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Transcript

“The House that MAGA Built.” · Pod Save America

0:01
Speaker 1: Thank you.
0:20
Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:23
Speaker 2: On today's show, the MAGA House is off to a
0:26
Speaker 2: rough start. George Santos isn't going anywhere. Joe Biden deals
0:31
Speaker 2: with a classified documents discovery a bit differently than Donald Trump.
0:35
Speaker 2: And later, Congresswoman Katie Porter joins the pod to talk
0:38
Speaker 2: about her run for the U.S. Senate. But first, the
0:43
Speaker 2: accolades keep rolling in from other country radicals. The Tribeca
0:47
Speaker 2: winner is on several best of 2022 lists. NPR recently
0:51
Speaker 2: lauded the show as a remarkable way into a really
0:54
Speaker 2: potent emotional historical moment. Needless to say, we're very proud
0:59
Speaker 2: of the show and all the work that went into
1:01
Speaker 2: it from our host, Zayd Ayers-Dorn, and the whole team
1:04
Speaker 2: at Dustlight and at Crooked. So if you haven't already,
1:07
Speaker 2: you can listen to all 10 episodes out now wherever
1:10
Speaker 2: you get your podcasts. Also, if you're looking for a
1:13
Speaker 2: great pod to start the new year, check out Radio Lingo,
1:16
Speaker 2: Crooked's fantastic new podcast that looks at the way language
1:19
Speaker 2: plays a role in our lives. from swearing to subtitles
1:23
Speaker 2: and everything in between. You can binge the whole first
1:25
Speaker 2: season now wherever you get your podcasts. All right, Dan,
1:29
Speaker 2: let's get to the news. You might be wondering, what's
1:32
Speaker 2: the new house up to now that it's run by
1:34
Speaker 2: a gang of MAGA buffoons and their pet speaker, Kevin McCarthy? Well,
1:40
Speaker 2: Republicans looked at the midterm results and decided that the
1:43
Speaker 2: American people wanted urgent action on three top priorities. One,
1:48
Speaker 2: more abortion restrictions. Two, making it easier for rich people
1:52
Speaker 2: to cheat on their taxes. And three, a special committee
1:55
Speaker 2: to investigate the people who are investigating Donald Trump. So
2:00
Speaker 2: every House Republican voted for these three bills, two of
2:05
Speaker 2: which will die in the Senate. Senate won't take them
2:07
Speaker 2: up because it's run by Democrats. And the special committee
2:10
Speaker 2: will do very little but generate content for right-wing media
2:14
Speaker 2: and maybe make some lawyers rich. Why do you think
2:17
Speaker 2: Republicans chose to start this way? Do they think this
2:19
Speaker 2: is popular? Is this just MAGA base appreciation week? What's
2:24
Speaker 2: going on?
2:25
Speaker 3: Maybe in only a few days, Kevin McCarthy has discovered
2:28
Speaker 3: that being speaker is not so great. He's trying to
2:33
Speaker 3: limit it to two years and two years only.
2:36
Speaker 2: He liked the title though. There was some color that
2:38
Speaker 2: when he finally won, he took a picture of himself
2:41
Speaker 2: outside the office with the sign on it. And he said,
2:44
Speaker 2: that's pretty cool. That's cool.
2:45
Speaker 3: I mean, that's kind of endearing, right?
2:50
Speaker 2: Well, it also– it's like it's just perfect. It's a
2:51
Speaker 2: perfect bit of color. Like, yeah, that's what he wanted.
2:53
Speaker 2: That's it. Nothing else is fun for him in this job.
2:57
Speaker 3: I mean, it is– what all of this in all
2:58
Speaker 3: seriousness speaks to is the fact that the Republicans have
3:02
Speaker 3: no coherent ideological agenda other than sops to wealthy fundraisers
3:08
Speaker 3: and Fox News-generated culture war grievances. That's all there is.
3:11
Speaker 3: Because if you sort of put this in perspective, they–
3:14
Speaker 3: mostly ran on inflation, or at least mostly ran by
3:17
Speaker 3: attacking Democrats on inflation. The gas prices were too high,
3:20
Speaker 3: grocery prices were too high. So in a normal world,
3:24
Speaker 3: they would come to Congress and their first bill would
3:27
Speaker 3: be something about dealing with inflation, because you would send
3:30
Speaker 3: a message to the voters that you're going to fulfill
3:33
Speaker 3: your promises. But they made a strategic decision in that
3:36
Speaker 3: campaign to have no position on any economic issue of
3:41
Speaker 3: any kind other than allowing wealthy people to cheat on
3:44
Speaker 3: their taxes. And so when they get there, they can't
3:46
Speaker 3: do anything about inflation because they have no plan for it.
3:48
Speaker 3: Everything that they actually support would make inflation worse. So
3:51
Speaker 3: they went sort of, they looked at all the things
3:53
Speaker 3: on their kind of sort of agenda that they talked about.
3:57
Speaker 3: And they thought that the IRS provision would be the
4:00
Speaker 3: most popular. And it is the most popular of their positions,
4:04
Speaker 3: but it's actually not popular, right? Morning Council poll shows
4:08
Speaker 3: that the vast majority of Americans are not concerned that
4:11
Speaker 3: the IRS is going to audit them. They have not
4:13
Speaker 3: bought into this idea that they're a bunch of jackbooted
4:16
Speaker 3: IRS accountant thugs in green eye shades going around looking
4:19
Speaker 3: to audit everyday Americans. They know what everyone else knows,
4:22
Speaker 3: which is that wealthy people cheat on their taxes and
4:25
Speaker 3: we should try to stop them.
4:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they fooled themselves with some polling where
4:30
Speaker 2: the question about the 87,000 IRS agents, which of course
4:35
Speaker 2: we've talked about before, it's just a lie. That's not
4:38
Speaker 2: not really what's going on there. And they've, they've worded it.
4:40
Speaker 2: So like, you know, do you think we need this
4:43
Speaker 2: many IRS agents coming around to your homes, knocking down
4:46
Speaker 2: your doors? You know, like, and people were like, no,
4:49
Speaker 2: I don't want that. That seems scary. You know, um,
4:52
Speaker 2: when the reality of what changed under Biden was that
4:56
Speaker 2: they just gave the IRS more resources so that rich
4:58
Speaker 2: people can't cheat on their taxes because too many rich
5:01
Speaker 2: people are cheating on their taxes and the government's losing
5:03
Speaker 2: a lot of money. And guess what? When rich people
5:05
Speaker 2: don't pay their taxes because they're cheating on them, then
5:08
Speaker 2: the tax burden falls on middle class and poorer Americans. Anyway,
5:14
Speaker 2: so that's that one. And then the abortion restriction they
5:16
Speaker 2: did is completely just absurd. The bill they passed is
5:23
Speaker 2: basically already law, which is, you know, we've talked about
5:27
Speaker 2: this before, like less than 1% of abortions happen after
5:31
Speaker 2: 21 weeks. And then over the last 12 years, out
5:35
Speaker 2: of 149 million live births, something like 100 were the
5:41
Speaker 2: result of botched abortions where the baby was born anyway.
5:46
Speaker 2: And then if that happens in the extremely, extremely rare
5:49
Speaker 2: case that it does, then there was a law passed
5:52
Speaker 2: in 2002 that said doctors have a duty to keep
5:56
Speaker 2: that baby alive. So like they've just made up. this
6:00
Speaker 2: scenario that doesn't actually happen just to try to say
6:05
Speaker 2: that I, I guess to try to make Democrats look extreme.
6:08
Speaker 2: I don't think, I don't think that worked that well.
6:10
Speaker 1: Yeah.
6:10
Speaker 3: I think to the extent for that one, I think
6:12
Speaker 3: this was sort of is an acknowledgement of the, of
6:15
Speaker 3: the political challenges of their position on abortion, which is
6:18
Speaker 3: they could have done a whole bunch of things. They
6:19
Speaker 3: could have been a national abortion ban. They could have
6:20
Speaker 3: done the 15 week national abortion ban that Lindsey Graham proposed.
6:24
Speaker 3: And so they wanted to give something to the far
6:28
Speaker 3: right to, groups that have been pushing these abortion bans
6:31
Speaker 3: without sort of stepping into all the problems that probably
6:34
Speaker 3: cost them the Senate and ensure that they won the
6:37
Speaker 3: House by a very narrow margin. Now, that doesn't mean
6:39
Speaker 3: they're not going to take those things up soon. They're
6:41
Speaker 3: going to be under tremendous pressure from the right to
6:43
Speaker 3: do that. They're going to be driven by some of
6:45
Speaker 3: these newly elected Republican governors in states. There'll be a
6:48
Speaker 3: Republican presidential primary that pushes them. So it doesn't mean
6:51
Speaker 3: it's over. This is one where they've said, this is
6:52
Speaker 3: the one that what really was MAGA base appreciation week.
6:55
Speaker 3: We have to do something for them. And this is
6:57
Speaker 3: the one we're going to do. And we think this
6:58
Speaker 3: is the most politically palatable, even if it is nonsensical
7:02
Speaker 3: and dishonest and all the above.
7:06
Speaker 2: And we should just say, there's some Navigator polling out
7:09
Speaker 2: this morning on voter priorities for the new Congress. Lowering costs,
7:14
Speaker 2: number one, 58%. Healthcare, 32%. Immigration at 30 percent, national
7:20
Speaker 2: debt at 26 percent. And then investigating the Biden administration
7:24
Speaker 2: and the Biden family, that's down at 14 percent. Even
7:27
Speaker 2: only 32 percent of very conservative Republicans list that as
7:31
Speaker 2: their top priority. We'll get to the committee, the investigations
7:36
Speaker 2: in a second. But so the abortion bill and the
7:38
Speaker 2: IRS bill, they're not going anywhere yet. They're what's known
7:42
Speaker 2: as message bills, right? Meaning they're just designed so that
7:44
Speaker 2: Republicans can say they voted on them in press releases
7:47
Speaker 2: and campaign ads. Do you think that has any effect?
7:50
Speaker 2: Are these worthwhile anymore?
7:52
Speaker 3: Well, good message bills have some merit. Bad message bills
7:57
Speaker 3: do not. It's like we're just going to take the
8:00
Speaker 3: brightest spotlight this Congress is probably going to have outside
8:03
Speaker 3: of confrontations over government funding and debt ceiling is this
8:07
Speaker 3: first week. And here's how we're going to use it.
8:10
Speaker 3: We're going to take some pretty unpopular shit that reminds
8:12
Speaker 3: everyone why they don't like us, and we're going to
8:14
Speaker 3: vote on those things. So no, I don't think this
8:17
Speaker 3: was good for them by any stretch of the imagination.
8:20
Speaker 2: I think that messaging bills and votes have fairly little
8:23
Speaker 2: utility on their own, even when we do it. Obviously,
8:26
Speaker 2: it's good to show that you're fighting, right? But the
8:28
Speaker 2: fight has to be realistic, too. A lot of these
8:31
Speaker 2: yahoos were tweeting that they successfully defunded the IRS after
8:35
Speaker 2: the vote.
8:35
Speaker 1: Yeah.
8:37
Speaker 2: And it's like that's just– it's just a lie. You
8:40
Speaker 2: voted on something that's not going to pass. You didn't
8:42
Speaker 2: do it. You didn't do anything. But no one has
8:45
Speaker 2: less respect for the intelligence of Republican voters than Republican politicians.
8:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Republican media. So there's two elements in message
8:51
Speaker 3: bills that I think are worth noting. One is in
8:54
Speaker 3: a world for Republicans with this huge mega-megaphone propaganda operation,
8:59
Speaker 3: There is a capacity to take what they did in
9:01
Speaker 3: Washington and put it in front of their hardcore base.
9:04
Speaker 3: They can actually do that. And in that sense, it
9:07
Speaker 3: has some merit with the base, right? MAGA, Base Appreciation Week,
9:10
Speaker 3: as you said. The way these things really work and
9:14
Speaker 3: the way they really matter is that it's not about
9:16
Speaker 3: the news coverage you get right now. Maybe you'll get
9:18
Speaker 3: an Axios story or you'll make the third paragraph of
9:22
Speaker 3: tomorrow's Punchbowl newsletter. But you're not reaching real voters. The
9:26
Speaker 3: way you do it is you use these votes in
9:27
Speaker 3: paid media later on. both what you voted for and
9:31
Speaker 3: what your opponent voted against.
9:34
Speaker 2: So Republicans not named Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger famously
9:38
Speaker 2: declined to participate in the January 6th committee. McCarthy didn't
9:41
Speaker 2: want to put any other Republicans on that committee. Democrats,
9:44
Speaker 2: on the other hand, have said that they intend to
9:46
Speaker 2: sit on Jim Jordan's Trump protection committee and all the
9:50
Speaker 2: Republican investigative committees. Smart move?
9:53
Speaker 1: Yes.
9:54
Speaker 3: I think we can all agree that the Republicans not
9:57
Speaker 3: showing up for the January 6th committee was a terrible idea.
10:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.
10:01
Speaker 3: It prevented them from rebutting anything, from muddying the waters,
10:04
Speaker 3: all the stuff they did on the impeachment hearings or
10:07
Speaker 3: in some of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings over the years.
10:13
Speaker 3: If you want people to hear you, you have to
10:14
Speaker 3: be there. And I think the Republicans also made a
10:16
Speaker 3: bet that if they did not show up, the press
10:19
Speaker 3: would not cover because there'd be no conflict. That bet
10:21
Speaker 3: obviously did not pay off. So Democrats absolutely should show up.
10:25
Speaker 3: It's the right thing to do. And I think given
10:27
Speaker 3: how we know the media operates, even though the January
10:30
Speaker 3: 6th committee hearing is a very real, substantive, important thing,
10:33
Speaker 3: and this is just a bunch of partisan bullshit, the
10:35
Speaker 3: cable networks would have felt compelled to cover these and
10:38
Speaker 3: provide live coverage of these hearings, even if the Democrats
10:40
Speaker 3: weren't there.
10:42
Speaker 2: Right. And so I think it's the difference between uh,
10:45
Speaker 2: giving Republicans sort of an uninterrupted ad on cable news
10:49
Speaker 2: and giving them a, a mostly uninterrupted ad on cable
10:52
Speaker 2: news because they're not going to let the Democrats speak
10:54
Speaker 2: as much as the Republicans, but they'll get some time.
10:56
Speaker 2: And I think it's also important to sort of win
10:59
Speaker 2: this messaging battle with Republicans about the investigations. Cause there's
11:02
Speaker 2: a bunch of polling on this as well. And, uh,
11:05
Speaker 2: certainly investigating the Biden administration is not a priority for voters.
11:10
Speaker 2: In fact, it's like we said, it's very way down
11:12
Speaker 2: on the list. Um, But there is at least and
11:16
Speaker 2: people are open to investigations if there seems to be wrongdoing.
11:20
Speaker 2: But after, you know, Global Strategy Group did some polling
11:23
Speaker 2: on this and they said what most works when describing
11:25
Speaker 2: these investigations is framing them as a waste of time
11:29
Speaker 2: and taxpayer dollars, a political stunt, childish and driven by
11:33
Speaker 2: MAGA Republicans. So this idea that the MAGA Republicans are
11:36
Speaker 2: dragging the rest of the party down to just waste
11:38
Speaker 2: their time on these childish stunts. as opposed to actually
11:41
Speaker 2: fixing the problems that people are grappling with.
11:44
Speaker 3: It's sort of wild. My, as a further reminder of
11:47
Speaker 3: how old I am these days, is that when I
11:49
Speaker 3: first started in politics, my very first jobs were in
11:51
Speaker 3: the middle of the Clinton impeachment hearings. And the exact
11:55
Speaker 3: same talking points worked best then too. It's like, what
11:59
Speaker 3: is old is new again. That's exactly right. It worked
12:01
Speaker 3: for the Benghazi hearings. It worked for these hearings. It
12:04
Speaker 3: worked for all the other dumb shit they tried to
12:05
Speaker 3: do around Obama. It's always the same. And parties keep
12:10
Speaker 3: making the same mistake in how they focus on these things.
12:12
Speaker 3: Republicans have to do it because they have nothing else
12:14
Speaker 3: to focus on. If you do not have a coherent agenda,
12:17
Speaker 3: a coherent set of policy preferences within your party that
12:22
Speaker 3: you can act on, you're left with this dumb partisan bullshit.
12:28
Speaker 2: It also matters what you're investigating. I think that the
12:31
Speaker 2: reason that the January 6th hearings were probably the most
12:33
Speaker 2: successful that we've seen in a while– Well, A, because
12:37
Speaker 2: there were no Republicans on the committee to muddy the waters.
12:39
Speaker 2: But B, like it was an investigation of an attack
12:44
Speaker 2: on the Capitol, on our seat of government, an attempt
12:46
Speaker 2: to overturn the election. Everyone knew what that was. Everyone
12:48
Speaker 2: could follow along. Like it wasn't some– most of these
12:53
Speaker 2: investigations are going to seem ridiculous to people.
12:55
Speaker 1: Yeah.
12:55
Speaker 3: I mean a group of people incited by the former
12:57
Speaker 3: president of the United States tried to murder the vice
12:59
Speaker 3: president of the United States. On national television, right? That's
13:02
Speaker 3: going to get– there should be an investigation of that.
13:04
Speaker 3: People get that. That is very different than Hunter Biden's
13:06
Speaker 3: laptop or a bunch of– and this is also the
13:08
Speaker 3: problem Republicans always have. This was sort of Trump's problem
13:11
Speaker 3: too is they only speak in the lingua franca of
13:16
Speaker 3: the right-wing media bubble, right? They're talking about– like when
13:18
Speaker 3: Trump would tweet about the Russia stuff and it would
13:20
Speaker 3: be like the two lovers and– the words mean nothing
13:26
Speaker 3: to Trump. 75% to 80% of Americans, and you're going
13:30
Speaker 3: to have a lot of this stuff because the idea
13:32
Speaker 3: for the investigation comes from the right-wing media. The way
13:36
Speaker 3: they talk about it is a reflection of the right-wing
13:39
Speaker 3: media and the intended audience is the people who live
13:42
Speaker 3: in that same right-wing media bubble. So it sort of
13:44
Speaker 3: goes nowhere.
13:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's this closed magaloop. I think that's why we
13:49
Speaker 2: got the IRS vote as the first one, too, because
13:52
Speaker 2: like the number of segments in Fox primetime on jackbooted
13:56
Speaker 2: IRS thugs with guns coming to like, you know, take
13:59
Speaker 2: your money. It was significant.
14:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say there is.
14:02
Speaker 2: And so it definitely got ahead of the polling on that.
14:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say there is definitely a connection between
14:07
Speaker 3: the fact that all of MAGA media is funded by
14:11
Speaker 3: billionaires like Rupert Murdoch. and the Mercers, and the fact
14:15
Speaker 3: that all of MAGA media focuses a ton of attention
14:19
Speaker 3: on the IRS trying to crack down on wealthy tax jutes.
14:21
Speaker 3: I think those things are very related.
14:24
Speaker 2: So House Republicans have also confirmed that Speaker McCarthy intends
14:28
Speaker 2: to remove Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, and Ilhan Omar from
14:32
Speaker 2: the Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees, yet another step the
14:35
Speaker 2: American people have been clamoring for. Why are they doing this?
14:39
Speaker 3: I mean, because they're petty, petty people. This is all
14:44
Speaker 3: about the removal.
14:45
Speaker 2: What's the ostensible excuse?
14:47
Speaker 3: Well, there's two. There is the punitive reason and there's
14:51
Speaker 3: the actual reason. The actual reason is that Democrats removed
14:55
Speaker 3: Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar from their committees after
14:58
Speaker 3: they did a whole bunch of things, including pushing anti-Semitic
15:02
Speaker 3: conspiracy theories and threats of violence and all of the above.
15:06
Speaker 3: That's what they remember.
15:06
Speaker 2: Attended a white nationalist event. Remember that?
15:10
Speaker 3: Yeah. An array of reasons that all seem very, very,
15:15
Speaker 3: very valid. And so this is revenge. They promise revenge.
15:19
Speaker 3: Then they threatened they would do this if Democrats took
15:23
Speaker 3: that step. And so now Republicans are doing this. They
15:26
Speaker 3: have a bunch of dumb reasons that I think actually
15:28
Speaker 3: aren't worth repeating for why they picked these three members.
15:32
Speaker 3: Because that's all a bunch of bullshit. But this is simply... vengeance.
15:36
Speaker 3: It's to follow through on a threat they made to
15:38
Speaker 3: defend their most MAGA extreme members a couple of years ago. Yeah.
15:43
Speaker 2: I mean, they're all, all three of them are MAGA
15:45
Speaker 2: media villains. You know, Adam Schiff did too good of
15:47
Speaker 2: a job holding Donald Trump accountable for his impeachable offenses. Uh, right.
15:52
Speaker 2: So that, that's, that's sort of why they did it.
15:55
Speaker 2: One person who McCarthy does plan to give a seat
15:57
Speaker 2: on various committees is George Santos. Uh, who a press
16:03
Speaker 2: conference full of Long Island Republican officials this week called
16:07
Speaker 2: on to resign as he was accused of everything from
16:12
Speaker 2: lying about being a star volleyball player at a college
16:16
Speaker 2: he never attended to accepting an illegal donation from a
16:19
Speaker 2: confessed smuggler of undocumented immigrants.
16:23
Speaker 3: Woo!
16:24
Speaker 2: Santos still refuses to resign, and McCarthy said that, quote,
16:27
Speaker 2: a lot of people here in Congress have made up
16:29
Speaker 2: parts of their resume. I mean... Are we just stuck
16:33
Speaker 2: with this guy or what?
16:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we're stuck with this guy. I mean,
16:37
Speaker 3: the whole thing is wild. Like, it is just... The
16:42
Speaker 3: fact that his officially submitted congressional bio has a college
16:47
Speaker 3: that has been proven he did not attend on it.
16:50
Speaker 3: I mean, the lie.
16:51
Speaker 2: It's just so funny to go from, like, I'm making
16:53
Speaker 2: up that I attended this college and that I... Not
16:56
Speaker 2: that I just graduated, but that I even attended this college.
16:59
Speaker 2: And now... I'm also going to make up a story
17:02
Speaker 2: that when I attended this college that I didn't actually attend,
17:06
Speaker 2: I was a star volleyball player. He was saying, like,
17:10
Speaker 2: he was a striker. Like, he had the position down.
17:12
Speaker 2: He said they went to the championship. I mean, that
17:15
Speaker 2: is some sick shit.
17:15
Speaker 3: I mean, does he not know the Internet's been invented?
17:19
Speaker 2: I don't know what he knows. I don't know what
17:21
Speaker 2: he's doing. I have lost track of all the different
17:23
Speaker 2: lies and potential crimes he's also committed because the lies
17:27
Speaker 2: are fun, but he's also now under multiple investigations at
17:29
Speaker 2: multiple levels of government in multiple countries.
17:34
Speaker 3: Yes. In that sense, he fits in perfectly in this party.
17:40
Speaker 2: For like potential fraud, campaign finance violations, all kinds of stuff.
17:45
Speaker 3: I mean, there are some real questions. Like he had
17:48
Speaker 3: no personal money. He was living... rent free somewhere on
17:52
Speaker 3: a couch, and then lent his own campaign three quarters
17:56
Speaker 3: of a million dollars? Where did that come from? There
17:59
Speaker 3: are very real questions here. He obviously should not be
18:01
Speaker 3: in Congress. In a normal world, he would not be
18:02
Speaker 3: in Congress. In a normal political party, he would not
18:04
Speaker 3: be in Congress. They would have tossed him out. The
18:06
Speaker 3: reason they are not tossing him out is Democrats would
18:11
Speaker 3: be highly favored in a special election for this seat.
18:15
Speaker 3: It is a seat Biden won. Democrats tend in the
18:18
Speaker 3: post-Trump era to overperform in special elections. We now have
18:22
Speaker 3: a larger base of highly engaged, high propensity voters. And
18:26
Speaker 3: so if he were to leave, Kevin McCarthy would be
18:28
Speaker 3: down one vote. There would then be a special election
18:31
Speaker 3: at a time and date set according to New York
18:33
Speaker 3: law by the New York governor. And Republicans would likely
18:36
Speaker 3: lose that seat, further narrowing their majority. So of course,
18:40
Speaker 3: he's going to get to stay there. And he's already
18:41
Speaker 3: sort of getting how you do it. He's palling around
18:44
Speaker 3: with Marjorie Taylor Greene. He's attacking Adam Kinzinger on Twitter.
18:48
Speaker 3: He's learning to play the MAGA media game so that
18:53
Speaker 3: these people will back him and keep him.
18:56
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, if McCarthy had like a 30-seat margin
18:59
Speaker 2: or a 40-seat margin, yeah, maybe he gets rid of him.
19:02
Speaker 2: Maybe he sacrifices him. Because now– so all of these
19:05
Speaker 2: Long Island officials have called on– every Long Island Republican
19:08
Speaker 2: has called on him to resign. Five of the ten
19:12
Speaker 2: New York Republicans who were in the House– not counting
19:16
Speaker 2: George Santos, of course, have now called for him to
19:18
Speaker 2: resign as well. So, like, the drumbeat's out there, but McCarthy,
19:22
Speaker 2: right now McCarthy can only afford to lose four votes.
19:25
Speaker 2: If Santos goes, it's only three votes. That's a pretty
19:28
Speaker 2: slim margin. That's a Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and
19:31
Speaker 2: Paul Gosar away from losing your job right there. All right,
19:35
Speaker 2: so how do you think the White House... should handle
19:38
Speaker 2: this Congress for the next two years? Like, is the
19:42
Speaker 2: MAGA House a perfect foil for Biden as he prepares
19:45
Speaker 2: to run for re-election? Or is there any chance he
19:48
Speaker 2: can try to get something done with Republicans like he
19:51
Speaker 2: did in the Senate during his first two years?
19:55
Speaker 3: We will talk about this in the next segment, but
19:58
Speaker 3: President Biden had a press conference today, ostensibly about the
20:01
Speaker 3: new inflation numbers. And in it, he talked about this
20:05
Speaker 3: Republican Congress. And what he said is, I am willing
20:08
Speaker 3: to work with anyone on any They want to get
20:10
Speaker 3: something done that actually helps the American people. I will
20:12
Speaker 3: work with them. So you always– it is important generally
20:15
Speaker 3: and specifically for someone with President Biden's profile to extend
20:19
Speaker 3: an open hand but to be realistic about it. And
20:22
Speaker 3: what he did then is– but I'm not going to
20:24
Speaker 3: work him on these things. These Republicans want to allow
20:28
Speaker 3: wealthy people to cheat on their taxes. They want to
20:30
Speaker 3: cut Social Security and Medicare. They want to pass a
20:33
Speaker 3: national– sales tax that would increase costs for people, make
20:36
Speaker 3: inflation worse, would abolish the IRS if you pass the
20:40
Speaker 3: national sales tax. And Biden folks get it, is that,
20:45
Speaker 3: as Biden always says, we've said a thousand times on
20:47
Speaker 3: this podcast, one of his sayings is, compare me to
20:50
Speaker 3: the alternative, not the almighty. Up until the moment the
20:53
Speaker 3: Republican presidential primary is fully engaged, this is the alternative.
20:58
Speaker 3: It is this MAGA house that embodies everything that voters
21:00
Speaker 3: rejected So you want to highlight, you want to highlight
21:04
Speaker 3: their unpopular positions. I thought it was very notable that
21:06
Speaker 3: he hammered at least once, and I think maybe twice,
21:09
Speaker 3: about the Republicans wanting to cut Social Security and Medicare.
21:12
Speaker 3: They've been very clear about that. They have talked about it.
21:16
Speaker 3: It is the end result of some of the concessions
21:19
Speaker 3: that Kevin McCarthy made in his attempt to be speaker
21:23
Speaker 3: about the debt ceiling and a balanced budget amendment. And
21:26
Speaker 3: to give you a sense of how unpopular an idea
21:29
Speaker 3: that is. In the CBS YouGov poll that came out
21:33
Speaker 3: last weekend, the top priority for all voters for this
21:38
Speaker 3: Congress is to protect Social Security and Medicare. More than
21:41
Speaker 3: 70% of them thought that. And that's not something driven
21:44
Speaker 3: by Democrats and independents. Seven in 10 Republicans think protecting
21:48
Speaker 3: Social Security and Medicare should be a priority. 70% of
21:52
Speaker 3: Trump voters think protecting Social Security and Medicare should be
21:55
Speaker 3: a priority. And 70% of all the subgroups in there,
21:59
Speaker 3: the one with the highest number, is white non-college voters,
22:02
Speaker 3: the core of the Republican base. So the fact that Republicans.
22:05
Speaker 2: Wanted to- Hey, Dan, I'll see you a YouGov poll,
22:09
Speaker 2: and I'll raise you a Navigator poll from this morning.
22:12
Speaker 3: Oh, there you go.
22:15
Speaker 2: They had a list of potential priorities for the Republican Congress,
22:21
Speaker 2: and they ranked them in order of how unpopular they were.
22:24
Speaker 2: The most unpopular was ending the guarantee of Medicare and
22:28
Speaker 2: Social Security- Do you know what percentage of voters support that?
22:32
Speaker 1: Eight. Eleven. Oh, eleven.
22:34
Speaker 2: Eleven percent. It's more unpopular than banning books, which only
22:39
Speaker 2: 15 percent support preventing Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices,
22:44
Speaker 2: which Biden just passed with the Inflation Reduction Act. That's
22:46
Speaker 2: only 16 percent support that making it easier to overturn
22:50
Speaker 2: election results. Twenty percent and banning abortion nationwide. Twenty eight percent.
22:55
Speaker 2: Those are the most unpopular. But like. Eleven percent. It's
22:58
Speaker 2: more and fewer people support that than they support making
23:01
Speaker 2: it easier to overturn the election. And that which is why,
23:04
Speaker 2: by the way, so Kevin McCarthy also did a press
23:06
Speaker 2: conference today with reporters before we recorded. And they started
23:10
Speaker 2: asking all these questions about the debt ceiling. They they
23:12
Speaker 2: pushed him on Medicare and Social Security, said, oh, we're
23:14
Speaker 2: always going to protect Medicare and Social Security. Republicans are
23:17
Speaker 2: always going to protect it. Yeah, right.
23:19
Speaker 1: Yeah.
23:19
Speaker 3: You can't protect it in a ballot special amendment. It
23:21
Speaker 3: is mathematically impossible.
23:22
Speaker 2: You can't. Well, and the comment Biden made today about
23:27
Speaker 2: the national sales tax and abolishing the IRS, that comes
23:31
Speaker 2: from– so they already took their one vote on the 87,000
23:34
Speaker 2: made-up IRS agents and the rich tax cheats. Apparently McCarthy
23:38
Speaker 2: promised the Freedom Caucus a vote on abolishing the IRS
23:44
Speaker 2: completely and also abolishing abolishing the national income tax in
23:48
Speaker 2: favor of a huge sales tax increase, which, of course,
23:52
Speaker 2: hits working people more than anything else. So, yeah, I
23:55
Speaker 2: think that Biden and the Democrats highlighting sort of some
23:58
Speaker 2: of the votes they're taking, Republicans are taking because the
24:01
Speaker 2: MAGA crazies force them into it is going to be
24:03
Speaker 2: politically potent as well.
24:05
Speaker 1: Yeah.
24:06
Speaker 3: And every opportunity, doesn't matter what you're talking about, get
24:09
Speaker 3: the Social Security, Medicare hit in there.
24:11
Speaker 2: Now, an alternative view on this, Chris Murphy said this
24:14
Speaker 2: to Punchbowl, He said the debacle of the last week
24:17
Speaker 2: actually makes it more important that McCarthy manufactures some accomplishments.
24:21
Speaker 2: The House Republicans now have a blinking red light of
24:23
Speaker 2: dysfunction sitting on top of their caucus that the whole
24:25
Speaker 2: country has seen. Sure.
24:27
Speaker 3: Chris Murphy, I love your optimism.
24:31
Speaker 2: And also like McCarthy might be thinking that in the
24:33
Speaker 2: back of his mind, but I think there's a difference
24:35
Speaker 2: between hoping that's the case, that you can rack up
24:39
Speaker 2: some accomplishments to tell voters about in two years and
24:42
Speaker 2: actually making it happen with the caucus that he has.
24:45
Speaker 3: I mean, we were very dismissive of Democrats and Republicans
24:51
Speaker 3: working together on things in the last Congress. And they
24:54
Speaker 3: got a ton more done than we thought. Joe Biden
24:58
Speaker 3: was right. I personally was very wrong about that. And
25:01
Speaker 3: maybe that'll be different here. And it's always possible you
25:04
Speaker 3: could find something like the equivalent of the CHIPS Act,
25:07
Speaker 3: a very nonpartisan, non-ideological thing, because there will be an
25:12
Speaker 3: impetus to do something. But I think it will be
25:16
Speaker 3: very limited. And you're exactly right. Even if Kevin McCarthy
25:18
Speaker 3: thinks it is in his interest to do that, the
25:21
Speaker 3: Freedom Caucus does not see it in their interest to
25:23
Speaker 3: do it. And there is also a real hesitance to
25:25
Speaker 3: give an accomplishment to a Democratic president running for reelection.
25:31
Speaker 3: That's how the Republicans were with Obama. And when he
25:34
Speaker 3: was running for reelection, I imagine that's exactly how they'll
25:36
Speaker 3: be with Biden.
25:38
Speaker 2: I will also say you can tell that President Biden
25:41
Speaker 2: and the White House want to make the economy a
25:43
Speaker 2: central issue. They want to show that they're working on
25:46
Speaker 2: the economy. They've noted the inflation news today. Inflation went down.
25:50
Speaker 2: The fights that are going to come in 2023, which
25:53
Speaker 2: is debt ceiling, government shutdown, those are going to be
25:56
Speaker 2: fights that sort of revolve around economic issues. Republicans are
26:02
Speaker 2: going to want to cut Medicare and Social Security. Joe
26:05
Speaker 2: Biden and the Democrats are going to say they want
26:06
Speaker 2: to keep reducing prices. By the way, this vote that
26:10
Speaker 2: they took on the IRS on letting rich people cheat
26:13
Speaker 2: on their taxes was scored so that it only adds
26:17
Speaker 2: money to the deficit, even though the Republicans have pledged
26:19
Speaker 2: to lower the deficit. So like, I think that having
26:23
Speaker 2: the debate in the country sort of revolve around these
26:27
Speaker 2: economic issues and this sort of role of government issues
26:29
Speaker 2: is probably going to redound to the benefit of Biden
26:32
Speaker 2: and the Democrats and not the Republicans, because their position
26:35
Speaker 2: on cutting healthcare and education and everything that people care
26:38
Speaker 2: about is quite unpopular. And also helping rich people pay
26:41
Speaker 2: less taxes, also an unpopular position. Right.
26:43
Speaker 3: Republicans were able to benefit from the economy to a
26:46
Speaker 3: certain extent this last election because their strategy was to,
26:50
Speaker 3: their strategy was because Democrats were in charge of everything,
26:53
Speaker 3: just lay back and be this generic alternative of something different.
26:57
Speaker 3: Now they're going to have to have positions, they're going
26:58
Speaker 3: to have to have ideas, there'll be things they want
27:00
Speaker 3: to cut, taxes they want to lower. And that gives
27:04
Speaker 3: Democrats a very rich target environment to go after.
27:16
Speaker 2: Okay, so speaking of President Biden, we learned this week
27:19
Speaker 2: that back in November, his lawyers apparently found two sets
27:23
Speaker 2: of classified documents, one set in his Wilmington residence, and
27:28
Speaker 2: one set which was in a locked closet at the
27:30
Speaker 2: Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, which is
27:33
Speaker 2: where the president worked out of after the Obama administration ended.
27:37
Speaker 2: So as soon as the lawyers, as soon as Biden's
27:39
Speaker 2: lawyers found these documents, they contacted the National Archives, which
27:43
Speaker 2: immediately took them back. Merrick Garland then asked a U.S.
27:46
Speaker 2: attorney appointed by Donald Trump to review how the classified
27:49
Speaker 2: material got there. And Biden said that he was surprised
27:53
Speaker 2: by the discovery, but he's cooperating fully. And then just
27:56
Speaker 2: before we started recording, Merrick Garland announced that he's appointing
27:59
Speaker 2: a special counsel, a former U.S. attorney named Robert Herr.
28:03
Speaker 2: who used to be Rod Rosenstein's counsel in the Trump administration.
28:07
Speaker 2: How about that for a flashback? So we got a
28:10
Speaker 2: new special counsel. We got another document story. Naturally, Republicans
28:15
Speaker 2: in the media reacted to this news in a very
28:17
Speaker 2: chill and responsible manner. Here's a clip. Classified documents. Right.
28:22
Speaker 4: Where is the raid?
28:25
Speaker 1: I'll echo again. Impeach Biden. And that's what we need
28:28
Speaker 1: to do.
28:29
Speaker 2: Merrick Garland is shameful. The fact that he's the Attorney
28:31
Speaker 2: General is shameful, I would say.
28:32
Speaker 1: He should be impeached.
28:35
Speaker 2: Yes. At least. I mean, to give Republicans this talking
28:38
Speaker 2: point for the rest of their natural lives almost exonerates Trump.
28:43
Speaker 4: He's not suspicious, Dan, that he's taking a million dollar
28:46
Speaker 4: a year salary from the Chinese that they launder through
28:49
Speaker 4: the Penn Biden Center that Biden has never even gone
28:53
Speaker 4: to because he doesn't even know it's in the closet.
28:55
Speaker 3: Classify these documents, whatever they are. If we do that,
28:58
Speaker 3: our enemies will learn our secrets.
29:01
Speaker 2: Please. China already knows our secrets.
29:04
Speaker 1: The Chinese can know, but you can't know.
29:07
Speaker 3: Biden trusts Beijing more than he trusts you.
29:10
Speaker 4: The lawyer who they say found the documents is Dana Remus.
29:15
Speaker 4: Does she look like she can carry boxes?
29:18
Speaker 3: Joe's so woke he's.
29:19
Speaker 4: Having women help him move now. Is this team Obama
29:22
Speaker 4: trying to set Joe up so that he bows out
29:24
Speaker 4: and Newsom moves in? Nah, right? She just found the
29:30
Speaker 4: documents at the Penn Biden Center.
29:32
Speaker 2: You got us. It was the setup. What a bunch
29:37
Speaker 2: of clowns. I feel like that might have jumped the shark.
29:40
Speaker 2: I don't know about you.
29:41
Speaker 3: Look, it seems very rational and serious and it's filled
29:44
Speaker 3: with intellectual curiosity for the facts.
29:47
Speaker 2: We went from classified documents found in Biden's closet to
29:53
Speaker 2: selling secrets to the Chinese for cash.
29:56
Speaker 1: Yeah.
29:57
Speaker 3: Or, I mean, a conspiracy theory about Obama setting up
30:00
Speaker 3: Biden to help Gavin Newsom.
30:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a good one. That was a good one.
30:04
Speaker 1: Yeah.
30:05
Speaker 2: Anyway.
30:06
Speaker 3: All right.
30:06
Speaker 2: So the most useful thing we can do here is
30:07
Speaker 2: to explain to people how this is both similar and
30:10
Speaker 2: different to Trump hiding nuclear secrets in his beach house.
30:14
Speaker 2: We should know that they did search Biden's Rehoboth beach house.
30:18
Speaker 2: They found nothing. So that's Biden one, Trump zero. All right.
30:25
Speaker 2: Should we start with one for Joey B?
30:30
Speaker 3: Should we start with how they're similar?
30:32
Speaker 1: Yeah.
30:33
Speaker 3: They involve paper.
30:36
Speaker 2: Classified paper. Let's be fair. Classified paper that both people
30:41
Speaker 2: took with them from the White House, which should not
30:44
Speaker 2: have been taken from the White House.
30:45
Speaker 3: Here's what we know. A small number of documents, possibly
30:48
Speaker 3: less than 15. were found commingled with some other non-classified documents.
30:54
Speaker 3: As soon as they were found, they were returned to
30:55
Speaker 3: the archives and the Biden folks are cooperating with investigation.
30:59
Speaker 3: Here's what happened with Trump. He intentionally took a shitload
31:03
Speaker 3: of documents. He refused multiple requests to return them. He
31:07
Speaker 3: at one point reportedly moved them to ensure that other
31:09
Speaker 3: people could not find them. He had his attorneys falsely
31:12
Speaker 3: attest to the fact they'd all been returned when he
31:14
Speaker 3: knew they weren't. He was so obstinate in his unwillingness
31:18
Speaker 3: to return them, the FBI had to show up at
31:19
Speaker 3: his house unannounced to get them. After the FBI did that,
31:23
Speaker 3: he lied and said the FBI planted the documents. And
31:26
Speaker 3: then he claimed that he declassified the documents, something that
31:31
Speaker 3: was so dishonest that no attorney representing him would ever
31:34
Speaker 3: mention an under oath in court. And then he had
31:37
Speaker 3: repeatedly attacked the FBI and all the people investigating him.
31:41
Speaker 3: So in that sense, they are not similar at all.
31:46
Speaker 2: He told us all, he truthed up a storm that
31:50
Speaker 2: they were his, that the classified documents belonged to him.
31:54
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just, which is by the way, why
32:00
Speaker 2: when the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, they did so after a
32:05
Speaker 2: judge granted them a search warrant based on Trump possibly
32:09
Speaker 2: violating a number of criminal statutes, which are not at
32:12
Speaker 2: play in the Biden case because they're criminal statutes about
32:15
Speaker 2: obstructing justice and reportedly surveillance false statements and surveillance and, and,
32:22
Speaker 2: and lying and all this. I mean, come on, it's not.
32:26
Speaker 2: If Donald Trump and his buffoons were just running out
32:29
Speaker 2: of the white house after they were run out of
32:31
Speaker 2: the white house, cause they didn't want to leave. And
32:33
Speaker 2: it just grabbed boxes. And in some of the boxes
32:35
Speaker 2: were stashed classified documents and the archives reached out and
32:40
Speaker 2: asked for them back and they gave them back. It
32:42
Speaker 2: would have been like, I don't know, a couple weeks,
32:44
Speaker 2: a week story. If that. It would have been a
32:47
Speaker 2: week of stories, if that. And they would have gotten
32:49
Speaker 2: some criticism and people would have called Trump careless and stupid, whatever.
32:52
Speaker 2: And then we all would have moved on. That would
32:54
Speaker 2: have been it. There would have been no raid. Where's
32:59
Speaker 2: the raid? I mean, the raid didn't happen because Joe
33:01
Speaker 2: Biden gave back all the documents. Idiot.
33:05
Speaker 3: People are so fucking stupid. It's important to recognize that
33:09
Speaker 3: obviously taking... classified information and protecting it is very important.
33:14
Speaker 3: It is very serious. And whenever there is a violation,
33:18
Speaker 3: either intentional or unintentional, there's always some sort of investigation
33:21
Speaker 3: to find out what happened, also to assess the damage.
33:24
Speaker 3: What secrets got out? Could people have possibly accessed it?
33:27
Speaker 3: And if the Trump thing had never happened, and all
33:32
Speaker 3: we heard was this report that Biden had had a
33:34
Speaker 3: handful of documents in locked places that he shouldn't have
33:39
Speaker 3: had them in, It would have been a one-day story,
33:43
Speaker 3: a minor story. Because this actually is something that doesn't
33:46
Speaker 3: happen all the time, but it is not unusual for–
33:51
Speaker 3: incredibly unusual or extraordinary for there to be some– for
33:55
Speaker 3: people to make mistakes in the handling of classified information.
33:57
Speaker 3: One of the first things I did when I worked
33:59
Speaker 3: at the White House was I would attend all the
34:01
Speaker 3: vetting meetings.
34:02
Speaker 2: Are you about to confess a crime here? Should we
34:04
Speaker 2: get a lawyer?
34:06
Speaker 1: Yes.
34:06
Speaker 3: Get on Twitter and find me a lawyer immediately. This
34:11
Speaker 3: does not involve me handling classified information, but I would
34:13
Speaker 3: attend the vetting meetings for all the people who we
34:15
Speaker 3: were going to put up for confirmation. A lot of
34:18
Speaker 3: the folks you're looking at are people in the national
34:21
Speaker 3: security space, former ambassadors, people who work in the Foreign Service.
34:24
Speaker 3: It didn't happen with everyone or even most people. Frequently,
34:27
Speaker 3: you would have someone who at some point in their
34:29
Speaker 3: career had made a mistake involving classified information. They had
34:32
Speaker 3: left something on their desk instead of locking it up.
34:34
Speaker 3: They had taken the wrong folder home or maybe It
34:39
Speaker 3: said something that they inadvertently said something that was classified
34:43
Speaker 3: to people who did not have the clearance for it.
34:46
Speaker 3: And in every one of the situations, someone investigates it
34:49
Speaker 3: and makes a determination. And maybe there's a sanction there.
34:52
Speaker 3: And so the fact of a mistake here is serious,
34:55
Speaker 3: but it is very, very different than what Trump did.
34:58
Speaker 3: And I think we have to understand that and put
35:00
Speaker 3: that into context because treating these is the same thing
35:04
Speaker 3: as like treating someone inadvertently bouncing a check. and FTX-style
35:09
Speaker 3: financial fraud. They're similar in the fact that they involve documents,
35:14
Speaker 3: but nothing else is the same.
35:16
Speaker 2: I mean, this is the same. We sound like we
35:19
Speaker 2: did in 2015, 2016, when we were talking about Hillary's emails, right?
35:24
Speaker 2: This is the same thing. And they ended up saying
35:26
Speaker 2: that all she was is careless. That was the most
35:30
Speaker 2: they could say about how Hillary handled the emails, right?
35:33
Speaker 2: That was what the government, and that could be what
35:36
Speaker 2: ends up happening here too, right? Is that they said, yeah,
35:38
Speaker 2: it was bad. You shouldn't have done that. Um, whatever. And,
35:41
Speaker 2: but like, again, that's what they would have said to Trump.
35:43
Speaker 2: If Trump just gave the fucking shit back, if he
35:47
Speaker 2: just gave the docs back, didn't lie about it, didn't
35:50
Speaker 2: move them, didn't obstruct the investigation. This is why Trump's
35:53
Speaker 2: in trouble. It's not just because of taking the fact
35:56
Speaker 2: of taking the documents.
35:58
Speaker 1: Yeah.
35:58
Speaker 2: All right.
35:59
Speaker 3: Having the documents, the fact that how he took them
36:01
Speaker 3: mattered in that case too. Taking a whole bunch of
36:03
Speaker 3: them intentionally is a huge deal.
36:07
Speaker 2: So obviously we're not surprised, you know, that the right-wing
36:10
Speaker 2: media is having a field day with this, but you know,
36:13
Speaker 2: CNN spent nearly two hours talking about the story on
36:16
Speaker 2: Monday night alone. It's a lot of content there. Are
36:19
Speaker 2: cable and other less responsible news platforms just going to
36:22
Speaker 2: like gloss over the differences between the Trump and Biden
36:25
Speaker 2: cases here? Because you can tell that the play is,
36:28
Speaker 2: for Trump and all his pals are for voters to
36:33
Speaker 2: just hear, oh, Biden and Trump both have classified document scandals.
36:39
Speaker 2: That's what they want people to hear. And because the
36:42
Speaker 2: media oversimplifies everything and people don't pay that close attention
36:45
Speaker 2: to the news anyway, you know, you could see that
36:48
Speaker 2: getting out to people.
36:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, that plan's going to work. And the Republican goal
36:53
Speaker 3: is to muddy the waters of And the press is
36:57
Speaker 3: going to aid and abet them in that. They are
36:59
Speaker 3: incapable of doing anything else. This is how they operate.
37:03
Speaker 3: And obviously, there are individual reporters and individual stories who
37:07
Speaker 3: have done a great job of outlining the exact differences
37:11
Speaker 3: in how this worked. It is in all the stories.
37:15
Speaker 3: And even in that two hours of coverage that CNN had,
37:18
Speaker 3: which is an absurd dedication of resources, there were some
37:22
Speaker 3: moments in there where they put up basically a graphic
37:24
Speaker 3: showing exactly the differences that we said. The problem is
37:28
Speaker 3: that in the overall conversation and how the vast majority
37:32
Speaker 3: of people consume news, the differences are going to get lost.
37:35
Speaker 3: Because when you treat it like a giant deal and
37:37
Speaker 3: you send out a gazillion push notifications and a thousand
37:41
Speaker 3: tweets about it and everyone's freaking out and so many
37:43
Speaker 3: siren emojis and all of that, it seems like a
37:47
Speaker 3: huge deal. And the vast majority of people are not.
37:49
Speaker 3: And I say this and I apologize to the reporters
37:51
Speaker 3: who write these stories, but the vast majority of people
37:52
Speaker 3: are not. are never going to click on your story.
37:54
Speaker 3: They're never going to look past the headline. If they
37:55
Speaker 3: click on the story, they're not reading to the 12th paragraph.
37:57
Speaker 3: And so if you just simply imply that there are
38:02
Speaker 3: differences there, or you lay out the differences without screaming
38:05
Speaker 3: at the top that there is nothing the same here,
38:07
Speaker 3: that's going to get missed. And there's a whole bunch
38:10
Speaker 3: of forces within how the putatively objective political media works
38:16
Speaker 3: that are going to push this to ensure that they
38:18
Speaker 3: just simply remake all the mistakes of 2016.
38:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, the differences that we just talked about,
38:24
Speaker 2: like Charlie Savage, New York Times reporter, who's excellent on this,
38:28
Speaker 2: he's sort of the expert on these issues, laid out
38:30
Speaker 2: a really great story explaining the differences in a really
38:33
Speaker 2: fair and objective way. Even within that paper, though, there'll
38:36
Speaker 2: be political coverage and headlines that probably drive us nuts.
38:40
Speaker 2: And Charlie's story may get lost, right? And then, of course,
38:43
Speaker 2: like New York Times, Washington Post, print is usually much
38:46
Speaker 2: more responsible than cable. And then... Twitter is even less
38:50
Speaker 2: responsible than– it just goes– the media environment on this
38:54
Speaker 2: is going to be tough. So then the question is
38:56
Speaker 2: how does the White House handle this extremely annoying development?
39:02
Speaker 3: I think they have to walk a very fine line
39:04
Speaker 3: here between adhering to the standard they set in talking
39:08
Speaker 3: about Trump's conduct, that classified documents should be taken seriously,
39:13
Speaker 3: and inadvertently buying into the premise that this is a
39:16
Speaker 3: big deal because it's not. If we now know everything
39:19
Speaker 3: there is to know about how the documents got out,
39:22
Speaker 3: how many documents were in, how they were stored, this
39:25
Speaker 3: is not a big deal. This is nothing like Trump.
39:27
Speaker 3: And talking to a lot of the folks who worked
39:29
Speaker 3: for Secretary Clinton in that campaign, some of them will
39:33
Speaker 3: say that one of the mistakes they made was they
39:36
Speaker 3: bought into the narrative that Washington wanted. There is a
39:42
Speaker 3: body rhythm of how you react to scandals. We have
39:45
Speaker 3: hearings and subpoenas and then long stories about the political
39:49
Speaker 3: implications and who said, who knew what, when, and everyone
39:51
Speaker 3: just puts on their Woodward hat and pretends they're in
39:54
Speaker 3: all the president's men. And I thought Biden's tone was,
39:58
Speaker 3: was pretty good. I'm not sure I would have said
40:01
Speaker 3: the locked, uh, the Cor, the Corvette part, but that's
40:03
Speaker 3: Joe Biden and that's fine. Um, but as you say,
40:07
Speaker 3: you're going to cooperate, express confidence about what they're going
40:10
Speaker 3: to find and don't make this a gigantic deal. Don't
40:13
Speaker 3: yourself fall into the thing of we're going to, we're
40:16
Speaker 3: going to have a special spokesperson in the White House.
40:18
Speaker 3: We're going to do all these things. Don't buy into
40:20
Speaker 3: the premise that this is a big scandal because it
40:22
Speaker 3: is not a scandal. It is absolutely not a scandal.
40:25
Speaker 2: And I also think that wisely, they didn't make a
40:28
Speaker 2: huge deal about the Trump investigation, partly because there was
40:32
Speaker 2: an ongoing investigation and they didn't want to comment. And so,
40:36
Speaker 2: you know, they made some comments at the time, but
40:37
Speaker 2: they didn't like use this as a huge political issue,
40:42
Speaker 2: which I think is probably going to help them now.
40:44
Speaker 3: All right.
40:44
Speaker 2: So before this happened, this massive scandal for Joe Biden,
40:49
Speaker 2: his poll numbers were really on the rise over the
40:53
Speaker 2: last few months. He's got some positive approval ratings in
40:56
Speaker 2: some polls for the first time. What do you make
40:58
Speaker 2: of that?
40:59
Speaker 3: Well, he's been on quite a run of success. Better
41:02
Speaker 3: than expected performance in the midterms, an incredibly productive lame
41:07
Speaker 3: duck session of Congress where you're passing laws to fix
41:10
Speaker 3: Electoral Count Act, a really important spending bill, the legalizing
41:14
Speaker 3: of same-sex and interracial marriage. He's been doing great. And
41:18
Speaker 3: at the same time, the backdrop of that are two things. One,
41:21
Speaker 3: Republicans have been an absolute high-profile shitshow from Donald Trump
41:25
Speaker 3: dining with Nazis to all the Republicans fighting with each
41:28
Speaker 3: other about how they lost the election to the Kevin
41:31
Speaker 3: McCarthy shitshow to George Santos. And on top of that,
41:35
Speaker 3: and probably most importantly, more important than anything else, is
41:38
Speaker 3: slowly but surely, economic conditions have gotten better. Inflation is
41:43
Speaker 3: still high, but it's coming down. People are feeling less
41:46
Speaker 3: pain when they go to the grocery store and the
41:48
Speaker 3: gas station than they were before. And while those prices
41:50
Speaker 3: are still higher than anyone would like, trajectory matters a lot.
41:55
Speaker 3: Are they getting lower or are they getting higher? And recently,
41:58
Speaker 3: they've been ticking down lower. And I think that's been
42:00
Speaker 3: very good for Joe Biden. I think all of those
42:02
Speaker 3: things are probably more important than this document stupidity at
42:06
Speaker 3: this moment in time. But the document stupidity does, I think,
42:10
Speaker 3: indicate that we're entering into a new phase of the
42:13
Speaker 3: Biden presidency, which is now he is a president who is,
42:16
Speaker 3: by all reports, is running for reelection with a Republican
42:19
Speaker 3: majority in the House in a phase of conflict, right?
42:23
Speaker 3: Cooperation is what Joe Biden was focusing on in the
42:25
Speaker 3: first two years. And he was judged on what success
42:28
Speaker 3: he could get from that cooperation, whether it's cooperation with
42:30
Speaker 3: Republicans or cooperation with Manchin and Sinema. And now it's
42:34
Speaker 3: going to be how he handles the conflict with Republicans.
42:38
Speaker 3: And I think we're going to have... It seems like
42:39
Speaker 3: the White House has been preparing for that based on
42:41
Speaker 3: today's press conference, but I think that is going to
42:43
Speaker 3: be what dictates his approval ratings going forward in combination with, obviously,
42:48
Speaker 3: the larger economic environment in the country.
42:52
Speaker 1: Yeah.
42:52
Speaker 2: And look, the macroeconomic factors are largely beyond their control.
42:56
Speaker 2: It was beyond their control when gas prices were high
42:58
Speaker 2: and inflation was really high. It's still not entirely under
43:02
Speaker 2: their control now that gas prices are lower and inflation
43:04
Speaker 2: is lower, but it's certainly helping them. But then I
43:07
Speaker 2: think the bigger issue here is, and it's something that
43:09
Speaker 2: we saw as far back as the 2020 election all
43:11
Speaker 2: the time, like when Trump and the Republicans are the story,
43:15
Speaker 2: it is not good for Trump and the Republicans. When
43:17
Speaker 2: the Republicans are able to make Biden and whatever phony
43:20
Speaker 2: scandals they come up with the story, then it's not
43:23
Speaker 2: as good for Joe Biden and the Democrats. And so,
43:26
Speaker 2: you know, the Republicans had for the first couple of
43:28
Speaker 2: years a whole bunch of stories about Democratic infighting and
43:31
Speaker 2: Democratic legislating and all this kind of stuff. And so
43:34
Speaker 2: it really helped them. And now, that they govern one
43:38
Speaker 2: of the houses of Congress, then it gives Biden an
43:41
Speaker 2: opportunity to make them the story every day. And as
43:44
Speaker 2: we've seen today, like they will try to make Biden
43:46
Speaker 2: the story. They will try to investigate him. They will
43:48
Speaker 2: try to keep him in the news. But to the
43:50
Speaker 2: extent that Biden can not only make the Republicans a
43:52
Speaker 2: story because of scandal, but make them a story because
43:55
Speaker 2: here's what they want to do to make your life worse.
43:57
Speaker 2: And here's what I'm doing to try to make your
43:59
Speaker 2: life better. Then I think he'll be in a stronger footing. So.
44:03
Speaker 3: The White House is always a hierarchy of strategic priorities.
44:09
Speaker 3: And in the first two years, legislative strategy often trumped
44:14
Speaker 3: communications and political strategy. Because what mattered is, A, can
44:17
Speaker 3: you get something done? Because that's why you're there in
44:19
Speaker 3: the first place. You want to help people. You want
44:20
Speaker 3: to put your agenda in place. And politically, that was
44:23
Speaker 3: also the best thing. And so if you had to
44:25
Speaker 3: take on a bunch of of short-term turbulence so that
44:29
Speaker 3: Joe Manchin could sit in his houseboat for an extra
44:32
Speaker 3: week and be OK with the Inflation Reduction Act, then
44:35
Speaker 3: you did that. If you had to be quiet about
44:38
Speaker 3: Republican scandals or Mitch McConnell talking about cutting Social Security
44:42
Speaker 3: because you were trying to get the bipartisan chips bill
44:46
Speaker 3: or bipartisan infrastructure bill done, you did that. Now, for
44:51
Speaker 3: the most part, legislative period of this presidency is over
44:54
Speaker 3: for at least the next two years. It is now
44:56
Speaker 3: a question of information warfare. And it's going to be
44:58
Speaker 3: about messaging and communicating and defining your opponent and setting narratives.
45:04
Speaker 3: And so we're now in a very different phase. And
45:07
Speaker 3: it's going to require, I think, and I think we
45:09
Speaker 3: saw that, the fact that Joe Biden did this press
45:10
Speaker 3: conference on this day with this documents bullshit in the
45:14
Speaker 3: background shows that they are making the pivot to re-election
45:19
Speaker 3: war footing.
45:21
Speaker 2: Pivot. We got to pivot. Love a pivot. Love a pivot.
45:27
Speaker 2: All right. When we come back, I will talk to
45:30
Speaker 2: Congresswoman Katie Porter about her announcement for the U.S.
45:33
Speaker 1: Senate.
45:42
Speaker 2: Joining us now is a friend of the pod who
45:44
Speaker 2: recently won her third term in the House and just
45:46
Speaker 2: announced her candidacy for California Senate. Katie Porter, welcome back.
45:51
Speaker 1: Thank you.
45:53
Speaker 2: So I wanted to start by giving you shit about
45:55
Speaker 2: not telling us you were running for Senate when we
45:58
Speaker 2: asked the last time you were on a few weeks ago.
46:01
Speaker 2: But then I remembered Lovett didn't even wait for your
46:04
Speaker 2: answer when he asked the question.
46:06
Speaker 1: And that's on us. That, not waiting for the answer,
46:10
Speaker 1: is classic mistake in doing oversight. You have to pause
46:15
Speaker 1: and you have to stare into the depths of the
46:18
Speaker 1: witness's soul until you literally pull the answer from them.
46:23
Speaker 1: So Lovett was just like, are you running for the Senate?
46:25
Speaker 1: Are you? Too fast.
46:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, he immediately wanted to get to the next joke
46:30
Speaker 2: about you've got mail.
46:32
Speaker 1: Vague smile, blank eyes look from Jamie Dimon himself.
46:36
Speaker 2: You just....
46:38
Speaker 1: And wait for the person to go on.
46:41
Speaker 2: Like, I didn't expect you to really give a... I
46:44
Speaker 2: didn't expect you to announce then, but I thought that
46:46
Speaker 2: maybe we'd wait like five seconds, you know, just a
46:48
Speaker 2: little bit anyway.
46:49
Speaker 1: I will say, you know, you could see the tape,
46:52
Speaker 1: but I did, I was wearing a pink dress and
46:55
Speaker 1: I did turn the color of my.
46:58
Speaker 2: You did, yeah. And that's unusual for you.
47:00
Speaker 1: So that was probably like a good hint. I think
47:03
Speaker 1: it's not fair to pod listeners because they couldn't necessarily...
47:06
Speaker 1: listening see that. But I think you guys cannot exactly
47:09
Speaker 1: say that there was not a little bit of a hint.
47:13
Speaker 2: So I guess my first question is, you just won
47:16
Speaker 2: your third term in the House. You got a spot
47:18
Speaker 2: on the Oversight Committee that lets you kick the shit
47:21
Speaker 2: out of CEOs. And in 2025, you're probably more likely
47:25
Speaker 2: to be in the majority in the House than in
47:28
Speaker 2: the Senate. Why did you want to run for Senate
47:31
Speaker 2: at this moment? What is appealing about the job for you?
47:34
Speaker 1: So first off, we are going to be in the
47:36
Speaker 1: majority in the Senate.
47:38
Speaker 3: And the House.
47:38
Speaker 2: All right.
47:38
Speaker 1: All right.
47:39
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. I like it.
47:40
Speaker 1: And I am going to campaign not only to win
47:43
Speaker 1: this race in California, but if I'm able to go
47:47
Speaker 1: out and help people in swing states around the country.
47:50
Speaker 1: I'm from a swing district in Orange County. I know
47:52
Speaker 1: how to help people win in swing states. And that's
47:55
Speaker 1: exactly one of the things that we're trying to do
47:57
Speaker 1: as California senators, help make sure we're delivering the majority
48:00
Speaker 1: in the Senate. Look, why now? Because the U.S. Senate
48:04
Speaker 1: is broken. The Senate traditionally was the last line of
48:09
Speaker 1: defense in our democracy. And today it's a place where
48:13
Speaker 1: our rights go to get revoked, where special interests dominate,
48:16
Speaker 1: where Mitch McConnell spent a long time in charge. So
48:20
Speaker 1: the Senate needs to work better. I think that's a
48:24
Speaker 1: low bar right there. It needs to work at all
48:26
Speaker 1: for the American people. And I think we need as
48:29
Speaker 1: Californians to be sending our best warrior to Washington. Somebody
48:33
Speaker 1: who understands that the way Congress has been working the
48:36
Speaker 1: last years is just not working for the American people.
48:40
Speaker 1: And that's a real problem. And I think we should
48:42
Speaker 1: take that seriously. And that's how I'm going to ground
48:44
Speaker 1: my campaign is being willing to tackle that problem, standing
48:47
Speaker 1: up to special interests and powerful people to fight for families.
48:52
Speaker 2: What was your thinking behind announcing now as opposed to
48:55
Speaker 2: waiting to hear whether or not Senator Dianne Feinstein plans
48:59
Speaker 2: to retire?
48:59
Speaker 1: I have incredible respect for Senator Feinstein. She is a trailblazer.
49:03
Speaker 1: And I am one of so many women in California
49:06
Speaker 1: politics who walks in the path that she created. And
49:10
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful for that. The senator will make up
49:12
Speaker 1: her mind in her time. And I look forward to
49:16
Speaker 1: hearing her decision. This is going to be a spirited race.
49:19
Speaker 1: I'm going to be in it till the end. But
49:22
Speaker 1: I think we just need to make sure that this
49:24
Speaker 1: is an urgent moment for our democracy. We need to
49:26
Speaker 1: be sending strong, vibrant people to Washington who are able
49:30
Speaker 1: to address the new challenges that our country is facing.
49:34
Speaker 2: So I asked Twitter if they had any questions for you.
49:36
Speaker 2: And by far, the most common one I got was
49:38
Speaker 2: some version of Oh, no. How are we going to
49:40
Speaker 2: keep her House seat now? How do you feel about
49:43
Speaker 2: Democrats' ability to win that seat in 24 when, you know,
49:47
Speaker 2: winning back the majority may depend on that seat?
49:50
Speaker 1: Awesome. I feel awesome about it. And here's why. We
49:53
Speaker 1: have done the work in Orange County year after year,
49:56
Speaker 1: six years now, two years before my first election, two
49:59
Speaker 1: years later. I've been campaigning in Orange County for six years.
50:03
Speaker 1: Orange County, a place where Democrats outnumber Republicans. Orange County,
50:08
Speaker 1: a place where a progressive like me got elected, not once,
50:12
Speaker 1: not twice, but three times, including in some really tough
50:16
Speaker 1: election cycles nationally. So I feel really, really good about
50:19
Speaker 1: our being able to keep this seat. There are a
50:21
Speaker 1: number of, I think, very strong candidates who will think
50:23
Speaker 1: about running and will run. And let me reassure everybody,
50:26
Speaker 1: I am going to be there doing the work, making
50:30
Speaker 1: sure we keep not just this House seat, but we
50:32
Speaker 1: win House seats across California because we've left a lot
50:36
Speaker 1: on the table this past cycle and it really hurt
50:38
Speaker 1: us in keeping the House majority. So I think anyone
50:41
Speaker 1: like you who has ever been on the campaign trail
50:43
Speaker 1: knows that I am tireless. I will knock every door.
50:47
Speaker 1: I will shake every hand. I will take every tough question.
50:50
Speaker 1: And I'm going to bring that same kind of energy
50:52
Speaker 1: to my Senate campaign, but also to people up and
50:55
Speaker 1: down the ticket across California and hopefully across the country
50:58
Speaker 1: to make sure we're delivering for the American people. That's
51:01
Speaker 1: the kind of Democrat I am.
51:04
Speaker 2: You and I talked in a previous interview about why
51:07
Speaker 2: housing isn't a bigger part of the national political conversation.
51:10
Speaker 2: You mentioned that in your first race, your then consultants
51:13
Speaker 2: tried to unsuccessfully talk you out of making it a
51:16
Speaker 2: big issue. How much will you be talking about it
51:18
Speaker 2: in this race? And what do you think you can
51:20
Speaker 2: get done on this issue in the Senate for California
51:23
Speaker 2: and the country?
51:24
Speaker 1: Housing is a huge challenge in California, but absolutely across
51:28
Speaker 1: the country. This is not just a coastal problem. This
51:32
Speaker 1: is not just a California problem. It is an American problem.
51:35
Speaker 1: And a big part of it comes from the lack
51:37
Speaker 1: of federal investment in housing and failed federal policy. And
51:42
Speaker 1: we see all kinds of problems flowing from this. Young
51:45
Speaker 1: people not able to start families, people not able to
51:49
Speaker 1: start businesses to accrue capital, to be able to build
51:52
Speaker 1: retirement savings, to homelessness. So this is something that we
51:56
Speaker 1: can work on. And it's something that we can't just
51:59
Speaker 1: look to Governor Newsom to solve alone. The federal government
52:01
Speaker 1: needs to be part of the solution here. The federal
52:04
Speaker 1: government can't do it alone either. We need those partners.
52:07
Speaker 1: But for too long, Washington has kind of shrugged its
52:10
Speaker 1: shoulders and said, housing, that's kind of like a private
52:13
Speaker 1: market problem. Baloney, there are and have always been federal
52:18
Speaker 1: public policies that affect the cost and availability of housing
52:22
Speaker 1: through the tax code, through rental assistance. And so we
52:26
Speaker 1: need to make full use of those policies because the
52:29
Speaker 1: cost of housing is a huge concern for not some Californians,
52:33
Speaker 1: most Californians. And we need elected officials who are living
52:37
Speaker 1: in California today and who understand that problem.
52:42
Speaker 2: One new responsibility you'd have as senator is confirming judges,
52:45
Speaker 2: including possible Supreme Court justices. Polls show that Americans' trust
52:48
Speaker 2: in the Supreme Court is now the lowest it's ever been.
52:51
Speaker 2: I know you've co-sponsored a bill that would impose 18-year
52:55
Speaker 2: term limits on Supreme Court justices. What are your thoughts
52:59
Speaker 2: on changing the number of seats on the court or
53:02
Speaker 2: other potential court reforms?
53:04
Speaker 1: Well, the Supreme Court is clearly an institution that's struggling.
53:07
Speaker 1: And those of us who love the court, who believe
53:10
Speaker 1: in the importance of having a strong Supreme Court need
53:13
Speaker 1: to be leading the way and being willing to reform it.
53:15
Speaker 1: So I think we need to have a vibrant debate
53:17
Speaker 1: about what are the kinds of changes that will work best.
53:20
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court has gone through other changes in how
53:24
Speaker 1: it does business and the number of justices. And we're
53:26
Speaker 1: at a period where we need to go back and
53:28
Speaker 1: have that debate. I think that the work of the
53:31
Speaker 1: court has expanded. The number of cases, the number of people,
53:35
Speaker 1: the amount of litigation. And I think one of the
53:37
Speaker 1: things I saw as a consumer protection advocate is turn
53:40
Speaker 1: after turn, some of the laws that are most important
53:43
Speaker 1: to our economy never make it onto the court's docket.
53:47
Speaker 1: They never get the enforcement and the attention that they deserve.
53:50
Speaker 1: So I think we need to look at how can
53:52
Speaker 1: we right size the Supreme Court for the amount of
53:54
Speaker 1: work that it has in front of us? How can
53:57
Speaker 1: we restore judicial ethics to the court? And so I
54:00
Speaker 1: think that kind of discussion about the court is the
54:02
Speaker 1: same kind of discussion we ought to be having about
54:04
Speaker 1: the Senate. The filibuster needs to go. We need to
54:08
Speaker 1: be rethinking about some of our procedures in the House.
54:10
Speaker 1: And I think people can look to some of the
54:13
Speaker 1: ways that I've tried to do Congress differently than typical
54:16
Speaker 1: in the House to get a feel for what kind
54:18
Speaker 1: of senator I would be. Somebody who is willing to say,
54:22
Speaker 1: out of love of our democracy, out of deep respect
54:26
Speaker 1: for these institutions, I am willing to push them to
54:28
Speaker 1: be better. That's my promise to the American people. And
54:31
Speaker 1: it would apply equally to the Senate as to the
54:34
Speaker 1: Supreme Court.
54:35
Speaker 2: Sounds like if the Supreme Court has a lot more work,
54:37
Speaker 2: maybe they need some more justices.
54:39
Speaker 1: I think that's right. And I think we have to
54:41
Speaker 1: look at our entire federal judicial system as well. Because
54:45
Speaker 1: as we saw, we have judicial ethics problems up and down.
54:47
Speaker 1: It's not just the Supreme Court. We have problems in
54:50
Speaker 1: other parts of our court system as well. And so
54:53
Speaker 1: I think we need to take a look at these
54:54
Speaker 1: institutions and make sure that they're working. That's part of
54:56
Speaker 1: doing oversight. It's one of my passions, is making sure
55:00
Speaker 1: that we are looking at government and whether it's delivering
55:02
Speaker 1: for the American people. I think in the case of
55:04
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, the answer is no, and we need
55:07
Speaker 1: to work to get that trust back.
55:09
Speaker 2: Because this is very blue California, and because we have
55:12
Speaker 2: a runoff system where there's a decent chance that the
55:14
Speaker 2: general election will feature two Democrats running against each other,
55:18
Speaker 2: it does seem like this race will be more about
55:21
Speaker 2: the future of the Democratic Party and the direction of
55:23
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party than most other races. What's your critique
55:27
Speaker 2: of where the party has fallen short?
55:30
Speaker 1: So let me take this in two pieces. First, let
55:32
Speaker 1: me go back to where you started, which is that
55:35
Speaker 1: this is going to be probably most likely, you said,
55:38
Speaker 1: two Democrats.
55:39
Speaker 3: Maybe.
55:40
Speaker 1: And I think that's good and healthy. And maybe not. Actually,
55:43
Speaker 1: if you look at most of our statewide contests year
55:46
Speaker 1: after year, since we've had the top two systems, Almost
55:49
Speaker 1: all of them have been a Democrat and a Republican.
55:52
Speaker 1: I can only think of one really prominently that was
55:54
Speaker 1: two Democrats, which of course was the Senate race with
55:57
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez. So that might evolve that
56:01
Speaker 1: way and it might not. I think we don't know that.
56:03
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of it goes to your
56:05
Speaker 1: second point, which is how are we going to make
56:08
Speaker 1: sure that we are part of a Democratic Party that
56:10
Speaker 1: is growing? And I think we have to be honest, independence,
56:15
Speaker 1: no party preferences, That mindset is growing. It's growing among
56:19
Speaker 1: young people. It's growing among new registrants, among immigrants who
56:22
Speaker 1: are registering to vote for the first time. Why? Why
56:25
Speaker 1: do they not trust the Democratic Party? And I think
56:28
Speaker 1: the answer is they don't trust either party because they
56:31
Speaker 1: are willing to say Washington isn't working for everyday people.
56:35
Speaker 1: And why do they feel that way? Why do they
56:38
Speaker 1: think that? Because a hell of a lot of time,
56:40
Speaker 1: it's true. We have a Washington that is more controlled
56:44
Speaker 1: than ever by special interests and by big money. We
56:47
Speaker 1: have corporate PAC money everywhere you look. I don't take it.
56:50
Speaker 1: I never have and I never will. And it's going
56:52
Speaker 1: to set me apart in this race. We have people
56:54
Speaker 1: who are beholden to lobbyists. I don't take federal lobbyist money.
56:58
Speaker 1: The lobbyist wants to meet with me. You got to
57:00
Speaker 1: bring a good idea, not a check. We have a
57:03
Speaker 1: congressional stock training. And so people feel like we're getting
57:06
Speaker 1: secret information and we're using it to enrich ourselves. Anybody's
57:09
Speaker 1: welcome to come check out my minivan. There is no
57:12
Speaker 1: enrichment going on here. And so I think one of
57:16
Speaker 1: the things we need to do is we're competing for,
57:19
Speaker 1: do people trust government? That's what we're competing for. Do
57:23
Speaker 1: people trust us to make government work for them? And
57:27
Speaker 1: while I think the answer to whether you can trust
57:30
Speaker 1: Republicans to work for you is a hard no, I
57:33
Speaker 1: think we have to be honest. Some members of our
57:35
Speaker 1: own party bear some responsibility for not taking actions or
57:39
Speaker 1: not enacting reforms that can help us grow our Democratic policies.
57:44
Speaker 2: This could be a crowded race. It already seems like
57:46
Speaker 2: it could be a contentious race. Many of you would
57:50
Speaker 2: make it like all my other races.
57:52
Speaker 1: So bring it on, folks.
57:54
Speaker 2: Welcome.
57:55
Speaker 1: I'm a survivor. I had a five-way primary in my
57:58
Speaker 1: first race for Congress. I did not have the endorsement
58:01
Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party. My now state senator, Dave Min, did.
58:05
Speaker 1: And I managed to win that primary, get into the
58:08
Speaker 1: top two. So I'm used to tough races. I would
58:11
Speaker 1: expect nothing less of this. And let's be clear. Californians
58:16
Speaker 1: deserve a competitive race. They deserve to get to know
58:20
Speaker 1: who's going to fight for them. They deserve to hear
58:22
Speaker 1: what they think. They deserve to get a chance to
58:24
Speaker 1: shake our hand and to show us what's going on
58:27
Speaker 1: in their community. So as you can probably tell, I
58:30
Speaker 1: can't wait to get the heck out of Washington and
58:32
Speaker 1: back on the campaign trail in California.
58:35
Speaker 2: I was going to ask, like, how tough do you
58:36
Speaker 2: plan to get in this race? Because I noticed, you know,
58:40
Speaker 2: many of your potential rivals, if not most of them,
58:42
Speaker 2: Like they greeted your entry into the race by taking
58:45
Speaker 2: shots at you over announcing during the storms this week.
58:49
Speaker 2: Some of the shots were oblique, some were less so.
58:52
Speaker 2: What do you consider fair game in this race and
58:54
Speaker 2: how tough do you plan to get?
58:55
Speaker 1: Well, look, I think it's pretty clear. I am a
58:57
Speaker 1: no bullshit kind of girl. So I'm going to tell
59:00
Speaker 1: it how it is. But this isn't about personalities. This
59:04
Speaker 1: is about policy. This is about leadership. And one of
59:07
Speaker 1: the marks of a leader is you're willing to squarely tap.
59:10
Speaker 1: problems in a productive way. So I am going to
59:12
Speaker 1: draw contrast where they're appropriate, but I'm going to try
59:16
Speaker 1: to show respect because that ultimately is part of what
59:18
Speaker 1: pushes people away from politics. When they feel like it's personal,
59:22
Speaker 1: when they feel like it's nasty, then they're not willing
59:24
Speaker 1: to engage at all. And I've seen this in Orange
59:26
Speaker 1: County time and time again. So I personally share what
59:31
Speaker 1: Senator Feinstein said. I would just echo to everybody here.
59:35
Speaker 1: Senator Feinstein, when learning that I had announced my candidacy,
59:38
Speaker 1: said she's welcome to throw her hat in the ring
59:41
Speaker 1: and run. Amen, sister.
59:44
Speaker 3: I agree with that.
59:45
Speaker 1: And Senator Feinstein may choose to run. I do not
59:48
Speaker 1: presume to know when and what decision she'll make. But
59:51
Speaker 1: I actually think that's the right attitude to have. And
59:53
Speaker 1: I think our senator here is actually showing some real
59:56
Speaker 1: maturity and real leadership and real thought here, which is
1:00:00
Speaker 1: it's a competitive race. Let's go.
1:00:03
Speaker 2: Speaking of being tough, it's one of the personal qualities
1:00:05
Speaker 2: that's made you such an effective member of Congress. CEOs
1:00:09
Speaker 2: are afraid of you. Wall Street's afraid of you. Lovett's
1:00:12
Speaker 2: afraid of you. But there's been a bunch of stories
1:00:17
Speaker 2: over the last few weeks based on mostly anonymous accounts
1:00:19
Speaker 2: from former staffers that you're also tough on the people
1:00:23
Speaker 2: who work for you. I've been wondering, what's your reaction
1:00:26
Speaker 2: to all those stories?
1:00:27
Speaker 1: Well, I'm really proud of my staff. They're incredible. And
1:00:30
Speaker 1: I could not do the work I do in the
1:00:32
Speaker 1: way that I do it without their talents, without their time,
1:00:36
Speaker 1: without their commitment to doing their best. But let's be clear.
1:00:39
Speaker 1: Of course, I want their best effort. Of course, I
1:00:41
Speaker 1: want my best effort. The American people deserve no less.
1:00:46
Speaker 1: You know, I regret if this employee feels disgruntled. She
1:00:50
Speaker 1: finished her term in her fellowship, was a two-year fellowship.
1:00:53
Speaker 1: I enjoyed working with her. Um, and I'm excited to
1:00:56
Speaker 1: continue to get to work with my staff on this
1:00:58
Speaker 1: campaign and on the official side. Um, but I, you know, I'm,
1:01:02
Speaker 1: I'm willing to expect people to work hard. I work
1:01:05
Speaker 1: hard and I think that's what the American people should expect. Yeah.
1:01:09
Speaker 2: I will just say from personal experience, I've dealt with
1:01:12
Speaker 2: your staff, some of your staff a couple of times
1:01:14
Speaker 2: when we've tried to have you on the show. And, um,
1:01:17
Speaker 2: They don't have the fear in their eyes that some
1:01:21
Speaker 2: staffers have, considering who their bosses are. So I was
1:01:24
Speaker 2: surprised to read that. I want my staff to flourish.
1:01:27
Speaker 1: And I've seen this. I have staffers who have gone
1:01:29
Speaker 1: off to law school. I have staffers who have gone
1:01:31
Speaker 1: on to work in the administration. in some really tough
1:01:35
Speaker 1: departments like Homeland Security. I have staffers who've gone off
1:01:37
Speaker 1: to work on Senate committees. And to that, I say, amen,
1:01:40
Speaker 1: go forth, take what we did together and go off
1:01:43
Speaker 1: and build your career. I was a law professor. I'm
1:01:46
Speaker 1: a teacher. So if I see a staffer making a
1:01:49
Speaker 1: mistake or maybe we could do it better, let's work
1:01:51
Speaker 1: on it. And I want them to say the same
1:01:54
Speaker 1: thing to me. And boy, sometimes they do. And I
1:01:56
Speaker 1: think that's for the better of.
1:01:57
Speaker 3: All of us.
1:01:59
Speaker 2: Last question. You once told me that some of your
1:02:01
Speaker 2: most difficult constituents are your children. What do they think
1:02:04
Speaker 2: about mom running for Senate?
1:02:06
Speaker 1: They think I'm going to win, which was encouraging.
1:02:09
Speaker 2: Because that's good.
1:02:10
Speaker 1: This last election, they were like, not so sure. So
1:02:13
Speaker 1: they think I'm going to win, which I appreciate. But
1:02:15
Speaker 1: they also say. You know, I told my daughter that
1:02:19
Speaker 1: if we didn't win this last time in this November,
1:02:23
Speaker 1: this past November, that she could get a cat. So
1:02:26
Speaker 1: she's now saying, and I won, so I don't, you know,
1:02:30
Speaker 1: no cat.
1:02:30
Speaker 2: No cat.
1:02:31
Speaker 1: She's now bargaining with me, like, if you lose the Senate,
1:02:34
Speaker 1: can we get a dog? I mean, this is what
1:02:37
Speaker 1: I'm saying. These CEOs, like, they can take lessons from
1:02:40
Speaker 1: my children in how to negotiate and how to be tough.
1:02:44
Speaker 2: Katie Porter, thanks so much for joining and good luck
1:02:48
Speaker 2: out there on the trail.
1:02:49
Speaker 1: Thank you.
1:02:55
Speaker 2: All right. Thank you to Katie Porter for joining us today.
1:02:58
Speaker 2: It is a three-day weekend, so we will not have
1:03:00
Speaker 2: a show on Tuesday morning. We will not be recording
1:03:03
Speaker 2: on Monday, but Dan and I will be back next Thursday.
1:03:06
Speaker 2: So we'll talk to you then.
1:03:07
Speaker 3: Bye, everyone.
1:03:12
Speaker 2: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
1:03:15
Speaker 2: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
1:03:19
Speaker 2: Our producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed
1:03:22
Speaker 2: and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis
1:03:25
Speaker 2: sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz,
1:03:28
Speaker 2: Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.
1:03:31
Speaker 2: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
1:03:35
Speaker 2: and Amelia Montuth. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
1:03:39
Speaker 2: slash podsaveamerica.