Latest / Pod Save America / “First Rule Package of Fight Club.”

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“First Rule Package of Fight Club.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Faber.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm John Lovett. I'm still Tommy Vitor, although I'm just
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: about to turn into an Elden Ring.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: We just have to listen to 10 minutes of Love
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: It and Elijah and Milo talk about video games.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: I'm saying I use the triangle to go to the
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: pouch where I keep my lantern, my horse, my horse food,
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: and my health.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Kevin McCarthy gives away the house to
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: become speaker. Joe Biden takes his first presidential trip to
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the U.S.-Mexico border and later... We'll be joined by the
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: first Gen Z member of Congress, 25-year-old Maxwell Alejandro Frost.
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: Freeze up my square button for my wondrous physic.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: But first, we were so inspired by all the work
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: that our Vote Save America volunteers did in the last
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: midterm that we made new merch to celebrate you. Fresh
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: VSA crewnecks in classic colors are available now at the
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Crooked store. No v-neck? I don't know. I'll go check
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: for myself. Yeah, go check it out. Head to crooked.com
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: slash store to shop. Get yourself one of those classic crewnecks.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: We're around town or in Limgrave. Jesus.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the news.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: That was so real.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy finally won the race for Speaker by giving
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: the job to Matt Gaetz and the most MAGA members
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: of Congress. After five days, 15 votes, and a midnight
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: fight on the House floor that nearly led to violence,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: McCarthy got the votes of every Republican except for the
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: six original Never Kevins. who he persuaded to just vote
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: present with a little last minute help from the MAGA
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: king himself, Donald Trump. Here's a clip from late Friday
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: night when shit got real.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Somebody's holding somebody back. Look at that. Oh, somebody just
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: held somebody back. Stephanie, just look at that. It looks
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: like a fight breaking out on the floor.
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: Right on the face. Somebody grabbed him. It's physical. Wait
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: a minute.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Hold on.
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: Let's follow the camera. Kevin McCarthy looks pretty upset.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: First question, who stopped Alabama Congressman Mike Rogers from punching
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Matt Gaetz in the face? And should that person be impeached?
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: Well, we know we do know it is North Carolina.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: North Carolina's Richard Hudson.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: No flair for drama.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, look, we, I was in full, I
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: was watching it Friday night as we all were.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: You weren't playing Elden Ring.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: I literally moved, I switched.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: It was, I could have a two screen experience, but, uh,
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: and I was just, I was in full Ken Watanabe mode.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: Just let them fight. I think it was cool too,
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: that because C-SPAN cameras aren't yet locked down because the
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: speaker wasn't chosen, they got the moment where Matt Gates
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: put his hand on Kevin McCarthy's cheek and said, do
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: you feel in charge?
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Uh, Wouldn't you be mad? It's one thing to break
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: up a fight. Good for you. But to grip you
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: over your mouth, you almost got like a fishhook thing.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: We were talking about this with with Congressman Frost.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Don't put it putting your hands. We don't know.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: These are not hand sanitizer people.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: But so what I my my I also what I
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: my my breakdown of what happened and why the hand
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: went over the mouth is he was trying to pull
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: him back in an act of friendship saying you don't
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: want this. I'm trying to help you stop yourself from
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: being in a bad position. And then Mike Rogers started
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: fucking talking. And then the other guy was like, I
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: got to get this guy to be quiet. And then
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: it was just hand on the mouth.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: And the interesting backstory there on Rogers is that he,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: so he's slated to become chair of the armed services committee.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Sure is. Where Gates also serves and reportedly got an
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: offer from McCarthy or leadership to chair a subcommittee in
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: armed services if he agreed to vote present for McCarthy.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: And Rogers didn't like that concession very much because Rogers
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: thinks there were other people who deserved to be chair
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: of that subcommittee, whatever it is, over Matt Gaetz, which
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: is probably all the people.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that's the thing.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: I think they both are currently on the committee. And
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: the closer you get to Matt Gaetz, the more you
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: understand how far he should be from chairing a committee.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: There is a moment where you can see Matt Gaetz
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: mouthing the word committee at either McCarthy or one of
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: his goons. So that's why there's been this speculation. Although
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: then McCarthy says nothing was promised.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: But two things.
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: One, he's a liar.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: That's important. And two, that's how we got this job.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: A lot of this is a wink and a nod.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: Even as we're recording this, we know some of the
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: kind of changes to McCarthy's positions he took between Thursday
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: and Friday. But we don't totally understand what those final
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: few concessions were to get those.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Six goobers to the present votes. Yeah, we should all
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: try to be a little more present. But Richard Hudson,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: the congressman, John, UNC grad, elected student body president, president
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: of the College Republicans, staffer for elected officials, and his
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: wife was Kellyanne Conway's chief of staff. I took when
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: you said in the prep, what do we know about
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: this guy? I took you literally.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: You know what? That was educational. I literally had never
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: heard of his name before. No, I didn't either.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: I was hoping he was like a wrestler or something fun.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: No. Well, Lovett, you said we don't know exactly what happened.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: When we recorded Thursday's pod, McCarthy had already made just
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: about every concession possible and still didn't have the votes.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: What changed between Thursday and Friday night? What do we
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: know about what changed? I don't think we know. I
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: think you're I don't think we know everything.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: I don't think we know everything.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: I believe it is between Thursday and Friday that he
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: finally conceded and went from five to one votes to
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: get the.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. To get the no confidence vote.
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: We didn't.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we didn't know that.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: But we didn't know that.
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: Do we know that it switched from five to one
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: before you recorded?
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. Here's what we knew. We knew that
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: all these concessions were floated. We knew that Chip Roy
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: and about 14 of the 21 holdouts might move based
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: on these concessions, but they hadn't yet.
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: And then I said to Dan during the recording, oh,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Matt Gates just said. either Kevin McCarthy's going to have
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: to withdraw from the race or live the entirety of
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: his speakership in a straitjacket based on the rules we're
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: working on right now, which was a hint that maybe
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Matt Gaetz was coming around.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: And then Kevin McCarthy just went running up to Matt
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: Gaetz and was like, tie me up, baby.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: I'm in. I want this title. Here's what we know.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy, he's the new LPJ. He's the master of
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: the Congress. I mean, what I think happened is we
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: started to read, thanks to all the leaks— all these
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: rule changes that were going to be put in place.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: And then Thursday night, I think they went through them
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: all night and he probably got them on paper and
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: locked everybody down because the next day, Friday is when
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: he flipped those 14 Republican votes. Uh, and then he
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: went after those are the people that really wanted substantive changes.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: The Roy chips, the chip Roy.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: Your chips, right.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Your chips, right.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: The, uh, yeah.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: And they, so the moving away from the other ones are, uh,
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: they don't want to do anymore.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: It's great. I think keep going.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: Uh, they don't want to do the omnibus. They, the Republican,
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: these Republicans hate these big ominous bills. They feel like
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: they have to vote for, so they want individual spending
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: bills from each of the committees. They want the debt ceiling, uh,
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: tied to, uh, spending cuts.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Those are some of the big ones.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And then once he got the 14, that put
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of, and this was McCarthy's plan, which worked out.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: This put a lot of pressure on the six original
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: never Kevins because now you had all these switches. And
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: so now what are they going to do? And apparently
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: they had worked out a plan or they had discussed
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: a plan, the six never Kevins, because none of them
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: wanted to actually vote for McCarthy because they've all gone on,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: like Gates said, I'd rather be waterboarded than vote for McCarthy.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: They went way too far. So they said, all right,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: none of us are going to vote for him. If
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: we all vote present, then we won't have to vote
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: for him, but he can still get it and whatever.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: But apparently that plan hadn't been like firmed up when
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: they did the 14th ballot. So Gates was like, suddenly
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: needed they needed a yes vote from gates and not
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: a present vote to actually get mccarthy speaker because of
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: some absences and gates is like fuck no i'm not
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: going to be the one to do it he.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Goes president and everybody claps and cheers thinking it's over
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: but none of them know how to count votes except
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: for mccarthy he was sprinting over to matt gates is
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: like what's your problem man but i mean matt gates
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: he's such a smug prick he said on the record
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: i ran out of things i could even imagine to
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: ask for which is obnoxious but also true and i
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: think they were all looking for a way to just
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: climb down Yeah.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: No, I mean, he was effusive towards the end there.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: He could never vote yes because he said he was
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: never Kevin and he stuck with that. But there was
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: that moment where basically they realized they need one of
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: these six to flip to yes. And they were all
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: just gathered around Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Just like, just.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: The whole apparatus of the fucking Congress gathered around two
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: of the most disgusting human beings in public life.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: MTG's got Donald Trump on the phone just throwing it
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: at people.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say, because he's a messy
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: bitch who loves drama, Donald Trump was involved.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: He's watching. He's watching.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: Also, by the way, do you know how fucked up
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: and stupid and deranged you are that MTG is rebranding
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: as a sane person based on your misadventures? She's walking
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: around being like, guys, I think this has gotten out
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: of hand. Isn't it a shame we can't come together
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: and govern? I've got Donald Trump on the phone.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: He'd love to help. I think she's bummed. I think
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: she wanted to be part of the insurrection. She kind
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: of missed out.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Lauren Morbert was like, I'm taking that spotlight now. Yeah, no,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: there's a great picture of MTG holding her phone that
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: says DT on it. And she's trying to give the
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: phone to Matt Rosendale, who's one of the Never Kevins.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: And he basically was like, get away, get away. Don't
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: put me in that position. Don't do that to me.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: I can't talk to him.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: Didn't he say, like, don't do me like that?
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: I think he did.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: So Trump, I guess, talked to Biggs, Andy Biggs from Arizona,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: who originally ran against McCarthy, and talked to Gates and
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: told them to knock the shit off. Basically, you're making
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: me look bad.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: The thing is, there's a lot of, like, there's a
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: lot of, uh you know uh uh victory has a
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: thousand parents but uh in the days leading up to
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: it you know mccarthy is now going on television be
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: like i want to thank my friend donald trump who
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: helped get me all the way there donald trump knows
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: how to support somebody if he really wants to He
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: was going on true social saying like, hey guys, maybe
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: Kevin will be good.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: I say give him a shot, but I'm not crazy
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: about it.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: He couldn't have been more predictable in all this.
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: It was perfect.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: He did just enough to get himself in the stories.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, at first he refused to come out in
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: support of Kevin. Then the vote happened. Then he did
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: this sort of tepid, true thing. But you even had
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: reps like Ralph Norman saying, like, I disagree with Trump.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: This is not his fight. This is our fight with McCarthy.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: They were not scared of Trump.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Boebert said that, too.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Which was impressive. And then as soon as it became
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: clear McCarthy was going to win, Trump gets into gear.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: He starts calling people. Right. But like Hakeem Jeffries becomes speaker.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Trump's going to find a way to take credit. I mean,
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: this is laughable, laughable nonsense. I did love his tweet, though.
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: Sorry, it's truth.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: I greatly helped Kevin McCarthy attain the position of Speaker
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: of the House. I did our country a big favor.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you did.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Subtle.
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you did.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: So now that the House has a Speaker, they also
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: are voting any minute now, as we record on Monday afternoon,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: on a new set of rules for the chamber that
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: will empower the most extreme Republicans. Love it. You mentioned
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: a few. What are some of the most consequential here
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: that we're all going to have to live with?
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: The most important is the debt ceiling, that they have
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: secured a promise that there won't be a vote on
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: lifting the debt ceiling without spending cuts. Those are a
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: non-starter for the White House and for the Democratic Senate.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: So that sets off some kind of standoff over the
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: debt ceiling.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: That is by far the biggest issue to come.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: Beyond that, the fact that there are three Republicans on
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: the Rules Committee, which is a- Three Freedom Caucus. I'm sorry,
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: three Freedom Caucus members as part of the Republican majority
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: on the Rules Committee means those three members have veto
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: over what comes out of that committee.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: That's going to be a very big deal.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: We should say why that is.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: It's bigger than that, yeah. I mean, the Rules Committee
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: in the House sets the terms and conditions of debate
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: on any bill that goes forward. I think the normal
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: process is, like, the Judiciary Committee votes on a bill,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: and then it goes to the Rules Committee, and then
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: they structure how it's handled on the open floor. So
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: there's just, like, enormous power. It used to be called
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: the Speaker's Committee because that was how the Speaker controlled
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: the floor. Kevin has just handed over the keys now.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: And basically... Because they have, there's nine members in the
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Rules Committee. Freedom Caucus gets three. Democrats have four. So
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: now there's only two non-Freedom Caucus members that are Republicans
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: on the committee. So basically, the Freedom Caucus, by joining
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: with the Democrats, who are going to probably oppose most
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: things that Republicans want to do in that Rules Committee anyway,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: can effectively stop any bill or any amendment from coming
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: to the floor that they do not like. They can't
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: necessarily put anything on the floor they like because they
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: would need a majority on the committee and Democrats might
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: not want to give them that. But they can kill
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: just about everything.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: And by the same token, if the non-Freedom Caucus members
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: want to get something onto the floor that the Freedom
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: Caucus does not want, they will need Democrats.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: And Democrats will play ball, as we always do. We
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: love playing ball.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: So process-wise, it sounds really complicated, maybe boring, but it
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: is extremely consequential. And then I think that sort of
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: dovetails with the debt ceiling promise, too, because you can
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: make a promise, whatever. But now, the only way to
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: pass a clean debt ceiling hike is by either McCarthy
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: agreeing to it, which... Now he will not do.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Well, now he, as of today, says he will not do.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: The one criticism that is correct by these Freedom Caucus
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: members is that McCarthy says things that aren't true and
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: changes his mind and changes position all the time.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Well, and now they have a mechanism to hold him
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: accountable because if he chooses to try to do this,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: they can immediately try to remove him with just one
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: person calling for a vote. So McCarthy's sort of hamstrung there.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: There is, we've talked about this briefly before, there's a
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: discharge petition, which basically... every Democrat, if a bill has
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: been stuck in the Rules Committee for more than 30 days,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: you can file a discharge petition with a majority of
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: the members of the House, meaning like every Democrat and
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: now just four Republicans could file a discharge petition, and
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: then after 30 days would get that out of the
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: committee if it's been stuck there. So they can do that,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: but that's a very long and complicated process that doesn't
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: necessarily always work just because it requires a lot of
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: coordination and as we said before, those House Republicans that
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: agree to join the Democrats on that could very well
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: face primary challenges, though already Brian Fitzpatrick was a more
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: moderate Republican. A House member from Pennsylvania has said he
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: will do that if it comes to that.
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: So you basically have a situation where Republicans try to
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: do brinksmanship of the debt ceiling. Democrats have already said
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: in the Senate, Democrats and the Biden administration have said
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: that's a non-starter.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: That fails. Then you try to get a clean bill through.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: That fails.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: Then barring that, you have to go to this discharge position.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: It is high risk, not just because it is a
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: difficult thing to coordinate. If it fails, you don't get
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: to do it again. Like you get one shot at
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: this discharge position on this issue.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: The whole house has to vote.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Sort of like the Armageddon movie.
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: Well, right.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: And so basically. So who's drilling and who's inserting?
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: You just get one shot and then that's.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: This got a little sexual, the way it sounded to me.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: So discharge position.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: And so just how it's sounding. But so, because what
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: could happen is you could end up- It.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Doesn't matter how you start. It matters how we finish.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Kevin. That was- In the words of Kevin McCarthy. It
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: was terrible.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: How do you finish for the American people?
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: I'm scared of where this is going. Go back to
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: your substance, nerd.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: The point is, the point is, a discharge position is
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: two votes. The first is one to say, let's vote
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: on this on the floor. The second is to actually
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: pass it. If the second one fails, you've lost your
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: ability to have a vote, a clean vote in the House.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: And so now then you go to, I think, some really,
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: really untested fail-safes. One is, and it's back, the Treasury
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: Department making a trillion-dollar coin, which the Biden administration has
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: already said they won't do. And then there's the other
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: outside move, which is saying the 14th Amendment says we
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: have to pay all.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: These bills, so we're just going to pay them.
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Not good.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: None of them are good. All the spending stuff is bad.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: He also agreed to unlimited amendments on spending bills, which
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: means you could basically filibuster House spending bills now just
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: sort of de facto by putting random amendments on them.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: And also that McCarthy said that any increase in debt
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: ceiling will be accompanied by cuts to federal spending and
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: that discretionary spending will be capped at FY 2022 level,
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: so this year's level, which is like $ 130 billion cut,
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: which is not really doable. So they'll probably get into
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: defense spending cuts too if they actually go through with this.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: So In a sense, Kevin McCarthy handed his caucus a
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: whole bunch of really, really bad votes coming down the pike.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say, yeah, all of this
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: is going to be horrific for the country, particularly if
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: we breach the debt ceiling. It could cause an economic
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: catastrophe that's much worse than just a regular recession. But
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: just to talk about the politics for a second, because
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: what the Freedom Caucus demanded was so extreme, right, which
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: is not just like, some cuts accompanying the debt ceiling hike,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: like they want to vote on a balanced budget amendment.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: It's just impossible in 10 years.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Which means that anything you would do, any kind of
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: vote you would take to get the necessary cuts to
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: abide by their craziness would gut Medicare and Social Security
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: and Medicaid. So basically, these people are going to go
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: in the next year, Republicans are going to say, if
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: you don't let us gut Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: we will blow up the global economy. That's going to
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: be their position. Not popular.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: And I'll tell you, it's not popular.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: And it's why you're already seeing I will not ever
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: call them moderate Republicans. They're not moderate Republicans, but they're
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: Republicans that have been around longer than these people are
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: starting to say things like we have ways around this.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: And also, wait, isn't the debt ceiling just cashing checks.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: We've already written?
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: It is.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: And so I do think a lot of this is
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: going to be about how much are these Freedom Caucus
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: members daring Republicans from swing districts or Biden districts to
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: just say, I'm sorry, but I'm voting with the Democrats
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: to get things done.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: But there will be a confrontation over this. And I
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: do think the discharge petition could work for the debt
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: ceiling because it's just a clean bill. It seems like
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: to avoid a government shutdown, it can't work because a
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: lot of those bills to fund the government don't come
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: up and they're not finished until right before the government's
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: about to shut down and the discharge petition takes 30 days.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: So on that one, we're headed towards a shutdown at some.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: Point in the fall. Yeah, as I was sort of
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: looking through the deal... What I found myself thinking is,
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: all right, there are some exit ramps on the debt ceiling.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Let's hope we use one. Let's hope that works.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: But man, are we hurtling towards some kind of government shutdown,
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: partial government shutdowns. That's going to be the cycle.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: It's going to be people's social security. I mean, it's
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: going to be, it's the mess. Bad shit. House Republicans
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: can't really pass any legislation because the Senate Democrats can
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: kill any crazy shit that they send over. The only
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: power they have is to do three things, two of
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: which we talked about. Blow up the global economy by
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: breaching the debt ceiling, shutting down the government if they
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: refuse to fund it. And then the third thing is
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: they're really excited about their investigations that they got teed up.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Super pumped.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: So New York Times reports that incoming Judiciary Committee Chairman
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Jim Jordan has that. That's fun. He was also going
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: to chair a special subcommittee called to investigate the Department
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: of Justice, the FBI, the intelligence agencies, and will demand
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: access to open investigations. by the Justice Department and classified intelligence.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: What do you do about this if you're the White
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: House or Democrats in Congress and you start in the
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: you're the you're the DOJ and you get asked for
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: information about an ongoing investigation?
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: They're going to say no. Absolutely not. And they're going
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: to cite precedent going back decades. And I don't know
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: that they will yield on that. And I'm not really
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: sure what Jim Jordan thinks he can do about it.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: You know, there is a Judiciary Committee. They do oversight
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: over the Department of Justice. There is an Intelligence Committee
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: that does intel oversight. This is just sort of a special,
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: they're calling it a Church Committee 2.0. The Church Committee
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: investigated real abuses by the intelligence community, things like MKUltra,
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: where Americans were given acid to see if it was
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: a truth serum, like the surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr., etc.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: It led to the creation of the intelligence oversight committees.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: This proposal is just payback for people investigating Donald Trump.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: That's all it is.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: It's also the House rules package doesn't fundamentally alter the
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: relationship between Congress and the administration.
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: It's not a law.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: No.
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: It's not a.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: It's a sop to Jim Jordan. It's their internal rules.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: It's something that McCarthy has promised Jim Jordan. It doesn't
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: suddenly require the DOJ... to uh uh behave in a
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: different way and.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: The biden people have signaled like we will go along
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: with legitimate oversight and we will not go along with
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: stuff like this and they're basically saying that.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: I i they're going to take all this this is
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: all going to be fought out in court and i
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: think that the biden administration probably feels very confident that
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: they'll they'll prevail and by the way i think that
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: kevin mccarthy when he gave jordan the concession probably probably
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: wasn't didn't think it was much of a concession it's
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: like you know what he wants to go tell the
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: the the the base that he did this. He wants
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: to go on TV, make a bunch of noise. And
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: then when the Biden administration rejects the subpoenas, they can
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: call them lawless and go on Fox and have a
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: great time.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: And I'd also point out that Jim Jordan has in
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: the past shown that he doesn't actually believe congressional subpoenas
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: carry much weight because he is currently or he just
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: was in defiance of one. The one thing that I
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: did appreciate that that the White House was basically, you know,
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: Jordan and some other Republicans put in a bunch of
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: requests to uh, uh, last year and basically said like
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: new Congress clock starts again, which really, I think pissed
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: them off.
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: Uh, but those were also requests from individual members, not
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: like through the committee. So I think they're, they're going
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: to slow roll them and they're going to push them
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: back and they're going to participate in legitimate inquiry while
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: at the same time trying to, but recognizing even, even
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: though they may have the, the, the power of the gavel,
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: these are not going to be on the level investigation.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: That's fun.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: No, I think what you're, you're selling is that the
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: the Jordan, the Jim Jordan types put in their oversight
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: requests too early and the Biden folks were like, oh, sorry,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: counting you guys not yet. Come back, call us next year.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, it's going to be a circus, but,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: and I think they'll, will they find a Trump judge
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: or two who's like, you know, Eileen Cannon in the
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Trump investigation matter who just like goes with them? Yeah, maybe.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: But like, I think even the, even the, you know,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: the appeal, the more conservative appeals courts in the Supreme
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Court have shown that on some of these requests by
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Trump or Trumpy people, they're like, no, you're not going
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: to do this.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: And they all lean towards the executive branch having unchecked power. Right.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: That's their safe space. All right. So one of the
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: big investigations Republicans have promised is into Joe Biden's handling
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: of immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, which he just visited
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: in El Paso on Sunday for the first time as president.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: In the last year, more migrants have been apprehended trying
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: to cross the border illegally than at any time since 1960.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: The White House just laid out a new enforcement plan
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: It would, on one hand, allow more migrants from more
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: countries to apply for a two-year work permit in the U.S.,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: but it would also require asylum seekers to book an
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: appointment for their claim to be heard before they arrive here,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: which means they will no longer be able to just
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: show up at the border and apply or stay in
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: the U.S. while they wait for a court date. Republicans
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: attacked the plan, and the visit is too little too late.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: No surprise there. But some immigration activists called it a
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: humanitarian disgrace. So, Win-win for Joe Biden. Tommy, what do
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: you think of the trip and the plan, which seemed
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: to have hit the sweet spot of satisfying no one?
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: No one.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Let's do the trip first. I mean, I think the
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: debate around whether Joe Biden should go, like, himself look
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: at the border really reminded me of when Republicans used
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: to say, Barack Obama won't say radical Islamic terrorism. That
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: became their one-stop sort of catch-all attack on him for
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: dealing with terrorism. And it made a complicated problem sound
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: simple and rhetorical. Eventually, we used those words to try
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: to move the debate forward. Spoiler alert, it did not.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: But I do think I think Biden is in a
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: similar spot where he knows just visiting the border changes nothing. Maybe, though,
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: this will change the conversation, take away a Republican talking point.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: We'll see. Already, it seems like what is happening is
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Republicans are saying you went to the border, but you
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: didn't actually see actual migrants. Yeah, you don't go to
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: the border. You're refusing to go to the border.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: You go to the border.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: It's a photo op.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, under what circumstance would Joe Biden have gone
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: to the border and the Republicans would have said, bravo, Mr. President,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: you did it?
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: Never, never.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: So what do you think about the plan, since that's
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: more substantive than just the border visit?
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think there is a real challenge at
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: the border. More and more people are coming. It's left
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: border communities on both sides of the U.S. and Mexico
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: border overwhelmed and unable to provide food and housing and
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: services anymore. for the people who need them. It also
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: has left our immigration system overwhelmed. Immigration courts have backlogs
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: that are years and years long. So Biden is trying
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: to address this big, multifaceted, complicated problem piece by piece.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: And a lot of the recent migration is migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti,
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: and Nicaragua. So these are countries where there's a really
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: challenging humanitarian situation and a political asylum case to be
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: made because there's repressive leaders. They're saying like, okay, we're
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: creating this humanitarian parole program where 30,000 migrants from each
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: of these countries can come. If you have a sponsor,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: you can buy a plane ticket, pass a background check,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: et cetera. But at the same time, they're increasing penalties
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: for people who go try to seek asylum from those
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: countries through Mexico. So the idea is address this very
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: legitimate asylum need, but also do so in a way
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: that disincentivize migrants. people paying smugglers to get to the
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: border or just going through Mexico on your own. I
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: think it's a flawed approach in a lot of different ways.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: But I think that the Biden team's position is basically
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: this is a decade old problem. Congress will not do
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: anything to solve it. This is what we can do.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: So we're going to try to like bite at this
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: piece by piece by going after these countries first. Longer term,
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: like the only way to stop migration from Venezuela is
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: to help the humanitarian situation in Venezuela. But we have a,
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: there's a lot we can do to help there, but
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: we obviously can't fix it as a country. So I think,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: you know, it's a start. I don't love the use
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: of Title 42. I don't love the way remain in
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: Mexico has gone from a Trump policy to a Biden policy.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: I don't love sort of how asylum has gotten completely
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: changed over the last five or six years.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's, I think that like the contradiction between I
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: think at the core of this is that the Biden
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: administration is using Title 42 to implement a policy in
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: part to deter people from doing something extremely dangerous, which
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: is seeking something they're allowed to seek, which is asylum.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: But at the same time as they're using Title 42,
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: they're also in court trying to get rid of Title 42,
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: which I think highlights the kind of catch-22 that they're in.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: Because the current policy is not humane. People sleeping on
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: the streets in El Paso These years long backlogs, the
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: lack of resources, the border being overwhelmed. We are in
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: an inhumane situation. So like the advocates, I think, are
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: right when they point out that people have a right
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: to seek asylum. They shouldn't need to be able to
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: afford a plane ticket and have somewhere to go. But
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: then the Biden administration says, hey, we put something like
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: this in place for Venezuela and it did stop the
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: number of people by 70 percent. trying to get in
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: the country in a dangerous way without permission.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Venezuela piece of this was basically a pilot
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: program back in October, and now they're extending it to Haiti, Cuba.
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: And Nicaragua.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: And one of the reasons they're extending it is because
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: it worked, the pilot program, in the sense that it
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: has been an effective deterrent, and then it reduced illegal
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: border crossing by 70% from Venezuela. No, but the problem is,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: and the humanitarian advocates aren't just correct from a humanitarian perspective.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: on about asylum, but potentially from a legal perspective as well.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's a big problem.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: And obviously it's international law that we have agreed to
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: abide by, but it's also Congress has made it fairly
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: clear that you can come and apply for asylum whether
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: you show up at a port of entry or anywhere else, right?
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: And so the Biden administration saying that you can only
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: do it from home is for sure intended to make
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: the process more orderly and fair, but... If the law
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: is you can show up and do it anyway, like,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know. And the Ninth Circuit basically said to
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration, like, yeah, you can't force people to
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: apply somewhere else. Like, they can apply for asylum if
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: they get here. So I don't know that this new
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: plan would actually survive court challenges.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: This plan may not survive in court. Title 42 won't survive,
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: may not survive for that much longer. There's also a
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: piece of this, which is the Biden administration saying, But
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: if you've moved through another country where you did not
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: seek asylum, you can't seek asylum here.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Which, yeah, the idea there is if you leave Venezuela,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: you go through Mexico. Why didn't you apply for asylum
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: in Mexico? Why did you come all the way to
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: the United States? Right. Is the question there. And look,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: all of this is it's what you said, Tommy. Like
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: this is maybe the best of a lot of bad options.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: facing the Biden administration, because the only way this gets
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: fixed is with new laws. Those are off the table
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: because we just talked about how Republicans aren't going to
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: let the government stay open and may breach the debt ceiling.
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: So they can't even get that done. They're not going
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: to get immigration done. So barring that, if you're the
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Biden administration, you only have so many options and so
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: many resources.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: And I think another piece of this, though, for Biden,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: especially with Venezuela and Cuba, is more in the classical
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: foreign policy bucket, which is our policy towards Venezuela has
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: been to sanction the shit out of them and recognize
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: a guy who is an opposition leader as the president
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: for the last six years. That has completely failed. We
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: need to rethink these sanctions regimes we have in place
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: that are crippling the economies of these countries and then
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: wondering why people are leaving them and trying to seek
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: safety elsewhere. Now, I'm not saying the United States is
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: the entire reason that the Venezuelan economy has collapsed. Maduro
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: is very much in charge and responsible for governance of
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: his own country.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: But U.S.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Sanctions have failed. The policy of recognizing Juan Guaido, this
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: opposition leader as the president, has failed. And we need
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: to move on from that and just rethink these policies,
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: I think, whole cloth.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: There are all these like larger structural problems that contribute
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: to the migration challenges that we face. There are past
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: and present foreign policies. There is climate change is going
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: to create more refugees all over the world than ever
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: before and is continuing to do so. There's violence in
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: all these countries, right? So you got to solve all that.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: In the immediate term, there's people showing up in El
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: Paso and they have converted their convention center to a shelter.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: And you have these cities all along the border and
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: increasingly cities all throughout the United States that just don't
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: have the resources to care for migrants who show up
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: in a humane way, even when they want to. And
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: that's a real challenge for cities, for border communities, for states,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: like all over the place. And you've got to do
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: something about it. Yes.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: I do think that's where, like, similar to that moment
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: when the speaker vote was failing and you had Biden
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: with McConnell. on a bridge showing the success of bipartisanship
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: into this kind of thorny, very difficult, impossible to win
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: issue with a lot of incredible pain and immiseration. Like
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: Biden says that extreme Republicans are going to use it
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: as an issue, but they have a choice. They can
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: keep using immigration to try to score political points or
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: they can help solve the problem and come together to
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: fix the broken system. So he's going down there and
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: he's putting himself on the side of, I would like
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: to work on this issue with Congress. Comprehensive immigration reform
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: is obviously almost certainly off the table. given the makeup
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: of this Congress, as you said, do I think it
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: is inconceivable? They can't find ways to address this in
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: a smaller way, in some way through Congress. I don't
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: think it is impossible. I think he has to put
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: himself on the side of trying and then leave it
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: to these extreme Republicans to kill it. And I don't know, politically,
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: I don't know what else he would be able to do.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: I think they'll try, but you know, you have the
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: acute near-term problem. You have the long-term structural problems. And
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: I think you have a Republican party that doesn't want
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: the problem solved. That's why we focus on the wall.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: That's why we focus on the border visit. And frankly,
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: we have a country that's a lot less welcoming to
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: immigration than I think all of us would would want
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: it to be.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Well, even yes. And to your point, cinema and Kirsten
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: cinema and Cornyn tried something narrow to add it to
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: the omnibus at the end of the end of last year.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: And Republicans killed it because you're right. Like Tommy said,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: there's a Republican party that doesn't want this problem.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: Any part of it wouldn't get through DACA when they
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: had Donald Trump telling them they wanted it.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: And just, you know, the last major immigration reform is 1986.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: George W. Bush tried this. It got through the House.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: Republicans killed it in the Senate. Obama tried to get
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: something through. Republicans blocked it in the House. We have
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: been kind of in this debate. And what happened in
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: both The Bush administration and the Obama administration is Democrats
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: and both administrations compromised and pushed forward a ton of
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: enforcement provisions, a ton of security procedures. And then the
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: hardliners dismiss it as amnesty and things just keep getting.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Worse and worse and worse. But to your point, Tommy,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: about attitudes in the country, we haven't talked about the
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: politics really yet. The percentage of people who say that
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: increasing security along the U.S.-Mexico border to reduce illegal crossings quote,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: should be an important goal has risen to 73% from
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: 68% three years ago. This is according to a recent
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Pew poll. It's just cited in the New York Times.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: The increase is largely driven by Democrats, 59% today versus
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: 49% then. Now, lest everyone think that like suddenly all
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Democrats and Americans became very resistant to immigration in general.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: When you ask questions about like, should people who are here,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: undocumented people here be given a path to citizenship? or
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: you ask about DACA, you ask about children who are here,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: the percentage of people who want to welcome those people
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: and want to give immigrants a path to citizenship is
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: quite high, in fact, a majority. But there is a
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: difference in politics in how we should handle people who
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: are already here, who are undocumented, and what we should
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: do about people who are coming over the border now.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: And part of that difference, the disparity, is people thinking,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: and a lot of immigrants who are here, people who
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: came here, and have since been naturalized think this too.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: They think, okay, I came here, I stood in line,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: I did everything right, or I know people who have
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: been here for years and still don't have citizenship, even
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: though they're doing everything right, and yet someone comes over
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: the border right now and they get to stay here.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: And so there's this feeling of this fairness where the
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: attitudes in general in the country become more generous to
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: people who are here, who want to be here, and
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: more worried about border security and people coming over here now.
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: And I do think that sort of ties together a
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: kind of political necessity and a practical necessity. And it
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: is why I think the democratic high level messaging on
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: this issue has not changed in basically 20 years, which
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: is we are a nation of immigrants. We are a
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: nation of laws. We need to secure the border and
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: have border enforcement while at the same time welcoming and
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: opening our doors to people seeking a better life in America.
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: Like you could that message has been the same for
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: a very long time, both because I think politically, the
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: only way you get to that generous and welcoming and
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: progressive solution is by reassuring people that once you've created
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: that more generous and progressive set of immigration policies, that
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: the border and the laws will be enforced because you
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: have created incentive for people who want to come here.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: And it's political, but it's also just like a practical thing, right?
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Which is, you know, you can, we can, we can
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: allow a lot more migrants and refugees and asylum seekers
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: into this country, but we can't do it if we're
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: not going to have an orderly process for it. We
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: can't just have people streaming through here because then it
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: puts too much of a burden on cities.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: And it turns people against the openness and the progressive
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: outcomes that we want.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: And it's not humane to the migrants.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: It's not.
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: The one area I do think that the Biden administration
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: has not sort of hit its goals is refugee policy.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: They've set caps for allowing refugees in, I think, like
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: well over 100,000. I think we, you know, last year
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: we maybe got to 17,000 people actually got in. So
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: I think could be a little more work done there. Uh,
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: obviously this all got very complicated with the war in Ukraine.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: I think there's a lot that could be said about, uh,
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: the way Ukrainian refugees were welcomed compared to refugees from
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: other countries who are black and Brown in many cases,
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: the way Afghan refugees were, were not, uh, welcomed in
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: a lot of cases. So like, it's still not being welcomed.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: Yes. That's a whole other conversation.
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: And just the fact that like Even with, you know,
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden is going to Texas. He's greeting Governor Abbott
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: when he arrives and has handed in the letter. And
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: then Abbott goes intelligent and doesn't just say that Joe
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: Biden has failed, that Joe Biden can't succeed. He will
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: never succeed. Because the point you made, this is an
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: annuity to them. Yeah, he wants to run on this.
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: When they can't talk about inflation, when it's not working
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: to talk about critical race theory to fund the police,
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: this is their political fund. This is what they go
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: back to again and again and again. The migrant caravan...
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: Coverage will start as we head into the fall and
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: it will continue.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: And look, there's a right wing media ecosystem and infrastructure
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: that wants to talk about only this. I tuned into
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: my guy Ben Shapiro today on the way into the office.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: He skipped over the speaker debate, said he didn't care.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: It didn't matter who got the speaker job. He skipped
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: other some other big hot button news story and went
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: right to immigration because that's all the conservatives want to
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: talk about.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. This is a great episode, Ben. We will hear
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: this quite a bit over the next two years as
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: we head into 2024, hear about immigration. Okay, when we
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: come back, Lovett and I talk to Congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Joining us now is the new representative from Florida's 10th
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: District in Orlando, the first Gen Z member of Congress,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Maxwell Alejandro Frost, Congressman, welcome to Pod Save America.
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: Hey, thanks for having me on.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: You called your first week in Congress a shit show,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: which seems like a fair and even charitable description. What
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: was going through your mind during all those votes for Speaker?
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, it changed every day. But like when
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: we were in the chamber at like midnight, doing those votes,
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: it was a little bit more exciting, obviously, and also
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: depressing when you think about, you know, this is the
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: body making decisions for our country, and there's a physical
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: altercation going on on the other side of the aisle.
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: I was just thinking about this the other day, that
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: I would get a lot of calls from family and
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: friends saying, what's with the chaos? It must be crazy.
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: And it is, right? What was going on? But for me,
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: I would, like, give my, I'd say Jeffries, when they'd
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: say Frost and then I'd be free for that. That's
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: why other people said, you know, you know, voted. So
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: there wasn't a lot of like physical chaos per se.
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: But but it was also chaotic. So it was interesting
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: kind of squaring the two, you know.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: How close were you?
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: What kind of what kind of angle did you get
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: on the part in the moment when somebody Mike Rogers, Mike,
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: Mike Rogers? Well, no, but when somebody put their face.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: It's tough when someone uses their hand on your mouth
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: to pull you away from an altercation.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: Could you see it? How close were you?
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: I did see it. I was on the other side
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: of the aisle. I was sitting with a bunch of freshmen.
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: We were all sitting together. And I did see it happen.
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: I'm surprised they didn't get in a fight because, I mean,
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: if someone puts their finger in my mouth, you know,
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: on the house floor, I don't know, you know. It's
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: not good. No, I saw what happened. I mean, it
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: was wild. You know, I was getting a lot of texts,
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: people saying, I had one of my friends, Second, he said,
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: go over there. I was like, I'm not going over there.
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: I'm going to sit right here, you know, but just
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: pretty wild.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: It's a go over there. Who are you on?
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: I think that was the wise move. Did you have
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: any fun or weird or terrifying conversations while you're on
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: the floor? Like a lot of people talked about there
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: was AOC talking to Paul Gosar at one point. Did
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: you have anything like that?
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: Not necessarily. You know, I kind of I kind of,
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: you know, did my vote and I took the opportunity
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: to speak with a lot of other members and make
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: some good relationships. Um, but I did not really go
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: and have some like interesting wild conversations with, with people
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: on the other side. I thought about going over and
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: saying hi to some of the Republican members from Florida
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: who were kind of part of that group at the
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: beginning and just kind of seeing what's up. Uh, but
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: I decided to kind of let the process play out and,
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: you know, maybe introduce myself at another time. The funny
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: thing is a lot of people in Florida have been
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: asking for a freshman photo, like a bipartisan photo. And
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: I was talking with Jared Mosfowitz, um, that night at
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: like midnight, I was like, maybe tonight's the night to,
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: pull everybody together. But there was a fight anyways, so
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: we didn't do it.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: All right. So you've gotten quite a bit of coverage
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: as the first Gen Z member of Congress. I've seen
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: a bunch of profiles. How are you handling all the attention?
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, I it's been a lot. It's been
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: different for me. I'm used to being on the staff
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: side and, you know, working on campaigns and everything. But
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: I've really taken this opportunity to talk about, like, what's
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: going on in Florida, what's going on locally, talk about
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: the anxieties and hopes and dreams of young people and
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: at least young folks who, like, agree with me on
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: a lot of issues and really think about it that way.
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: But I think it's important to, like, really stay grounded
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: in the district, in home, right? Because those are the
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: folks that sent me here. And so I'm always careful
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: to not, you know, appear at, like, you know, celebrity
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: culture is real and celebrity culture in our politics is
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: also real. And sometimes... It's okay to admire people, but
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: it gets to a point where we feel like there's
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: this one politician that's going to save us all. And
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: this is how our system works, right? It's not meant
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: for one person to be able to do it all.
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: We need a movement inside and outside the halls of Congress.
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: So it's always exciting, but I always like to tell
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: people it's going to take all of us. It's not
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: the Maxwell Frost show. It really is going to take
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: a lot more folks who think alike so we can
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: pass real legislation that's going to have transformational change for
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: people across the country.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: Pretty tough shot at Chris Coons.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: What do you think older generations misunderstand most when it
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: comes to your generation's view of politics?
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, a message I get a lot, and
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: this is no flag to anyone who has sent this
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: message to me or said it because it really means
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: a lot. I get where people are coming from. But
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: something we hear a lot of is the young people
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: will save us. And I get where that comes from. But,
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: you know, I think like young folk, we're not looking
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: to like save everyone. We just want to be a part, right?
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: We want to be a part of it. We want
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: to be heard. And it shouldn't just be up, you know,
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: up to young people to save everyone, right? We need
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: a multiracial, multigenerational movement, all of us working together for
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: a better world, seven generations in the future. And so
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: that's something I think that's sometimes misunderstood. We want to
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: be a part of the conversation. We want to be
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: centered at points, but we don't want to be the
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: lone people working to, you know, fix these problems that
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: have been around for generations. So I'd say that that's
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: something I'd say. And again, it's not to offend anyone
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: who said that, because I understand where people are coming from.
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: But I think it's important that we all see ourselves
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: as a part of the solution and not just like
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: young people.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: So you are Gen Z, we are millennials.
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: Now, a lot of people had hoped that the turnout
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: that we would learn from the turnout that Gen Z
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: had really helped make the difference. And Gen Z did
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: turn out but actually not to the same extent that
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: millennials turned out to help prevent there from being a
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: red wave. What can you do to learn from us
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: as millennials, as your elders, as the previous generation? How
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: do we inspire you? How do we help you succeed?
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: How do we inspire you?
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: How do we inspire you? This is a great question.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: A lot of the... No, no, but to be like,
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: you know, I've been looking at a lot of the
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: numbers and I think, you know, I think a lot
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: of times folks are expecting because of like what we
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: see on the news for Gen Z member of Congress,
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: March for Lives, etc. Like Gen Z to come out
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: and outvote everybody. And what we know to be true
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: is since the beginning of our country, the youth vote,
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: especially like the younger people, 18 through 25, have always
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: been really the smallest piece of the pie. Right. And
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: that's for many different reasons. There's a lot of institutional
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: barriers to voting. Voting is seen as an extracurricular for
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: a lot of young people. It's not built into schooling
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: the way it should be. It comes at a time
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: when you're 18 years old where you're applying to college,
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: you're falling in love. All this stuff is happening, which
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: is a great argument for lowering the voting age for
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: a lot of municipal elections. So it's more of a habit.
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: But all that being said, Gen Z can make up
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: a portion of the vote that can really tip of
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: these elections, right? It's not always the biggest voting block
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: that is, you know, if the normal people turn out normally, right?
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: You're looking for these blocks that you can turn out
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: that might not be the biggest slice, but in these
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: neck and neck races can mean the difference. That's what
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: happened to Georgia with Senator Warnock both times. We've seen
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: this happen in different races across the country. So, and
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: when you look at the numbers, Gen Z at our
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: current age, We're voting at higher numbers than any other
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: generation has ever done at this current age right now.
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: And I think it's important to look at that because
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: it gives me a lot of hope. I'm not trying
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: to pit generations against each other.
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: I am.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he is.
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: It shows me we're going in the right direction. And hey,
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: half of Gen Z can't even vote yet. The youngest
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: Gen Zer is like 12 years old. So I think
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: we have a good opportunity here. I think we're trending
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: in the right direction. There's still a lot of work
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: to be done, but people shouldn't say, oh, young people
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: aren't voting. We should have paid attention to them. we're
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: building at the highest numbers proportionately than we ever have.
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: And I think we got to keep building on that.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: You made some news in December when you talked about
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: how you hadn't been able to get an apartment in
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: DC because you have bad credit after spending a lot
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: of money on your campaign. Why did you want to
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: share that story?
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: Well, two reasons. There's two reasons. Number one, I think
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: it was important to make a point. I want, you know,
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: I think vulnerability from our electeds is really important because
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: it goes to show that like, were people too, but
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: not just that. It's that a lot of these issues
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: will continue with folks, even when they get to like
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: a seat of power, position of power. So I think
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: that was really important. And I wanted, and I just
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: want to be vulnerable with folks. The other thing is
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: I was just kind of pissed off because I had
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: just gotten the message that I was denied from the apartment.
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: And so I was also a bit frustrated. And so,
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: you know, as in typical Gen Z fashion, I was
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: taking the Twitter to air out a little bit of
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: my frustration. But I'm glad that it ended up, you know,
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: creating a, you know, they asked in a White House
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: briefing about it. So I'm glad that like the tweet
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: led to a lot of broader conversations around housing and
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: equity around housing, because it's something we don't talk about
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: a lot, especially these barriers to even running for office.
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: We've got to talk about that.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Well, I was going to ask you about that because
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: I talked to a bunch of voters during the midterms,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: and the number one issue I heard about was cost
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: of housing. And that was especially true with the group
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: of young voters I spoke to. What do you think
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: Congress and the White House should do about that?
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: There's a lot that needs to be done. The biggest
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: levers on housing are pulled at the municipal and countywide level.
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: But what the federal government can do is two things.
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: Number one, bring money home, bring money to these municipalities
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: and countywide governments so they have the resources they need
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: to actually act on getting more housing and not just
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: more housing, affordable housing near opportunity. Like Orlando right now,
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: Central Florida has one of the worst affordable housing crisis
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: in the country per capita. But the problem isn't just affordable.
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: I can go two hours north of Florida and find
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: great housing that's really cheap, but then that's two hours
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: from the city center, right? It's not near opportunity. So
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: we need money to come back to these communities And
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: it needs to bypass the state and go directly to
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: the local governments. Florida's preempting everything right now. So it's
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: important that local governments have resources. The second thing is
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: pass laws that are, number one, going to protect renters
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: and tenants, and number two, give renters and tenants more
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: power in the marketplace. COVID showed a lot of things,
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: inequities in health care, etc., It also lessened the amount
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: of power that tenants and renters have in the marketplace
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: right now, because a lot of these huge conglomerates and
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: these leasing companies, management companies were able to buy up
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: all this inventory. And now they own most of the inventory,
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: especially in Central Florida. So you have a hard time
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: finding a place that's affordable. And we know that when
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: you move into a place, it's not just, oh, you
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: pay first month's rent. You're paying first, you're paying last,
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: you're paying your deposit, you got furnished the place. That's
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: a lot of money to have in your bank account
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: to be able to move into a place in the
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: first place. So there's a lot of needs to be
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: think the federal federal government can do a lot to
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: protect renters. We've talked about things like rent stabilization. We've
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: talked about things like, you know, rent control. I think
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: there's great opportunity here, but we have to talk about
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: it because people are being evicted left and right and
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: they're having a hard time finding a place to live.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: You've been an activist and an organizer. You ran partly
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: because you were frustrated with lack of progress on issues
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: like housing and guns and health care. You're now in
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: the minority party in a divided government. What are your
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: realistic goals for the next two years?
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: Well, the three issues we're going to focus on right
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: out the gate are housing, gun violence, and we're also
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: going to focus on music and arts funding, which is
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: a huge thing in Orlando and central Florida. We're a
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: very culture-based city. And I think every one of those
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: we can work on in a bipartisan way. We might
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: not get the North Star I believe in in these
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: next two years. We've seen the dysfunction over the past week.
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: So it seems like things even Republicans are for, they're
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: going to have a hard time passing a lot of
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: the things that I believe in. But I think there's
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: ways that we can sneak in and get in good
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: amendments or appropriations that are going to help fund a
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: lot of these programs that are important. When we talk
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: about gun violence, I know I say gun violence and
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: everyone's like, They just passed the first piece of legislation
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: in generations last year in the Democrat side of Congress. Well,
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: there's a lot of other things we can talk about
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: in gun violence that's beyond or different than gun regulation,
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: which is the most controversial part. We need more gun regulation.
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: But we also need money to go to fund community
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: violence intervention programs, which are evidence-based programs that help end
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: gun violence before it even happens. This is a lot
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: of the work that a lot of people were protesting
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: for during Black Lives Matter. We need money in our communities.
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: We need money in our communities. This money goes to
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: these community-based programs that help get kids off the streets
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: and do a ton of different work to.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: Help end gun violence.
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: What happens is a proactive solution. And I think we
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: can get that type of money passed in a bipartisan way.
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: At least I hope we can.
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: So during the speaker fiasco, C-SPAN cameras were off their
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: lockdown position. They were catching every moment. We all loved it.
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: You loved it. How do we is there any hope
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: given how that we can stop the Republican majority in
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: the speaker's office from forcing C-SPAN to lock down the cameras?
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: Can we keep the angles?
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: We're going to do everything we can to try. There's
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: already some emails going around and people organizing this. When
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: we talk about bipartisan things, I saw Chip Roy talking
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: about this, too. And he's actually for free to see
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: spam cameras as well. I probably won't agree on almost
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: anything this next time, but we agree on this. So
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: I think there's appetite for it. There's obviously a public
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: appetite for it. I've offered my own help on ways
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: we can organize around it. So we'll see. I think
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: we're going to learn in the next couple of days here.
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: But I think there's an opportunity to keep the C-SPAN
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: cameras free. I think it's important. It makes democracy, number one,
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: more exciting, obviously, but it also gives people an opportunity
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: to have real accountability and accessibility in the House. I
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: think a lot of us will read an article and think, oh,
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: this set of members, they never talk with anyone besides themselves.
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: But when you're on the House floor, you see that
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: kind of everybody talks with everybody. And those kind of conversations,
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: I think it's important for the public to see.
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: So you were.
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: Arrested in 2020 in a protest. You were sworn into
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: Congress this week. You posted both your mugshot and your
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: official portrait, but you said it wasn't a glow up.
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: Is that a substantive representation of the values in those photos?
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: Or do you just really like your mugshot?
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: I don't like my mugshot. That was during the Black
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: Lives Matter protests, the height of COVID. I hadn't gotten
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: my hair cut in a long time.
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: I think you look good in that picture.
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: My friends call that mugshot my liking haircut because I
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: just have so much hair. But either way, I think
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: it was important for me to post that. And the
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: reason I posted the glow up thing is because I
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: knew there'd be a lot of folks who, if I
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: didn't put that, who would quote tweet and say, look
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: at this glow up, look at this glow up. And
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: that's not the point of that, of that, you know,
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: it's not that, oh, he was in jail and now
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: he's a member of Congress. No, that's not, we're not
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: trying to demonize people who are incarcerated a lot of
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: times because of bogus laws and because of racism, et cetera.
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: So that's, that's why I posted that. It's not about
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: a glow up. I'm the same person. have the same values.
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: I'm just now in a position here where I'm able,
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: hopefully to be able to uplift a lot of our
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: arguments and what we believe in. And so I'm glad
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: it's got a good reception. And, you know, people are
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: able to look at that kind of honesty and vulnerability,
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: you know, and some of my opponents like used my
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: mugshot during the campaign. And I want to post it too,
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: because I'm proud of the work that we did. I'm
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: proud of the fact that you know, we took to
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: the streets in nonviolent form to advocate for black lives
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: and for our communities. And so I'll gladly post it.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: Last question. We'll let you go. A lot of people
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: your age are ready to give up on politics for
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of understandable reasons. You're in the fight now.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: You're a new member of Congress. You are, of course,
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: going to have two years where, like you said, hopefully
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: you can get some bipartisan accomplishments here and there. But
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: it's going to be tough. A lot of people likely
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: at the end of the next two years are going
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: to say, oh, Washington still seems broken. And then why
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: should I be involved? What do you want them to
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: know about why you still feel politics is worthwhile?
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I was just talking about this this morning. I
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: think there's a few things real quick. The first one
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: is we've been lied to for generations about how things
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: work up here in order for people to get elected
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: to office. So we have politicians who will say, vote
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: for me, vote for me. And this will happen tomorrow.
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: This will happen next year. We all know that that's
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: not how this process works. And what that does is
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: sow in a lot of doubt into our voters who
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: will vote for someone, not see the change in that
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: two years, and then think, wow, my vote doesn't mean anything.
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: And I don't blame people for feeling that way if
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: that is if the two years, right, is the span
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: of thinking it. And so I've been honest with people
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: both in my district and in interviews. You know, I'm honest.
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: I say, here's what I believe in. I cannot promise
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: it will pass this year or next year because I'm
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: one of 435 people. This is how the system works.
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: But what I can promise you is what I believe in,
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: how hard I'm going to fight for it, and what
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: I'm going to do back at home. And we're all
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: part of this together, right? Not probably myself as some
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: savior because that's not how this works, but all of
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: us together. It's not just me working for my community.
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: It's me working with my community. And I think when
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: people see themselves as a part of that struggle with you,
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: they're more likely to kind of understand the realistic approach, right?
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: And they're less likely after two years to say, wow,
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: we don't have Medicare for all. Not everyone has health care.
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: This is worthless. It's a broader struggle. The second thing
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: is we have to be honest about a timetable here.
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: And again, it has to do with these like two years, right?
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: It goes beyond two years, right? This struggle is a
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: generational thing for health care, for climate justice and gun violence, etc.,
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: And I think it's important to be honest with people
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: about that, not to discourage them, right? But to make
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: sure they're really bought into the current landscape. So that way,
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: everyone has the same expectations. We're not going to be
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: able to get everyone on board with this. But every
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: time I talk with people, anybody, I'm very honest about
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: the fact that we're not going to see bold transformational
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: change in the next two years out of the United
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: States Congress. And I'll tell them why. We have a
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: majority that doesn't believe in it. And it seems like
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: even the things they do believe in, they're not even
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: going to be able to get past. But guess what?
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: There's light at the end of the tunnel. In two years,
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: we're going to be able to get back a Democratic
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: majority and we're going to be able to fight for
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: what we believe in in a better way and be
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: set up to actually pass things. And so I think
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: when you're honest with people, I think we should give
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: people the benefit of the doubt, especially in our communities,
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: and not be lying to them all the time about
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: the powers of this office. Because a lot of the
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: power of this office comes from the people themselves, and
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: they need to see themselves integrated in the process.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: An organizer at heart. I love it. It's refreshing. Congressman Frost,
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining Pod Save America and
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: good luck to you.
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me on. Have a good day. All right.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Congressman Frost for joining us today. And we'll
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: talk to you on Thursday. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producers are
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft,
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash podsaveamerica.