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“Mueller: The Season Finale.” · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett, in for Dan Feinfer.
0:25
Speaker 1: That's right, Dan's on vacation, so you're here. It's great
0:28
Speaker 1: to have you here on the Thursday Podcast.
0:30
Speaker 2: I'm going to bring all my seriousness to bear today.
0:34
Speaker 1: We'll see about that. Later in the pod, my interview
0:37
Speaker 1: with House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff about his committee's hearing
0:40
Speaker 1: with Robert Mueller. Before that, we'll talk all about the
0:42
Speaker 1: special counsel's big day on the Hill and what it
0:44
Speaker 1: might mean for impeachment. We're also going to talk about
0:46
Speaker 1: how Joe Biden is getting feistier with his opponents ahead
0:49
Speaker 1: of the next debate over issues like health care and
0:51
Speaker 1: criminal justice. On this week's episode of Pod Save the World,
0:54
Speaker 1: Tommy and Ben talk about how the hell Boris Johnson
0:56
Speaker 1: became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. why Trump mused
0:59
Speaker 1: about killing 10 million people in Afghanistan during a recent
1:02
Speaker 1: Oval Office press conference, and how he's trying to get
1:04
Speaker 1: A $ AP Rocky out of jail. Quite a range of
1:07
Speaker 1: topics on that pod save the world. Check it out.
1:09
Speaker 2: Sounds like a good one.
1:10
Speaker 1: Finally, the last installment of July's Crooked Minis on patriotism
1:13
Speaker 1: came out on Wednesday, hosted by Ken Harbaugh and featuring
1:16
Speaker 1: an interview with Pete Buttigieg. Subscribe to Crooked Minis wherever
1:20
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts and check out the whole series. Also,
1:23
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1:25
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1:27
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1:32
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1:38
Speaker 3: I think it's time we face that given the amount
1:41
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1:42
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1:44
Speaker 2: I think this is a nuance that is lost on
1:46
Speaker 2: most listeners.
1:48
Speaker 1: Cool, cool, cool. Anyway, there's a sale. Go get some t-shirts. Also,
1:52
Speaker 1: the next episode. of our presidential candidate interview series will
1:57
Speaker 1: be out tomorrow, Friday. I'll be interviewing Bernie Sanders. We'll
2:02
Speaker 1: be right here in Cricket headquarters, and we will release
2:06
Speaker 1: that pod late Friday afternoon, so be on the lookout
2:10
Speaker 1: for that. Very excited to finally sit down with Bernie. Okay,
2:14
Speaker 1: let's get to the news. In six hours of testimony
2:17
Speaker 1: before the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, Special Counsel Robert
2:21
Speaker 1: Mueller limited himself largely to confirming the already explosive findings
2:25
Speaker 1: of his investigation, that the president and his campaign encouraged
2:28
Speaker 1: Russia to commit crimes to help him win the presidency,
2:31
Speaker 1: eagerly accepted and then benefited from those crimes, lied about it,
2:34
Speaker 1: and then obstructed the investigation into those crimes and other crimes.
2:38
Speaker 1: Mueller did not, however, break a lot of new ground.
2:39
Speaker 1: He refused to answer a lot of questions, and he
2:42
Speaker 1: seemed a little hesitant and a little rattled at times.
2:45
Speaker 1: But it was a day of hearings where I think
2:46
Speaker 1: anyone who watched heard a pretty damning story about the
2:49
Speaker 1: president's corruption. And as Adam Schiff said, his disloyalty to
2:53
Speaker 1: the country. Before we get into it, I believe we
2:55
Speaker 1: have a clip of Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the
2:58
Speaker 1: House Judiciary Committee, opening up the first hearing of the day.
3:03
Speaker 4: So the report did not conclude that he did not
3:06
Speaker 4: commit obstruction of justice.
3:08
Speaker 1: Is that correct?
3:09
Speaker 4: That is correct. And what about total exoneration? Did you
3:12
Speaker 4: actually totally exonerate the president?
3:14
Speaker 3: No.
3:16
Speaker 2: Now, in fact, your.
3:17
Speaker 4: Report expressly states that it does not exonerate the president.
3:21
Speaker 1: It does.
3:22
Speaker 4: And your investigation actually found, quote, multiple acts by the
3:26
Speaker 4: president that were capable of exerting undue influence over law
3:29
Speaker 4: enforcement investigations, including the Russian interference and obstruction investigations.
3:35
Speaker 1: Is that correct?
3:36
Speaker 3: Correct.
3:37
Speaker 1: So, Lovett, it's been now a full day since the hearing.
3:41
Speaker 1: Of everything we learned, or at least everything we heard
3:43
Speaker 1: yesterday— what has stuck with you?
3:46
Speaker 2: It's a great question. What has stuck with me?
3:49
Speaker 3: I think overall, it is the moments where Mueller talked
3:54
Speaker 3: about the Russia interference was probably to me the place
3:57
Speaker 3: where he showed the most emotion and where I think
4:01
Speaker 3: for him is where he believes we have a real
4:05
Speaker 3: moral obligation that we're not fulfilling. It was one of
4:07
Speaker 3: the few places where I think he didn't exactly go
4:10
Speaker 3: beyond the report, but expressed some real outrage and fear
4:14
Speaker 3: for the country because of Russia's continuing efforts to interfere
4:17
Speaker 3: with the election. And he was willing to refer to
4:21
Speaker 3: some of the conduct around Russian interference and the collaboration
4:26
Speaker 3: between the Trump campaign and Russia, which he didn't call
4:30
Speaker 3: a crime, but did have strong words of criticism for
4:33
Speaker 3: and was willing to, I think, express some moral language about.
4:36
Speaker 3: I mean, those to me were the two moments and
4:40
Speaker 3: types of things Mueller said that I think will have
4:42
Speaker 3: the most, the lasting impression for me.
4:44
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, he said of Trump's praise for WikiLeaks, quote,
4:48
Speaker 1: problematic is an understatement and that such comments give, quote,
4:52
Speaker 1: hope or some boost to illegal activity and that it
4:56
Speaker 1: certainly calls for an investigation. He also, as you referred to,
5:00
Speaker 1: he used the terms unpatriotic to talk about it. That
5:04
Speaker 1: was about the past. He also said, that Russia and
5:07
Speaker 1: potentially other countries are trying to meddle in our election
5:10
Speaker 1: again as we speak, as we sit at that hearing,
5:13
Speaker 1: which I thought was rather alarming.
5:15
Speaker 2: Yeah.
5:18
Speaker 1: What else did we learn that is new, that sort
5:20
Speaker 1: of surprised you from yesterday that wasn't in the report? Anything?
5:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, the one big piece of information that
5:26
Speaker 3: we learned towards the very end of the intelligence hearing
5:29
Speaker 3: was Robert Mueller saying that there were portions of the
5:34
Speaker 3: president's statements that were in some way untruthful, the exact
5:37
Speaker 3: language he used while he was asked the question. He
5:39
Speaker 3: was responding to leading questions from Democrats, but he agreed
5:43
Speaker 3: generally that the president did not tell the whole truth
5:47
Speaker 3: in his written answers to the special counsel.
5:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought that was... pretty fascinating. And I was
5:56
Speaker 1: also a little surprised that that didn't make it into
5:59
Speaker 1: the report itself. If there were untruthful answers, though, it
6:02
Speaker 1: may be hard to actually prove perjury. Um, there's a
6:06
Speaker 1: couple other things, you know, that he emphasized that I
6:09
Speaker 1: thought are not exactly new, but definitely confirmed the fact that,
6:14
Speaker 1: you know, there is substantial evidence that the president did
6:17
Speaker 1: commit a crime, that he obstructed justice. Um, Mueller agreed
6:20
Speaker 1: that lies by the Trump campaign and the White House
6:23
Speaker 1: impeded his investigation. Um, He said that because Justice Department
6:27
Speaker 1: guidelines prevented him from indicting a sitting president, he did
6:30
Speaker 1: not make a decision either way on whether to indict
6:33
Speaker 1: the president for obstruction of justice, though this was a
6:37
Speaker 1: walkback to an original answer he gave to Congressman Ted
6:42
Speaker 1: Lieu that seemed a little more forward-leaning. I believe we
6:44
Speaker 1: have that exchange.
6:46
Speaker 3: I'd like to ask you, the reason, again, that you
6:49
Speaker 3: did not indict Donald Trump is because of OLC opinions
6:53
Speaker 3: stating that you cannot indict a sitting president, correct?
6:56
Speaker 1: That is correct. So I don't know if that was
7:00
Speaker 1: a mistake so much as it was a Freudian slip.
7:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's a really good point. Yeah, so first
7:08
Speaker 3: of all, it was a stunning moment. It was an
7:10
Speaker 3: important moment because it did go further than what was
7:12
Speaker 3: in the Mueller report, right? The Mueller report doesn't say that.
7:16
Speaker 3: It specifically doesn't say that. And actually, this has been
7:20
Speaker 3: one of the most central parts of the narrative around
7:23
Speaker 3: the Mueller report, because it's actually what Barr hung a
7:27
Speaker 3: lot of his argument on in his four-page summary of
7:30
Speaker 3: the Mueller report. So the OLC memo says you cannot
7:34
Speaker 3: indict a sitting president. That memo was something that Robert
7:37
Speaker 3: Mueller was going to respect. That meant that Robert Mueller
7:40
Speaker 3: could not indict the president. And based on that logic,
7:43
Speaker 3: it meant he couldn't say in his report, this is
7:45
Speaker 3: what you gleaned It vacillates between something he's saying explicitly
7:50
Speaker 3: and less explicitly. But what that meant is not only
7:53
Speaker 3: could he not indict a sitting president, he did not
7:56
Speaker 3: feel it was appropriate to say that he would indict
8:00
Speaker 3: a sitting president, but for the OLC memo, because that
8:03
Speaker 3: is basically saying, I would like to indict the president,
8:06
Speaker 3: which achieves the same end without actually being able to
8:08
Speaker 3: put someone on trial and having them an opportunity to
8:11
Speaker 3: defend themselves. Yeah.
8:12
Speaker 1: And what we just heard in that clip, That is
8:15
Speaker 1: an effective accusation against the president, even if it's not
8:19
Speaker 1: technically an accusation, because it's saying, I believe as a
8:22
Speaker 1: prosecutor he committed obstruction of justice, but because of this
8:25
Speaker 1: rule I couldn't charge him. Now, it's interesting, like, not
8:28
Speaker 1: everyone agrees with Mueller's conclusion there. One notable person who
8:35
Speaker 1: did not agree with Mueller's contention that he did not
8:39
Speaker 1: have the power to say he would have charged him
8:41
Speaker 1: but for the memo is William Barr. And Neil Katyal,
8:46
Speaker 1: who was the Solicitor General in the Obama administration and
8:49
Speaker 1: also wrote the special counsel regulations, he brought this up
8:52
Speaker 1: yesterday in an interview. He reminded us that Barr said
8:56
Speaker 1: in an interview after the report was out that Mueller
9:00
Speaker 1: could have reached a conclusion on obstruction if he wanted.
9:04
Speaker 1: Why didn't he? I mean, I sort of took it as, okay, well, that,
9:08
Speaker 1: you know, Mueller was doing the right thing here. But
9:10
Speaker 1: I sort of wonder if we'll look back and wonder
9:12
Speaker 1: why didn't Mueller say, yeah, I investigated this president. Here's
9:18
Speaker 1: all the evidence. I reached a conclusion on obstruction. But,
9:21
Speaker 1: you know, there's the OLC memo. I can't charge a
9:24
Speaker 1: sitting president. So take this as an impeachment referral.
9:27
Speaker 2: Yes.
9:28
Speaker 3: I actually don't think we'll have to do very much
9:31
Speaker 3: wondering far into the future. I think we can actually
9:33
Speaker 3: wonder about it pretty well right now. It feels like
9:37
Speaker 3: a kind of moral probity that goes so far beyond.
9:43
Speaker 3: What was necessary to uphold, I think, a sincere conviction
9:48
Speaker 3: around the rule of law and the limitations of the
9:52
Speaker 3: special counsel rules. You know, I take the author of
9:56
Speaker 3: those rules.
9:56
Speaker 2: At his word and I find.
10:00
Speaker 3: I understand Robert Mueller's general principle of, I would like
10:05
Speaker 3: the facts to speak for themselves. I do not want
10:07
Speaker 3: to be part of an ad. I do not want
10:09
Speaker 3: to be part of a partisan campaign one way.
10:11
Speaker 2: Or the other.
10:12
Speaker 3: I'm going to trust the system, protect the Department of Justice,
10:15
Speaker 3: provide all the evidence I see fit as a kind
10:18
Speaker 3: of statement of what the law should be, how the
10:21
Speaker 3: law should work.
10:22
Speaker 2: I understand all of that.
10:24
Speaker 3: I do believe that those are principles worthy of being
10:27
Speaker 3: upheld and could have been upheld by being more explicit.
10:31
Speaker 3: I think he's a bit twisted around the axle in
10:35
Speaker 3: these moments because there's this logical argument that ends in,
10:42
Speaker 3: I can't really say very much at all.
10:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, and another moment where it seemed like he had
10:49
Speaker 1: sort of twisted himself in knots around this question is
10:55
Speaker 1: when Ted Lieu is questioning him on, you know, he's
10:58
Speaker 1: basically saying there are three elements to obstruction of justice.
11:02
Speaker 1: You have evidence that it met this element. And he
11:05
Speaker 1: basically gets Mueller to admit that all three elements of
11:09
Speaker 1: obstruction of justice have been met, the legal elements to
11:12
Speaker 1: make obstruction of justice. And then Mueller basically stops at
11:15
Speaker 1: the end of that, realizing that he had sort of
11:17
Speaker 1: just walked into this trap and said, yes, but I
11:19
Speaker 1: didn't formally reach that conclusion. And it's like, well, what
11:23
Speaker 1: other conclusion could you have reached because you just agreed
11:25
Speaker 1: that all the elements to obstruction of justice were there? Right.
11:29
Speaker 3: It's like he's singing happy birthday and just not playing
11:33
Speaker 3: the last note. You know, it's like we all know
11:37
Speaker 3: what you think. The Republicans know what you think. The
11:39
Speaker 3: Democrats know what you think. You know what you think.
11:42
Speaker 3: The lawyers sitting behind you know what you think. The
11:44
Speaker 3: reporters watching this and scoring this. to see whose triple
11:49
Speaker 3: axles landed and who.
11:50
Speaker 2: Got the quad.
11:53
Speaker 3: Everyone knows what you think. You laid it out in
11:55
Speaker 3: your report. There are 10 instances of obstruction of justice.
11:57
Speaker 3: It's as clear as day. He did it on television.
11:59
Speaker 3: He did it on Twitter. He did it to you
12:01
Speaker 3: and to Jim Comey, someone you know well, a leader
12:07
Speaker 3: of the FBI, someone you respect, someone you admire. The
12:11
Speaker 3: challenge in all of this is we are having an
12:14
Speaker 3: incredibly important and large debate where no one really underneath
12:19
Speaker 3: it all disagrees on what happened here.
12:21
Speaker 2: Right.
12:22
Speaker 1: The subtext is not subtext. No. And I think it's
12:26
Speaker 1: confusing for some people because the media treated his correction
12:29
Speaker 1: of his statement as some giant walk back as if
12:32
Speaker 1: you can put that back in the box, but you can't.
12:34
Speaker 1: We know what he knows. What he believes is what
12:37
Speaker 1: he originally said to Ted Lieu. And by the way,
12:39
Speaker 1: that's also what's in the report. There is nothing in
12:42
Speaker 1: the report. There is no evidence that there are other
12:45
Speaker 1: reasons why he did not bring a charge against the
12:48
Speaker 1: president for obstruction of justice. It was not for lack
12:50
Speaker 1: of evidence.
12:51
Speaker 3: No, and the part of the report where Mueller says,
12:55
Speaker 3: you know, there were other issues that prevented this conclusion
12:59
Speaker 3: from being reached. It's what Barr hangs his hat on.
13:01
Speaker 3: It's what a lot of this debate hangs its hat on.
13:03
Speaker 3: That's actually why the walkback isn't as significant. The walkback
13:07
Speaker 3: isn't Robert Mueller denies that but for the OLC memo,
13:12
Speaker 3: he would have charged Donald Trump. The walkback is Robert
13:16
Speaker 3: Mueller won't say that but for the OLC memo, he
13:19
Speaker 3: wouldn't have charged Donald Trump. It is a semantic walkback, ultimately.
13:24
Speaker 3: In fact, it actually argues for saying that him saying
13:26
Speaker 3: it isn't ultimately as important As we made it out
13:30
Speaker 3: to be even in the moment that, yes, hearing him
13:32
Speaker 3: say it, I was taken aback by it.
13:34
Speaker 2: I thought it was a big statement. But then you
13:36
Speaker 2: you walk.
13:36
Speaker 1: I also thought, oh, obviously, that's obviously true. Well, that's
13:40
Speaker 1: why I thought it was like, I'm glad he's finally saying,
13:42
Speaker 1: but I wasn't I wasn't blown away by it.
13:45
Speaker 3: It was like it was like when the, you know,
13:47
Speaker 3: the gayest kid in the theater troupe says finally says
13:50
Speaker 3: he's gay.
13:50
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, OK, great. We're going to talk about it.
13:53
Speaker 3: Me, too.
13:55
Speaker 2: You know.
13:55
Speaker 1: So Robert Mueller came out of the closet on obstruction
13:57
Speaker 1: and then immediately went back in.
13:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, that seems like what happened.
14:02
Speaker 1: So that's some of what we learned or heard confirmed
14:06
Speaker 1: out loud by Mueller. Now, before the hearing, House Democrats
14:09
Speaker 1: were telling reporters that their goal for these hearings was
14:11
Speaker 1: to bring the Mueller report to life. How well do
14:14
Speaker 1: you think they did on that front and what could
14:16
Speaker 1: have gone better? Do you think the Democrats were effective?
14:18
Speaker 1: And then I guess we should talk about do we
14:20
Speaker 1: think Mueller was effective?
14:22
Speaker 2: Well, it wasn't exactly Shakespeare in the park. You know,
14:27
Speaker 2: I'm of two minds on this. You know, we were
14:31
Speaker 2: watching this.
14:31
Speaker 3: We saw, you know, we criticized pundits for saying that,
14:35
Speaker 3: you know, the optics were a disaster. It wasn't exciting.
14:37
Speaker 3: It wasn't dramatic. There wasn't a big reveal. And yet
14:40
Speaker 3: at the same time, it's also true that given the
14:43
Speaker 3: expectation that Mueller wasn't going to say very much beyond
14:47
Speaker 3: the report in the hearing, a lot of this was
14:49
Speaker 3: about taking the words that were on the page and
14:53
Speaker 3: bringing them to life and showing them to the American people.
14:56
Speaker 1: And by the way, one huge obstacle to that goal
15:01
Speaker 1: is that a night or two before the hearings, Mueller's
15:04
Speaker 1: people said to Democrats, oh, he's not even going to
15:08
Speaker 1: read parts of the report out loud so that you
15:10
Speaker 1: have that soundbite, which I thought is a bizarre decision
15:14
Speaker 1: and in no way warranted or necessary.
15:18
Speaker 3: Yes, I guess I understand it because in terms of
15:22
Speaker 3: from his perspective, as use of time and actual value,
15:26
Speaker 3: reading out loud.
15:27
Speaker 2: Words that have already been released to the public is
15:29
Speaker 2: pure politics.
15:31
Speaker 1: Well, it is, again, in line with the Democrats' goal
15:34
Speaker 1: of a lot of people in this country didn't read
15:36
Speaker 1: the report. We believe that Robert Mueller should stand by
15:40
Speaker 1: the words that he wrote, that he does stand by
15:42
Speaker 1: the words that he wrote. So if he stands by
15:44
Speaker 1: them and believes in them, why not say them to
15:46
Speaker 1: people who may not have read the report? You know,
15:48
Speaker 1: I think it's a very fair request.
15:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, right.
15:51
Speaker 3: I think it's, I see, I see both sides of it.
15:54
Speaker 3: I don't actually ultimately think him reading from the document
15:57
Speaker 3: would have been that. It wasn't magic beans.
15:58
Speaker 2: No, it wasn't magic beans. As we say, it wasn't
16:01
Speaker 2: magic beans.
16:02
Speaker 1: But classic magic beans.
16:07
Speaker 3: As we say in politics, it wasn't magic beans, but
16:10
Speaker 3: You know, there were a lot of big moments that
16:12
Speaker 3: came out of the hearing. Nadler asking about exoneration and
16:16
Speaker 3: getting some of those answers on the record. The moment
16:18
Speaker 3: about Trump being dishonest, the moments about a lack of patriotism,
16:22
Speaker 3: about things deserving to be investigated, about Russian interference. I
16:25
Speaker 3: thought Schiff's questioning was really effective. There were other moments
16:28
Speaker 3: of questioning that were very effective. And I think those
16:31
Speaker 3: moments were played pretty often on television. I presume many
16:34
Speaker 3: of them were played on the local news and were
16:37
Speaker 3: part of the coverage of But also part of the
16:39
Speaker 3: coverage was the general critical response and the Republican response
16:44
Speaker 3: that Mueller was, you know, he fumfered a bit. He
16:47
Speaker 3: had to search his pages. He asked for questions to
16:49
Speaker 3: be repeated. He wasn't very dynamic. Some of the lines
16:52
Speaker 3: of questioning didn't lead to very much. Donald Trump went
16:56
Speaker 3: out to the helipad and started shouting over the sound
17:00
Speaker 3: of propellers about how it was fake news and saying both,
17:04
Speaker 3: I didn't watch the coverage, but what you did was
17:06
Speaker 3: wrong and what you did was wrong and what you
17:07
Speaker 3: did was wrong. So all of that is infused in
17:09
Speaker 3: how this is received. Is there a version of it
17:12
Speaker 3: where we got more out of it? Yes. Did we
17:15
Speaker 3: still get a good amount of coverage of Mueller's underlying
17:18
Speaker 3: claims in the report in a way that hadn't happened
17:21
Speaker 3: at any point previously?
17:22
Speaker 5: Yes.
17:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is, you know, I thought it would be
17:27
Speaker 1: reversed when before the hearing in that I thought we
17:31
Speaker 1: would be critical of Democrats for not getting the right
17:34
Speaker 1: questions or blowing it and then be like, oh, thank
17:37
Speaker 1: God for Mueller. I actually think for as much as
17:39
Speaker 1: we've criticized Democrats on impeachment and other things, I think
17:41
Speaker 1: that the Democrats on the committees handled themselves quite well.
17:45
Speaker 1: I think especially Chairman Nadler and especially Chairman Schiff, I
17:49
Speaker 1: thought was outstanding. And within the context of interviewing a
17:54
Speaker 1: witness who had said, at the outset, that he would
17:58
Speaker 1: not read parts of the report and would not go beyond,
18:00
Speaker 1: as he said, the four corners of the report at all.
18:04
Speaker 1: Within that context, I think they got a lot out
18:06
Speaker 1: of it. And I think the Mueller thing did surprise me.
18:09
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think he was as sharp. I
18:12
Speaker 1: don't know why. You know, there's one theory I had was,
18:15
Speaker 1: you know, he didn't really want to prepare for this
18:17
Speaker 1: hearing that much because he didn't want to do the
18:19
Speaker 1: hearing in the first place. And he knew he wasn't
18:21
Speaker 1: going to go beyond the report. So it's not like
18:23
Speaker 1: he prepped himself like crazy because he knew he was
18:26
Speaker 1: going to keep saying, I refer you to the report,
18:28
Speaker 1: I refer you to the report, and I'm not going
18:29
Speaker 1: to answer that question, which he did. But even if
18:32
Speaker 1: he was going to take that strategy, he still seemed
18:37
Speaker 1: a little lost at times. And I do wonder what's
18:40
Speaker 1: going on there.
18:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right.
18:43
Speaker 3: I also think it's a matter of mindset and going
18:46
Speaker 3: into something like this. I think it was pretty clear
18:49
Speaker 3: that he went into this hearing with a whole set
18:54
Speaker 3: of places he didn't want to go and very few
18:57
Speaker 3: places he did want to go. If I was prepping
19:00
Speaker 3: Robert Mueller, and obviously I'm a partisan, but if I
19:04
Speaker 3: were prepping Robert Mueller and I was thinking about someone
19:06
Speaker 3: purely from the perspective of caring about making sure that
19:10
Speaker 3: the report has its best airing in a nonpartisan way
19:14
Speaker 3: and that we defend the prerogatives of the rule of
19:17
Speaker 3: law in the United States, I might have pushed to say,
19:21
Speaker 3: all right, here are some of the areas I think
19:22
Speaker 3: it's worth making an important point about, whether it's the
19:25
Speaker 3: integrity of the Department of Justice, the importance of the
19:29
Speaker 3: protection of investigations at the Department of Justice from interfering
19:33
Speaker 3: on Russian interference, from interference from the White House. On
19:36
Speaker 3: Russian interference, I do think he was a bit more expansive,
19:38
Speaker 3: in part because whether he prepped around that or not,
19:41
Speaker 3: whether he was worried about it or not, it was
19:42
Speaker 3: a place where he felt comfortable expounding a bit more.
19:46
Speaker 3: I do.
19:46
Speaker 1: And in his defense, too. I mean, we just said
19:49
Speaker 1: that the Democrats overall did quite well. But I do
19:51
Speaker 1: think some of the questions, because they couldn't get Mueller
19:54
Speaker 1: to read the report, they read, you know, a paragraph
19:57
Speaker 1: at a time very quickly. And, you know, if I
20:00
Speaker 1: was sitting where Robert Mueller is, right, we could all
20:02
Speaker 1: hear the sound very well on our televisions. But in
20:05
Speaker 1: that hearing room, a lot of reporters who were in
20:07
Speaker 1: there said, It's sometimes hard to hear the questions, and
20:09
Speaker 1: they were speaking really fast. And you have to think
20:12
Speaker 1: to yourself, do I want to answer the question quickly
20:15
Speaker 1: and strongly, or do I want to make sure I
20:17
Speaker 1: don't lie under oath and get something wrong? Like, I
20:20
Speaker 1: better look into the report, you know? So who knows
20:22
Speaker 1: what was going on there? But I think the important
20:24
Speaker 1: thing is, like, I get that the main goal for
20:29
Speaker 1: the Democrats was to bring the report to life. I
20:32
Speaker 1: don't necessarily think that Robert Mueller giving a shaky performance...
20:38
Speaker 1: detracted from getting facts out into the public sphere that
20:43
Speaker 1: people needed to know that much. Like, it might have
20:46
Speaker 1: at the margins, but, you know, we just, you referenced
20:49
Speaker 1: sort of the pundits on this. There were a few
20:51
Speaker 1: pundits and reporters who decided early on that Mueller was
20:53
Speaker 1: a little off. Our friend David Axelrod tweeted that, quote,
20:55
Speaker 1: he does not appear as sharp as he was in
20:57
Speaker 1: the past. Chris Wallace then said he was uncertain that
21:00
Speaker 1: the hearing was a, quote, disaster for Mueller and Democrats.
21:03
Speaker 1: Chuck Todd tweeted, quote, on substance, the Democrats got what
21:06
Speaker 1: they wanted, but on optics... This was a disaster, another word, disaster.
21:10
Speaker 1: And there were plenty of others like that. And of course,
21:12
Speaker 1: then the White House picked up on all of those
21:15
Speaker 1: talking points. And basically, thanks to all the pundits who
21:18
Speaker 1: said it was a disaster, it gave the press secretary
21:20
Speaker 1: at the White House and Donald Trump the ability to
21:22
Speaker 1: say it was a disaster as well. So the argument
21:25
Speaker 1: that I heard from some reporters on this was, you know,
21:28
Speaker 1: Democrats said that their goal was to bring this to life.
21:30
Speaker 1: And that's all about optics. So why shouldn't we judge optics?
21:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, fair enough.
21:38
Speaker 3: It is not that the Democrats didn't get what they
21:40
Speaker 3: wanted out of the hearing. And it's, I think, why
21:42
Speaker 3: the conversation around optics is so frustrating. The issue is
21:47
Speaker 3: what we learned in the hearing, given that Mueller wasn't
21:50
Speaker 3: doing a, you know, dramatic reading.
21:54
Speaker 2: Of the testimony.
21:56
Speaker 1: It was not a few good men.
21:57
Speaker 3: It was not a few good men. It was not.
22:00
Speaker 3: You know, Mueller didn't finally admit to the code red.
22:03
Speaker 3: It's a little bit what we learned is that Democrats
22:05
Speaker 3: made a mistake weeks ago. Yeah. That that even in
22:09
Speaker 3: Democrats saying they wanted to bring the report to life,
22:11
Speaker 3: what they were in some sense saying was, I need
22:14
Speaker 3: Robert Mueller to do something I'm either unable or unwilling
22:17
Speaker 3: to do, which is take this report and all the
22:20
Speaker 3: information in it, none of which will be new by
22:22
Speaker 3: the time we get to Mueller's testimony, delayed and delayed
22:25
Speaker 3: and delayed until now, which is bring it to life
22:29
Speaker 3: for the American people and hold it up and say,
22:31
Speaker 3: this is enough. This should be enough. Slouching toward reasonableness.
22:36
Speaker 3: And this effort to create the illusion of some coming
22:43
Speaker 3: information that finally makes the case worthy of being made
22:47
Speaker 3: on impeachment elevated the Mueller hearing into something that, even
22:51
Speaker 3: if he had been one of the great dramaturgists of
22:54
Speaker 3: our age, would not have been possible because we already
22:58
Speaker 3: had the information.
23:00
Speaker 2: We have the information. The president is guilty of crimes.
23:03
Speaker 2: We all know it. We all know it. And maybe.
23:06
Speaker 3: Maybe Barr's memo was too effective in slowing us down.
23:09
Speaker 3: Maybe it took the wind out of our sails. But
23:12
Speaker 3: Mueller wasn't going to be able to put the wind
23:13
Speaker 3: back in. And so I was frustrated with the focus
23:19
Speaker 3: on optics. But maybe part of that is frustrated with
23:22
Speaker 3: what led the Democrats in Congress to believe that the
23:25
Speaker 3: optics of this were what was going to matter.
23:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, I very much understand that, unfortunately,
23:32
Speaker 1: optics are important in politics.
23:35
Speaker 2: I get that.
23:36
Speaker 1: I get that, you know, we watch these debates and
23:39
Speaker 1: a lot of the debates are judged by performance, right?
23:43
Speaker 1: I also think that this should be treated as something different. Obviously,
23:48
Speaker 1: there are partisan interests at stake in the outcome of
23:51
Speaker 1: the Mueller hearings and this investigation as a whole. We
23:53
Speaker 1: all understand that. But we also had an independent special counsel,
23:58
Speaker 1: a registered Republican, conducted a two-year investigation into... a serious
24:04
Speaker 1: attack on our democracy and the connection to the president
24:09
Speaker 1: of the United States in that investigation as well. And
24:13
Speaker 1: to treat that as just, to treat the presentation of
24:17
Speaker 1: that report in public as, you know, the most important
24:21
Speaker 1: thing is to judge it via optics, whether, you know,
24:23
Speaker 1: Bob Mueller was shaken or not. You know, a lot
24:27
Speaker 1: of people are going to only watch news coverage of
24:31
Speaker 1: that hearing. They're not going to watch the whole hearing.
24:33
Speaker 1: People did not have time to watch the whole hearing.
24:35
Speaker 1: So they're going to get whatever the media filter is
24:38
Speaker 1: going to be incredibly important to how people judge that.
24:41
Speaker 1: And if someone turns on their news and they've been
24:43
Speaker 1: busy all day, don't they deserve to hear what exactly
24:48
Speaker 1: happened in the hearing and not a bunch of talking
24:51
Speaker 1: heads saying it was a disaster for Democrats because Bob
24:54
Speaker 1: Mueller was unprepared? Don't they deserve don't the American people
24:58
Speaker 1: deserve to hear the substance of of what Robert Mueller
25:01
Speaker 1: told them about a foreign power attacking our election.
25:04
Speaker 2: Yes, this is.
25:06
Speaker 1: In this one instance, we're just asking for one fucking instance.
25:11
Speaker 2: You know what, I'm not. I'm asking for more than one.
25:14
Speaker 1: Me too, I've just set my sights low.
25:15
Speaker 3: And I know that to the reporters that hear this criticism,
25:18
Speaker 3: there's like a bit of a rolling of the eyes.
25:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I know.
25:21
Speaker 2: Like, what world do you live in?
25:22
Speaker 1: Well, they say, you know, oh, you blame... you blame
25:26
Speaker 1: the media for Trump. It's like, no, I don't blame
25:28
Speaker 1: the media for Trump. I don't think that if, you know,
25:30
Speaker 1: Maggie called it a lie that, again, the magic beans would.
25:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're not making that case. I just think it's
25:37
Speaker 3: worth reflecting collectively, not pinning it on any journalist, but
25:41
Speaker 3: like some of the hardest things for us to talk
25:43
Speaker 3: about are the larger kind of contours of the way
25:47
Speaker 3: we talk about politics that have been developing and growing
25:50
Speaker 3: for decades, not born of this election, not born of 2016,
25:53
Speaker 3: but have culmination of a lot of changes in how
25:57
Speaker 3: we talk about politics. There is an assumption inside of
26:01
Speaker 3: the political coverage that says the optics were a disaster
26:04
Speaker 3: for Democrats, which is that I'm saying that for you,
26:08
Speaker 3: the pundit, the observer, the person watching politics from the outside.
26:14
Speaker 3: But it assumes that you are not the only mediator.
26:18
Speaker 3: It assumes that there is some other form of coverage
26:20
Speaker 3: that is covering the substance and revealing the substance to
26:23
Speaker 3: people And you're watching that coverage and saying, here's how
26:26
Speaker 3: I think it's working. The problem is there isn't that
26:30
Speaker 3: other kind of coverage. This is the way we talk
26:33
Speaker 3: about politics. This is the way politics is mediated for people.
26:37
Speaker 3: The way you say it seems is how it seems.
26:40
Speaker 2: And so it's a vicious circle.
26:43
Speaker 1: I sometimes think that reporters and pundits don't understand the
26:47
Speaker 1: power they wield to actually shape the public narrative.
26:50
Speaker 2: Exactly.
26:50
Speaker 1: That's partly because no one reporter or pundit has the
26:54
Speaker 1: power to do it themselves, and so they often say, oh, well,
26:56
Speaker 1: it's just my tweet. What are you getting upset for?
26:59
Speaker 1: But collectively, and there is a hive mind approach here
27:03
Speaker 1: to this, right? Like, one person on Twitter says it's
27:05
Speaker 1: a disaster, and then the other person says, and then
27:07
Speaker 1: all the folks who are stuck in D.C. start thinking
27:10
Speaker 1: the same way, and suddenly that's the narrative. And those
27:13
Speaker 1: people all know. They know how damning the report is.
27:16
Speaker 1: They know how damning Robert Mueller's testimony was. They know that.
27:20
Speaker 3: And so when you say, you know, the optics are
27:22
Speaker 3: a disaster... That is the optics being a disaster. It
27:27
Speaker 3: is the description of the optics that becomes the optics.
27:31
Speaker 3: It is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and it is naive, and
27:34
Speaker 3: it is a fantasy. But it ought to be at
27:38
Speaker 3: least part of how we talk about this, where what
27:40
Speaker 3: if the instinct was, in some cases, for some people,
27:44
Speaker 3: to see what Robert Mueller is saying, to see how
27:47
Speaker 3: this is a culmination of weeks to get Mueller to
27:50
Speaker 3: testify about the content of his report, And the response was, wow,
27:55
Speaker 3: this is important substance. It's really important and necessary information.
27:59
Speaker 3: It was conveyed in an undramatic and halting way. It
28:03
Speaker 3: is now our job to bridge that gap, to help
28:06
Speaker 3: people understand what it is, to overcome the optics. Oh, no,
28:10
Speaker 3: the optics are preventing people from seeing why this is important.
28:15
Speaker 3: I better overcome those optics and make it my job
28:18
Speaker 3: to show people what really happened. Yeah.
28:20
Speaker 1: And look, you can, you can do both. You know,
28:22
Speaker 1: we didn't, we didn't start this whole thing by being like, no, no, no.
28:25
Speaker 1: Robert Mueller was perfect yesterday and he was amazing. And
28:27
Speaker 1: he won that. Like, no, you, you can admit that
28:30
Speaker 1: he was stumbly, but also let people know the relative
28:34
Speaker 1: importance of that in relation to the overall testimony and
28:38
Speaker 1: what we learned. That's not that hard. Yeah. Um, So
28:42
Speaker 1: let's talk about what happened after the hearing. The president
28:44
Speaker 1: very predictably declared the day a victory for himself and
28:47
Speaker 1: pointed out all the pundits and reporters who agreed with
28:49
Speaker 1: him that it was a disaster for the Democrats. Democratic
28:51
Speaker 1: leaders responded in a press conference where Nancy Pelosi said
28:54
Speaker 1: this of impeachment, quote, She's referring to the lawsuit to
28:56
Speaker 1: force former White House counsel and Mueller star witness Don
28:58
Speaker 1: McGahn to testify. and for DOJ to hand over all
29:12
Speaker 1: the underlying evidence from the Mueller report. But according to Politico,
29:15
Speaker 1: Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler tried to push Pelosi to launch
29:18
Speaker 1: an impeachment inquiry in a private caucus meeting Wednesday after
29:22
Speaker 1: the hearing, and the speaker basically said, not just yet. Lovett,
29:26
Speaker 1: what's it going to take here? Does impeachment get easier
29:29
Speaker 1: from here? Harder from here? What do you think?
29:31
Speaker 2: I do not believe impeachment got easier. Let's face it,
29:34
Speaker 2: it just didn't.
29:36
Speaker 3: Where we are now, is in many ways where we
29:39
Speaker 3: were before. the Mueller testimony, which is Mueller was never
29:43
Speaker 3: going to provide you the perfect recipe for impeachment.
29:47
Speaker 1: He's not going to do your homework for you.
29:48
Speaker 2: He wasn't going to do it.
29:49
Speaker 1: He's not going to take the test. He's It's a
29:52
Speaker 1: hard decision you're going to have to make for yourself
29:55
Speaker 1: and no one's going to make it easier for you.
29:56
Speaker 1: You know, Democrats.
29:57
Speaker 3: Yes. And, you know, a lot of the coverage has
29:59
Speaker 3: been around how much Mueller did or didn't reveal. But
30:04
Speaker 3: one other facet of what we saw unfold was actually
30:06
Speaker 3: the Republicans on the hearing just throwing their conspiracy theory
30:11
Speaker 3: punches and trying to drum up, you know, insults to
30:15
Speaker 3: the special counsel, to the partisan witch hunt of the investigation, all.
30:18
Speaker 2: The usual fare.
30:20
Speaker 3: Some of it, you know, a new gloss on sort
30:22
Speaker 3: of a classic, a remix. But it didn't land very
30:25
Speaker 3: hard either. It actually sort of, I think, didn't change
30:30
Speaker 3: the conversation in the other direction at all because where
30:33
Speaker 3: we are is where we were before. We have basically
30:36
Speaker 3: the same amount of information, a little bit more nuance,
30:39
Speaker 3: a little bit more insight. From what Mueller said, Mueller
30:42
Speaker 3: built on his statement in response to Barr in some
30:45
Speaker 3: of his answers. We've got a bit more context for
30:47
Speaker 3: this report. It might not have provided... the great TV
30:51
Speaker 3: fodder and dramatic moment that would have galvanized impeachment more quickly,
30:55
Speaker 3: but we're where we are. We have the information. If
30:58
Speaker 3: what your claim is is that we need something more damning,
31:02
Speaker 3: more clear-cut than the many, many public and private crimes
31:06
Speaker 3: outlined by Mueller, not to mention the ways in which
31:09
Speaker 3: he is unfit and unsuited for the office, his racist outbursts,
31:12
Speaker 3: and all the rest, if what you're saying is that's
31:14
Speaker 3: not enough, I'm not sure whatever would be.
31:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, look, I get how hard this vote is. I
31:20
Speaker 1: get that it's not popular. And I also understand that
31:25
Speaker 1: the Senate's going to acquit him. I get all of that.
31:30
Speaker 1: I also understand that it is a legitimate strategy to say,
31:34
Speaker 1: I want to tie up all the loose ends before
31:37
Speaker 1: we have this vote. I want to compel McGahn to testify.
31:41
Speaker 1: I want to compel the DOJ to get us all
31:45
Speaker 1: the documents that we need. I get all that. But...
31:49
Speaker 1: We are running out of time. You know that in
31:52
Speaker 1: an election year in 2020, it's going to seem foolish
31:55
Speaker 1: to have an impeachment hearing while this presidential campaign is
31:59
Speaker 1: going on. And so, and you've said this before, Lovett,
32:02
Speaker 1: like that leaves, that leaves the fall. And I think, look,
32:07
Speaker 1: Jerry Nadler clearly wants to do this. Like Nancy Pelosi
32:10
Speaker 1: is sort of standing in the way here. And in fairness,
32:14
Speaker 1: she's trying to cover for a lot of Democrats who
32:16
Speaker 1: were just not there yet.
32:18
Speaker 3: And I think it's and I'm sorry to interrupt, but
32:20
Speaker 3: it's like she's in some sense covering for those Democrats,
32:23
Speaker 3: but also in her standing up, standing in the way
32:26
Speaker 3: she helps make it less likely in some way.
32:28
Speaker 2: So it's both. That's all.
32:29
Speaker 3: Yeah.
32:29
Speaker 1: And I also look watching that unfold yesterday. I, for
32:34
Speaker 1: the first time, started seeing the risks in impeachment in
32:38
Speaker 1: terms of, all right, we're going to hold a bunch
32:40
Speaker 1: of televised hearings on impeachment. We better lock our shit
32:43
Speaker 1: down and make sure those hearings go well if. The
32:46
Speaker 1: reason that we are impeaching him is not just for
32:50
Speaker 1: the moral case, but to build a political case against
32:53
Speaker 1: Trump that can help defeat him in 2020. And if
32:57
Speaker 1: we're going to build that political case, all of these
33:01
Speaker 1: hearings better sound like Adam Schiff's opening testimony and his
33:04
Speaker 1: questioning and Darian Adler's questioning. And it better not sound like.
33:08
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of other shit that we heard. You know,
33:10
Speaker 1: and look, we're not going to be able to prevent
33:12
Speaker 1: Republicans from, like, throwing out their conspiracy theories during the
33:14
Speaker 1: impeachment hearings if we have them, but gotta lock that
33:17
Speaker 1: fucking case down. But I still believe, and, you know,
33:19
Speaker 1: I sat there, we're going to talk to Schiff in
33:21
Speaker 1: a bit, but I watched his, because I only caught
33:24
Speaker 1: parts of it, I watched his opening statement last night,
33:27
Speaker 1: and it is this sort of clarifying moment when you
33:31
Speaker 1: hear the story put together in that way, and I
33:34
Speaker 1: started thinking to myself, you know, this is seven minutes here,
33:37
Speaker 1: but imagine this message over and over for months during
33:41
Speaker 1: impeachment hearings. I mean, Tommy brought this up yesterday. You know,
33:44
Speaker 1: the one thing you can say about Trump is he's
33:47
Speaker 1: on message. He's been on message, the same concise, consistent
33:50
Speaker 1: message on this whole investigation for years now. No collusion,
33:54
Speaker 1: no obstruction, witch hunt, total exoneration. You hear it over
33:58
Speaker 1: and over again. And Democrats don't have a message. And
34:00
Speaker 1: sometimes when you're all struggling to come up with a message,
34:02
Speaker 1: this happens in campaigns too, you need a forcing mechanism, right?
34:06
Speaker 1: And Obviously, the 2020 campaign is a forcing mechanism for
34:09
Speaker 1: whoever the nominee may be. But I think that for
34:12
Speaker 1: the House Democrats, who have been, by all accounts, sort
34:15
Speaker 1: of flailing for the last couple months, inter-party feuding, the
34:19
Speaker 1: investigation strategy hasn't been going that well by any standard.
34:23
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right.
34:24
Speaker 1: An impeachment proceeding would be a focusing mechanism to get
34:28
Speaker 1: them all on the same page and to figure out
34:30
Speaker 1: what their story is about Donald Trump and why he's
34:32
Speaker 1: unfit to lead this country, which is a very important
34:34
Speaker 1: story to have. for beating him in 2020.
34:37
Speaker 2: Yes, I totally agree.
34:38
Speaker 3: And by the way, I say that as somebody who
34:40
Speaker 3: doesn't view impeachment as some silver bullet.
34:42
Speaker 2: No. At all.
34:43
Speaker 1: I think there's a good... I mean, I actually think
34:45
Speaker 1: the most likely outcome of impeachment... Well, there's two most
34:48
Speaker 1: likely outcomes. One, it helps us a little bit. And
34:50
Speaker 1: right behind it helps us a little bit is it's
34:52
Speaker 1: a complete wash and doesn't matter in the election whatsoever.
34:54
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
34:55
Speaker 1: And then I think it hurts us is below that
34:57
Speaker 1: for me.
34:57
Speaker 2: I really.
34:58
Speaker 1: I think it could be nothing. Yes, I do.
35:01
Speaker 3: But one thing that it would do... is it would
35:05
Speaker 3: change the current dynamic. It would get us out of this,
35:08
Speaker 3: this kind of feckless, dull ache of a oversight period
35:14
Speaker 3: that we've been in that I think has been a
35:17
Speaker 3: source of a lot of the internal strife amongst Democrats. Because,
35:23
Speaker 3: you know, when you step back from the, from, from,
35:26
Speaker 3: from Mueller, from, from, from Pelosi blocking for the moderates,
35:30
Speaker 3: from the, from, from some of the, from some of
35:32
Speaker 3: the bickering and, and, and, legitimate differences we've seen, there's
35:36
Speaker 3: a lot of pain for Democratic voters. There's a lot
35:40
Speaker 3: of anger and frustration among Democratic members. Here we are,
35:44
Speaker 3: a majority we fought so hard for against a president
35:47
Speaker 3: we all recognize is unfit, corrupt, and must be removed
35:52
Speaker 3: from office as soon as humanly possible, who we all believe,
35:55
Speaker 3: every member who supports impeachment, every member who opposes impeachment,
35:59
Speaker 3: believes that Donald Trump is guilty of impeachable offenses. And
36:03
Speaker 3: we have now spent months watching this president prevent subpoenas
36:07
Speaker 3: from being fulfilled and Democrats debating amongst themselves as to
36:11
Speaker 3: whether or not impeachment is worth it. Maybe a 2020.
36:15
Speaker 2: Campaign can change that dynamic on its own. I'm not
36:18
Speaker 2: so sure.
36:19
Speaker 1: And he's continuing to abuse his power as we wait
36:23
Speaker 1: because he knows he can get away with it right
36:25
Speaker 1: like we saw him yesterday yesterday he was distracted by
36:28
Speaker 1: this hearing and he was angry yes and i would
36:30
Speaker 1: rather him distracted and angry and tweeting about impeachment hearings
36:33
Speaker 1: than i would doing all kinds of other bad shit
36:36
Speaker 1: which he is i mean there he is he is
36:38
Speaker 1: out of control his presidency is out of control we
36:41
Speaker 1: haven't even talked about the fact that you know uh
36:44
Speaker 1: customs and border patrol uh you know detained uh an
36:48
Speaker 1: American citizen, an 18-year-old American citizen, for three weeks, no showers,
36:53
Speaker 1: lost 26 pounds because they didn't give him a food,
36:55
Speaker 1: put him in a cage with a whole bunch of
36:57
Speaker 1: other migrants, which, you know, we also don't talk about
37:00
Speaker 1: nearly enough. But we are now, we detained an American citizen,
37:04
Speaker 1: a child, a teenager, because he has brown skin. That's
37:09
Speaker 1: the country we are right now. That's the president we
37:11
Speaker 1: have right now. And we are just going to say
37:13
Speaker 1: we can wait until 2020 to render a judgment against
37:16
Speaker 1: that man?
37:17
Speaker 3: Because we have concerns about the politics, not the merits,
37:22
Speaker 3: not the facts, not the law, not the morality, because
37:25
Speaker 3: we have vague concerns about the politics we cannot fully
37:30
Speaker 3: articulate and we cannot know for sure. This is our
37:34
Speaker 3: chance to go on record to use the powers of
37:38
Speaker 3: the House to say we do not find this conduct
37:41
Speaker 3: acceptable In fact, we find it so egregious, reprehensible and
37:45
Speaker 3: illegal that we are going to say on the record,
37:49
Speaker 3: this man has no business being president of the United States.
37:53
Speaker 3: And if it were up to us, we would remove him.
37:55
Speaker 3: We don't have the power because we hand it over
37:57
Speaker 3: to the Senate, but let them go on record and
37:59
Speaker 3: say the opposite.
38:01
Speaker 1: And if this president is reelected and the House returns
38:06
Speaker 1: to Republican control, the statute of limitation runs out on
38:09
Speaker 1: a lot of the crimes that Donald Trump committed. and
38:11
Speaker 1: he will never be held accountable. And this might be,
38:13
Speaker 1: so what the House, the House making a decision to
38:16
Speaker 1: impeach may be our best last chance to hold this
38:19
Speaker 1: man accountable for the crimes he's committed.
38:22
Speaker 3: And imagine Donald Trump being reelected and Democrats losing power,
38:28
Speaker 3: having for quotidian political concerns, which turned out to have
38:33
Speaker 3: not been correct and not been borne out by what
38:36
Speaker 3: took place after, failed to use their power to say
38:40
Speaker 3: what they believed, which is that this man had no
38:42
Speaker 3: business being president, to forgo an opportunity to say for
38:47
Speaker 3: history and for the world that we weren't behind this,
38:51
Speaker 3: that we were going to use our power to stop this.
38:53
Speaker 3: That is a grand mistake that is not worth making
38:57
Speaker 3: based on political concerns that no one really knows for
39:00
Speaker 3: sure are accurate.
39:01
Speaker 2: Nobody knows.
39:03
Speaker 1: Look, and they are real, right?
39:04
Speaker 2: Yes.
39:05
Speaker 1: I am eyes wide open that the flip side of
39:07
Speaker 1: this is we vote to impeach, we drag the country
39:10
Speaker 1: through impeachment proceedings, and it is very unpopular, and we
39:13
Speaker 1: regret that too. But there are two really tough choices.
39:17
Speaker 1: I don't think either choice is easy. And I think
39:20
Speaker 1: when both choices in front of you in politics are
39:23
Speaker 1: very difficult, you go with the choice that you believe in.
39:26
Speaker 1: You do what you believe in when both are difficult.
39:28
Speaker 3: Especially when I don't... think there is anyone who is
39:32
Speaker 3: part of this debate who would argue that where we're
39:34
Speaker 3: at right now feels politically satisfying.
39:36
Speaker 1: His approval rating is at its highest it's been right now.
39:40
Speaker 3: So the fall is the moment. It is the opportunity
39:43
Speaker 3: to have this, to have these hearings, to concentrate the
39:47
Speaker 3: focus and And by the way, after that, we'll be
39:49
Speaker 3: off to 2020. We will have come together, and Democrats
39:52
Speaker 3: in the House will have come together to hold the
39:55
Speaker 3: president accountable and make a case. It may not have
39:58
Speaker 3: a huge impact at all, but it will have been done,
40:01
Speaker 3: and that will free up Democrats running for president to
40:04
Speaker 3: make their case for why they are a positive response
40:07
Speaker 3: to Donald Trump as well.
40:18
Speaker 1: OK, let's talk about 2020. Joe Biden is getting scrappy
40:21
Speaker 1: ahead of next week's Democratic primary debates. He's getting into
40:24
Speaker 1: it with Cory Booker over criminal justice reform. He's getting
40:26
Speaker 1: into it with Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris over health care.
40:29
Speaker 1: On the first issue, Biden released a criminal justice reform
40:32
Speaker 1: plan last week that would decriminalize marijuana, expunge prior convictions,
40:35
Speaker 1: eliminate mandatory minimums for nonviolent crimes and the death penalty,
40:39
Speaker 1: abolish private prisons, get rid of cash bail and discourage
40:42
Speaker 1: the incarceration of children. First, before we get into the politics,
40:45
Speaker 1: what do we think of Biden's plan? I think it's good.
40:48
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's where the democratic consensus now is,
40:51
Speaker 3: which is undoing some of the.
40:54
Speaker 2: Harsh sentencing laws.
40:56
Speaker 1: They came from the 94 crime bill, but Biden famously
41:00
Speaker 1: supported it. Yes.
41:03
Speaker 3: Getting rid of cash bail, I think it's good how
41:07
Speaker 3: quickly it became a kind of mainstream position. It went
41:10
Speaker 3: from being something that I don't think was talked about
41:12
Speaker 3: at the national level at all, and has sort of
41:15
Speaker 3: quickly become something people It's an interesting case of people
41:19
Speaker 3: quickly realizing, like, oh, wait a second, there's an injustice
41:22
Speaker 3: here that's incredibly common that we aren't.
41:25
Speaker 2: Talking about enough.
41:26
Speaker 1: I think it's also another example of, you know, Biden's
41:29
Speaker 1: criminal justice reform plan may not be the most ambitious
41:33
Speaker 1: or most progressive in the field, but relative to anything
41:38
Speaker 1: we've seen in the past, in past campaigns, it is
41:41
Speaker 1: very progressive. And I think that is a testament to
41:44
Speaker 1: the left, to activists, to organizers who who have really
41:48
Speaker 1: pushed the field on this. I mean, Biden is seen,
41:51
Speaker 1: and we've said this too, as the centrist candidate in
41:55
Speaker 1: the field. There's nothing centrist about a criminal justice reform
41:59
Speaker 1: plan like that. That is a very progressive plan that
42:01
Speaker 1: would do a lot of good. So Cory Booker, who
42:05
Speaker 1: helped pass a criminal justice reform bill in Congress this
42:07
Speaker 1: year and has been critical of Biden's involvement in the
42:09
Speaker 1: 1994 crime bill, tweeted the following in response, quote,' It' s
42:13
Speaker 1: not enough to tell us what you're going to do
42:15
Speaker 1: for our communities,' Show us what you've done for the
42:17
Speaker 1: last 40 years. You created the system. We'll dismantle it.
42:21
Speaker 1: Biden defended himself and his plan and called into question
42:24
Speaker 1: Booker's record on criminal justice and public safety when he
42:26
Speaker 1: was the mayor of New York, telling reporters this, quote,
42:29
Speaker 1: His police department was stopping and frisking people, mostly African-American men,
42:33
Speaker 1: he said, leading the Obama administration to intercede. Quote, We
42:36
Speaker 1: took action against them. The Justice Department took action against them,
42:39
Speaker 1: held the police accountable. He objected to federal interference. If
42:42
Speaker 1: he wants to go back and talk about records, I'm
42:43
Speaker 1: happy to do that. Oof. That got heated fast. Really fast.
42:50
Speaker 1: A couple people put out some good criminal justice reform
42:52
Speaker 1: plans and suddenly we are fucking off to the races.
42:54
Speaker 3: I'm old enough to remember where Biden wasn't going to
42:56
Speaker 3: get in the fray and Cory Booker talked about love.
42:58
Speaker 2: It was two weeks ago.
43:02
Speaker 1: So what do you think is going on here? Why
43:05
Speaker 1: did Booker take the shot and why did Biden respond
43:08
Speaker 1: and respond so quickly?
43:09
Speaker 2: I think that, look, Joe Biden, he's been the archer
43:14
Speaker 2: and he's been the prey.
43:18
Speaker 1: I think he's been the prey, mostly. This is the
43:20
Speaker 1: first instance of him being an archer.
43:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
43:23
Speaker 3: I think he was sick of being the prey and
43:24
Speaker 3: decided it was time that he might have to be
43:27
Speaker 3: the archer because he couldn't.
43:28
Speaker 1: I wonder if there's a whole bunch of people who
43:29
Speaker 1: just don't understand that reference at all. Probably, hopefully.
43:33
Speaker 2: Mostly straight people.
43:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look, I don't think it's that complicated.
43:38
Speaker 3: Biden is about to head into a debate in which
43:40
Speaker 3: he is probably going to face criticism from Booker, Harris.
43:45
Speaker 1: He'll be flanked by the two of them. Yeah.
43:47
Speaker 3: And if Biden had more debates like the last debate,
43:52
Speaker 3: he would very quickly have no chance of being the
43:54
Speaker 3: Democratic nominee. There's just no way that that could continue
43:56
Speaker 3: again and again. It's not possible, not when so much
44:01
Speaker 3: of this debate is about who will stand up against
44:03
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. So they're making a change. They're not going
44:07
Speaker 3: to take punches. They're going to punch back. The thing
44:10
Speaker 3: that was most interesting about what Biden said is it
44:13
Speaker 3: was So it was a signal to everyone at the
44:17
Speaker 3: debate that Biden's going to punch back. And the thing
44:19
Speaker 3: that the campaign said was, if Booker wants to talk
44:23
Speaker 3: about the past, we can do that.
44:25
Speaker 2: That's an argument. We'll win, but we want to talk
44:26
Speaker 2: about the future.
44:28
Speaker 3: And I think one of the lessons that one thing
44:30
Speaker 3: we said about the previous debate, one thing that was
44:32
Speaker 3: obvious probably to his campaign as well, was that Biden
44:35
Speaker 3: needs to talk about what he's going to do. He
44:37
Speaker 3: needs to talk about the future, because if they're talking
44:39
Speaker 3: about the past, it's unhelpful to their campaign. So I
44:42
Speaker 3: think this is a way of trying to signal that
44:45
Speaker 3: you can try to mix it up, but I'm going
44:46
Speaker 3: to try to push towards the future. And if you
44:48
Speaker 3: come at my record, I'll come at yours. So let's
44:50
Speaker 3: have a different kind of debate.
44:51
Speaker 1: I think that last point is very important because all
44:56
Speaker 1: of these top candidates, none of them just appeared yesterday, right?
45:00
Speaker 1: Like there's some people who've been in Washington much longer
45:02
Speaker 1: than others like Joe Biden. But Cory Booker has a
45:05
Speaker 1: long record as mayor of Newark. before he was in
45:09
Speaker 1: the Senate. Kamala Harris has a long record as a prosecutor,
45:12
Speaker 1: as attorney general, as a DA before she was in
45:15
Speaker 1: the Senate. We found out that Pete Buttigieg has a
45:18
Speaker 1: long record, or not a long record, but a record
45:21
Speaker 1: as mayor in South Bend. And all of these records
45:25
Speaker 1: have elements that the candidates can be very proud of
45:28
Speaker 1: and want to talk about, but there are also sort
45:31
Speaker 1: of weaknesses in the record, or at least controversies in
45:33
Speaker 1: all of their records. And I think you're right that
45:35
Speaker 1: Biden wants to let people know you can come at
45:37
Speaker 1: my record if you want. And there's a lot of
45:39
Speaker 1: votes you can pick. And there's a lot of issues
45:41
Speaker 1: that I've evolved on and that I wasn't so great
45:43
Speaker 1: on back then. But by the way, I'm going to
45:45
Speaker 1: come after your record, too. And I wouldn't be surprised
45:48
Speaker 1: if he does that with Booker, if he does that
45:50
Speaker 1: with Kamala Harris on stage. Like, I think you're right
45:53
Speaker 1: that he is sort of putting them on notice.
45:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, he is. And look, Booker's response to Biden is
45:59
Speaker 3: a very hard hit. It's also an ad hominem attack.
46:02
Speaker 3: And I don't say, you know, ad hominem is what
46:04
Speaker 3: That's an ad hominem attack, and therefore it is unacceptable.
46:07
Speaker 3: That's not what I mean. I mean, it is not
46:09
Speaker 3: a criticism of the policy. It is a suggestion that
46:12
Speaker 3: while this policy may have elements I agree with, and
46:14
Speaker 3: actually I'm not going to be critical of what you've
46:16
Speaker 3: laid out at all, I am going to say that
46:18
Speaker 3: basically you are not the person to actually execute this
46:21
Speaker 3: policy because in some way your heart is not fully
46:24
Speaker 3: in it because your record reveals the kind of president
46:27
Speaker 3: you would be. And I think sometimes that argument is valuable,
46:31
Speaker 3: and I think sometimes it's not.
46:33
Speaker 2: I'm not sure yet here.
46:34
Speaker 3: I think this is a totally worthy debate that they're
46:36
Speaker 3: about to have about their records. But it's worth keeping
46:39
Speaker 3: in mind that this is a conversation outside of the
46:43
Speaker 3: policy and trying to basically say, you should be skeptical
46:48
Speaker 3: that he'll actually be the kind of president that would
46:52
Speaker 3: fight for these policies.
46:53
Speaker 1: And I think it can be a very effective argument
46:56
Speaker 1: against Biden, by the way. I think Booker said something
47:00
Speaker 1: that makes it more effective, which is, you know, I'm
47:03
Speaker 1: glad that Vice President Biden has come along on these issues.
47:06
Speaker 1: But where Booker's setting up, and I'm sure Kamala Harris
47:09
Speaker 1: is setting this up too, is, okay, who do you
47:12
Speaker 1: trust to change the system? Do you trust someone who
47:16
Speaker 1: has changed over time and evolved to a good place
47:19
Speaker 1: or someone who's always been there? That's the argument that
47:23
Speaker 1: ultimately they want to all make against Biden, right? That
47:27
Speaker 1: it's great that he served as Obama's vice president and
47:31
Speaker 1: and was progressive and supported Obama's agenda, it's great that
47:34
Speaker 1: he has progressive policies now, but who do you really
47:38
Speaker 1: trust when they're president to stick by you? And I
47:41
Speaker 1: think that could be a good argument, but there is
47:43
Speaker 1: the danger that you overdo it and that you expose
47:46
Speaker 1: yourself to your own problems in doing that. So the
47:50
Speaker 1: other issue where there was some Biden feistiness this week
47:53
Speaker 1: is healthcare. Biden continued his criticism of Bernie Sanders' Medicare
47:57
Speaker 1: for All plan, saying that during the four-year transition, Some
48:00
Speaker 1: people might be stranded without health insurance plans because during
48:04
Speaker 1: the transition, what might happen is private insurance companies, knowing
48:07
Speaker 1: that they're about to be extinct, could pull out of
48:09
Speaker 1: a lot of markets and do price gouging like they
48:14
Speaker 1: do now, but maybe worse. But then the vice president
48:17
Speaker 1: said that at least Bernie's being honest about how he'd
48:19
Speaker 1: pay for Medicare for all by raising taxes on the
48:21
Speaker 1: middle class, whereas candidates who insist you can pay for
48:23
Speaker 1: Medicare for all by just raising taxes on the wealthy
48:26
Speaker 1: are living in, quote, fantasy world. it seems very clear there.
48:29
Speaker 1: He was talking about Kamala Harris because he'd just been
48:32
Speaker 1: talking about her. Um, love it. What's happening here. And
48:35
Speaker 1: how do you think this, the public option versus single
48:38
Speaker 1: payer debate is playing out so far?
48:40
Speaker 2: So, uh, you know, we've reached the part of cocoon
48:42
Speaker 2: where Donna Michi is dancing again.
48:44
Speaker 1: Uh, I saw your wheels turning on that one as
48:49
Speaker 1: I talked about Biden's feistiness.
48:51
Speaker 3: Specifically, there's something about saying a man in his 70s
48:54
Speaker 3: is feisty or spry.
48:56
Speaker 1: I'm trying to avoid the typical media talk that's like,
48:59
Speaker 1: Joe Biden slammed Bernie Sanders this week.
49:03
Speaker 2: I know. I know.
49:06
Speaker 3: So, the line about at least Bernie is being honest
49:10
Speaker 3: about raising taxes, it is an interesting hit on Kamala.
49:13
Speaker 3: It's a funny... It's a bank shot. Yeah, it is
49:16
Speaker 3: a bank shot. You know, I want to live for
49:17
Speaker 3: a moment in a fantasy world where we have a
49:19
Speaker 3: debate about a public option or Medicare for all who
49:22
Speaker 3: want it versus Medicare for all.
49:25
Speaker 2: That is not just... Based on substance and policy.
49:28
Speaker 3: Based on substance and policy, but even more than based
49:30
Speaker 3: on substance and policy is where both sides speak about
49:33
Speaker 3: the pros and cons of their own plans and each other's.
49:36
Speaker 1: Yeah. That is a fantasy world.
49:38
Speaker 2: It is a fantasy.
49:39
Speaker 1: I'm with you.
49:40
Speaker 4: I know.
49:40
Speaker 3: And I guess it's just sort of just take a
49:42
Speaker 3: moment to imagine what that would be like. It would
49:44
Speaker 3: be someone like Joe Biden saying, I see the value
49:47
Speaker 3: of a transition to Medicare for all, the efficiencies that
49:50
Speaker 3: will be gained from the system, a simple system in
49:52
Speaker 3: which everyone knows they can rely on Medicare and they
49:54
Speaker 3: will never again have to worry about falling through the
49:56
Speaker 3: cracks of a broken system in which insurance companies and
49:59
Speaker 3: pharmaceutical companies and hospital companies prey on people because you
50:03
Speaker 3: will know that you have the most reliable insurance insurance
50:07
Speaker 3: that there could be, which is Medicare provided for the government. However,
50:10
Speaker 3: there's a downside to a plan like that, which is
50:12
Speaker 3: that we'd have to raise taxes on the middle class.
50:14
Speaker 3: And while ultimately a lot of middle class families would
50:17
Speaker 3: pay less, there are people that are happy with their
50:19
Speaker 3: private insurance who might not be up for that bargain.
50:21
Speaker 3: And actually, because Medicare for all is less popular, it
50:24
Speaker 3: might make us harder to just improve the system because
50:27
Speaker 3: we won't be able to get to Medicare for all.
50:29
Speaker 3: That kind of a criticism.
50:30
Speaker 1: And I also think Pete Buttigieg actually has one of
50:33
Speaker 1: the best arguments here, where he says we should provide
50:38
Speaker 1: Medicare for anyone who wants it. Anyone who wants to
50:40
Speaker 1: enroll should be able to enroll in Medicare. And hopefully,
50:44
Speaker 1: if people really like that plan so good and if
50:46
Speaker 1: people like that plan, it will strangle all the different
50:49
Speaker 1: private insurance plans because it will be the plan that
50:51
Speaker 1: everyone wants. And then we will have Medicare for all
50:53
Speaker 1: that Bernie wants. But I think that people should have
50:56
Speaker 1: the choice to go there. and not have the government
50:59
Speaker 1: make the decision for them. I think it's a very
51:01
Speaker 1: effective argument.
51:01
Speaker 3: I do, too. And I actually think, you know, Gillibrand,
51:03
Speaker 3: who is someone who signed on to the Bernie bill
51:06
Speaker 3: and talks a lot about how much she worked on
51:07
Speaker 3: the transition, elides this debate by kind of making the
51:13
Speaker 3: Mayor Pete argument while supporting Medicare for All, basically saying.
51:18
Speaker 1: Saying it's a step... The public option or Medicare for
51:20
Speaker 1: America or whatever plan is a stepping stone to where
51:23
Speaker 1: we're going to get to, which is single-payer.
51:24
Speaker 3: Right, but that's the argument I think some of the
51:26
Speaker 3: single-payer supporters are making... by simply saying the public option
51:30
Speaker 3: will become Medicare for all, so the transition will be
51:33
Speaker 3: more smooth than you're anticipating. On the other side, some
51:36
Speaker 3: of the broadsides against a public option, I think, have
51:39
Speaker 3: also been unfair. There are legitimate critiques of Medicare for all,
51:44
Speaker 3: but I think sometimes the kind of attacks like this
51:47
Speaker 3: is a tool of the insurance industry, this is a
51:48
Speaker 3: tool of the pharmaceutical industry, this is allowing these companies
51:52
Speaker 3: to have too much power, I think some of that
51:53
Speaker 3: is quite legitimate, but it actually means you're avoiding making
51:57
Speaker 3: the most important case for Medicare for all versus a
52:00
Speaker 3: public option that has to be made, which is why
52:03
Speaker 3: everyone's switching is better for everybody. And I think that argument... The.
52:07
Speaker 1: Hold hands and jump together argument, right? If we're going
52:10
Speaker 1: to do this, we should all do this at once,
52:13
Speaker 1: one single network. Everyone can keep their doctor and pick
52:16
Speaker 1: the doctor they want because all the doctors will be
52:17
Speaker 1: in the same network. We have all these efficiencies. And
52:20
Speaker 1: if we're going to do it, we can't do another
52:22
Speaker 1: piecemeal transition. We have to do it all at once.
52:25
Speaker 3: And how it helps you control costs and helps make
52:27
Speaker 3: sure insurance, make sure everyone has quality insurance and that
52:30
Speaker 3: the system as a whole provides better care for everybody
52:33
Speaker 3: without some of the massive overhead and administrative costs that
52:38
Speaker 3: weigh down the system and without cracks in the system
52:41
Speaker 3: that a lot of people fall through to this day,
52:42
Speaker 3: despite the passage of Obamacare. You know, because part of
52:46
Speaker 3: the reason I think it's important is If you support
52:48
Speaker 3: Medicare for All, you need to reckon with the fact
52:51
Speaker 3: that there are polls right now that show Medicare for
52:54
Speaker 3: All who want it polls 70%-ish.
52:58
Speaker 1: 70% support Medicare for All who want it, defined as, quote,
53:02
Speaker 1: allowing all Americans to choose between a national health insurance
53:06
Speaker 1: program and their own private health insurance. Even 46% of
53:09
Speaker 1: Republicans said they support such a program. This is the
53:12
Speaker 1: NPR PBS Marist poll from this week. 41%. support Medicare
53:17
Speaker 1: for All defined as a national health insurance program for
53:20
Speaker 1: all Americans that replaces private health insurance. And I do
53:22
Speaker 1: think Medicare for All supporters have to reckon with these polls,
53:26
Speaker 1: particularly because they have been the ones who have been
53:29
Speaker 1: citing so often polls that say, oh, Medicare for All,
53:33
Speaker 1: the American people want it, it's very popular. Yes, but
53:36
Speaker 1: the way that the poll is asking that question is,
53:39
Speaker 1: do you like Medicare for All, right? Which people are
53:42
Speaker 1: assuming to mean Medicare for anyone who wants it, but
53:45
Speaker 1: they assume that choice baked in.
53:47
Speaker 3: And I've seen, and there are people who criticize that
53:49
Speaker 3: and say, actually, you know, it's actually hard to get
53:50
Speaker 3: at this information.
53:51
Speaker 2: I'm sure it is.
53:53
Speaker 3: Of course, and there are people who claim they like
53:54
Speaker 3: their private insurance, but the next follow-up question has to be,
53:56
Speaker 3: have you used it? How good is your insurance? How
53:58
Speaker 3: do you know your insurance is good? There are complications
54:01
Speaker 3: in this, but all that's a way of saying, accept
54:03
Speaker 3: all those complications. If you believe Medicare for All is
54:06
Speaker 3: the right policy, I really, rather than attack the polling result,
54:11
Speaker 3: I would like to hear arguments that to close that gap.
54:15
Speaker 3: And by the way, getting to 41% on Medicare for
54:17
Speaker 3: all is an achievement.
54:19
Speaker 2: It is an achievement.
54:20
Speaker 3: It speaks to the current failures of the healthcare system
54:23
Speaker 3: and the incredible work and activism and organizing that's gotten
54:26
Speaker 3: this issue so quickly into the mainstream.
54:28
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I will say on the financing point, because
54:31
Speaker 1: Biden did make the point about middle-class taxes, about Kamala Harris,
54:35
Speaker 1: we haven't even started a debate about that yet. Most
54:38
Speaker 1: of the debate so far has been about a single
54:40
Speaker 1: government plan versus keeping your private insurance. I don't necessarily
54:43
Speaker 1: think that is going to be the most important thing
54:46
Speaker 1: in the end here. Like the financing is very difficult
54:50
Speaker 1: for a full Medicare for all system. Medicare for America,
54:53
Speaker 1: which Center for American Progress and sort of like Pete Buttigieg,
54:56
Speaker 1: Beto O'Rourke, they've sort of hovered around that. You know,
54:59
Speaker 1: they just released a plan. You can finance that purely
55:02
Speaker 1: with tax increases on the wealthy. Biden is correct and
55:05
Speaker 1: Bernie is correct and honest about it that you do
55:07
Speaker 1: have to raise middle class taxes. Now, Bernie says that
55:10
Speaker 1: by raising the taxes, you still end up saving money
55:12
Speaker 1: because you're not paying any premiums anymore, which eventually is true.
55:16
Speaker 1: But I do think that Kamala Harris does need to answer,
55:21
Speaker 1: you know, how she's going to fund Medicare for all
55:24
Speaker 1: or at least some funding options, particularly because her first
55:28
Speaker 1: piece of legislation that she wants to pass is a
55:30
Speaker 1: middle class tax cut. So she wants to pass a
55:33
Speaker 1: middle class tax cut, but also is signed on to
55:35
Speaker 1: Bernie's Medicare for all bill, which is trillions and trillions
55:38
Speaker 1: of dollars.
55:38
Speaker 3: I think that this is why we have seen a
55:44
Speaker 3: lot of Kamala raising her hand and then explaining the
55:47
Speaker 3: hand raise and signing on for Bernie's bill and then
55:50
Speaker 3: avoiding this part of the question. I don't know if
55:54
Speaker 3: Kamala Harris is going to actually try to answer and
55:58
Speaker 3: solve this problem or try to hide from it like whack-a-mole.
56:03
Speaker 1: You mean what she has said in the past when...
56:06
Speaker 1: confronted on, you know, plans to pay for things is
56:10
Speaker 1: Democrats too often worry, you know, about how we can
56:13
Speaker 1: afford it. And my question is, how can we not
56:15
Speaker 1: afford it? Right. And I think she's speaking to sort
56:19
Speaker 1: of this feeling that's in the Democratic Party, at least
56:22
Speaker 1: among the activist base, that in the Obama presidency, we
56:26
Speaker 1: worried far too much about deficits and debt. And that
56:28
Speaker 1: is a very valid critique. But I think there is
56:32
Speaker 1: worrying too much about deficit and debt. And then there
56:34
Speaker 1: is not caring at all about how you pay for things.
56:37
Speaker 1: And I think there's a big gap between those two things.
56:40
Speaker 3: Honestly, to me, the policy question is actually a projection
56:47
Speaker 3: of the moral and personal question, which is, what are
56:51
Speaker 3: you going to fight for?
56:53
Speaker 2: You've signed on.
56:53
Speaker 3: To Medicare for All. Do you believe in Medicare for
56:57
Speaker 3: All so much in your bones that you're going to
56:59
Speaker 3: go out on the for why even though middle-class taxes
57:03
Speaker 3: will have to go up, ultimately middle-class families will save
57:05
Speaker 3: money and everybody will be safer. My honest view is
57:08
Speaker 3: I don't believe that that's her position. I think she
57:10
Speaker 3: signed on for this bill.
57:11
Speaker 1: I think she really loves her middle-class tax cut that
57:14
Speaker 1: she's been talking about.
57:14
Speaker 3: I think she likes her middle-class tax cut, and I
57:16
Speaker 3: think probably she's seeing polls like this and thinking, I
57:19
Speaker 3: need to find a way to go from signing on
57:22
Speaker 3: to Bernie's bill to ultimately being for a Medicare for
57:25
Speaker 3: all who want it type plan. I mean, that is,
57:28
Speaker 3: I think, where the Democratic consensus is. is likely to
57:32
Speaker 3: end up.
57:33
Speaker 2: Yeah.
57:33
Speaker 1: Well, it's certainly in the polls. That's where the party
57:35
Speaker 1: is now, you know? Okay. So when we come back,
57:38
Speaker 1: my conversation with chairman Adam Schiff. Joining us today, the
57:49
Speaker 1: chairman of the house intelligence committee, congressman for California's 28th
57:52
Speaker 1: congressional district and good friend of the pod, Adam Schiff.
57:55
Speaker 1: Welcome back, congressman.
57:57
Speaker 5: Thank you. Great to be with you.
57:58
Speaker 1: So one of the things that struck me about the
58:00
Speaker 1: president's response to yesterday's hearings was how concise and consistent
58:04
Speaker 1: his message has been throughout the investigation. No collusion, no obstruction,
58:07
Speaker 1: total witch hunt. He's lying, but, you know, he's telling
58:09
Speaker 1: a story. I think Democrats have had a harder time
58:12
Speaker 1: settling on a story about the president, possibly because there
58:15
Speaker 1: are so many targets. But I thought that through your
58:17
Speaker 1: line of questioning and especially your opening statement yesterday, you
58:21
Speaker 1: told the most compelling story about Trump that I've heard.
58:25
Speaker 1: You said it was a story about greed, lies and disloyalty.
58:27
Speaker 1: What was the one thing you wanted people at home
58:30
Speaker 1: to remember from yesterday? And how do we get the
58:34
Speaker 1: whole party on board with that message?
58:36
Speaker 5: Well, what I wanted the takeaway to be is the
58:39
Speaker 5: Russians massively intervened in our election. The Trump campaign knew
58:43
Speaker 5: about it. They welcomed it. They made use of it.
58:45
Speaker 5: And then they lied about it. And those acts are unethical, unpatriotic.
58:52
Speaker 5: They're at times criminal acts. And I think Mueller really
58:56
Speaker 5: drove that home. And I think perhaps the most powerful
58:59
Speaker 5: message of all is just the disloyalty to country. So
59:04
Speaker 5: I think it was really an important hearing. I know
59:06
Speaker 5: people went into it, some with expectations. that it was
59:10
Speaker 5: going to have a dramatic impact in terms of impeachment,
59:13
Speaker 5: but my expectations were much more modest that this would
59:18
Speaker 5: be the first time American people would get to hear
59:20
Speaker 5: from Mueller about his own work. And even though it
59:23
Speaker 5: wouldn't be new facts, it would be a new messenger,
59:26
Speaker 5: and that work wouldn't be filtered by the president, who,
59:28
Speaker 5: as you say, keeps lying about it, or the attorney
59:32
Speaker 5: general who's been doing the same, but from the man
59:34
Speaker 5: who did the work himself.
59:36
Speaker 1: There was a moment during Mueller's testimony where he seemed
59:38
Speaker 1: to confirm the existence of a current counterintelligence investigation by
59:42
Speaker 1: the FBI. A senior Democrat on the committee said they
59:45
Speaker 1: were surprised by this. Did it surprise you? And what
59:47
Speaker 1: are the most important things that we still don't know
59:50
Speaker 1: in terms of counterintel?
59:53
Speaker 5: You know, I think it's still unclear, and we're following
59:55
Speaker 5: up on Director Mueller's testimony, and I was inquiring about
59:58
Speaker 5: just those issues today. He may have been referring to,
1:00:02
Speaker 5: if it was Mike Flynn you were talking about, a
1:00:06
Speaker 5: case that Flynn is a witness in, was also, I think,
1:00:09
Speaker 5: a co-defendant in, in which his co-defendant was convicted, I think,
1:00:13
Speaker 5: either during the hearing or just shortly before that.
1:00:16
Speaker 1: Right.
1:00:17
Speaker 5: Or it might have been something else, and we're trying
1:00:19
Speaker 5: to find out.
1:00:20
Speaker 1: Did the Intel Committee get its classified briefing after yesterday's
1:00:23
Speaker 1: public hearing as originally planned?
1:00:26
Speaker 5: Not by the staff member who appeared with Director Mueller.
1:00:31
Speaker 5: We have been briefed by another member of Mueller's team,
1:00:35
Speaker 5: and we are continuing. In fact, I got yet another
1:00:37
Speaker 5: briefing today on the counterintelligence issues, which are of such
1:00:41
Speaker 5: concern to our committee. But as we are learning more,
1:00:45
Speaker 5: there are still a great many unanswered questions, and we
1:00:48
Speaker 5: still have only the broad outlines and some specifics of
1:00:52
Speaker 5: the counterintelligence information that came out of the investigation. So
1:00:56
Speaker 5: that work is ongoing, and we're making progress, but we
1:00:59
Speaker 5: still have a lot more to do.
1:01:01
Speaker 1: What did you make of Mueller's statement that Trump's written
1:01:03
Speaker 1: answers were generally incomplete and untruthful? I mean, if he
1:01:06
Speaker 1: lied in written testimony, why doesn't that constitute an additional
1:01:10
Speaker 1: obstruction of justice offense, and why do you think it
1:01:12
Speaker 1: wasn't in Mueller's report?
1:01:15
Speaker 5: Because I think that when someone answers as Trump did
1:01:19
Speaker 5: that I can't recall, it's very hard to make a
1:01:22
Speaker 5: perjury case. You know, having looked at different fact patterns
1:01:25
Speaker 5: over the year and having had, as a foreign prosecutor,
1:01:27
Speaker 5: a lot of witnesses who were dissembling, you know, the
1:01:31
Speaker 5: easiest dodge of all is not to say something that
1:01:33
Speaker 5: is directly false in the sense of controverting facts that
1:01:36
Speaker 5: can be proven, but to say you have a failure
1:01:39
Speaker 5: of recollection, which is harder to prove or disprove.
1:01:41
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
1:01:42
Speaker 5: So I think it's a problem of proof for Mueller.
1:01:45
Speaker 5: But he also wanted to make clear that he thought
1:01:48
Speaker 5: the president's answers were, you know, deeply unsatisfactory and that
1:01:54
Speaker 5: they were real credibility problems. I mean, the fact that
1:01:56
Speaker 5: he couldn't evaluate the credibility or couldn't make a positive
1:02:00
Speaker 5: statement about the president's credibility. And in fact, when he
1:02:03
Speaker 5: was confronted with several statements by the president, you know,
1:02:07
Speaker 5: the witch hunt stuff, the hoax stuff, he was willing
1:02:10
Speaker 5: to say those are false statements. the I have no
1:02:14
Speaker 5: business dealings in Russia while he's pursuing a Moscow Trump Tower.
1:02:18
Speaker 5: You know, the president made it all too clear what
1:02:20
Speaker 5: he thinks about that when he was confronted with those
1:02:23
Speaker 5: lies about Moscow Trump Tower. And his answer was, well,
1:02:27
Speaker 5: I just said that to the public. It's not like
1:02:29
Speaker 5: I said that to some magistrate. He feels it's just
1:02:32
Speaker 5: part of his job to deceive the public. And, you know, again,
1:02:37
Speaker 5: this is somebody who does nothing but project onto others
1:02:40
Speaker 5: his own lack of morality. You know, his attitude is
1:02:42
Speaker 5: everybody does it. And so do I.
1:02:45
Speaker 1: So at the press conference after the hearing, you described
1:02:48
Speaker 1: launching an impeachment inquiry as a decision that will be
1:02:51
Speaker 1: made after you get more information from the courts in
1:02:53
Speaker 1: various hearings. But wouldn't opening an inquiry now help you
1:02:57
Speaker 1: get that information? Like, isn't the point of an impeachment
1:03:00
Speaker 1: inquiry to get more information?
1:03:03
Speaker 5: Well, you know, there is one area where it may
1:03:06
Speaker 5: be helpful to get information, and that is there's litigation
1:03:10
Speaker 5: by the Judiciary Committee, which I think is fairly imminent,
1:03:13
Speaker 5: to get the grand jury material underlying the Mueller report.
1:03:17
Speaker 5: And there's an exception to grand jury rules for a
1:03:21
Speaker 5: judicial proceeding, and impeachment is a judicial proceeding. But that
1:03:25
Speaker 5: section also says, or preliminary to a judicial proceeding, which
1:03:29
Speaker 5: is where we are now. So we should be able
1:03:31
Speaker 5: to get that anyway. What I do think people need
1:03:34
Speaker 5: to understand, though, is there's a perception that if we
1:03:37
Speaker 5: announce the kickoff of an impeachment proceeding tomorrow, that suddenly
1:03:40
Speaker 5: Don McCann says, okay, tell me when to show up.
1:03:44
Speaker 5: And Corey Lewandowski says, can I come in and testify now?
1:03:47
Speaker 5: And the Justice Department says, we're ready to open our
1:03:50
Speaker 5: files and come take a look at anything you want.
1:03:52
Speaker 5: None of that happens with the beginning of an impeachment.
1:03:54
Speaker 5: In fact, if anything, they just dig in further. We
1:03:57
Speaker 5: still have to fight this out in court. And I
1:04:01
Speaker 5: just want to make sure that if we go down
1:04:03
Speaker 5: that road, that if we can't win a conviction in
1:04:07
Speaker 5: the Senate, given Mitch McConnell and the Senate cult of
1:04:11
Speaker 5: personality around the president, can we win this case among
1:04:15
Speaker 5: the jury of the American people? And I don't think
1:04:19
Speaker 5: we're there yet. But one thing that would get me
1:04:21
Speaker 5: there is when we do finish litigation and the court
1:04:25
Speaker 5: orders them to comply, if the president still refuses.
1:04:28
Speaker 3: Then.
1:04:28
Speaker 5: We do have that constitutional crisis. Then I do think
1:04:31
Speaker 5: that we need to use whatever remedy we can. And
1:04:34
Speaker 5: I may get there before that point, but before we
1:04:38
Speaker 5: go down a road that is going to be as
1:04:40
Speaker 5: wrenching to the country as a year-long impeachment, I want
1:04:44
Speaker 5: to make sure that it's the right thing to do.
1:04:47
Speaker 1: I mean, setting aside for a minute whether beginning impeachment
1:04:50
Speaker 1: proceedings is the right way to go, do you believe
1:04:54
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump deserves to be impeached? Because I don't
1:04:57
Speaker 1: know how anyone can read your opening statement yesterday and
1:05:00
Speaker 1: come to a different conclusion.
1:05:04
Speaker 5: Well, look, I think that he has committed offenses against
1:05:08
Speaker 5: the law that would certainly qualify as impeachable offenses. I
1:05:11
Speaker 5: think he committed obstruction of justice. I think that he
1:05:15
Speaker 5: is individual one in the indictment in New York, and
1:05:17
Speaker 5: if Michael Cohen should go to jail for a campaign
1:05:21
Speaker 5: finance fraud scheme, then the guy that the indictment identifies
1:05:26
Speaker 5: as directing and coordinating that scheme should also go to jail,
1:05:29
Speaker 5: but would also certainly qualify as committing a crime. The
1:05:34
Speaker 5: Constitution makes clear, though, that the Congress isn't compelled to
1:05:38
Speaker 5: do an impeachment, even though they're impeachable offenses. And here,
1:05:42
Speaker 5: where we know what the result is going to be,
1:05:44
Speaker 5: which would be acquittal and claims of vindication by the president,
1:05:48
Speaker 5: I think we need to make a decision, is this
1:05:50
Speaker 5: the best thing for the country? Do we want an
1:05:52
Speaker 5: adjudication that this conduct is not considered impeachable? And for
1:05:58
Speaker 5: those that would like to see the president prosecuted, I
1:06:01
Speaker 5: also think that the Justice Department, when he leaves office,
1:06:04
Speaker 5: is going to have to consider that question. And one
1:06:07
Speaker 5: factor they may consider is whether he's already been tried.
1:06:10
Speaker 5: And if he's already been tried and acquitted by the Senate,
1:06:13
Speaker 5: that won't be determinative, but it may be a factor
1:06:16
Speaker 5: that the Justice Department considers in deciding whether to prosecute him.
1:06:20
Speaker 1: What do you think about Elizabeth Warren's argument here? I mean,
1:06:23
Speaker 1: she just said the other day, you know, I don't
1:06:25
Speaker 1: expect the Senate to convict Donald Trump. Obviously, 2020 is
1:06:30
Speaker 1: the chance for him to be removed from office. But
1:06:33
Speaker 1: shouldn't all of us, every senator, every member of Congress,
1:06:37
Speaker 1: be on record as saying, yes, I believe that when
1:06:41
Speaker 1: this moment in history came and we saw this kind
1:06:43
Speaker 1: of behavior and these kind of offenses happening, i said
1:06:46
Speaker 1: that this president deserves to be impeached that we should
1:06:48
Speaker 1: all be on record in that way you know susan
1:06:50
Speaker 1: collins and corey gardner and others to the senate wanna
1:06:52
Speaker 1: defend donald trump they're they're happy to they can go
1:06:55
Speaker 1: defend donald trump and then we can all go to
1:06:57
Speaker 1: the ballot box in twenty twenty and see what happens.
1:07:01
Speaker 5: Well you know history will will judge this moment one
1:07:04
Speaker 5: way or another they'll either judge it by saying the
1:07:07
Speaker 5: house should have impeached and they didn't or they'll judge
1:07:10
Speaker 5: it by saying The House impeached knowing there would be
1:07:14
Speaker 5: an acquittal, and that was a mistake. And now we
1:07:17
Speaker 5: have this record for all of history that these are
1:07:21
Speaker 5: not impeachable offenses. And when some other president commits like conduct,
1:07:26
Speaker 5: it'll be held up as an illustration of how you
1:07:29
Speaker 5: can't impeach for this. So, you know, we will be
1:07:32
Speaker 5: judged by history on this. I think before we pulled
1:07:37
Speaker 5: the trigger on this. And I'll be frank, I think
1:07:39
Speaker 5: once you begin an impeachment inquiry, the laws of political
1:07:42
Speaker 5: gravity kick in and you really have to be prepared
1:07:45
Speaker 5: to have that vote in the House. So those who
1:07:48
Speaker 5: are advocating the use of an impeachment proceeding as just
1:07:51
Speaker 5: a means of getting information and documents, the reality is
1:07:54
Speaker 5: you start down that road, you better plan on continuing
1:07:57
Speaker 5: down that road.
1:07:58
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:07:58
Speaker 1: I mean, one thing that sort of has been sticking
1:08:00
Speaker 1: with me is You know, there's a pretty good chance
1:08:02
Speaker 1: if Trump's reelected and Republicans take the House, the statute
1:08:05
Speaker 1: of limitations runs out on the crimes that he may
1:08:08
Speaker 1: have committed. And in that case, impeachment now may be
1:08:12
Speaker 1: the only way to ever hold him accountable and prove
1:08:15
Speaker 1: to the American people, as all of you on the
1:08:17
Speaker 1: committee said yesterday, that no one is above the law.
1:08:20
Speaker 1: Are you comfortable taking that chance?
1:08:24
Speaker 5: Well, look, I'm not comfortable with any of this. And
1:08:28
Speaker 5: I think it's why we're all wrestling with this. I
1:08:31
Speaker 5: wrestle with this question every day. The most attractive thing
1:08:35
Speaker 5: to me about impeaching this president is it's the strongest
1:08:39
Speaker 5: form of censure that we have, even if he's acquitted
1:08:41
Speaker 5: in the Senate. It puts a stain on his name
1:08:45
Speaker 5: in history. But as I mentioned, the flip side is
1:08:49
Speaker 5: also tragically, terribly true, which is an acquittal will be
1:08:53
Speaker 5: trumpeted as a vindication. And that sends its own message
1:08:57
Speaker 5: to history. So, you know, I may get there. And
1:09:02
Speaker 5: I have an open mind on this. And I have
1:09:04
Speaker 5: a lot of, I think, very thoughtful people that are
1:09:08
Speaker 5: weighing in with me on this. And it's a decision,
1:09:11
Speaker 5: I think, that needs to be made by our caucus together,
1:09:15
Speaker 5: because we're making this on behalf of the American people.
1:09:18
Speaker 1: Okay, one last question. I'll let you go. What do
1:09:21
Speaker 1: we need to do and what can we do in
1:09:24
Speaker 1: this political environment to protect the 2020 elections?
1:09:30
Speaker 5: Well, I think we can be prepared is one thing.
1:09:32
Speaker 5: We can put pressure on the states to make sure
1:09:35
Speaker 5: that they have paper trails, that we can make sure
1:09:38
Speaker 5: that our agencies are doing what they are, that the
1:09:40
Speaker 5: intelligence community has the resources focused on divining Russian plans
1:09:44
Speaker 5: and intentions, that the Defense Department is taking actions to
1:09:49
Speaker 5: deter the Russians from action that the State Department is
1:09:52
Speaker 5: communicating to its Russian counterparts, the kind of vast economic
1:09:56
Speaker 5: sanctions that will be levied if they mess with us again.
1:09:58
Speaker 5: I mean, we can bring to this a whole-of-government approach,
1:10:01
Speaker 5: which is really what we need to do. I'm particularly
1:10:05
Speaker 5: concerned about deepfake technology that the Russians can now deploy,
1:10:08
Speaker 5: where they could tomorrow issue a video of Joe Biden
1:10:11
Speaker 5: or Kamala Harris or anyone else saying something they never said,
1:10:15
Speaker 5: and it would be utterly convincing. we can prepare ourselves
1:10:18
Speaker 5: for those kind of disinformation campaigns. But at the end
1:10:21
Speaker 5: of the day, the best preparation is not so much
1:10:25
Speaker 5: directed against the Russians or our foreign adversaries, but making
1:10:29
Speaker 5: sure that we're ready to forswear the use of this
1:10:34
Speaker 5: foreign help. And, of course, the biggest impediment to that
1:10:37
Speaker 5: is the President of the United States. Right.
1:10:40
Speaker 1: Chairman Schiff, thank you so much for joining us. If you...
1:10:43
Speaker 1: If you do make up your mind on impeachment, you
1:10:47
Speaker 1: know where to come to.
1:10:49
Speaker 5: Well, I will come on and make my announcement on
1:10:54
Speaker 5: your show.
1:10:54
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. All right, Congressman. Take care.
1:10:57
Speaker 5: Okay, take care.
1:11:02
Speaker 1: Thanks to Chairman Schiff for joining us today. And, you know,
1:11:05
Speaker 1: we'll see you next week. Have a good weekend.
1:11:06
Speaker 2: How'd I do, Danheads? Huh?
1:11:09
Speaker 1: Where are my Danheads at?
1:11:10
Speaker 2: Where are my Danheads at? I tried. I did my
1:11:13
Speaker 2: best Pfeiffer. What do you think?
1:11:15
Speaker 1: Can you do a Paul Ryan rant for us?
1:11:18
Speaker 2: That motherfucker.