  Speaker 5: of self-defense in public spaces. Right.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: So the Supreme Court believes you have a constitutional right
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: to carry a weapon in public for the purposes of self-defense.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: Last question for you. I will ask this question, then
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: I will step back and let you do your work.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: But could you help us understand the.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: Seeming contradiction between a Supreme Court, which says now that
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: states have very limited authority to regulate whether you can
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: carry a weapon in public, but seems to say that
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: states have great power to regulate personal health care decisions
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: like abortion.
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: So Dan, you and I are on the same page.
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: I literally just raised this inconsistency on an emergency episode
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: of strict scrutiny. And the only thing I can say
• 50:00
  Speaker 5: really is this court might be more amenable to reproductive
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: rights if we could all give birth to an AR-15.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: That seems about right.
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: I mean, states, I think when this decision in the
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: Dobbs case, the abortion case finally drops, I think states
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: will have broad authority to regulate abortion as they see fit.
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: But as you say, in this case, state's authority to
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: limit where guns can permissibly be carried, you know, that
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: that's verboten. And it's worth noting, um, This is, I think,
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: one of the last opinions that Justice Breyer will write
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: for the court. And Justice Breyer wrote a very impassioned
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: dissent to the majority opinion in Heller in 2008. And
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: he essentially reprised some of that in his dissent today.
• 50:47
  Speaker 5: But one of the things he really emphasized, I think
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: he did this because it is so long been a
• 50:52
  Speaker 5: sort of stalking horse of the conservative legal movement. He
• 50:56
  Speaker 5: really emphasized this question. federalism and localism. He talked about
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: the fact that in New York, when state officials were
• 51:04
  Speaker 5: making these decisions about what special needs warranted a concealed
• 51:08
  Speaker 5: carry permit, they were doing it contextually. The rural counties
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: made decisions based on the local needs, recognizing that those
• 51:18
  Speaker 5: local counties were very different from places like Manhattan County,
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: for example, where the special needs that might prompt someone
• 51:25
  Speaker 5: to request and receive a concealed carry permit could be
• 51:29
  Speaker 5: very different. That kind of localism, that kind of federalism
• 51:33
  Speaker 5: concern has been such a concern of the conservative legal movement.
• 51:37
  Speaker 5: Sandra Day O'Connor talked about this. Justice Anthony Kennedy talked
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: about this. And I think Justice Breyer resurrected it in
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: this opinion, because I think he is pointing out the
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: inconsistencies like this is a conservative legal movement staffed by
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: six Supreme Court justices that are not always consistent about
• 51:56
  Speaker 5: where their priorities and their principles are.
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: Melissa Murray, thank you so much for joining us. Everyone
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: check out the emergency episode on the Strict Scrutiny feed
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: about this decision and subscribe to Strict Scrutiny. When we
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: come back, John will talk to Zayd Dorn, the host
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: of Crooked Media's new Tribeca-winning podcast, Mother Country Radicals.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: Joining us now is the host of Crooked's newest limited series,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: Mother Country Radicals, which just won the Tribeca Film Festival's
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: Podcast Award for Best Audio Storytelling and Nonfiction, Zayd Dorn.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: Congratulations and welcome to the pod. Thanks, John.
• 52:38
  Speaker 6: Happy to be here.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: So I first learned about your family when many Americans
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: did back in 2008. My boss, Barack Obama, was accused
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: of being friendly with your father, Bill Ayers. who, along
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: with your mother, Bernadine Dorn, were leaders of the Weather
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: Underground Organization, which was a left-wing militant group that aspired
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: to overthrow the U.S. government in the 1970s. How did
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: you process learning about all that as a kid? Like,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: what was it like to sort of first understand who
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: your parents were and then square the public perception of
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: your parents with the people who raised you?
• 53:21
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it was a long process. It took a long time.
• 53:24
  Speaker 6: In some ways, the end of that process was doing
• 53:26
  Speaker 6: this series. Because when I was a kid, my parents,
• 53:29
  Speaker 6: I mean, they never hid anything from me. They always
• 53:31
  Speaker 6: told me we were on the run from the FBI.
• 53:33
  Speaker 6: My mom was on the 10 most wanted list. I
• 53:36
  Speaker 6: knew we were fugitives. I knew we used fake names.
• 53:38
  Speaker 6: So I was never lied to about it. But at
• 53:41
  Speaker 6: the same time, it seemed pretty normal to me. Most
• 53:44
  Speaker 6: of my friends, their parents were on the run or
• 53:46
  Speaker 6: were in prison. And and you know, when you're born
• 53:49
  Speaker 6: into something, you don't really stop to think how strange
• 53:51
  Speaker 6: this is. So it took me a while to, until
• 53:54
  Speaker 6: later when I was, you know, a teenager growing up
• 53:56
  Speaker 6: and starting to see like, not all parents are like
• 53:58
  Speaker 6: this and, you know, starting to realize like how, how
• 54:02
  Speaker 6: unusual that kind of childhood really was.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Uh, so once your parents came out of hiding and
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: got normal jobs, what was it like to be the
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: child of, of Bernadine Dorn and Bill Ayers?
• 54:11
  Speaker 6: Yeah, for a while it was pretty normal. I never
• 54:14
  Speaker 6: thought about it much, you know, by the time my
• 54:15
  Speaker 6: mom got out of jail and, We had turned ourselves
• 54:18
  Speaker 6: in by that point. We were no longer fugitives. I
• 54:21
  Speaker 6: went to a normal high school. My dad was a
• 54:23
  Speaker 6: professor of education. He actually got the Chicago, Chicago Mayor
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: Daley gave him the Chicago Citizen of the Year Award
• 54:30
  Speaker 6: when I was in high school for his work with
• 54:32
  Speaker 6: educational reform. So in a certain sense, they were just normal,
• 54:35
  Speaker 6: you know, citizens.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: They were activists.
• 54:38
  Speaker 6: It wasn't until 2008 when I really, you know, we
• 54:40
  Speaker 6: got thrust back into the news when Hillary Clinton was
• 54:43
  Speaker 6: talking about my dad. Sarah Palin was saying we were
• 54:45
  Speaker 6: palling around with terrorists and all this. So that was
• 54:48
  Speaker 6: when it started to kind of feel really surreal.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I was going to ask what the 2008 campaign
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: was like from your end. Cause from our end, it
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: was like, okay, now there's this story and everyone on
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: the campaign who was from Chicago or connected to Chicago,
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: David Oxroud, who's, who's in this series, you guys interview, um,
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: you know, explain to the rest of us, no, they
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: had this past and, and now they're sort of, you know,
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: they've done their time, they're sort of reintegrated into society,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: people talk. And it was sort of hard to square
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: that with what you were hearing from, like you said,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: not only the Republicans and Sarah Palin, but Hillary Clinton.
• 55:30
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it is hard to square. And I think if
• 55:31
  Speaker 6: you listen to the series, there's something very surreal about
• 55:34
  Speaker 6: the fact that these are people who were setting off bombs,
• 55:37
  Speaker 6: robbing banks, you know, teaming up with black liberation groups to,
• 55:41
  Speaker 6: you know, break people out of prison. And then 20
• 55:44
  Speaker 6: years later, they were pretty normal, prominent Chicago citizens who
• 55:48
  Speaker 6: were just doing their activist work and who knew everybody, Obama,
• 55:52
  Speaker 6: Jesse Jackson, you know, a lot of folks in Chicago.
• 55:56
  Speaker 6: The way to square that, I guess, is just to
• 55:58
  Speaker 6: say my mom did her time. She did time in jail.
• 56:01
  Speaker 6: They turned themselves in. My dad got probation. And then
• 56:04
  Speaker 6: they spent a long time kind of doing normal activist
• 56:06
  Speaker 6: work and sort of building ordinary lives in the kind
• 56:09
  Speaker 6: of progressive movement in Chicago. And, you know, they kind
• 56:12
  Speaker 6: of had a second act. They had another part of
• 56:15
  Speaker 6: their lives that was very different. For us, it was
• 56:18
  Speaker 6: a strange time, though. I mean, Fox News had vans
• 56:21
  Speaker 6: parked outside our house. They were chasing my dad down
• 56:23
  Speaker 6: the street. He was on every TV channel in the country.
• 56:26
  Speaker 6: And he actually came. I was living in New York
• 56:28
  Speaker 6: at the time. He came out to my apartment to
• 56:30
  Speaker 6: kind of lay low for a while and try to
• 56:31
  Speaker 6: stay out of the spotlight. And we turn on the
• 56:33
  Speaker 6: TV just to relax. And there's Stephen Colbert making a
• 56:35
  Speaker 6: joke about him. So it was hard to escape that
• 56:39
  Speaker 6: kind of media circus once you're in it.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: So what made you decide to dig into this past
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: and tell this story now?
• 56:48
  Speaker 6: Yeah, well, there were really two reasons. There was a
• 56:50
  Speaker 6: political reason and a personal reason. Politically, you know, I
• 56:53
  Speaker 6: started it during the Trump administration, and I was really
• 56:55
  Speaker 6: interested in this question of how people resist a government
• 56:59
  Speaker 6: that seems to be going off the rails, you know,
• 57:01
  Speaker 6: how they resist a law and order president, especially how
• 57:04
  Speaker 6: young activists should kind of go forward in that way.
• 57:08
  Speaker 6: And what was interesting is while I was doing the
• 57:09
  Speaker 6: research for this project, I was interviewing my parents, interviewing
• 57:12
  Speaker 6: other members of the Weather Underground, the Black Panther Party,
• 57:14
  Speaker 6: the Black Liberation Army. And one thing I started to
• 57:17
  Speaker 6: notice over and over again is so many of these
• 57:19
  Speaker 6: people had been radicalized by the killing of black people
• 57:22
  Speaker 6: by police back in the 60s and 70s. So the
• 57:25
  Speaker 6: murder of Fred Hampton in Chicago and the murder of
• 57:27
  Speaker 6: Clifford Glover, this 10-year-old kid in Queens. And as that
• 57:31
  Speaker 6: was happening, as I was doing that research, that's when
• 57:33
  Speaker 6: George Floyd was killed. And so the protests exploded on
• 57:36
  Speaker 6: the streets and it started to feel like a really
• 57:38
  Speaker 6: relevant and important story to tell now.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: So that was the political reason.
• 57:42
  Speaker 6: The personal reason was that, you know, my parents were
• 57:44
  Speaker 6: getting older. My mom was about to turn 80 years old.
• 57:46
  Speaker 6: Kathy Boudin, who's another weather person who was the mom
• 57:50
  Speaker 6: of my adopted brother, Chesa Boudin, she had cancer and
• 57:53
  Speaker 6: was very ill. And so I started to feel like
• 57:56
  Speaker 6: this might be my last chance to ask some of
• 57:58
  Speaker 6: the questions of my family members that I'd always had
• 58:00
  Speaker 6: in my mind. and to get their voices on tape.
• 58:03
  Speaker 6: I mean, they really are historical figures in some way.
• 58:06
  Speaker 6: My mom marched with Martin Luther King and worked with
• 58:08
  Speaker 6: Fred Hampton and met Muhammad Ali and Abby Hoffman and
• 58:12
  Speaker 6: Tom Hayden. So I wanted to get those voices on
• 58:14
  Speaker 6: tape while I still could.
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: Back to the political reason, because Dan and I just
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: spent sort of like the first part of this episode
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: talking about how the threat of political violence has become
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: a recurring theme in these January 6th hearings, particularly right-wing violence.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: You and I talked about this in the early days
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: of Mother Country Radicals, but how did the, you know,
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: you started around the, or you're doing the research around
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: the George Floyd protests. Then in January, there's a violent
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: insurrection against the Capitol. And there's this rise of right-wing
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: violence that we see to this day. How did that
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: factor into your thinking about how to tell this story
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: about left-wing political violence?
• 58:57
  Speaker 6: Yeah, well, I think it's important both to think about
• 58:59
  Speaker 6: the kind of the roots of radicalization, how that happens
• 59:02
  Speaker 6: on both sides, but also to think about the differences.
• 59:05
  Speaker 6: You know, I mean, I asked my dad during the
• 59:07
  Speaker 6: series about the insurrection. We all watched it.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 59:10
  Speaker 6: And, you know, I asked him, given that they, you know,
• 59:13
  Speaker 6: that the Weathermen bombed the Capitol building, did he feel
• 59:17
  Speaker 6: like there was some similarity there? And I mean, the
• 59:19
  Speaker 6: answer is interesting, and I'll let him speak for himself.
• 59:21
  Speaker 6: But what I think is interesting about it is, you know,
• 59:24
  Speaker 6: there is this question of like, is political violence ever justified?
• 59:28
  Speaker 6: But then there's also a question of the difference between,
• 59:31
  Speaker 6: first of all, right-wing political violence, as we've seen, is
• 59:33
  Speaker 6: so much more common. Actually, left-wing political violence is very,
• 59:36
  Speaker 6: very rare. But second of all, there's a big difference
• 59:38
  Speaker 6: between a group of people who stormed the Capitol, not
• 59:41
  Speaker 6: in a revolutionary or grassroots way, but literally to keep
• 59:44
  Speaker 6: the sitting president in power illegally. I mean, that was
• 59:47
  Speaker 6: a right-wing attempted coup, not a kind of insurrection from
• 59:51
  Speaker 6: oppressed people. And mainly, the thing I think is really
• 59:54
  Speaker 6: different about it is you can have people radicalized on
• 59:56
  Speaker 6: both sides. But what radicalized my parents and members of
• 59:59
  Speaker 6: the Black Liberation Army and Black Panther Party was systemic
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 6: racism and police violence against black people.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: That's real.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 6: That's very different than being radicalized by the idea that
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 6: Democrats are running some kind of pedophile ring in a
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 6: pizza parlor. I mean, you can be radicalized by real
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 6: things and you can be radicalized by lies.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, whether or not you think that the threat
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: of political violence is ever justified or whether you think
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: whatever the equivalence you may or may not believe between
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: right-wing and left-wing political violence. One of my takeaways from
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: the story you tell about the weather underground is that
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: political violence and even the threat of political violence doesn't
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: seem very politically effective. Just listening to sort of you
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: tell the story about all of these left-wing groups groups
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: and social movements and sort of how they splinter and
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: they disagree over this question of violence and tactics. What's
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: your take on that? Where did you come out on
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: that after doing this whole project?
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, it's a big question and I think
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 6: it's a lot of what the series ends up being about.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 6: It's not just these young people who got radicalized and
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 6: did these violent acts, but what it meant to them,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 6: to their children, to the movement as a whole. And
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 6: those are complicated questions to untangle. I mean, for me
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 6: and my brothers, it meant our parents going to prison.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 6: For some of my friends, it meant their parents being killed.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 6: And as you say, there's big debate about what those
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 6: kind of radicalized movements did to the 1960s peace movement
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 6: and afterwards. I guess I think where I come down
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 6: is I'm a writer, not an activist. I'm interested in
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 6: what drives people, what motivates people. And what the series
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 6: tries to do is say, why did people go down
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 6: this path? What does it look like to try everything else,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 6: you know, to try marching in the streets, to try
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 6: voter registration drives, to try protesting, and nothing seems to work.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 6: The Vietnam War goes on, black leaders are still being killed.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 6: And why do people suddenly decide to go down this
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 6: path of violence and, you know, how we can avoid it?
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 6: I mean, I asked my parents and others in the show,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 6: you know, what do they regret? And you hear a
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 6: lot of people wrestling with, you know, how they think
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 6: of this stuff now and what they would have done differently.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 6: So there are notes of caution in there and also
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 6: notes of inspiration. I mean, there were some really brave
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 6: and committed things that people did as well.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: What do you hope people take away from your family story?
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 6: Well, I hope, first of all, I mean, I think
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 6: it's an incredible story. I think people who have never
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 6: heard it before, their minds are going to be blown.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 6: I mean, it's a story, you can't believe it took
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 6: place here in America in a way that, you know,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 6: it reads like a heist thriller or a true crime
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 6: show or something. It's, you know, got brawling with the
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 6: police and jailbreaks and bombings and shootouts. And at the
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 6: same time, it's got some real historical lessons and some
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 6: real kind of, I hope people learn from it, even
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 6: if they know the story already. I think for me,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 6: the takeaway is about, you know, what it looks like
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 6: for young people to decide to put themselves on the line,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 6: and especially what it looks like to have the white
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 6: and the black movement work together. You know, we talk
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 6: a lot about allyship nowadays. And one of the big
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 6: lessons for me in this series was talking to people
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 6: you know, members of the weather underground who were mostly
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 6: white and then members of the black Panther party and
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 6: the way they worked together and the way they tried
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 6: to kind of build solidarity is I think an underexplored story.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 6: And I think people will get a lot out of
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 6: the kind of complexity of that relationship and also some
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 6: inspiration from that.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, I've been, I've been tweeting and saying
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: this to everyone who'll listen, but, um, it's one of
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: my favorite podcasts we've ever done at Crooked that I've
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: ever had the privilege of just working on just a
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: small part of. And I think the reason is twofold. One,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: because of what you said, where it's just, it's a
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: fun listen. It's exciting. It's got all that, you know,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: it carries along like a real exciting story. And also
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: because I think you wrestle with some of the political
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: questions and challenges that are core to what we're debating
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: right now. And particularly on the left, which is you
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: have a lot of people who are down and cynical and,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: and down on voting and down on organizing. And, you know,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: the other option that we've seen happen in the past
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: is that it can lead to radicalization and violence. And I,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: and I do think that the story you tell is not, um,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: it doesn't sugarcoat it. You know, it doesn't, I don't
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: think it glorifies it. Um, I think it shows that
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: that movement went through some pretty hard times personally, their families,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: you guys, and then also the political movement as a whole.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: And I don't think that there are a lot of
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: easy answers. And I just think that, you know, obviously
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: you were very close to this, but I think you
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: did a fantastic job sort of, you know, like you said,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: you're a writer, not an activist, just telling the story
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: like it was and letting the people who were involved
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: speak for themselves. So I do hope that everyone goes
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: and listens because I think you can learn a lot.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 5: Thanks, John.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for joining Pod Save America. Everyone,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: go check out the Tribeca award-winning mother country radical, Zay Dorn.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining Pod Save America. Thanks, John. Appreciate you
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: having me on. All right. That's our show for today.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: Thank you to Melissa Murray for joining. Thank you to
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: Zay Dorn for joining. Again, Hope everyone goes to votesaveamerica.com
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: slash midterms. I will tweet out those GoFundMe links as
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: well for Ruby and Shay. And also, if you're organizing,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: if you're out there going to knock on doors and
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: volunteering and you want to be caffeinated, we got some
• 1:05:41
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• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: You buy crooked coffee, a portion of the proceeds from
• 1:05:48
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• 1:05:51
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• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: So it's another way to help the cause. Head over
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: to crooked.com slash coffee to learn more. And again, votesaveamerica.com
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: while you're there and have a great weekend, everyone. We
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: will talk to you next week.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: Bye everyone.
• 1:06:14
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• 1:06:17
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• 1:06:23
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