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“Peak stupid.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Later on the pod, you'll hear Dan's interview with Andrew Gillum,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: who talks about his new voter registration effort in Florida...
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: in an attempt to turn that state blue in 2020.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: We're also going to talk about the latest on the
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: still-elusive Mueller report, the Trump administration's renewed assault on the
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Affordable Care Act, and the president's 2020 re-election strategy. Apparently
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: he has one. Finally, as a little treat, at the
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: end of the show you'll hear a quick excerpt from
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: our weekly Pod Save America live Q & A, where
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: What A Day's Priyanka Arabindi asks us questions that listeners
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: have about the news, and we attempt to answer them.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: You can check it out on Wednesdays if you'd like.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I know that you watch every Wednesday, Dan.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: I'm not even familiar with what you're talking about.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: See? That's why we're doing it on the pod, so
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: we get more eyeballs.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: I won't listen to this part. I don't listen to
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: our pod.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: This is Elijah's genius. Okay. Also, before we get to
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: the news, a quick heads up about a special election
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: in Wisconsin next Tuesday, April 2nd, for a seat on
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: the state Supreme Court. Republicans are spending millions of dollars
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: to elect a guy who started a school that allows
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: banning teachers or students for being in same-sex relationships. That's
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: their candidate for the state Supreme Court. Lisa Neubauer is
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: the Democrat, so if you live in Wisconsin, make sure
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: to vote for her. I know we talked recently on
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: this pod about special elections and how they're sort of
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: going under the radar, so we will do our best
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: to keep you informed ahead of time of any special
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: elections around the country we see coming up. If you
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: live in Wisconsin, if you have friends in Wisconsin, family
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: in Wisconsin, Tell them to make sure to vote on Tuesday.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: That's a very important seat in a very important state.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the news. The White House
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: is in a celebratory and vengeful mood after Donald Trump's
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: handpicked attorney general exonerated him from criminal charges based entirely
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: on his own reading of Robert Mueller's report, which we
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: have yet to see, which Congress has yet to see,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: which no one has seen except Robert Mueller, his team,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: and a few people at the Justice Department. A report
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: in the New York Times described Trump World's mood as follows, quote,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Any caveats in the letter or the possibility of surprises
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: when more of the report is released has not put
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: a damper on the celebratory dinners at downtown Washington restaurants,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: the number of teamwork-focused photos posted on social media, or
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: the hugs in the White House driveway between television interviews. Quote,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: We're colluding, Kellyanne Conway, the counselor to the president, told
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: reporters as she embraced Sarah Huckabee Sanders. the White House
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: press secretary in the driveway after returning from a Fox
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: News appearance on Monday. One Republican strategist told the Times, quote,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the mood from the pundit class to friends of mine
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: that work in the White House is over the moon ecstasy. Meanwhile,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: the Washington Post says that Trump reportedly has a plan
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: to seek, quote, vengeance and accountability from his critics. He's
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: accused FBI agents of treason, said that Adam Schiff should
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: be forced to resign. Adam Schiff's Republican colleagues on the
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: House Intel Committee released a letter this morning also saying
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: he should resign. The letter notably did not quote a
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: single word from Mueller's actual report, but only made up
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: a bunch of bullshit and talked about Barr's summary. Dan,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: we haven't talked yet about this on the pod, you
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: and I. What was your initial reaction to the Barr
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: report on Sunday, and do you feel any different today?
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Well, John, I was actually going to cut this podcast
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: short and cancel it and all future podcasts, because if
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: you read all the smartest, most both sidesy pundits and
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: journalists on Twitter and on the Internet, we would know
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: that this is pointless because not only is Trump going
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: to win reelection, he has won reelection. It is over.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: He was sworn in for a second term this morning
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: by Judge Neal Pirro with his hand on the latest
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: copy of Greg Gutfeld's newest book. So it's done. Cancel it.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Crooked should only focus on keep it and your slightly
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: less political podcast because this election is over. Don't even
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: show me the report. I know what's going to happen.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: What the fuck are we doing, people? This is insane.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: We are at peak stupid right now. Everyone is at stupid.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: The Trump people are obviously at stupid. Congratulations on reducing
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: your criminal exposure by 18%. The media is engaged in
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: a bizarre level of self-flagellation the worst people on the
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: internet are at their absolute worst on all sides. Everything
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: is stupid.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: I will say, Dan, I want to find the clip
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: from a couple weeks ago where you and I predicted
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: this exact reaction from just about everyone.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: I think we did it twice. I'm seriously considering getting
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: back in the prediction game because we knew exactly what
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: was going to happen.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: We nailed this one.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Maybe we can't figure out who is going to win
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: quote unquote elections and who wins what state. But what
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: we do know is how the political media, Twitter industrial
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: complex reacts to things. And it's, it's very easy to
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: always bet that they're going to do it wrong, which
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: is what we did. And we were right.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: And look, I will say that the Trump world reaction,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: which includes everyone from the white house to Fox news,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: cause it's all the same world. Um, did not really
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: surprise me in the least. Like, I thought they would
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: be celebratory. I figured that they would start, you know,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: making all kinds of threats against all of their perceived enemies. Like,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: that was going to happen no matter what. I guess
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: they wouldn't have been a celebratory if Mueller found that
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: the president committed a crime for, you know, in terms
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: of conspiring with Russians. But they still would have threatened
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: people They still would have yelled about the deep state.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, like, their reaction was predetermined long ago. Nothing
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: about that surprised me. I'm not totally surprised by the
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: reaction of the political media either, but it's a little
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: worse than I expected. I'm even more disappointed in them
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: than I thought I would. And look, again, we should
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: never just... We do this too much. We use the
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: media as a blanket term. The reporters who have been
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: doggedly pursuing this story from the beginning... There's a set
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: of reporters at the New York Times, at the Washington Post,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: at CNN, at BuzzFeed, at all kinds of outlets. Those
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: reporters have just put their heads down and they're continuing
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: to try to report on this. And they're doing a
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: great job. They've been doing a great job all along.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: But the more pundit-like reporters, the reporters that write political analysis,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: the pundits on cable, the media reporters, right? They have
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: just been doing such a piss poor job, self-flagellating, fucking
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: talking about, like punch. I mean, if I was faced
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: with a situation where even from the bar report, the
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: bar letter, you know that Robert Mueller, who's a pretty
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: conservative guy, chose to use the words, the president is
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: not exonerated from a crime. I would probably be more
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: interested in talking about that than writing a whole bunch
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: of pieces, punching down, It's some, like, fringy hashtag resistance
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: types and their fucking Mueller votive candles. Like, it is
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: astonishing what some of these, the stories that some of
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: these people are writing when we have not even seen
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: this report, but what we do know is that Robert
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Mueller uncovered all this evidence that the President of the
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: United States obstructed justice. I mean, I don't know. I
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: don't know.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: I feel like We all collectively, even though I would
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: say we warned about this here on Pod Save America,
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: fell into this trap. And maybe Trump led us into
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: the trap. Maybe he got there by pure Twitter instinct.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know. But we set the bar, no pun intended,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: so high for what would constitute presidential wrongdoing, that anything
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: short of that was then treated as complete and total absolution.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: This idea that we had to find essentially a recorded
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: phone call between Trump and Putin two years ago, sending
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: out a plan that involved hacking disinformation campaigns on Facebook,
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: followed by sanctions relief, that anything short of that would
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: mean that Trump did nothing wrong. And Everyone is– like
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: we all saw it coming. The entire political people who
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: engineer the political media conversation in this country just saw
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: it coming and then just drove right off the cliff.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: And like you're right. There is evidence of obstruction of justice. Now,
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: whether that reaches a level by which either a person
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: would be convicted or a president would be impeached is
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: a question we don't yet know the answer to because–
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: They are hiding the evidence from us, which should also
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: cause people's spidey sense to go off a little bit.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: And certainly before we have to, I mean, just, it's
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: so crazy that we are all doing this without having
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: read the report. It is a four page summary of
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: a report that is somewhere between 300 to 999 pages.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: We don't know how much. And we're just like, well,
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Bill Barr, who didn't believe that a president could be
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: charged with obstruction of justice, said this president. shouldn't be
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: charged with obstruction of justice. So let's all move on.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Let's pivot, everyone. Self-flagellate and pivot.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: And again, in addition to the potential obstruction of justice,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: here is what we know for a fact. And we
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: know this because Robert Mueller has told us through various indictments,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: through various court filings, we know that the Russian government
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: interfered in our election in 2016, that it stole documents
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: from the Democratic Party and disseminated them, that it conducted
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: a social media campaign with the purpose of trying to
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: elect Donald Trump. We know that the Trump campaign and
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump himself knew about these activities. We knew that
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump was briefed about them by intelligence services in
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: August of 2016. And with the knowledge that this was
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: going on, that this attack was happening, we now also
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: know that the Trump campaign was approached by multiple people
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: related to the Russian government, Russian government officials themselves, offering
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: dirt in the form of emails on Hillary Clinton. We
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: also know that no one in the Trump campaign went
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: to the FBI about this. We also know that the
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Trump campaign and Donald Trump himself specifically stood to gain
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: if Vladimir Putin and his government approved Trump Tower Moscow,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: which would have given Donald Trump up to $ 300 million,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: his biggest real estate project ever. And Donald Trump lied
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: about that the entire time. He had a financial stake
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: in making sure that he didn't piss Vladimir Putin off
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: by maybe telling the FBI that Russians were approaching them
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: with dirt on Hillary Clinton. He also had a stake
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: in potentially winning the election by not telling the FBI
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: that the Russians were hacking our elections, the Russians were
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: offering them dirt. And he didn't do that. And he
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: lied about it. And various people covered it up. And
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: his campaign manager committed a crime. And his deputy campaign
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: manager committed a crime. And his national security advisor committed
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: a crime. And his lawyer committed a crime. And Donald
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Trump was implicated in campaign finance violations. We know all
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: of this to be true. This is maybe one of
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: the biggest scandals in American political history. And people are
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: running around saying, what a great day it is for
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Well, how exonerated he is. He's feeling so great.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: It is.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: What a hoax. It was a hoax.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: It is beyond all comprehension. We are through the fucking
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: looking glass. Everyone has lost their minds.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: I have one just thought or message for reporters and
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: pundits out there. I don't pretend to know what happens
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: after someone dies, but I'm pretty sure there's no both
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: sides heaven, where when you die, you go... You go
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: to the gates of heaven and you have to present
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: your articles to show that you were willing to appease
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: your bad faith critics on the right. And it's just like, well, look,
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: I wrote this piece also attacking Democrats, even though Republicans
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: are 100% in the wrong.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: St.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Peter, please let me in. Like, it's just, I don't,
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: we make the same mistakes over and over and over again.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: And it's like, I think that we'll talk about this,
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: but it is highly likely that a lot of people
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: are going to have a lot of egg on their
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: face after we read the report.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And once again, all we're saying is let's see
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: the report because we don't know. Perhaps, perhaps even though
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Mueller said, even though the only words we've seen from
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Robert Mueller include the phrase, the president is not exonerated
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: of a crime. Perhaps there's zero evidence of any kind
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: of collusion with Russians. Perhaps we don't know. We haven't
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: seen the fucking report. Um, But we've certainly seen a
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: lot of links between Trump and the Russians that the
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Trump campaign lied about. We know that not from the
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: media necessarily, although they've reported that. We know that from
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Robert Mueller's indictments and his filings. We already know this. Anyway.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: And we know the president had incentive to obstruct the
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: investigation because he was guilty of other crimes different from
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: collusion that we also know about.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Anyway. Anyway.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Man, it's a lot.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: It's a lot.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: It's really a lot of stupid happening.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: We still don't know when the public or Congress will
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: have access to Mueller's report. Democrats have been pushing to
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: see the full report by April 2nd, but House Judiciary
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Chairman Gerald Nadler, who spoke with the Attorney General on Wednesday,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: told us that Barr said it would be, quote, weeks,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: not months, before Congress could see Mueller's report, which, according
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: to the New York Times, is more than 300 pages long.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Nadler also said that Barr would not promise that, quote,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: an unredacted full report with the underlying documents and evidence,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: would be provided to Congress and the American people. Barr
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: is set to testify before Congress on April 9th, and
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Nadler said they may want Mueller to testify after Barr. Dan,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: how legitimate is this delay, and could this all be
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: done faster?
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: If we were to be as generous as humanly possible
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: to Bill Barr and the People's Justice Department, It seems
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: very likely there is classified information in this report that
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: originates from the counterintelligence investigation that began this whole probe.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: And there must be a process to go through and
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: ensure that you are not publicly releasing classified information that
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: could reveal sources and methods for how the intelligence community
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: received that information. However, this could be resolved much faster
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: than the timeline that they are on. And I promise you,
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: if this was a report about Democratic wrongdoing, they could
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: get it done by Sean Hannity's airtime tomorrow. And so, yes,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: there should be a process to go through and do this,
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: but it is incredibly slow. And it seems intentionally slow
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: to do what is a pretty clever PR ploy, which
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: is get the headline you want on the front page
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: and then get the details right. on the 17th page
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: three weeks from now when we've all moved on from
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: this topic to worry about whatever the latest and probably
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: legitimate outrage of the day is.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, how suspicious of Barr should we be?
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, not at all suspicious, John. I don't know
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: what you're talking about. He is a card-carrying member of
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: the Republican establishment that has supplicated itself to Donald Trump.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: He wears very charming, very preppy zip-up sweaters that are
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: in vogue with lots of Republicans. Yes, we should be
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: suspicious of him. He decided to work for Donald Trump
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: in the middle of a web of criminal investigations. He
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: auditioned for that job by writing a memo saying that
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump could not be guilty of the crimes in
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: which he was by mere fact that he was president.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: So yes, we should be suspicious of him. On the surface.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: And then his actions since then are very suspicious. Now,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: maybe I don't want to head into crazy conspiracy theory
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: world here, but the Trump administration has lied about everything.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: And so we have every reason to want to see
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: the document and see it as soon as possible before
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: we take their word for it. So there is a
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: reason to be suspicious here. And Barr's behavior since this
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: report landed on his desk on Friday afternoon have given
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: us more reason to be suspicious.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean. Let's remember that before he took the job, Barr,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: who I assume had another job or at least other
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: things to do with his life, decided to sit down
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: and write a 19-page memo to the White House in
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: which he called Mueller's inquiry into potential obstructions of justice, quote,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: fatally misconceived and, quote, grossly irresponsible. That's what he said
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: about Mueller's investigation into obstruction of justice before he took
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: the job. in a 19-page memo. I don't know about you,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: I don't usually have time to write 19-page memos about
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: just anything and send them off. So, clearly, the guy
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: felt pretty strongly about Mueller's probe and then suddenly finds
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: himself the guy in charge of that probe and wrote
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: a letter saying, you know what, Mueller couldn't make a
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: conclusion one way or the other on obstruction of justice,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: so I will make a conclusion. And my conclusion is
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: is that we should not charge him. Oh, what a
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: surprise after your 19-page memo.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's not, the thing that is so, I just,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: I'm so, my mind is actually boggled by what is
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: happening here because it is the position of the Justice
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: Department that a president can't be indicted and that it
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: is the responsibility of Congress to come to the conclusion
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: that based on the evidence as to whether their actions
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: warranted a high crime or misdemeanor as outlined in the Constitution.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: So why do we care what Bill Barr has to
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: say about this? It's not up to Bill Barr. His
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: opinion is interesting, but it is not instructive for what
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: should happen here. And it's just like everyone is so
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: in a hurry for reasons I don't fully understand to
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: get this behind themselves that we are rushing to close
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: the door without having the information.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, again, like, just imagine, imagine if this was
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Loretta Lynch, Obama's attorney general, saying that even though James
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Comey in his investigation said, you know, he couldn't make
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: a determination about Hillary, that Loretta Lynch said, I'm going
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: to make a determination. She's fine. Except in reality. What
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: James Comey said is no reasonable prosecutor would ever bring
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: a case against Hillary Clinton. That's what he said. And
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: she got in trouble because he also called her reckless.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Her actions reckless. So this one was I can't examine.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. I can't exonerate him. There's evidence on both sides.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: And then Trump's attorney general says, I exonerate him. I
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: do it. It's just, it's a lot.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: But I will not release this.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine? I mean, the House Republicans would be
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: fucking burning down the White House right now.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: The bar determination here is really inappropriately putting his thumb
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: on the scale. I was listening to your very excellent
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: conversation with Preet from the Monday pod, and everyone makes
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: the point that in a high-profile case brought by being
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: investigated by the FBI or a U.S. attorney or whatever else,
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: it will ultimately be the decision of the Attorney General
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: as to whether to pursue that case. It would go
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: up that high in a very high-profile, complicated endeavor. Except, yes,
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: that is true if we're talking about a decision to
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: charge Facebook or some high-profile individual. But in this case,
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: it is the policy of the Department of Justice that
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: they can't charge that individual. They cannot do it. It
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: is not their job. They do not have purview for that.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: So he is simply trying to influence the jury here
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: to not take up the case. In this case, the
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: jury is Congress. And we're all like, well, this makes sense.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Except it makes zero sense. It is a totally inappropriate
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: determination for him to make. He doesn't get to make
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: that determination. Frankly, shouldn't make that determination, regardless of what
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: the evidence says.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: So last time I checked, we do have one House
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: of Congress, Democrats. They currently control the House.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: No, actually, we don't anymore because... Some people talked about collusion.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy, speaker.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: That's right. That's true. That's true. It's over. What can
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Democrats do to get the memo here? What should we
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: be doing? Because I have to confess, my mind is
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: even more boggled by the fact that, like, you know,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Jerry Nadler just said, oh, I talked to Barr. He said, oh,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: it's going to go past April 2nd. That's unacceptable to me.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: We need to get this memo. I'm like, dude, you
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: got to haul out your subpoena cannon, man. Like, what
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: are they doing? What should the Democrats be doing?
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: I honestly don't know. We are adhering to these norms
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: of behavior that made sense before one party decided to
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: engage in a massive inappropriate criminal power grab of everything.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, is this even a norm, though?
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: What they should do is say, Bill Barr, you are
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: going to testify by X date.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: Or we're going to subpoena you. You're going to release
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: the report by this date. or we're going to file
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: a spina. And we've already filled out the paperwork. All
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: we have to do is have someone drop it off
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: at your office. This is Congress's responsibility. Put aside the politics,
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: how much Democratic voters wish some people would go to
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: jail for some set of crimes or whatever. Your actual
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: job here is oversight. It is to be checks and
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: balances against an executive branch. And they are abusing their
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: power here by trying to cover up evidence of potential crimes.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: And so every... weapon or tool at our disposal we
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: should be using. And just having friendly conversations with Bill
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Barr because he is the part of the jurisdiction of
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: your committee is not the way to do it. We
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: should be more aggressive here because if everyone thinks, where
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: everyone feels like Democrats are just acting overly political here,
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: they were given the responsibility by the voters to do
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: a better job than the Republicans of holding the Trump
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: administration accountable for their misdeeds. And that involves investigating those misdeeds.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: And Simply just being like, well, they said he wouldn't
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: get it, so I'm going to ask again, this time stronger,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: is not good enough, in my opinion.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: And they should subpoena Mueller, too.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Like, issue the subpoenas.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Like, let's schedule a hearing. Say we're going to have
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: the hearing on this day, and Mueller's either going to
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: agree or he's going to be subpoenaed.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Right. Subpoena, you know, get Barr to testify, get Mueller
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: to testify, buy subpoena if necessary, subpoena the report, and
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: then if the Department of Justice refuses, then, you know,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: fight it out in court. But I do think the
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: longer that we wait here, the more the political media,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: as they have done so far, is just going to say, oh,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: sour grapes, Democrats just hanging on to this thing. Let's
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: move on. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, just do it now.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't understand the wait. Yeah.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: No time like the present.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: And then even though it's been less than a week
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: since Barr's letter and we don't even know what we'll
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: see in the Mueller's report. Some Democratic leaders have suggested
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: it's time to pivot to other issues like health care.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: The number three Democrat in the House, Majority Whip James Clyburn,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: said this week, quote, I believe that the Mueller report
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: has been done. That's a chapter that's closed. Health care
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: is the number one thing on people's minds. Deep breaths. Dan,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: why are Democrats so anxious to move on to other
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: issues like health care so soon?
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: I really like Jim Clyburn, and he has done a
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: lot of good over a lot of years in Congress.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: But I feel like in this case, he read the
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: stage direction out loud. Like, yes, Democrats want to talk
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: about health care and other issues in the 2020 election.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: We know that because in the middle, prior to the
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: complete and total exoneration of all of Trump's crimes, Democrats
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: ran– an entire election entirely on healthcare and other issues.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: And so obviously we want to do that. And anytime
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: we get a chance to talk about healthcare is for
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: the good of our electoral chances. But to be just
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: so blatant about it is a mistake because you can
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: do two things at once. You can investigate corruption and
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: criminality in Trump's administration and legislate progressive priorities at the
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: same time. And voters get that. And I worry that
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: When we do things like this that are so obvious,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: voters have a good bullshit detector. And so they see
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: this and they say, oh, Democrats are being political.
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: And so it is, you're actually doing yourself more damage
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: in the getting to the issues you care about than
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: you would if you were able to do it in
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: a smart, strategic, at a smart, strategic tempo, I guess.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Look, we were among many people who all through the
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: 2018 election told Democrats that Let's focus on healthcare. Let's
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: talk about healthcare all the time. The Democratic candidates, to
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: their credit, they did that. Their campaign strategists told them
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: to do that. The American people wanted them to do that.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: They did it. We are currently a year and eight
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: months away from the November election in 2020. A year
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: and eight months. I think that out of that year
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: and eight months, we can take a couple of fucking
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: weeks right now to demand this report that will tell
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: us about an investigation that has gone on for a
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: couple years into one of the biggest scandals in American
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: political history. Like, this is such evidence of the fucking
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: short-term thinking that just pervades Washington, D.C., where all the
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: people who work there can think of is what happens
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: in the next news cycle, who's winning or losing that day,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: I can't deal with any political pressure that's happening right now,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: I can't see beyond the next month, the next, like,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: It is crazy. They all work each other up. They're
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: all the staffers and the representatives and the reporters and
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: the pundits. They're all talking to each other. And so
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: they all decided within 24 hours that the narrative is
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: bad for Democrats, good for Republicans. Democrats would benefit from
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: talking about health care. Republicans want to keep talking about
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: how this was a witch hunt. And then the narrative
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: is set. And so they all respond based on that.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: It's so silly. We are sitting here. in March of 2019.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: We have plenty of time to talk about healthcare. Once
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: we get to 2020, yeah, maybe we should talk about
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: healthcare every fucking day. We just saw a four-page summary
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: of a 300-page report that has not been released that
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: could show unbelievable presidential misconduct. We don't want to know
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: about that? We want to pivot to healthcare now? I
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: don't understand, man.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: I think the best way to understand healthcare what congressional
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: leaders say is not the macro politics of what the
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: polls say or what consultants are telling them. It's really
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: about what members of Congress are saying to them at
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: the weekly congressional lunch. And so my assumption, based on
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: some of the reporting you read, is that there is
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: a– A set of, you know, a set of Democrats,
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: probably in safer districts, who aggressively want to pursue something
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: that leads to impeachment, right? You have Rashida Tlaib introducing,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: I think, a resolution this week about that. Brad Sherman
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: and others introducing articles of impeachment like a year ago or,
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: you know, months ago or whatever else. And then you
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: have a whole set of members who are very politically
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: afraid of what that process would do to their electoral chances.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: And so that is where their reactions are driven by that.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: And the idea of they could put that argument behind
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: themselves and move on to what they believe to be
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: more fertile ground, that would be good. But what resolves
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: problems within the caucus lunch is not the same thing
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: that resolves larger political problems. And this abrupt pivot to
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: health care is– I think it does a disservice to
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: the voters. It actually treats them as pretty stupid because
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: they do care about this. And they do think that
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: you can care about this and health care at the
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: same time.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Right. And also there's some things that are just beyond
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: political consideration. Right. Like we deserve the truth about what happened.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Like our election, our democracy was attacked by the Russian government.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: And there were a whole bunch of links between the
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: government and the Trump campaign. And there were a whole
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: bunch of other potential crimes that Trump and his the
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: members of his campaign committed. Like we deserve to know
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: the truth about that. taxpayers paid for this investigation although
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: paul manafort's uh assets refunded us um but like but.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: We we could he do that for medicare for.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: All no shit um but we we just deserve to
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: know about it and at some point you just have
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: to say politics be damned right like i want to
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: know the truth about this and it is like i
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: said it is march of 2019 we have plenty of
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: time to talk about health care and also we can
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: do two things at once yes of course we should
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: also be talking about health care I imagine and hope
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: that every Democratic candidate running for president in 2020 is
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: out there talking about health care every day. And they
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: should be.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: We're going to do that on this pod right now.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Here we go. So a big reason Democrats should also
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: be talking about health care, not pivoting to health care,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: but also talking about health care, is that Trump's Justice
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Department submitted a filing to the Fifth Circuit Court of
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Appeals that basically says it is now the position of
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration... that the Affordable Care Act should be
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: dismantled entirely, and that the Department of Justice will no
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: longer defend the law in court. White House Chief of
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Staff Mick Mulvaney reportedly pushed for this approach over the
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: objections of the Attorney General and other legal and political advisors,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: and he convinced Trump to take this position. So, Dan,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: before we get to the politics of this, how big
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: of a deal is this decision by the Justice Department
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: legally and substantively?
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure it is the legal and policy substance
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: is as important as the political importance, I guess would
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: be the right way to say it. I wasn't expecting
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: the Bill Barr Justice Department to put on a very
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: vociferous defense of the Affordable Care Act as it were
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: to wind its way through the court. It sort of
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: says what we've always known, which is that Trump and
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: his party want to repeal the law and they don't
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: care what comes next. And so it adds more of
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: a political argument than the substance. We had a conversation
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: this morning over text about how much we should worry
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: about the lawsuit working its way through the system. And
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: I'm very worried about it. And that's based on nothing
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: other than the fact that we seem to be in
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: a world in which terrible things happen all the time.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: But whether... Donald Trump's Justice Department defends the law or not,
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: I think, is only quasi-related to how much we should
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: fear that lawsuit.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, the idea that there's a couple
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: different problems here and a couple different issues to sort out.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: So the standard is that the Justice Department defends laws
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: that are on the books that Congress has passed, regardless
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: of whether a Democrat or Republican is in charge. It's
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: supposed to be apolitical. So the fact that they're not
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: doing that, you know, is worrying from a norm perspective.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: But what people should know is, so, you know, who's
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: going to defend the ACA in this lawsuit, right? Well,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: you know, state's attorneys general will step up and defend
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: the Affordable Care Act in these cases. So, yeah, they
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: won't have the Justice Department in court with them, but
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: the law will still be defended by some people. So
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: you're right. We should be as worried as we were
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: before that a judge in Texas, a federal judge in Texas,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: struck down the Affordable Care Act as unconstitutional. And we
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: should be as worried as we were before that, you know,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: as it goes through the appeal system, that perhaps other
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: judges agree with that Texas judge. But the federal government
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: deciding to defend or not defend that law in terms
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: of what the outcome is probably should not be incredibly alarming,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: but it's, uh, it's, you know, pretty alarming in the
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: case of, you know, this is a norm that people follow. Um,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: but let's talk about the politics of this. It seems
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: like nearly everyone agrees that this is a monumentally stupid move,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: including house minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, who reportedly called Trump
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: to voice his displeasure. Uh, so I guess no, uh,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: no yellow starburst for him this week. Um, Dan, how
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: big of a political problem is this for Republicans, or
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: will they just lie about health care in 2020 like
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: they did in 2018? Trump tweeted on Wednesday, quote, the
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Republican Party will become the party of health care.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Yes, they will lie, as they did in 2018, and
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: it's still a big problem. My favorite reaction to this
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: was Liz Cheney, who has some leadership position in the
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: Republican minority, who said, Why now? Because implicit in that
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: is just the most mind-boggling cynicism, which is, yes, of
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: course we want to get rid of it, but we
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: shouldn't tell anyone until after we've tricked all the voters,
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: and then we're going to repeal it. And it's a
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: reminder that Trump is such an accidental president that his
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: response to what is theoretically the best day of his
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: presidency is to immediately pivot in the most aggressive way
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: possible to the issue that everyone agrees cost him the
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: midterm elections. So, yes, it's a big deal. We should
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: definitely take advantage of it. Healthcare can and should be
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: the driving issue of the 2020 election because it is
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: one that has the dual effect of motivating, quote, Democratic
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: base voters and persuading, quote, you know, what we refer
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: to as up for grabs voters who can shift key
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: battleground states into the Democratic column.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: And it's just, you know, them declining to defend the
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: law in court is just one proof point here. Like
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: we also, you know, they have, Trump has proposed budgets
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: and the Republicans have proposed budgets that basically eliminate the
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Affordable Care Act as well, that make huge cuts to Medicaid,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: that make cuts to Medicare, right? So it's not like
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: It's not like this is just one thing that we
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: got them on. It is very clear now that the
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: Trump administration does not want the Affordable Care Act to exist.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: And despite the fact that Trump's like, oh, we're going
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: to have a great health care plan, he's been saying
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: that since he was elected president, and we haven't seen anything,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: so I don't expect anything now. But it is clear
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: that Democrats should make health care and whether or not
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: we keep the Affordable Care Act a huge issue in 2020.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: That just seems like a no-brainer.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: John, noted truth teller and Mulan critic Mike Pence said
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: yesterday that Trump was going to send a plan to
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: the Hill, at which point I think Democrats volunteered to
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: drive said plan to the Hill. That's funny. Whether they
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: do it or not, I think what is interesting about
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: this is voters care passionately about health care. It is
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: really hard to get health care in the news, to
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: shift the conversation away from Trump's outrageous behavior, very legitimate
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: discussion around the investigation into Russia and obstruction of justice,
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: other issues that dominate the headlines to health care. And
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: Trump did that for the Democrats. And so it's good
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: to take advantage of it. And we should look for
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: every opportunity to do so, as you point out, between
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: now and 2020.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: So, in other 2020 healthcare news, there also happens to
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: be brand new polling out on Medicare for All this week.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Quinnipiac asked the question, quote, Do you think that removing
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: the current healthcare system and replacing it with a single-payer
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: system in which the federal government would expand Medicare to
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: cover the medical expenses of every American citizen is a
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: good idea or a bad idea? 43% said good idea.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: 45% said bad idea. In August of 2017... The margin
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: was 51% good idea, 38% bad idea. I should also
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: note here that Democrats in this current poll think it's
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: a good idea by a margin of 69% to 19%.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: The poll then asked the following question. Do you think
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: that keeping the current health care system but allowing all
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: adults the option of buying into Medicare is a good
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: idea or a bad idea? Good idea, 51%. Bad idea, 30%.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: With even Republicans saying it's a good idea by a
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: narrow margin. Dan, what do you think of these numbers
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: and what do you think has caused the dip in
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: support for Medicare for All?
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: The history of the politics around health care policy is
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: pretty consistent, which is the more it's talked about, the
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: more polarizing and less popular it gets. And that has
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: to do with the fact that really like any debate
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: around health care is a debate between people's frustration with
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: the current system. and their fear of what a new
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: system would look like. And then when you add on
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: top of that the fact that there's been sort of
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: a pretty one-way discussion in the media about Medicare for All,
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: describing it as socialism. And by Medicare for All in
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: this case, I mean a single-payer system similar to the
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: one that Bernie Sanders proposed in the Senate and essentially
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: all of his presidential opponents who were in the Senate, sponsored,
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: that it's being hammered. And so when it becomes polarized
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: around party lines, you're going to lose some of that support.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: I think the question here is that if you say,
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: and there's also another choice, is a huge variable in
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: the politics of healthcare, in that people always say they
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: want choice. And it's why Republicans use it as an
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: argument against the ACA. It was a big part of
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: the argument for ACA. And so when you have a
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: system that offers you more choice than the other one,
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: that one is likely to be more popular on the surface.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: Understand that no one's gotten into the details of any
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: of this yet. One important point on the choice thing
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: is that choice in healthcare is largely bullshit.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: Because most people exist within the employer-based system. It's not
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: your choice. It's your employer's choice. And so your ability
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: to have the plan you like is dependent on your
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: employer's willingness to give you the plan you like, whether
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: we are existing in the current system, whether we're existing
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: in the pre-ACA system, or whether we're existing in a
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Medicare for America system where people could move back and
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: forth between Medicare and the private insurance system. And so
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: We're really sort of debating around the edges here, but
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: you can see sort of the contours of where this
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: is headed.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: And you made an important point at the outset, too.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Two things can be true here. A lot of people
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: can say, look, I fucking hate my insurance company. I
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: hate dealing with insurance companies. I think all they do
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: is want to profit off sick people. I think that
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: the paperwork they make me do, the 50 calls I
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: have to do every time, I want to get a
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: simple procedure paid for that should be covered is garbage.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: They can believe all of that and they can still think,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: but if we're going to the single payer system, what's
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: that going to mean? Could that even be worse than
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: the situation that I'm dealing with? And so, you know,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: single payer proponents will say, but the single payer, you know,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: enrolling in Medicare is so much better, right? Like you're
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: going to get free coverage. You're not going to have co-pays.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: You're not going to have deductibles. You don't have to
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: worry about these things. And so it is then incumbent
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: upon proponents of Medicare for All and single-payer systems to
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: not just argue but prove that the shift from a
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: private insurance system to a single-payer system would benefit every
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: single American and that, you know, you're not going to
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: have to pay more. Maybe you'll have to pay more
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: in taxes, but, you know, you're also not going to
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: be paying co-pays, premiums, and deductibles anymore, so it's going
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: to come out as a wash, right? But yet there's
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: still that fear that exists among people that even if
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: they hate the current system, they fear the unknown. And
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: that's sort of the dynamic that's always been at play
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: with health care. So Bernie Sanders then made some interesting
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: news on this issue the other day. In an interview
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: with Chris Hayes, he called for eliminating the insurance industry,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: which he's done before. That part wasn't news. But then
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: he was asked whether he'd support Democratic legislation introduced by
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi to improve the Affordable Care Act by expanding
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: federal subsidies and and undoing some of the damage that
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: Trump has already inflicted on the law. And Bernie said
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: he does not support the bill. And this is notable
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: because Sanders in the past has supported and voted for
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: incremental reforms. And even progressive Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez support
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: Pelosi's position. Dan, what do you think Bernie's strategy here is?
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Why do you think he gave that answer?
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: Well, Bernie Sanders... basically won the policy primary of 2020
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: back in 2016. And one of his huge differentiations with
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: Hillary Clinton was he had these very progressive, very bold,
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: very popular among Democratic voter policy ideas, including single payer.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: And since then, basically, the problem is everyone has started
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: to agree with him on all these things. And so
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: it's Harder for him to go out there and say,
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: I'm for a single payer, I'm for a free college,
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: I'm for X, because now every candidate either supports his plan.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: I would note that all of his Senate opponents immediately
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: endorsed his Medicare for All legislation when he addressed it
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: in the Senate a few years ago. And so he
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: needs to find some sort of policy. I don't know
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: if he needs to find. He's doing quite well otherwise.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: But he apparently wants to find some sort of policy
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: differentiation between him and Elizabeth Warren, him and Cory Booker,
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: him and Kamala Harris, whoever else. And the, and he's
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: doing that by trying to go further left in being
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: more pure on single payer. I think that is totally appropriate.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: I think there is like, if I personally could wave
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: a wand and make something happen, the plan that I
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: would pick would be Bernie Sanders's plan. I think the
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: best way to do it would be if you could
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: put all people in Medicare, everyone has the same plan.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: You remove the power of, that not just insurance companies
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: but employers have over individual people by controlling their health care,
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: that would be the best thing. And there's a very
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: legitimate argument that that is the best plan to start
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: with heading into a presidency because you know that there's
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: going to be efforts to try to move it closer
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: to the middle. And so the further to the left
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: you start, the further to the left the middle is.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: What I worry about is the other part of the
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: Chris Hayes interview where he opposes– improving the Affordable Care Act,
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: because that I think is a dangerous level of purity,
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: which is you can be, because you're there by doing that,
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: you're saying, well, I am willing to hurt people in
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: the current system to aspire to a better system down
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: the line. And I think that that is a mistake.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: I'll say this about this whole debate. I think that
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: what we are having in the Democratic primary right now
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: is a debate over how fast and in what way
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: we transition to a single-payer system in this country. I think,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: like you said, and Barack Obama used to say this,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: if we were starting from scratch in this country, it
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: would make most sense to build a single-payer system. It
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: would be more efficient. It would be more just. It
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: would be more equitable. It would produce better health outcomes.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: It would just be the best way to go. That
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: is not the reality we have. We have an insurance
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: industry in this country. That insurance industry employs half a
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: million people in this country. We also have 250 million
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: people that get their insurance from their employers. And so
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: the question is, how do we make that transition from
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: this private insurance-based system to this single-payer system in a
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: way that causes people the least harm, that is the
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: most efficient, that is the most cost-effective, and that works
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: for everyone, and that actually builds political support not like
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: trying to get republicans to vote for it but actually
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: builds broad popular support within the country and that is
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: the debate we're happy bernie sanders plan and then that
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: and by the way the fact or having that debate
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: is a credit to bernie sanders and not just bracing
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: his but all the activists and all the people in
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: this country pushed us to this moment it is a
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: credit all of them but now we're having that debate
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: and the question is bernie's plan that has a transition
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: period as well i think it's like four years And
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: the way that Bernie's plan works is first, you know,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: everyone up to a certain age is enrolled in Medicare
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: and then the age goes down lower. And then, you know,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: you start from the bottom end of the spectrum and then,
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: you know, 20 year olds, 30 year olds get enrolled.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: And basically you start enrolling people, more and more people
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: every year until everyone's enrolled in Medicare. That's the transition
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: that Bernie's plan envisions. There are other options, right? On
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: one end, there's You know, Sherrod Brown, when he was
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: thinking about running, he was talking about, all right, let's
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: lower the age of enrollment in Medicare to 50. Let's
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: start there. Let's have all 50-year-olds plus be able to
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: enroll in Medicare. Then there's people like Senator Brian Schatz,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: who have proposed a Medicare buy-in. That basically is, that's
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: like a public option. That's saying, all right, there's all
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: these choices of private insurance. You can choose a private
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: insurance plan, or you can buy into Medicare if you'd like.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: That's a choice. Then, as you go up the spectrum,
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: then there's Medicare for America. This is the plan that
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Center for American Progress has come up with. Rosa DeLauro
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: and Jan Tchaikovsky in the House have came up with
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: this plan. That plan says, all right, let's take every
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: uninsured person in America and everyone who buys their insurance
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: on the individual market and let's automatically enroll them in Medicare.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: Let's also automatically enroll every newborn child in Medicare. And
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: then let's say to every American and every business that,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: you have the choice to move from your insurance that
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: you have now into Medicare. Not a buy-in, just you
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: can enroll if you'd like. And that basically says, the
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: idea behind that is, you know, if you build it,
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: they will come. If you're worried about Medicare, we will
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: show you how good Medicare is and you have a
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: choice to get into this program right now. So these
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: are all different ways of transitioning to a single-payer system.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: And look, some of them may leave private insurance out
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: there as a viable option. But the idea is, you know,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: we will show you that Medicare is better than private
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: insurance instead of saying, all right, everyone has to enroll immediately.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: And it's important to understand that that's the actual debate
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: we're having. We're not having a debate. about, you know,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: at least in the Democratic Party, at least mostly in
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, about whether we should have a private
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: insurance industry where no one else enrolls in Medicare or
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: Medicare for all. That's not really the debate. The debate is,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: what does the transition look like? How fast is it?
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: What does it cost? What is the financing plan? All
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. And I think there's, like you said,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: there's a lot, you know, I don't know that there
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: are any right answers right now, and I think it's
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: a healthy debate to have. But I think we have
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: to be mindful that, you know, like, it's not just
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: insurance company fucking executives and Republicans worried about. Who cares
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: about them? But there's doctors to consider. There are patients.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: There are nurses. There are people who get their insurance
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: from their employers. There are all kinds of things to consider.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: We have been through this with the Affordable Care Act.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: It is not easy. And it is not just about
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: insurance companies and Republicans trying to kill our plans, though
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: that is certainly part of it. It is about people's
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: genuine fear and anxiety about how to transfer into a
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: system that we know will be better for them. And
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: it's tough, right? It's a tough debate.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: Two things that I think are important here. One, if
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: you were a candidate and you were running around saying
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: you're for Medicare for all, you have to very specifically
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: detail what that means, right? Bernie has done that. Um,
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: Beto O'Rourke has at least, he hasn't detailed a specific plan,
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: but he has expressed a very specific piece of legislation
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: that he supports, the Medicare for America plan that you mentioned.
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: So I think you have to say where you are
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: on the spectrum of Sanders to some other version of
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: Medicare for All. And it's not enough just to do
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: the hashtag and move on. And I think that's true
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: of every candidate. It doesn't mean you can't be open
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: to other ideas, which is my ideal plan is Sanders,
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: but I would certainly sign a bill like Medicare for America.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: Like you can, you can have a range of options.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: And then second, if you are for Medicare for America
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: or the cap plan or something, some other form of
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: a longer transition period, as opposed to Sanders, that does not,
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: you are not a corporate shill, right?
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: It is like, we should just take a step back
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: and recognize we were having a debate within the democratic party,
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: which about how quickly to move to single payer. And
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: back in 10 years ago, back in the 2008 campaign,
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: when we worked with Obama and, The fact that we
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: were having a conversation about a market-based path to universal
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: health care was seen as nigh on to political suicide.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: And so it is like take the win here, people.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: It is to the credit of the organizers who push
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: so hard and keep pushing, of course, that we're having this.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: Debate, as you said. And look, and the answer that
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: I gave and the one that you just gave, too,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: is basically Elizabeth Warren's answer on this, which is she
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: sponsored Bernie's bill. But when she's been asked about it,
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: she said, look, there's a lot of pathways to get there. There's,
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: you can lower ages, you can have buy-ins, you can
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: automatically enroll people. And, you know, I'm for whatever pathway
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: gets us there. I've obviously signed on to Bernie's bill,
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: but I'm open to whatever path gets us there. I
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: think Elizabeth Warren has given great answers on this. Okay,
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: so that's that. Speaking of 2020 strategy, Axios is reporting
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: that President Trump has won. One former Trump campaign official
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: said they plan to, one former Trump campaign official said
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: they plan to, quote, make whoever the nominee is radioactive
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: well before they get the nomination by making them look
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: like a far-left extremist. Quote, the plan is stay at 45,
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: 46% in the polls, that's Trump, and just make the
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: other guy radioactive. They plan to do so by highlighting
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: Democratic positions on Medicare for All, the Green New Deal,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: court packing, abolishing the Electoral College, and reparations. This comes
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: as Mitch McConnell this week forced a vote on the
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: Green New Deal resolution purely as a political stunt, where
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: 43 Democrats voted present and everyone else voted no. So
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: just to start, isn't the typical incumbent re-election strategy to
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: disqualify their opponent by making them look extreme? Isn't that
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: what usually happens?
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: Yes. This story, and no disrespect to the reporters who
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: wrote it, but this story is equivalent to someone reporting out, like, scoop,
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: multiple siren emojis. We have a secret inside look at
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: Duke's strategy to win the NCAA tournament. Duke is going
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: to try to score as many points as possible while
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: holding their opponents to as few points as possible. Yes,
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: it's very Captain Obvious. I'm not really sure what the
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: news is here. I've worked on a lot of campaigns,
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: and quote-unquote former campaign officials are generally not good windows
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: into the current campaign strategy. So yes, this is pretty obvious.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: We all knew this was what was going to happen,
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: but someone got some clicks out of it.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: So how can Democrats counter this? Because obviously, you know,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: whether it's an obvious strategy or not, which we think
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: it is, and whether the former campaign officials knew whatever
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: the fuck they were talking about or not, it is
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: pretty clear from Donald Trump's actions, his words, from Mitch
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: McConnell doing this with the Green New Deal, that they
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: feel like what they're going to do is paint all
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: of these Democrats as extreme radical leftists who've gone over
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: the edge, embraced socialism, and look at all these crazy
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: things they embrace. How do Democrats counter that?
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: I think– we've talked about this before, but it's sort
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: of the Wayne Gretzky rule of politics, which is you
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: lose 100 percent of the arguments you don't make. Which
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: is why I found the Democratic strategy on the Green
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: New Deal legislation to be somewhat troubling. How is that
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: going to play itself out on the campaign trail when
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: Republicans are like, you support this socialist Green New Deal?
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: And they're like, no, I voted present. We have to
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: go out and make an argument for the policies we
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: care about and engage that argument nonstop for the next
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: few years. What we can't do is before something, see
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: a bad poll and run away because they're going to
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: tar us with the Green New Deal as they depict
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: it from now until Election Day. And so you have
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: to make the argument. The second point here is, and
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: this goes to the obviousness of the strategy, but is
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: the battle in a in a reelection campaign is between
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: the opponent's intention to turn it into a referendum on
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: the incumbent and the incumbent's attempt to turn it into
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: a choice between the incumbent and the challenger. And typically
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: what that would mean is that it should be the
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: job of the Democrats to only talk about Trump. We
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: have to make this all about Trump. And that strategy
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: has worked many times in the past. I do not
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: think it'll work this time. I think we actually have
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: to swerve out of that lane And we actually have
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: to paint very specifically and clearly and concisely and persuasively
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: the alternative to Trump. Because there's going to be no...
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: It's not going to be hard to make things about Trump.
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: Everything's about Trump. Trump makes everything about Trump. So the Democrat,
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: instead of only talking about Trump, should spend much more
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: time talking about themselves and let Trump talk about Trump.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: Because he does as good a job indicting his own
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: presidency as anyone else could possibly do. And so... The
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: typical strategy of just make it all about the incumbent,
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: the one that Romney used against Obama, I think is
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: a mistake here. And even more so than before, we
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: should be talking about the kind of, what a Democratic
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: presidency would mean, what define the change that we are
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: arguing for, because Trump will do a fine job defining
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: the status quo that currently exists.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: See, I think we have to make it, I think
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: Democrats have to make it a choice as well. And
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: I think so, I would like split the difference. I
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: think that it's a mistake to only talk about Trump
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: I also think it's a mistake to only talk about
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: our own alternative. People are going to the ballot box.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: They're going to choose between Donald Trump and a Democrat.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: And I think you have to lay out, here is
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: what happens if you vote for Donald Trump. And you
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: don't talk about, here's what happens. He says more crazy shit.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: He has bad tweets. He's mean to people. That's not
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: part of it. These are the policy consequences of of
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: voting for Donald Trump. This is what's going to happen
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: in your life. There will be 20 million people who
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: will lose health care. Anyone who has a pre-existing condition
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: can be denied by their insurance company. More people will
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: be ripped away from their families at the border, right?
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: We will make no progress on climate change when we
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: only have 10 years left. Here's what will happen if
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: you vote for the Democrat. We will, more people will
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: get health care, right? We will start combating climate change.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: We will have gun control, right? Like, I do think
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: that You can make the choice on policy terms and
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: also on how it affects people's lives. And I totally
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: agree that we cannot run away from these positions, which
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: is something that Democrats have done in the past. I'm
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: sort of okay with the present votes on the Green
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: New Deal because I think Democrats can say this was
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: a stunt by Mitch McConnell and the Green New Deal
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: resolution right now is just that. It's a resolution. There's
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: no policy. There's no legislation. And once we get to
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: an actual Green Deal and we have legislation and we
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: have details, you know, I'm going to be for it.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: I'm for an actual bill that could combat climate change.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: I'm not, you know, some resolution that Mitch McConnell's putting
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: there just to fuck us. Like, that's just a stunt.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: But I don't think that any kind of bad polls
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: or Republican ads or anything like that should force Democrats
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: to run away from this. I think, like you said,
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: you have to make the argument. You have to make
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: the argument. And We should feel confident, by the way,
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: that there is popular political support for enrolling more people
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: in Medicare, for many of the planks of the Green
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: New Deal. You know, Sean McAwee just had a piece
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: in The New York Times yesterday, Wednesday. Data for Progress,
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: his organization, and Civis, which is run by former Obama folks,
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: did some polling. They asked the question, You know, the
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: Green New Deal would phase out the use of fossil
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: fuels with the government providing clean energy jobs for people
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: who can't find employment in the private sector. All jobs
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: would pay at least $ 15 an hour, include healthcare benefits
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: and collective bargaining rights. To pay for it, we'd raise
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: taxes on incomes over $ 200, 000 by 15%. 46% were in favor,
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: 34% were opposed. So, you know, some of this stuff
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: is popular, has popular support, and we shouldn't run away
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: from it.
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: It's also, and I'll say in defense of Democrats, there
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: isn't any indication that Yeah, the Democrats are running away
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: from these things.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: Right, that's true.
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: So this is more just like a cautionary note based
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: on past history, not behavior we've seen in the context
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: of this current election. But also the thing about politics,
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: it isn't to find popular things and make yourself care
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: about them. It is to find the things you care
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: about and make them popular. And literally the planet is
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: at stake over whether we can make people care about
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: climate change enough that they will vote people out for
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: opposing it. And so that is the task at hand here.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: And that's why it's so important that people not run
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: away from the Green New Deal, but also that presidential
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: candidates lay out what their version of the Green New
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: Deal looks like. They do not have to agree with
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: the exact version that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey put out.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: They can have a different version of it or it
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: could be more aggressive or less aggressive or reallocate some
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: of the aggressiveness among various different initiatives. But the key
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: is to Define what you care about, persuade people that's right,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: and then turn it into policy. That's why we're in
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: politics to begin with.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: Hard agree.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: When we come back, we will have Dan's interview with
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: Andrew Gillum.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: We are now pleased to be joined by Andrew Gillum,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: the former mayor of Tallahassee and Florida's Democratic gubernatorial nominee
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: in 2018, and I will say an all-time favorite of
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: of Pot Saved America. Andrew, thanks for joining us.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: You know what?
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: I think the only favorite part is that video you
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: played of me cutting a tree and then slamming me.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: That was all in good fun.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: That was fun. I enjoyed it, man. I wish I
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: could have been with you.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. You had more important things to do
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: that day. We understand that. So you announced last week
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: that you're all in on making sure Donald Trump doesn't
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: win Florida in 2020, but you won't be leading that
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: effort as a candidate. Tell us about Bring It Home
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: Florida and what it's going to be doing over the
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: next two years.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, listen, the road to the White House
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: runs through the state of Florida for Donald Trump. Now,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: I realize that there are a lot of ways for
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: Democrats to get there, but if you want to deny
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: the White House to Donald Trump, it goes through Florida.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: And so, and Daniel, you'll know this from your time
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: with Obama, but in 2008, Democrats had a voter registration
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: advantage in Florida of over 700,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: When I was on the ballot this last November, that
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: advantage had shrank to fewer than 250,000, a precipitous decline
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: in registration. And quite frankly, what that has meant is
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: elections that based on migration trends of 65 and older
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: white voters that are attending more conservative as they locate
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: in our state. connected with the fact that we are
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: not keeping pace with our registration could really signal something
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: bad for Democrats if we don't get this under control.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: And so we've made a pledge, along with a number
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: of groups on the ground. And I'm out here every
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: day hustling since that announcement to try to get the
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: resources pulled together so that we can get a million
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: new voters on the voter rolls.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 5: But it doesn't stop there.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: We also, once we get them there, want to engage
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: with them on a regular, ongoing basis to so that
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: the last time they hear from us isn't when we
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: registered them and then came back around and asked them
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: for their vote in the last couple of weeks. We
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: want to build a real enduring relationship with voters. And
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: as you know, with Florida being a 1% state where
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: elections are decided by a few hundred thousand votes, a
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: million votes can make a big, big difference. And even
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: if you can't get everybody out, an appreciable increase there
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: in a state where elections are determined by the margins,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: could be very, very significant to the overall outcome of
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: the election, not just for Florida, but obviously for the country.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: I'm curious about the essentially half million registration advantage that
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: Democrats lost over the last decade. Is that primarily from
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: migration trends, or has there also been a failure to,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: have we been outworked and outorganized, I guess, is the
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: question I'd ask.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we I mean, obviously, there are purges that we
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: have to contend with without a doubt. But after Obama's election,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: the elections, the Republicans in the legislature criminalized voter registration.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: So you had to now instead of groups who went
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: out there and registered voters in mass church organizations and
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: otherwise who did it and turn those forms in the
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: legislature said, if you want to register voters in mass,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: you've got to get registered with the state. You've got
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: to be assigned a particular ID number. You've got to
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: return that form in a number of hours after collecting it.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: And if you don't, you can be criminally prosecuted. So
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: that had a chilling effect on registration writ large. So
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: that coupled with the fact that we've got migration trends
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: that have helped to close those margins. And quite frankly,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: we haven't done the best job we can at registration.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: All of that has co-conspired to create an electoral climate
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: in our state, which is very, very challenging for Democrats
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: to win statewide races and now can potentially impact our
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: ability to elect Democrats nationally. We can't let that happen.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: There are 4 million people in my state who are
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: voting eligible and are not registered. All we're saying is
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: we want to go out there and surgically get a
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: million new ones between now and November 2020 election and
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: And in so doing, work with those people to turn
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: out that vote. And I believe if we do it,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: we can flip our state. So we got to get
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: back to the basics, man. I mean, I think, Dan,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: that's what we're talking about. Republicans have out-organized us. They
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: keep continuously winning Election Day. I can't remember the last
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: time where Democrats on Election Day actually won the state. Well,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: we got to get back to our basics, communicate to
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: our folks, get them registered, get them engaged, and then
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: turn them out. And that is not work that you
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: can do in the final weeks of an election. That
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: is the kind of work that we have to start
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: now if we want to have impact on 2020.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: When you're out there talking to unregistered voting age Floridians,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: what do you think is the best message to get
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: them off the sidelines, registered, and eventually into the ballot box?
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: Is there a narrative to tell? Are there specific issues
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: that you think work? And do you think that whatever
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: that formula is could apply nationally or is it just
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: in Florida?
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: Well, I tell you, first of all, we cannot wait
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: to the very last minute to engage our voters. We
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: can't wait to the very end and let them, you know,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: and then try to communicate to them that the sky
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: is falling and that everything's, the house is on fire.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: And if you don't vote, this is the most important
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: election of your lifetimes. And by the way, this is
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: my candidate who's going to solve all those problems for you.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: Because the truth is, is that many of these voters,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: and they're not all young, by the way, many of
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: them are working class folks. Many of them have been Obviously,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: around these things, they've been inside and outside elections. And
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: they've been repeatedly disappointed by the fact that their neighborhoods
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: don't change, the conditions in their children's schools don't change.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: Health care doesn't become any more affordable or accessible to them.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: And so what I think we have to do is
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: try to reinstill a little bit of faith in the
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: system and, quite frankly, level with our voters.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: You know what?
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: Change doesn't happen overnight. By this election by itself, everything
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: won't change. But somebody is going to win this thing.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: And if we can put our shoulder to the wheel
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: and start advocating not just for the candidate of our choice,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: but after that person gets elected, do the hard work
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: of keeping them accountable to that work and pulling up
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: our sleeves and working in our own communities, that's how
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: we start to change things for the long term. But
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: if we fail to do that, then by the way,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: our conditions are never going to change in our neighborhoods.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: The future trajectory of our kids will never be bright
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: if we don't decide to get involved in the process.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: My guess is that Donald Trump might be the best
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: Stimulus we've seen not because, you know, he's wholly, you know,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: unqualified for the job that he holds. But moreover, people
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: are getting a gut check here is is this guy
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: representing me? Is he you know, is my life better
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: off as a result of him having been elected?
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: And if if if some of.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: The stories that I've heard from people are true, people
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: cutting bigger checks to the federal government this year and
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: paying taxes than they ever have before. Working people still
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: not feeling any relief whatsoever. When it comes to health
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: care and prescription drugs and so on and so forth,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: we've got to remind those folks that those decisions get
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: made at that level. And if you choose not to engage,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: then you're not a factor. Frederick Douglass was right. He
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: said power sees nothing without a demand. And the best
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: way to make good, in my opinion, on that demand
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: is to show up and let an elected official know
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: that you've got the power to put them in office
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: and you've got the power to take them.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: Out of office.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: We've got to get agency again over ourselves. And I
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: think leveling with people honestly about what it takes to
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: create that kind of change is how we do it.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: People are smart.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: You don't have to short circuit them. You can speak
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: directly and plainly and let them know that you need
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: their help. And by the way, everything in our community
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: won't change in one election. But we've got to show
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: up the next day and the day after that and
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: the day after that and keep pushing for the kind
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: of change that we want to see.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: There's no panacea here.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: So I think that message is exactly right, and I hope.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: People all around the country use that as we try
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: to expand the voting pool, not just in Florida, but everywhere. Obviously,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: Election Day in Florida was tough for those of us
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: who very much wanted you to win and wanted Senator
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: Nelson to win. but we were excited by the passage
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: of the ballot measure that began restoring voting rights to
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: a number of felons. But now we have the Florida
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: State House contemplating legislation that's going to make it incredibly
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: hard to realize the promise of that amendment. What is
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: your reaction to that effort? Is there anything that Floridians,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: people around the country can do to stop it?
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you, if you are a Floridian,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: I would encourage you to call in, write in to
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: your state representative, your state senator. The voters of my state,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: by 63%, passed Amendment 4, which basically said that we
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: believe that we are a second-chance state. We believe that
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: you shouldn't be judged forever by your worst day, that
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: once you have paid your debt to society... you reintroduce
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: yourself to the community. You ought to have your constitutional
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: right to vote. That passed our state. Republicans voted for it.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: Democrats and independents alike voted for it. And now the
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: Florida legislature has decided that it wants to.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: Fiddle with that law.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: In fact, they want to essentially nullify that law. And
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you how. Even though it wasn't included in
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: the ballot initiative itself, they want to add on top
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: of restitution and completeness of sentence, the fact that they
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: want you to have to now take up the cost
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: for court fees. Well, the Brennan Center put out a
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: study that showed when those kinds of fees are added,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: that only 3% of returning citizens actually pay those. If
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: that is true, if that stat holds true and consistent
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: in the state of Florida, you're talking about 97 percent
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: of those folks not even being able to participate in
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: the process. That's that's practical nullification of the law. And
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: it equates, in my opinion, to a poll tax. We
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: reject the poll tax. That is not where the voters
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: of the state of Florida decided. And now we got
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: to hold these folks accountable and make sure that we
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: do everything that we can to see that the spirit
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: of Um, and the actual constitutional amendment that was passed
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: is what ends up being enforced, uh, uh, in the
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: state of Florida. And if they actually try to upend, uh, the, the,
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: the decision of the voters of the state of Florida,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 3: then we need to get to the courts and litigate
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: this thing to make sure that we protect amendment four.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: You know, your race in 2018 was in some ways,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: maybe the, the testing ground for a lot of the
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: strategies that will be used, uh, both by Trump's campaign
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: and potentially for Democrats in the sense that your opponent
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: was essentially running as mini Trump. What advice would you
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: give to the Democrats running for president about how to
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: win Florida in 2018 if they're running against someone like
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump?
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you, first of all, I mean, I
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: don't think that the way you're going to defeat him
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: in our state is by getting in the gutter with him.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: I think you have to be agile and able to
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: respond when.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: Necessary to his attacks.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: But you got to keep this thing as centered as
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: you possibly can on the voters, on the people of
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: our state who are going to benefit by your policies.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: Elections are about the future. And whether we, you know,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: agree or disagree, and I, by the way, wholeheartedly disagree,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: but Trump in his own election presented a vision for
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: where he wanted to take the country. It happened to
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: be a version of of a country that I disagree with.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: He wanted to go back.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: He wanted to blame black and brown people for every
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: ill that working class white people have suffered. I disagree
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: with that, but the idea of making America great and
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: winning so much that we can't stand it appealed to
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: some people. And I think what we have to do
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 3: is get out there and present a bolder and a
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: brighter and a more inclusive vision for what we're going
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: to do for this country, but more specifically, how we're
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: going to improve the lives of everyday working people. If
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: we can stay focused on that kind of message, a
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 3: message about the future and how we improve this country
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: and level with people honestly about the road to doing
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: that and the difficulty in that process, but be optimistic
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 3: about what role we believe the next president of the
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 3: United States is going to play in doing that, I
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: think we can beat this guy at his own game.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: But I don't think that is going to be by
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 3: wallowing in the mud with him. My grandmother used to say, never, ever,
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: ever wrestle with a pig. because you both get dirty,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: but the pig likes it, right? Well, in this case,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump is the pig. He wants to wallow. And
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: what we got to do is make sure that we
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: hit him, but that we take it high immediately. Now,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: when I say high, I don't mean being polite. I
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: mean high as in getting back to the issues that
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: matter to everyday people.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: And I know it's still early in the Democratic presidential primary,
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: but Is there an issue or a set of issues
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: that you think should get more attention or more discussion
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: in the context of this primary as Democrats are figuring
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: out who their standard bearer is going to be against Trump?
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, obviously, I think, you know, we got to
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: get a little bit more crystallized on what it is
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: that we mean by health care. There are still states
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: like mine, like the state of Florida, where our refusal
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 3: to expand Medicaid is keeping over 800,000 people without access
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 3: to insurance. And by the way, for those of us
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 3: with insurance, we're still seeing our premiums rise without prediction
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: because of the fact that we got to pay for
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: indigent who are still getting access at the most efficient
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: and least effective form, which is in emergency rooms.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 5: I do think that we.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: Have to have messages that are customized to some of
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: our states where these problems are really pronounced in those places.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 5: I would love to hear Democrats talk.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: About in the effort to concentrate attention on the environment,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: and global warming and climate change to lift up the
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: economic elements of this. Like, what kind of jobs get
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: created when we save our environment? What kind of accessible
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 3: new green economy can we create while also protecting our environment,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: protecting our communities? In a state like mine, where we're
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: surrounded by water on all three sides, you know, on
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: three of the four sides, this is a real issue
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: to many people, and quite frankly, has crossover appeal to people.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 3: But we got to be able to talk about that
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: in layman's and accessible enough terms that people recognize that
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: this isn't just about, you know, melting icebergs and polar
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: bears and to some extent even storms, but that this has.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 5: A really lived.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: Impact on your lives. And the fact that if we
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 3: do something about this, not only can we save, you know,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 3: our states and my state in particular, but we can
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: also put some green dollars in people's pockets where they
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 3: can go to work doing jobs that pay them wages
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: that that are meaningful and at the same time are
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 3: leading a new green revolution. Mostly I would just suggest
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 3: that across the whole range of issues that our nominee
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: focus on putting the people at the center of it,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 3: helping people see themselves in those issues and not just
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 3: as abstract talking points.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: You know, you brought up healthcare and Florida is obviously
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: a state that is very sensitive to demagoguery around Medicare.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: How would you tell Democratic candidates they can win the
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: argument around Medicare for all with Florida voters, many of
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: whom are over the age of 65?
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: Well, first of all, make sure you know or that
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: seniors know that they're.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 5: Part of this system too, right?
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, Republicans are threatening and have budgets that threaten
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 3: Social Security as well as Medicaid. One, don't let that
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: message get away from you in the state of Florida.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: Get a hold of it early and beat it into
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 3: the ground. And then for working people, including working class
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 3: white people that have become part of this conversation of
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 3: whether you choose to double down on your base or
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 3: talk to working class white people, I resent and I
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: reject the fact that that's a choice. I think we
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: do both. Again, my state is a 1% state. Decisions
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 3: or election outcomes are decided by fewer, in my case, 0.4%.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: Of the electorate.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 3: But traditionally, we're a 1% state. We don't have to
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 3: win everybody. We don't even have to win these red
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: counties necessarily, but we do have to lose them less.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: And so if there is a message that you can
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 3: provide to those voters who, again, are struggling to make
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 3: ends meet, who are struggling with their health care costs,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: who are struggling and are terrified of getting sick because
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 3: if they get sick, they don't go to work, they
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: can't pay their bills, something gets turned off, you've got
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: to figure out a way to talk to those folks
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: in a way that says, listen, we're not talking about
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 3: giving anybody anything for free or losing choice necessarily. What
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: we're talking about is that you ought to be able
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 3: to live a life of dignity. And it doesn't make
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 3: sense that big corporate entities are being able to get
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: over on you, profit from your pain and from your demise.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: that there's a way to do this thing, to do
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: it with respect for humanity and respect for the labor
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 3: that you produce, the way in which you contribute to
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: our economy and our society. And if you elect us
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 3: and you work with us, that's the kind of healthcare
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 3: system that we can produce for you. Getting into all
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: of the numbers and the lofty arguments around how many
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: billions this is, that and a third can be saved. Again,
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: I think our struggle and our opportunity is, is to
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 3: be able to communicate with voters at a very commonsensical
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 3: level where, again, they get to see themselves reflected in
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: the policies that you're talking about. Don't let these folks
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 3: get us wrapped off in some, you know, word, you know,
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 3: soup that doesn't produce something that a voter, again, can
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 3: connect to.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 2: Before I let you go, can you tell our listeners
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 2: how they could help support your efforts with Bring It
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: Home Florida?
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 3: So I would strongly encourage folks. And by the way,
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 3: there are remote ways in which you can help.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 5: Us as well, but visit us.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: At forwardfla.com where you'll be able to engage in the
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 3: work that we're doing. You'll be able to indicate whether
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 3: or not you want to volunteer for what we're attempting
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 3: to do. If you forget that name. Look up Forward Florida,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 3: which is the committee we've organized to basically be the
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: umbrella group under which we'll run this effort. Give us
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 3: your volunteer hours.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 5: Make a contribution.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 3: This is going to be an insanely expensive effort, but
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 3: it is smidgens when you compare the billion or so
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: dollars that are going to be spent over the course
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 3: of this presidential election. This is money well spent, effort
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 3: well made, and the swingiest swing state that there is.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: The third largest state in all of America. the state
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 3: that has 29 electoral votes, and the state that if
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 3: we flip it blue, we absolutely deny Donald Trump a
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 3: second term in the White House.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: Andrew Gillum, we are so excited about what you're doing.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: We're going to be watching very carefully. Thank you. Hope
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: to talk to you again soon. Thank you for joining
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: us on Pod Save America.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, man. Keep doing great work, guys. As promised, I
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: am here with Priyanka Arabindi. of What A Day, and
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: of our Pod Save America live Q & A that
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: we do every week.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 6: Hey, good to be here.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, what we do every week is a
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: bunch of people on the internet, they ask us questions.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: And then you ask us the questions that they ask. Mm-hmm.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: It's great. It's a good time. Sometimes you give us
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: tough follow-ups.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 6: Sometimes. And then sometimes I ask what you order.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: At Dunkin' Donuts. Which you're about to find out. We're
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: not going to give anything away right now.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 6: Anything away.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: No spoilers. No spoilers.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 6: But if you want to get in on the fun,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 6: you can ask us questions on Twitter or Instagram on
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 6: Wednesday morning. And then we take them every day at
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 6: around 1 on YouTube.com slash Crooked Media.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 5: Go there.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: Subscribe. Smash that subscribe button. There you go. You got it.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: And then you can follow along. And here are a
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: few questions from this week.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 6: This next question, Elijah and I both really like. So
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 6: I'm really interested to see what you guys have to say.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 6: Christina is asking, what policy proposal from the 2020 candidates
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 6: do you think is the most innovative and unique? And
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 6: then which policy proposal do you think is the most
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 6: necessary or would do the most good?
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: My vote for the most unique and interesting is Elizabeth
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: Warren's proposal to allow workers to elect 40% of the
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: seats on any company's corporate board. Because I think if
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: you're going to give a voice to workers and make
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: sure that they have a say in making decisions from
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: outsourcing to CEO pay to compensation to benefits, then actually
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: having a board that's comprised of representatives of people who
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: work in the company as opposed to some rich people
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: that the CEO knows, that's going to make a huge difference.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: And it's a fairly... radical proposal, but it also seems
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: very democratic. So that's my vote for the most unique.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 5: I would say that's smart.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 4: I would say, again, look, we've said it before, but
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 4: Elizabeth Warren is leading the policy discussion.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 5: I would say the most necessary.
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 4: And I think the most important right now are the
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 4: candidates that are thinking about systemic power imbalance in our economy.
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 4: And to that end, again, it's Elizabeth Warren talking about
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 4: corporate consolidation and monopoly. amongst tech companies and elsewhere. Cory
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 4: Booker has also talked about this. So a lot of
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 4: them have. But I look, my personal view is, you know,
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 4: I think there's a lot of hand wringing about economic
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 4: inequality and a lot of policymaking that's downriver of the problem.
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 4: You know, trying to raise them in wages, the right
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 4: thing to do, trying to rebalance our tax code so
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 4: that it reflects the fact that wealthy people are doing
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 4: far better than everybody else is the right thing to do.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 4: But both of those are ways of addressing the outcome
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 4: of what our economy produces and who it produces for.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 4: And I think policies that get at the entrenched and
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 4: growing power of corporations and how they've been using and
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 4: abusing that power in our political system against workers and
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 4: against consumers is the most important question for any candidate.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 4: And what they'll do to take on that power, to me,
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 4: is the most important question. And again, to that end,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 4: it's been Elizabeth Warren. And Bernie Sanders. But in terms
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 4: of new policies, I think it's Elizabeth Warren.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: I would say that the most necessary, like if I
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: were president, the first bill that I would put on
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: the floor is a package of reforms. And this is
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: basically what the House passed first, the Democratic House passed first.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: And I think Warren's talked about doing this first as well.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: And I think almost every candidate has talked about being
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: for this. But automatic voter registration, a new Voting Rights Act,
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: ending gerrymandering, giving DC voting rights, um, and letting the
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: people of Puerto Rico decide what they want to do.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 5: And they better pick fucking statehood.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 5: But, um, it's time to, it's time to, it's time
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 5: to pick.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: I think that, uh, statehood. I think we, if we,
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: once we have power, right, there's only so many priorities
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: that you can pass right away before you get to
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: the next midterms. And I think expanding and strengthening voting
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: rights and, uh, democratic power is going to be most,
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: small d democratic power is going to be most important, um, for, uh,
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: For democracy and for our party. Like, I just think
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: we need to make sure that the more people that
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: can vote, the better.
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 4: Split California in half. That's four Democratic senators. Merge some
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 4: of those. So merge some states.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 5: Got to get those mergers going.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: That too.
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 5: Get some state consolidation.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 6: This next question comes from Diana. She says, I think
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 6: a lot of people are feeling a little helpless right
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 6: now with the Parkland suicides, the awful new budget, Republicans
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 6: trying to gut Obamacare. There's a bunch of bad things
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 6: going on. The release, non-release of the Mueller report. How
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 6: do we keep up momentum and keep moving forward without
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 6: losing hope? Where and how should we focus our energy
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 6: right now?
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 4: You know, it's a it's a good question. I also
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 4: think it's partially it's a timing thing. You know, like
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 4: we just the 2018 midterms, one of the most consequential
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 4: elections we've ever had were four and a half months ago,
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 4: five and a half months ago.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: They just happened years ago, 10 years ago.
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 4: We just had one of the most important victories, I
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 4: would say, in our lifetimes, taking the House back, you know,
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 4: winning some of these Senate seats that people thought we
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 4: would lose, winning a bunch of state legislative seats. So
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 4: I would say I think it's fair to feel beaten
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 4: down by the news recently. But I'd keep in mind
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 4: that this is a long game. Like, it is early 2019.
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 4: We were the beginning of a Democratic primary in which
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 4: we have Democrats out there talking about in a really
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 4: big substantive policy debate about the future of the party
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 4: that's been genuinely quite positive in terms of the level
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 4: of debate and the way the candidates are engaging with
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 4: one another or not engaging with one another. Yeah, like
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 4: I think it's fair to say that if you were
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 4: hoping for more from the Mueller report, you might be disappointed,
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 4: especially with the way Barr framed it. But again, you know,
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 4: we won in 2018. We didn't have a Mueller report then.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 4: So and then, you know, on issues like guns, it's
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 4: really tragic what's happening.
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 4: And And it's a reminder, too, that even beyond the
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 4: deaths that are caused by gun violence, gun suicides, gun murders,
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 4: these mass shootings, is the ricochet and the ripple effect
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 4: they have for communities. But another sign is just that
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 4: things can change. We're having the first gun hearings in
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 4: a decade because Democrats won the House. We're starting to
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 4: have the conversation. We're starting to take power back. So, yes,
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 4: I think that this is a particularly grueling period because
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 4: the election is far away. And Trump seems to once again...
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 4: be acting as though he is skating without consequence. But, uh,
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 4: this was always going to be a long fight. And, uh,
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 4: this is a period of time where I think we're
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 4: furthest away from where our, where we have our strength
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 4: as voters. Um, and that's okay, but, uh, you know,
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 4: go for a walk outside, check out. I'm going to
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 4: go see, I want to see us. I want to
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 4: see what happens with this, uh, Chris Evans movie.
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 5: What's it called?
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: Avengers.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 5: And, uh, you know, that that's, that's my advice.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think, Take a step back from the news.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: If you want to donate, there's plenty of options. You
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: can go to votesaveamerica.com slash unify and donate to the
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: eventual Democratic nominee. Or if you've picked your favorite already,
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: donate to that person's campaign. There are House candidates. We
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: need to protect the House. And there are probably, and
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: I said this on the pod the other day, there's
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: probably 16 House Democrats who are in a toss-up category
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: right now who could use your support. because Republicans are
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: going to be coming after them. We're going to have
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: elections in 2019. We might be able to flip the
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: Virginia legislature. There's going to be some other elections. Also,
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: check out what your friends at Indivisible are doing. Check
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: out what our friends at MoveOn are doing. Check out
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: our friends at Flippable. There's all these organizations that are
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: both trying to elect people on local and state levels
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: and are also trying to influence policy and legislation. Go
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: to a march. There's plenty of activities and organizing that
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: we can do right now And I would say, like,
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: focus on that and focus on that energy, because spending
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: too much time watching the news on Twitter, on cable
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: and with all the bad news there, you know, it
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: can wear you down. And this is also a marathon,
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: not a sprint.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: Like it is. We have a long time until the
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: 2020 elections. And so everyone should sort of save up
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: a lot of their energy. And there's going to be
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: 50 million news cycles between now and then. So whatever
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: seems bad now, it probably won't seem as bad 48
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: hours from now.
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 4: You know, sometimes I think about the fact that the
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 4: Tyrannosaurus rex lived closer to us in time than the
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 4: Tyrannosaurus rex lived to the Triceratops.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: Oh.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 5: Think about that.
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 2: That's so crazy. Think about that.
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: Taking edibles before the license?
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 3: No.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: No.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 3: No.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 5: The edible I'm taking... It's called Life Itself.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: John, this one. Next one's for you.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 6: In honor of going to Boston in a few weeks,
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 6: the world wants to know, what's your regular Dunkin' Donuts order?
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: And will you be getting it there? I'm just going
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: to feed all the tweets. It is a large French vanilla.
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: What am I?
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 5: Hey, where are we going?
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 2: Paris?
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 5: I can't do the accent.
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 4: Paris?
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: Large French vanilla skim milk. That's it. No sweetener, though,
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: because that would be too much.
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 5: Well, the French vanilla is sweet. The French vanilla is sweet.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 5: Skim milk is disgusting. Shame on you for.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: Getting skim milk. Skim milk is a problem?
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 5: Skim milk is terrible. It is terrible. It is not
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 5: good for you. It's not healthier. It doesn't taste better.
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 5: It is stupid.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 4: Skim milk is a vengeful scam from the low-fat era
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 4: of the fucking food pyramid. It's got to go. It's
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 4: got to go. Stop putting skim milk in your coffee.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 4: It's not a diet food, all right? It's basically just
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 4: carb water.
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 5: Get it out of there.
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: Ham, egg, and cheese in an English muffin, too. That's
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: a breakfast.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 6: Ooh.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 5: That part's fine.
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 6: What's it like sharing an office?
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: I'm just wondering. Every day is a new joy. Thanks
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: to Andrew Gillum for joining us today, and we'll talk
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: to you next week.
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to us rant today, people.
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: Peak stupid, Dan. Peak stupid. All right. Bye.