Latest / Pod Save America / “Trump Leaks and Tax Cheats.” (with Rep. Val Demings!)

Transcript

“Trump Leaks and Tax Cheats.” (with Rep. Val Demings!) · Pod Save America

0:01
Speaker 1: So Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
0:23
Speaker 1: On today's show, Florida Congresswoman Val Demings is here to
0:26
Speaker 1: talk about the explosive news that Donald Trump's Justice Department
0:29
Speaker 1: secretly obtained the records of her fellow House Intelligence Committee
0:32
Speaker 1: members and their families. Then, we'll discuss how a series
0:36
Speaker 1: of new reports about rich people avoiding taxes should shape
0:39
Speaker 1: the Democratic agenda and take a look at some of
0:41
Speaker 1: our favorite moments from Joe Biden's first foreign trip.
0:45
Speaker 3: But first.
0:46
Speaker 1: Check out this week's Pod Save the People, where DeRay
0:48
Speaker 1: and the gang discuss the history and importance of Juneteenth.
0:51
Speaker 1: And in honor of Pride Month, our own John Lovett
0:53
Speaker 1: returns to the stage for an exclusive Love It or
0:56
Speaker 1: Leave It special.
0:57
Speaker 3: Returns to the stage.
1:00
Speaker 1: Look, I just read the housekeeping. Called Out of the
1:02
Speaker 1: Closets Into the Streets. Tell us all about it, Lovett.
1:05
Speaker 1: I'll let you explain.
1:06
Speaker 3: We have, it's just going to be a big live show.
1:09
Speaker 3: We're going to record it live. We haven't announced the
1:12
Speaker 3: guest yet, but I saw just who's confirmed. We still
1:15
Speaker 3: got some maybes out there. Just who's confirmed? We have
1:18
Speaker 3: an incredible list of people coming. So make sure you
1:23
Speaker 3: check it out. And we're doing it. It's a big
1:24
Speaker 3: fundraiser for the Trans Justice Project, which basically distributes money
1:28
Speaker 3: to local organizations doing work on the ground. We really
1:31
Speaker 3: wanted to find something where you could donate and know
1:33
Speaker 3: that it's going directly to local organizations that need the money.
1:37
Speaker 3: So go to crooked.com slash pride. It will be on Thursday,
1:40
Speaker 3: June 24th at 4 p.m. Pacific, 7 p.m.
1:42
Speaker 2: Eastern.
1:44
Speaker 4: Is it true you're working on a whole new hour
1:47
Speaker 4: like Gene Smart, all new material?
1:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got a lot much more personal.
1:52
Speaker 2: All right.
1:52
Speaker 3: I'm no longer, you know, and let's just say, look,
1:55
Speaker 3: and for those of for the there's been a bit
1:58
Speaker 3: of a kerfuffle over my conversation with Secretary of Transportation,
2:01
Speaker 3: Pete Buttigieg, and I'll just say we're going to address it.
2:04
Speaker 4: And no more jokes about no more jokes about burning
2:06
Speaker 4: Emily Favreau's house down.
2:11
Speaker 2: Hard pass. Got it. Okay, John, over to you.
2:15
Speaker 1: Still smarting from that. Still smarting.
2:17
Speaker 3: All right.
2:18
Speaker 2: Still smarting.
2:18
Speaker 1: Let's get to the news. Last week, we learned that
2:20
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's Justice Department secretly seized phone and email records
2:23
Speaker 1: from reporters at CNN, The Washington Post, and The New
2:26
Speaker 1: York Times while investigating leaks about the Russia probe. Then
2:29
Speaker 1: on Friday, The Times reported that DOJ also secretly subpoenaed
2:32
Speaker 1: Apple for the metadata records of 73 phone numbers and
2:35
Speaker 1: 36 email accounts belonging to House Intelligence Committee members Adam Schiff,
2:39
Speaker 1: Eric Swalwell, their aides, and their families, including a child.
2:43
Speaker 1: The subpoena has turned up zero evidence of any leaks.
2:46
Speaker 1: And now Senate Democrats and President Biden's Justice Department have
2:49
Speaker 1: launched their own investigations into what looks like an unprecedented
2:52
Speaker 1: abuse of power, something no president has ever done, not
2:55
Speaker 1: even Richard Nixon. Joining us to talk about what's next
2:58
Speaker 1: here is someone who's no stranger to investigating Donald Trump,
3:02
Speaker 1: former House impeachment manager and current 2022 candidate for Marco
3:06
Speaker 1: Rubio's Senate seat, Florida Representative Val Demings. Congresswoman, welcome to
3:09
Speaker 1: Pod Save America.
3:11
Speaker 5: It's great to be with you. Thank you for having me.
3:14
Speaker 1: Your committee, the Intel Committee, was the DOJ's target here. You,
3:19
Speaker 1: Chairman Schiff, Speaker Pelosi, and others have all called for
3:21
Speaker 1: an investigation. Why hasn't anyone in the House threatened subpoenas
3:26
Speaker 1: for former Attorneys General Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions to
3:29
Speaker 1: testify yet, both of whom denied even knowing that lawmakers
3:33
Speaker 1: were targeted?
3:35
Speaker 5: Well, let me just say this.
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Speaker 6: As you indicated in your opening statement, this is unprecedented
3:42
Speaker 6: for any president in the United States. And how many
3:45
Speaker 6: times do we have to go through this with the
3:48
Speaker 6: former president? He's done a lot of unprecedented things. But
3:52
Speaker 6: what I can guarantee you is, once again, he has
3:56
Speaker 6: reached an all-time low. Those in the Justice Department allow
3:59
Speaker 6: themselves to be used as his weapon against what he
4:03
Speaker 6: perceived as his political enemies. And we will get to
4:07
Speaker 6: the bottom of it. And I am sure that we
4:09
Speaker 6: will use whatever tools necessary to make sure that we
4:13
Speaker 6: get the whole truth and the complete truth about exactly
4:18
Speaker 6: what happened. We know the names that have been called,
4:20
Speaker 6: including a minor, but we do not know the full extent.
4:25
Speaker 6: And so we have to know the full extent of
4:28
Speaker 6: this unbelievable abuse of power.
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Speaker 5: And I'm sure we will use every tool that we
4:34
Speaker 5: need to get to the bottom of it.
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Speaker 1: And so that sounds like that you will issue subpoenas
4:39
Speaker 1: if Barr and Sessions refuse to testify on their own.
4:42
Speaker 6: Well, I think it's critical that we find out what
4:45
Speaker 6: Barr and Sessions knew. I mean, we've heard their statements.
4:49
Speaker 6: We've heard AG Barr try to distance himself. Well, you know,
4:54
Speaker 6: I would say it's about time. But we need to
4:57
Speaker 6: use whatever tool necessary to get to the bottom of it.
5:00
Speaker 6: And I'm sure leadership in the House will do just that.
5:04
Speaker 6: Of course, you know, this has been at the top
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Speaker 6: of their minds since the story broke, and it will continue.
5:11
Speaker 5: To be. The American people.
5:12
Speaker 6: Deserve to know, certainly the members of Congress, their staff
5:15
Speaker 6: and family members deserve to have a thorough investigation. And
5:19
Speaker 6: quite frankly, every member who could potentially be targeted in
5:23
Speaker 6: such a awful way needs to know the outcome of
5:28
Speaker 6: this investigation.
5:30
Speaker 1: What are some of the top questions that you want
5:32
Speaker 1: answered from this story?
5:35
Speaker 6: Well, you know, from the very beginning, it seems like
5:37
Speaker 6: this was the president had a solution first and then
5:42
Speaker 6: went looking for a problem.
5:46
Speaker 5: You know, Adam.
5:47
Speaker 6: Schiff led the investigation because of his committee assignment as
5:52
Speaker 6: chairman of Intel. He was just doing his job along
5:57
Speaker 6: with the members of the Intelligence Committee. It would be
6:00
Speaker 6: nice if the president had chosen to do the exact
6:03
Speaker 6: same thing. And so I would particularly be interested in
6:07
Speaker 6: What information, what evidence did the president have that led
6:12
Speaker 6: him to the actions that he was involved in to
6:15
Speaker 6: actually get or have those records subpoenaed, phone records, multiple
6:20
Speaker 6: phone numbers, including that of a minor? What probable cause
6:25
Speaker 6: did he have to move forward with that investigation? I'd
6:29
Speaker 6: be quite interested in hearing that answer.
6:33
Speaker 1: President Biden has ordered prosecutors to stop seizing reporters' phone
6:37
Speaker 1: and email data for the purpose of leak investigations. Do
6:40
Speaker 1: you think that that ban should be enacted as a
6:42
Speaker 1: law in order to make sure that future administrations can't
6:46
Speaker 1: undo it?
6:48
Speaker 6: You know, I certainly think that we have an obligation. Certainly,
6:50
Speaker 6: I think President Biden is off to a great start,
6:54
Speaker 6: but we have an obligation to put laws in place.
6:58
Speaker 6: Policies are one thing, procedures are another. But in those
7:02
Speaker 6: areas that we have consistently had issues or problems, or
7:07
Speaker 6: in those areas that allow us to have an opportunity
7:09
Speaker 6: to be proactive in our response, I think we always
7:13
Speaker 6: should look to legislation to codify some of the executive
7:18
Speaker 6: orders that the president may have written. And so again, leadership,
7:23
Speaker 6: and we will continue to be looking for those opportunities
7:26
Speaker 6: to make sure that the American people are not victimized.
7:30
Speaker 1: More broadly, do you think the Justice Department is doing
7:33
Speaker 1: enough to investigate the wrongdoing and potential criminality of the
7:37
Speaker 1: previous administration? Your colleague, Congressman Brendan Boyle, told the Washington
7:41
Speaker 1: Post this week, you know, he used to think it
7:44
Speaker 1: was better to look forward and not back. But with
7:46
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, it's sort of impossible to look away because
7:49
Speaker 1: it's just too dangerous not to investigate what happened.
7:52
Speaker 6: Well, you know, I share my colleague, Brandon's sentiment, right?
7:57
Speaker 6: But for me, as a former law enforcement officer, You always,
8:02
Speaker 6: I believe, have an obligation when there is suspected wrongdoing,
8:07
Speaker 6: certainly to the gravity of the former president's actions.
8:10
Speaker 5: We have an obligation.
8:12
Speaker 6: It's not necessarily about looking backwards or moving forward. It
8:17
Speaker 6: is about, you know, the saying that I love to say,
8:20
Speaker 6: everybody counts, but everybody is accountable. And as you said,
8:25
Speaker 6: as you began this particular.
8:27
Speaker 5: Segment, these are unprecedented times. And we have a president who.
8:34
Speaker 6: Did whatever he could, whenever he could to use the
8:38
Speaker 6: power of his office and basically in a criminal way.
8:42
Speaker 6: And so regardless of who that person is or what
8:46
Speaker 6: name they carry, we as legislators certainly have an opportunity
8:51
Speaker 6: to make sure that we provide the necessary oversight to
8:55
Speaker 6: make sure that we hold those who violate the law
8:57
Speaker 6: accountable because no one is above the law and really
9:01
Speaker 6: make sure that we've taken care of past vulnerabilities. So
9:05
Speaker 6: moving ahead, possibly we can prevent the same thing from
9:08
Speaker 6: happening in the future.
9:11
Speaker 1: There were reports on Friday that negotiations over police reform
9:15
Speaker 1: are falling apart over qualified immunity. You're a former police chief.
9:19
Speaker 1: If this bill doesn't make it any easier for victims
9:23
Speaker 1: to sue officers or at least departments over police misconduct,
9:26
Speaker 1: is it still worth passing?
9:29
Speaker 6: You know, I really believe, look, a year, over a
9:33
Speaker 6: year now on the other side of what happened to
9:36
Speaker 6: George Floyd. And I don't think there's anyone who's heard
9:40
Speaker 6: his story who does not agree that what happened to
9:43
Speaker 6: him was brutal.
9:44
Speaker 5: It was senseless and it was murder. It should never
9:47
Speaker 5: have happened.
9:48
Speaker 6: And now yet again, it is incumbent on us to
9:50
Speaker 6: take the necessary steps to prevent it from happening in
9:54
Speaker 6: the first place or happening the next time. You know,
9:58
Speaker 6: I am just, I know that this has been an
10:02
Speaker 6: up and down path to try to get the George
10:05
Speaker 6: Floyd Justice in Policing Act passed, but I'm not quite
10:10
Speaker 6: ready to throw in the towel just yet. I do
10:14
Speaker 6: believe that the legislation before the Senate, although not perfect,
10:20
Speaker 6: is quite reasonable. We still will have a lot of
10:24
Speaker 6: work to do, but I am just hoping that those
10:28
Speaker 6: who are in negotiations on both sides of the aisle
10:30
Speaker 6: will stay at the table and operate under the umbrella
10:35
Speaker 6: of what's reasonable And while I said, I do think
10:39
Speaker 6: the law is not perfect, but I do think the
10:41
Speaker 6: provisions in the law are reasonable. Let's move forward and
10:45
Speaker 6: get this done. And then let's quickly get back to
10:48
Speaker 6: the table involving every entity, involving lawmakers, involving law enforcement,
10:53
Speaker 6: involving advocates, community advocates, involving social workers and educators and
11:00
Speaker 6: others in the process to look at the next phase
11:04
Speaker 6: of the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act.
11:06
Speaker 5: But I'm not ready to give up yet. We have
11:09
Speaker 5: got to get this done.
11:12
Speaker 1: How important is qualified immunity to you as someone who's
11:16
Speaker 1: had experience running a police department?
11:18
Speaker 6: You know, what I try to remind people in this,
11:21
Speaker 6: as we're having this very important conversation is this, because
11:24
Speaker 6: I frequently talk to people and they'll say, well, if
11:27
Speaker 6: I was a law enforcement officer and I did the
11:30
Speaker 6: same thing I would be arrested today and, you know,
11:33
Speaker 6: led off in handcuffs immediately. And what I try to
11:36
Speaker 6: help them understand is that, well, they do not have,
11:41
Speaker 6: as a citizen, do not have a duty to act.
11:45
Speaker 6: If they see a knife fight in progress, for example,
11:49
Speaker 6: or a gunfight in progress.
11:51
Speaker 5: They can simply walk away. Now, we would certainly hope.
11:54
Speaker 6: That they would call the 911 and then be a
11:59
Speaker 6: witness to what occurred. Law enforcement officers do not have
12:03
Speaker 6: that ability. They have to engage. If they see a
12:08
Speaker 6: knife fight or a gun.
12:10
Speaker 5: Fight in progress, they cannot simply walk away and say, oh,
12:13
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna get involved in that because it may
12:15
Speaker 5: not go well and then I'm going to, who knows
12:17
Speaker 5: what will happen to me.
12:19
Speaker 6: They have an opportunity, an obligation to engage. And so
12:23
Speaker 6: I try to remind people of that. They have a
12:26
Speaker 6: duty to act, but by the same token, They're always
12:30
Speaker 6: supposed to respond as they are trained.
12:33
Speaker 5: If they respond as.
12:34
Speaker 6: They are trained and we find out that the training
12:37
Speaker 6: is substandard, then we need to look at the training.
12:40
Speaker 6: They always have an obligation to treat people with dignity
12:44
Speaker 6: and respect. And so we need to, as we have
12:47
Speaker 6: this very critical, very important discussion, I believe that law
12:52
Speaker 6: enforcement officers who violate their policies are engaged in egregious
12:58
Speaker 6: behavior who have forgotten the professionalism, if you will, of
13:03
Speaker 6: their profession should be held accountable in.
13:07
Speaker 5: A personal way.
13:09
Speaker 6: But as we engage in this conversation, and that's why
13:12
Speaker 6: I think it's so critical, it's so important rather, that
13:16
Speaker 6: we engage law enforcement officers, community advocates, legislators, social workers,
13:24
Speaker 6: and others in this discussion so we can get exactly
13:28
Speaker 6: to the place that we need to be.
13:30
Speaker 5: The American public deserves that.
13:32
Speaker 6: And quite frankly, the law enforcement profession deserves that as well.
13:38
Speaker 1: You're hoping to unseat Marco Rubio in 2022, an incredibly
13:43
Speaker 1: small man who's already tried to brand you as a
13:46
Speaker 1: far left extremist who wants to defund the police, to
13:49
Speaker 1: which you cleverly responded by posting a photo of yourself
13:52
Speaker 1: in uniform as police chief. How much do you plan
13:56
Speaker 1: to lean on your law enforcement credentials in this race?
14:00
Speaker 5: You know what? I'm going to lean on who I am.
14:03
Speaker 5: This is about telling a story.
14:05
Speaker 6: I was a law enforcement officer for 27 years. I
14:09
Speaker 6: served at every rank within the department, had the honor
14:13
Speaker 6: of serving as the chief of police, the first woman
14:16
Speaker 6: to do so at my agency.
14:19
Speaker 5: That's who I am.
14:20
Speaker 6: And I will tell that story just like I tell
14:23
Speaker 6: the story of being the daughter of a maid and
14:26
Speaker 6: a janitor growing.
14:27
Speaker 5: Up Black, poor, and female in the South.
14:31
Speaker 6: If those stories make Marco Rubio uncomfortable, that is his problem.
14:37
Speaker 5: That's not my problem.
14:39
Speaker 6: I believe I have an obligation as I run for
14:41
Speaker 6: the U.S. Senate to make sure that the American people
14:45
Speaker 6: know who I am. And I really do believe that
14:48
Speaker 6: everybody counts.
14:50
Speaker 5: But everybody is accountable.
14:52
Speaker 6: When I served as an impeachment manager against the former
14:56
Speaker 6: president of the United States, it wasn't personal, but he
15:01
Speaker 6: abused his.
15:01
Speaker 5: Authority, violated the law, and he should be held accountable.
15:06
Speaker 6: And so as we move forward in our campaign, I
15:09
Speaker 6: will continue to introduce myself to Floridians and to the
15:13
Speaker 6: American people.
15:14
Speaker 5: I am really excited about this race.
15:17
Speaker 1: What do you say to a lot of younger voters,
15:21
Speaker 1: progressive activists who really want to see more systemic police reform,
15:26
Speaker 1: who think that we should be transferring some funding from
15:29
Speaker 1: police departments to more community-based safety strategies? What would you
15:33
Speaker 1: say to them?
15:34
Speaker 6: Defunding police is not the answer. I do not support
15:38
Speaker 6: defunding the police. But what I do support is that
15:43
Speaker 6: America needs to get serious about about addressing some of
15:48
Speaker 6: the social ills that we face in this country in
15:51
Speaker 6: the first place. When you talk to some of the
15:55
Speaker 6: most vulnerable Black and Brown communities, and believe me, I've
15:58
Speaker 6: done so for a lot of years, walking and talking
16:01
Speaker 6: as a patrol officer and in other positions as a
16:05
Speaker 6: member of Congress, what they tell us is that they
16:09
Speaker 6: don't want to see less police. They want to see
16:12
Speaker 6: more police because they believe if you cut resources, then
16:16
Speaker 6: they are going to become even more vulnerable.
16:19
Speaker 5: What they want, though, is to be treated with dignity
16:22
Speaker 5: and respect.
16:23
Speaker 6: And they should be treated with dignity and respect, not just.
16:27
Speaker 5: By law enforcement. You know, as we hold America to
16:30
Speaker 5: its promise in the criminal justice system, we need to
16:33
Speaker 5: do that and we will.
16:35
Speaker 6: But we need to hold America to its promise in
16:38
Speaker 6: all things.
16:39
Speaker 5: We need to get serious about addressing mental health illness.
16:45
Speaker 5: You know, we need to get.
16:47
Speaker 6: Serious about addressing drug addiction. You know, we say here
16:51
Speaker 6: in Orange County, Florida, in Orlando, that the greatest drug
16:56
Speaker 6: treatment facility and the greatest mental health treatment facility is
17:01
Speaker 6: the Orange County Jail.
17:03
Speaker 5: Now, that's ridiculous.
17:05
Speaker 6: You know, and I'd love to lean on the words
17:07
Speaker 6: of the former chief of Dallas Police Department, David Brown.
17:11
Speaker 5: He's now the commissioner in Chicago.
17:13
Speaker 6: But this is what he said on a day that
17:15
Speaker 6: he had five officers assassinated. He said, every time there
17:20
Speaker 6: is a societal failure, we call the police to fix it.
17:24
Speaker 6: Mental health counseling, call the police. Drug addiction issues, call
17:28
Speaker 6: the police. Schools fail, give it to the police. They'll
17:32
Speaker 6: take care of it. And so what I'm saying is that, yeah,
17:36
Speaker 6: we need to fix the criminal justice system, and we
17:40
Speaker 6: will do that. I am committed to that. But we've
17:43
Speaker 6: also got to get serious about addressing those social ills
17:48
Speaker 6: that cause decay in communities in the first place. Mental
17:52
Speaker 6: health counseling, drug addiction treatment, better housing, better education, better wages,
17:58
Speaker 6: better jobs, better training. That's the America that we were
18:02
Speaker 6: created to be. And that's the America that I'm going
18:05
Speaker 6: to work hard to make sure that that's the America
18:08
Speaker 6: that we become.
18:11
Speaker 1: Florida Democrats have broken our hearts so many times over
18:15
Speaker 1: the last few elections. What lessons have you learned from
18:18
Speaker 1: those losses? And what do you intend to do differently
18:21
Speaker 1: than the last several statewide campaigns?
18:24
Speaker 6: I do believe that I am a unique candidate. I'm
18:27
Speaker 6: a different candidate. And I'm getting ready to do something
18:30
Speaker 6: that Florida has never seen before. An African-American woman born
18:35
Speaker 6: and raised in Florida running for the U.S.
18:40
Speaker 5: Senate.
18:41
Speaker 6: I am going to build the most diverse, unique coalition
18:46
Speaker 6: from Tallahassee down to Miami, from the Panhandle down to
18:51
Speaker 6: the Keys, north, south, east and west.
18:54
Speaker 5: And we're going to get this done.
18:57
Speaker 6: I really do believe that Florida is ready, right time,
19:01
Speaker 6: right candidate. And I am going to do everything in
19:04
Speaker 6: my power to talk to the voters about the.
19:07
Speaker 5: Things that they care about. Already I've heard many times.
19:11
Speaker 6: That they don't see Rubio, that they don't really know him,
19:16
Speaker 6: that they don't have conversations with him. And so I'm
19:20
Speaker 6: going to do what I've always done, and that's to
19:23
Speaker 6: get out, walk and talk, may ride my motorcycle on
19:27
Speaker 6: some days, but I am going to talk to the
19:29
Speaker 6: voters about things that they care about. I've been doing
19:33
Speaker 6: that a long time. I certainly don't intend to stop
19:37
Speaker 6: this time.
19:39
Speaker 1: Do you have any plan to run an ad that's
19:41
Speaker 1: just a split screen with you riding your red Harley
19:44
Speaker 1: and then that famous picture of little Marco Rubio sitting
19:47
Speaker 1: in that oversized rocking chair? I think that might be
19:49
Speaker 1: a good ad.
19:51
Speaker 5: What I'll tell you is just stay tuned, okay? Just
19:55
Speaker 5: stay tuned.
19:55
Speaker 1: That's good. I'll take that. My last question for you
19:59
Speaker 1: before I let you go, you were just talking about
20:02
Speaker 1: how you grew up black and poor in the South.
20:05
Speaker 1: If you win, you'll be the first black woman senator
20:08
Speaker 1: from Florida. Juneteenth is coming up. Do you have any
20:12
Speaker 1: personal reflections on that day?
20:15
Speaker 5: You know, let's think about it. And I'll say this
20:18
Speaker 5: very quickly.
20:18
Speaker 6: Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln, President Lincoln on January
20:23
Speaker 6: 1st of 1863. That's significant. But even more significant in
20:29
Speaker 6: a sad way is that it took two years for
20:32
Speaker 6: the last group of enslaved people to receive word in Galveston, Texas.
20:39
Speaker 6: We've known Juneteenth as Freedom Day. And there are celebrations
20:45
Speaker 6: because certainly the end of slavery is something to celebrate.
20:50
Speaker 5: But Juneteenth has to be about more than a one-day celebration.
20:55
Speaker 5: You know, we say in this country that we are
20:57
Speaker 5: the home of the brave and the land of the free.
21:01
Speaker 5: And we have to make sure that freedom is something
21:03
Speaker 5: that we celebrate every day, not just freedom for ourselves,
21:07
Speaker 5: but freedom for all people.
21:09
Speaker 6: When there is an attack on voting rights, that's an
21:12
Speaker 6: attack on our freedoms. When there is discrimination against who
21:16
Speaker 6: you love or where you live or where you might
21:19
Speaker 6: be able to get an education because you can't afford it,
21:23
Speaker 6: that's not just an attack on certain people, that is
21:26
Speaker 6: an attack on our freedoms. And so As we celebrate Juneteenth,
21:33
Speaker 6: because it is a day of freedom, it has got
21:36
Speaker 6: to become a state of mind in this country that
21:39
Speaker 6: we really do believe that all people should be free,
21:44
Speaker 6: free from discrimination in this country, free from hate in
21:49
Speaker 6: this country. And so I'm looking forward to this weekend
21:53
Speaker 6: and participating in many of the celebrations, but we've got
21:57
Speaker 6: to look at Juneteenth as more than just one day
22:01
Speaker 6: to celebrate who we are and who we have become
22:06
Speaker 6: and who we still need to become as a nation.
22:11
Speaker 1: Congresswoman Val Demings, thank you so much for joining us.
22:13
Speaker 1: Good luck to you in the race and please come
22:15
Speaker 1: back again soon.
22:16
Speaker 6: I will.
22:17
Speaker 5: Thank you so much.
22:23
Speaker 3: All right.
22:23
Speaker 1: You guys heard Congresswoman Demings. tried to see if the
22:28
Speaker 1: House was going to actually subpoena these guys to get
22:31
Speaker 1: some answers. The Senate has already said that they would,
22:34
Speaker 1: but apparently Senate Democrats need Republicans to agree to a
22:39
Speaker 1: subpoena because it's 50-50. So the House has the power.
22:42
Speaker 1: I was sort of curious why they haven't started threatening
22:44
Speaker 1: these subpoenas yet, but it sort of goes to the
22:46
Speaker 1: bigger question of like how much the Democrats want to
22:49
Speaker 1: be investigating the Trump administration. What did you think, Tommy?
22:54
Speaker 4: It seems like where she ended up was that they
22:55
Speaker 4: will use all the tools that they need to get
22:58
Speaker 4: to the truth. So that to me said, we're warming
23:01
Speaker 4: up our subpoena pens. But was that how you interpreted it?
23:04
Speaker 1: I think so. It seems like they're going to get there.
23:06
Speaker 1: She said all the tools, all the tools they have,
23:09
Speaker 1: which is good. I was going to ask you, I mean,
23:11
Speaker 1: there's obviously a lot we still don't know. But how
23:14
Speaker 1: do these Trump DOJ leak investigations seem different than the
23:18
Speaker 1: leak investigations under Obama or prior administrations? Just for people
23:22
Speaker 1: who are listening who might not know.
23:23
Speaker 6: Sure.
23:24
Speaker 4: So, I mean, just like the broader context is, right,
23:26
Speaker 4: when there's a news report that has classified information in it,
23:29
Speaker 4: sometimes it will get referred to the Department of Justice
23:31
Speaker 4: to open an investigation into what happened. And the goal
23:33
Speaker 4: is to find and punish the government employee who broke
23:36
Speaker 4: the law. But sometimes in the process of that investigation,
23:40
Speaker 4: DOJ estimated records from journalists to try to find their sources.
23:44
Speaker 4: I was interviewed as part of two of those leak investigations.
23:47
Speaker 4: And even though I knew I had not done anything wrong,
23:50
Speaker 4: it was terrifying and awful. So during that Obama's first term, DOJ,
23:55
Speaker 4: prosecutors at DOJ seized phone records and email records from
23:58
Speaker 4: reporters in two different leak investigations. It was the wrong
24:02
Speaker 4: thing to do. I think Obama thought so as well.
24:04
Speaker 4: And after that news came out, he basically told Eric
24:06
Speaker 4: Holder to go back and review DOJ's rules around how
24:11
Speaker 4: you manage these cases. Holder ultimately put in place regulations
24:14
Speaker 4: that made it harder to go after journalists' records. And
24:17
Speaker 4: he made it so DOJ would have to notify news
24:19
Speaker 4: outlets about a subpoena so they could fight it or
24:22
Speaker 4: negotiate over what they turn over. What's new here is
24:25
Speaker 4: that Trump's DOJ demanded that Apple turn over records belonging
24:28
Speaker 4: to members of Congress and seemingly a minor child of
24:31
Speaker 4: one of the members of Congress. Two, the government imposed
24:33
Speaker 4: gag orders on these news outlets and told them that
24:36
Speaker 4: they couldn't talk about what happened. And then three, they
24:39
Speaker 4: seized these records without giving these reporters any advance notice.
24:43
Speaker 4: And there's also reports that Don McGahn, the former Trump
24:46
Speaker 4: White House counsel, had his records turned over by Apple.
24:49
Speaker 4: I find that more confusing than anything else, which is
24:51
Speaker 4: like setting that aside. But I guess none of this
24:53
Speaker 4: should be a surprise to us, right? Because Trump was
24:55
Speaker 4: publicly accusing Adam Schiff of leaking classified information, but it's
24:58
Speaker 4: still pretty shocking. And so it does seem like all
25:01
Speaker 4: of this is kind of pouring out right now because, well,
25:04
Speaker 4: of course, Biden took over the Department of Justice. But
25:07
Speaker 4: also last month, Biden said he would not permit DOJ
25:10
Speaker 4: to seize these kinds of records from journalists. As Congresswoman
25:14
Speaker 4: Demings said, that's a good step, but it's an administrative step.
25:18
Speaker 4: And to get to a permanent fix, you're going to
25:20
Speaker 4: need Congress to pass some sort of new law that says, like,
25:24
Speaker 4: these decisions aren't just up to the discretion of each administration. And,
25:28
Speaker 4: you know, this gets complicated, right? Because you have to
25:30
Speaker 4: decide then who is a protected journalist. Is it the
25:33
Speaker 4: New York Times? Is it Julian Assange? Is it all
25:34
Speaker 4: of them?
25:35
Speaker 2: Like, that's not easy.
25:36
Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean, this is, you know, some shocking stuff,
25:39
Speaker 4: especially the whole matter of going after Adam Schiff's emails.
25:43
Speaker 2: I mean, that's crazy. Love it.
25:45
Speaker 1: What was your take on this whole story that broke Friday?
25:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, on the Tommy, you brought up the
25:50
Speaker 3: McGahn thing, which I think is a small example that
25:52
Speaker 3: says we need to know more information. We just need
25:54
Speaker 3: to know more. For example, the McGahn piece of this is,
25:57
Speaker 3: was that done by agents seeking out information on behalf
26:01
Speaker 3: of Donald Trump, trying to find out who's talking to who?
26:03
Speaker 3: Was this the Mueller investigation, looking at McGahn's communications because
26:08
Speaker 3: he may have been involved in some of the crimes
26:10
Speaker 3: that Mueller later uncovered?
26:11
Speaker 2: We don't know.
26:13
Speaker 3: Same, to a lesser extent, goes for the information around
26:17
Speaker 3: reporters and members of Congress. you know, they are seeking,
26:22
Speaker 3: they go after Schiff's records, Swalwell's records. Barr comes in,
26:28
Speaker 3: keeps the investigation open.
26:29
Speaker 2: Why?
26:29
Speaker 3: Nothing ever came of it, right? We never learned anything
26:32
Speaker 3: about what came out of those documents. How much of
26:33
Speaker 3: this is a morally wrong, but practice that existed in
26:39
Speaker 3: other administrations? How much of this is the Trump administration
26:42
Speaker 3: targeting its enemies? We don't know. And I think it
26:44
Speaker 3: just goes to the larger point of We need better
26:49
Speaker 3: rules and laws restricting what the DOJ can and cannot do.
26:53
Speaker 3: And some of the lessons I think about going after reporters,
26:56
Speaker 3: even in Democratic administrations, shows us some of the dangers
26:59
Speaker 3: of putting that kind of power in the hands of
27:00
Speaker 3: even less scrupulous administrations.
27:03
Speaker 1: The last question on this for you guys, I remember
27:06
Speaker 1: this NBC story, like right after the election, where it
27:09
Speaker 1: had like five sources close to Joe Biden said he
27:11
Speaker 1: really doesn't want to spend a lot of time in
27:13
Speaker 1: his presidency investigating Donald Trump or looking back at sort
27:17
Speaker 1: of the Donald Trump administration's wrongdoing and criminality. It does
27:22
Speaker 1: seem like up until now, both Democrats in Congress and
27:26
Speaker 1: Garland's DOJ, Merrick Garland's DOJ has been sort of reticent
27:31
Speaker 1: to do a lot of investigating of the Trump administration.
27:34
Speaker 1: I don't know that they're going to have that much
27:36
Speaker 1: choice anymore on whether or not they do that. But
27:40
Speaker 1: what do you think about the wisdom of that, Lovett?
27:42
Speaker 3: I mean, here's the problem. Crimes take place in the past.
27:46
Speaker 3: That's where they happen. You know, I am very, I
27:52
Speaker 3: am sympathetic. The politics of this are difficult. That said,
27:59
Speaker 3: you know, the hope that we can just move forward,
28:02
Speaker 3: that we can just move forward over and over again,
28:05
Speaker 3: we pay for that tenfold. You know, the failure to
28:09
Speaker 3: hold Donald Trump accountable for his previous crimes puts him
28:11
Speaker 3: in a position where to launch an insurrection. The failure
28:14
Speaker 3: right now to look back and figure out what the
28:16
Speaker 3: Department of Justice did wrong, what crimes took place inside
28:20
Speaker 3: the Department of Justice, will mean that the next time
28:23
Speaker 3: you have an abusive president, they are not as limited
28:25
Speaker 3: as they should be. I get that you want to
28:28
Speaker 3: talk about other issues, but unfortunately, events have intervened. I
28:33
Speaker 3: don't know, how are we supposed to be a nation
28:36
Speaker 3: of laws if when the most powerful people in our
28:39
Speaker 3: country break the law, abuse our system, there is no
28:41
Speaker 3: accountability It is a recipe for impunity for the worst
28:46
Speaker 3: actors in our system. And at a certain point, like
28:49
Speaker 3: we have to just accept that, yeah, the politics may
28:51
Speaker 3: not be great, but we have to do, we have
28:54
Speaker 3: to understand what went wrong if we ever have a
28:56
Speaker 3: hope to fixing it. It's something Adam Schiff has talked
28:58
Speaker 3: about a lot, that one of the reasons he wants
28:59
Speaker 3: to pass a reform bill based on what we learned
29:01
Speaker 3: from the Trump administration is that we have no choice
29:03
Speaker 3: because looking back is the only way we can protect
29:06
Speaker 3: ourselves in the future.
29:08
Speaker 2: That's it.
29:09
Speaker 1: Tommy, last word on this.
29:11
Speaker 4: I mean, look, the hard thing here is the Department
29:13
Speaker 4: of Justice is supposed to be independent. You're not supposed
29:16
Speaker 4: to politicize these investigations. The president of the United States
29:19
Speaker 4: isn't supposed to direct these investigations. That is 99% of
29:22
Speaker 4: the time a very good thing. I just talked about
29:24
Speaker 4: the examples of these leak investigations during the Obama administration
29:27
Speaker 4: where that independence wasn't a good thing because they went
29:29
Speaker 4: after a bunch of journalists in ways that really pissed
29:32
Speaker 4: Barack Obama off, and I think he wouldn't have.
29:34
Speaker 2: Wanted to happen.
29:35
Speaker 4: In this instance, I have some sympathy for the Biden team.
29:37
Speaker 4: The question, I guess, is just like, by what mechanism
29:40
Speaker 4: are you looking back? I do think it's entirely appropriate
29:42
Speaker 4: for the DOJ inspector general to figure out what the
29:45
Speaker 4: hell happened with these subpoenas. It's entirely appropriate for the
29:48
Speaker 4: intelligence committee or the House side and the Senate side
29:52
Speaker 4: to look into the way prosecutors may or may not
29:55
Speaker 4: have been abusing their power seeking the records of members
29:58
Speaker 4: of Congress, seeking journalist records, et cetera. But it's like,
30:02
Speaker 4: you don't want to get into a place where you are, look,
30:05
Speaker 4: the uncharitable description would be sort of parroting some of
30:09
Speaker 4: the worst excesses of the Trump administration by telling your
30:12
Speaker 4: new AG to go after your former opponent, right? You
30:15
Speaker 4: at least have to worry about the optics of that
30:17
Speaker 4: and think long and hard about like the proper channels
30:19
Speaker 4: and ways to do this. I do think like, We
30:21
Speaker 4: obviously can't let Trump get off and get away with
30:25
Speaker 4: a bunch of crimes he may or may not have committed.
30:27
Speaker 4: I just think we have to think long and hard
30:29
Speaker 4: about how and who is doing these investigations and go
30:33
Speaker 4: from there. But this last month of news is incredibly troubling.
30:37
Speaker 4: This should worry everybody that DOJ was targeting members of Congress.
30:41
Speaker 2: That is bonkers.
30:43
Speaker 5: Yeah.
30:43
Speaker 1: I saw Chris Hayes tweeted something the other day. He said,
30:45
Speaker 1: these people aren't going to stop until they get away
30:48
Speaker 1: with it or end up in jail. the Trump people.
30:51
Speaker 1: Like it's clear they're just going to keep going until
30:53
Speaker 1: one of those two things happens. Until they win or
30:55
Speaker 1: they end up in jail.
30:56
Speaker 3: And like, you know, I have this feeling, I know,
31:00
Speaker 3: I think part of it is this horrible year and
31:02
Speaker 3: past four years we just went through. Part of it
31:03
Speaker 3: is the fact that the state is in a drought,
31:07
Speaker 3: that we're about to have brownouts in this city. There
31:10
Speaker 3: is this feeling of tenuousness all around us, our democracy
31:14
Speaker 3: hanging by a thread, these states passing laws that will
31:16
Speaker 3: allow their legislatures to overturn the results. And like, I
31:21
Speaker 3: don't know. I get that people listening to this, it's like,
31:27
Speaker 3: in the one hand, I want politics to be boring.
31:29
Speaker 3: And then maybe you won't want to listen to this
31:30
Speaker 3: as much because it's boring. On the other hand, I
31:32
Speaker 3: don't want politics to be depressing. And then it's just
31:34
Speaker 3: another round of depressing politics because we have to be
31:37
Speaker 3: so terrified of everything that the future holds. But like,
31:42
Speaker 3: this feels like the eye of a storm. We have
31:44
Speaker 3: this chance, this moment of calm to like, protect ourselves,
31:47
Speaker 3: to put sandbags where we need to put sandbags, to
31:50
Speaker 3: be ready for what's about to come. And I'm really
31:52
Speaker 3: worried we're not using it. We're just not using it.
31:55
Speaker 3: And there's just way too much complacency. And I don't
31:57
Speaker 3: know how we shake ourselves out of it. But that's
32:00
Speaker 3: how it feels.
32:02
Speaker 1: You got the drought in there too.
32:03
Speaker 6: Wow.
32:04
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about the drought.
32:06
Speaker 2: Make it rain, Joe Biden. Lead. Just lead. Just lead.
32:19
Speaker 1: So the other big debate in Congress this week is
32:21
Speaker 1: over how to pay for Joe Biden's jobs and infrastructure plan.
32:24
Speaker 1: The president proposed eliminating Trump's tax breaks for corporations and
32:27
Speaker 1: the richest 1%. But the new bipartisan deal proposed by
32:30
Speaker 1: 10 Republican and Democratic senators on Friday keeps the Trump
32:33
Speaker 1: tax breaks. This is after we learned from a ProPublica
32:37
Speaker 1: investigation last week that between 2014 and 2018, the 25
32:41
Speaker 1: richest people in the United States, including Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates,
32:45
Speaker 1: and Mark Zuckerberg, paid an average of 3.4%. in federal
32:50
Speaker 1: income taxes that is way below the top rate of
32:52
Speaker 1: 37% and the 14% in federal taxes that the median
32:57
Speaker 1: American household pays. Just a few days later, after the
33:01
Speaker 1: ProPublica investigation, the New York Times reported that the $ 4. 6
33:06
Speaker 1: trillion private equity industry avoids paying taxes thanks to loopholes, regulations,
33:11
Speaker 1: and strategies so aggressive and potentially illegal that at least
33:15
Speaker 1: three private equity officials have alerted the IRS which hasn't
33:18
Speaker 1: done anything about it because they don't have the resources
33:21
Speaker 1: to audit rich people. So they go after everyone else instead. Tommy,
33:26
Speaker 1: rich people avoiding taxes, nothing new. We all we know
33:29
Speaker 1: that's a that's a thing that happens. But what, if anything,
33:32
Speaker 1: did you learn from the ProPublica or New York Times pieces?
33:37
Speaker 2: I think that.
33:38
Speaker 4: Maybe in the back of my head, I always assumed
33:40
Speaker 4: that avoiding taxes required complicated schemes where you have money
33:45
Speaker 4: in banks in the Cayman Islands or some tax shelter
33:48
Speaker 4: in Ireland or blah, blah, blah.
33:50
Speaker 2: No, it's actually really, really easy.
33:52
Speaker 4: You just reduce your income as much as possible because
33:55
Speaker 4: that's what our tax code has decided deserves to be taxed.
33:57
Speaker 4: And you get all your compensation in stock if you're
34:00
Speaker 4: a Bezos or an Elon Musk or all these guys
34:03
Speaker 4: because you only get taxed on the value of your
34:05
Speaker 4: stock once you sell it.
34:07
Speaker 2: And in a lot of cases, that makes sense, right?
34:08
Speaker 2: Like stock prices go up and down.
34:10
Speaker 4: Paper gains don't mean anything to the average person who
34:13
Speaker 4: has like a couple of shares. But when you're super rich,
34:15
Speaker 4: you can get banks to lend you tons and tons
34:17
Speaker 4: of money against the value of your portfolio, against the
34:20
Speaker 4: value of your stocks. And then not only do you
34:23
Speaker 4: not have to pay taxes when you realize your gains
34:25
Speaker 4: by selling those shares, but if you get the loan,
34:28
Speaker 4: you can write off the interest payments on your loan
34:31
Speaker 4: and reduce your taxes even more. So, you know, I
34:34
Speaker 4: think the other big takeaway for me was just how
34:37
Speaker 4: unbelievably aggressive a lot of these billionaires were to the
34:41
Speaker 4: point where a lot of them were paying zero taxes
34:43
Speaker 4: because they were writing off losses in other places. Jeff
34:46
Speaker 4: Bezos got a tax credit for his children, like a $ 4, 000
34:51
Speaker 4: tax credit that I assume is usually for like the
34:54
Speaker 4: working poor. So it's a disgusting system being manipulated by
34:58
Speaker 4: some shitty, shitty people.
35:01
Speaker 1: And it's legal, right? It's all legal. That's the problem
35:04
Speaker 1: with it is what's legal. I mean, I think that
35:06
Speaker 1: the New York Times story, too, to follow up on
35:08
Speaker 1: the pro-public investigation, also made me realize just how shitty
35:13
Speaker 1: the IRS is at auditing fucking rich people. Because they
35:17
Speaker 1: don't have the resources, so they just go after poor
35:19
Speaker 1: people instead.
35:19
Speaker 2: I don't know. I love it.
35:20
Speaker 1: I have my pitchforks out. What do you think?
35:23
Speaker 3: Pitchforks? Yeah, I would say that like the ProPublica piece
35:26
Speaker 3: was interesting in that it kind of puts a lot
35:29
Speaker 3: of detail on what we basically already know. I didn't
35:31
Speaker 3: find that the ProPublica information was actually that that revealing.
35:36
Speaker 3: It's just very specific. It's like, look at. We know
35:38
Speaker 3: what the tax code allows these people to do. Look
35:40
Speaker 3: at how these individuals have been actually doing it. You know,
35:43
Speaker 3: we had a lot of information on what Trump was
35:44
Speaker 3: doing to evade taxes. Trump is not unusual. I was
35:47
Speaker 3: more galled by the Times story because, you know, yes,
35:51
Speaker 3: a lot of what's in the ProPublica story is what's legal.
35:55
Speaker 3: But what's in the New York Times story that to
35:58
Speaker 3: me is interesting is what these private equity firms are
36:02
Speaker 3: doing is only as illegal as our ability to hunt
36:06
Speaker 3: and punish them for manipulating the tax code, already there
36:11
Speaker 3: is this loophole called carried interest, which basically says they
36:15
Speaker 3: treat the income they make doing their jobs of making
36:17
Speaker 3: money with money, that's their service that they provide. That's
36:21
Speaker 3: already taxed like an investment. So it's taxed instead of
36:25
Speaker 3: at 37%, what we hope should be 39.6%, it's tapped
36:28
Speaker 3: at 20%. That's a big difference. But what was remarkable
36:30
Speaker 3: is these people, they're so greedy and they have been
36:33
Speaker 3: so above the law for so long that they're also applying,
36:36
Speaker 3: basically they charge a 2% fee for what they do, right? 2%.
36:41
Speaker 3: 2% of a billion dollars is a lot of money.
36:44
Speaker 3: And they figured out yet another way to manipulate the
36:47
Speaker 3: tax code that allows them to pay an even lower
36:49
Speaker 3: rate on that 2%, which is just clearly violates the
36:53
Speaker 3: spirit of the law. When they've been caught, it seems
36:56
Speaker 3: as though they're not doing it anymore because they recognize
36:58
Speaker 3: that it violates the letter of the law. There've been
37:00
Speaker 3: a number of whistleblowers about this. But of course, the
37:02
Speaker 3: combination of the Trump administration stacking the IRS and the
37:08
Speaker 3: Treasury Department with officials who are extremely friendly to these industries,
37:12
Speaker 3: plus the fact that the IRS has been gutted, they
37:14
Speaker 3: lost a huge percentage of their auditors between 2008 and 2018,
37:19
Speaker 3: meant these people are operating with impunity. Ron Wyden, who
37:23
Speaker 3: is great on this issue and a lot of other
37:25
Speaker 3: issues too, pointed out that you are just slightly more
37:28
Speaker 3: likely to be struck by a meteor than than you
37:29
Speaker 3: are to be audited for these kinds of practices.
37:32
Speaker 1: I think it comes down to, like, work in this
37:35
Speaker 1: country is taxed, wealth is not, or at least wealth
37:38
Speaker 1: is taxed very little. That's just what it is. If
37:41
Speaker 1: you're already wealthy, if you're accumulating more wealth, you're going
37:43
Speaker 1: to get away with not paying a lot of taxes.
37:45
Speaker 1: If you work, you're going to pay your income taxes.
37:47
Speaker 1: I think the question is, what can be done about
37:49
Speaker 1: this from a policy perspective? Because, You know, I started
37:53
Speaker 1: off by talking about sort of Republicans' refusal to raise
37:56
Speaker 1: the marginal income tax rate or the corporate tax rate,
37:59
Speaker 1: but neither of those would actually do anything about what
38:03
Speaker 1: was in the ProPublica investigation or the New York Times
38:06
Speaker 1: private equity story. Tommy, what can be done from a
38:09
Speaker 1: policy perspective?
38:10
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, that is a huge problem because they're very
38:13
Speaker 4: clear in the New York Times piece about private equity
38:15
Speaker 4: that good tax lawyers basically just run circles around private
38:18
Speaker 4: most IRS auditors anyway. And so that makes it hard
38:21
Speaker 4: to recoup any of these funds. And in some cases,
38:25
Speaker 4: even during the Obama administration, efforts to clamp down on
38:29
Speaker 4: these loopholes actually made it easier for super rich people
38:33
Speaker 4: to evade taxes.
38:34
Speaker 2: So it's a big problem.
38:35
Speaker 4: I do think it's clear that we need to hire
38:37
Speaker 4: more people at the IRS and tell them to prioritize
38:39
Speaker 4: audits of the super wealthy. Longer term, there needs to
38:43
Speaker 4: be some sort of reform of the tax code so
38:46
Speaker 4: that the IRS has better tools and laws and regulations
38:48
Speaker 4: available to them to tax wealth and not just income.
38:52
Speaker 4: I don't think it makes any sense to anybody that
38:56
Speaker 4: this is how our system functions, that working people... Warren
38:59
Speaker 4: Buffett always talks about how he pays less in taxes
39:02
Speaker 4: than his secretary. We didn't realize just how much less
39:05
Speaker 4: Warren It's pretty gross. But longer term, I do think
39:08
Speaker 4: the Democratic Party needs to make this one of the
39:10
Speaker 4: top two core messages and things that we talk about
39:13
Speaker 4: every single day because it is wildly offensive to anybody
39:18
Speaker 4: who reads about it when you see these tax avoidance
39:21
Speaker 4: schemes spelled out and we see just how unfair the
39:24
Speaker 4: system is when you are a billionaire.
39:27
Speaker 3: One thing that I would just add to that, though,
39:29
Speaker 3: is there's been this coverage that's like, well, raising the rate,
39:34
Speaker 3: these other steps doesn't actually address the fact that they
39:38
Speaker 3: accrue all this wealth without it ever being taxed. That's
39:41
Speaker 3: partially true. There's an incentive to for people to hold
39:45
Speaker 3: on to stock for a very, very long time. Because
39:47
Speaker 3: if they die while they have it, then it gets
39:50
Speaker 3: passed on to their kids at a stepped up basis,
39:52
Speaker 3: which means the capital gains accrued over a lifetime may never,
39:55
Speaker 3: ever be recognized, will never be recognized as income. So
39:59
Speaker 3: while it's true that like, I'm not, I think a
40:01
Speaker 3: wealth tax is a great idea, that a wealth tax
40:03
Speaker 3: specifically addresses this issue. One way that we could get
40:05
Speaker 3: people to realize income on investments over time is by
40:09
Speaker 3: making it incredibly painful to hold onto it and then
40:12
Speaker 3: try to pass it on to a foundation or to
40:14
Speaker 3: their family without ever paying the taxes. Close those loopholes,
40:18
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden the incentive to hold onto
40:19
Speaker 3: it forever goes away, or at least gets reduced. And
40:22
Speaker 3: I think that's an important thing to do.
40:24
Speaker 1: Well, so there's two Biden proposals that aren't being talked
40:26
Speaker 1: about all that much. One is, I think it's like
40:30
Speaker 1: $ 700 million in funding for the IRS to go after
40:33
Speaker 1: tax cheats. Of course, now, classic Republicans are freaking out
40:40
Speaker 1: about the Biden proposal for $ 700 million more for the
40:43
Speaker 1: IRS to go after tax cheats because they're saying that
40:45
Speaker 1: the existence of the ProPublica investigation is proof that the
40:49
Speaker 1: IRS can't be trusted with more money and resources because
40:51
Speaker 1: they're just going to leak your taxes to ProPublica, which,
40:55
Speaker 1: by the way, doesn't give a shit about most of
40:57
Speaker 1: your taxes if you're not fucking Jeff Bezos or Warren Buffett.
41:01
Speaker 1: And we also don't know that it came from the
41:02
Speaker 1: IRS at all.
41:03
Speaker 2: We don't know anything.
41:04
Speaker 3: I actually would really encourage people to read ProPublica published
41:08
Speaker 3: this big expose, but they also published an essay basically
41:11
Speaker 3: looking at the ethics of what they did because ProPublica
41:14
Speaker 3: does not know where these materials came from.
41:16
Speaker 1: They don't know. Right, they said it was anonymous, yeah.
41:18
Speaker 1: And then the second Biden proposal is to tax capital
41:20
Speaker 1: gains as ordinary income for people whose income exceeds $ 1 million.
41:25
Speaker 1: And that would be the tax owed on stocks, bonds,
41:27
Speaker 1: mutual funds, and homes that have appreciated in value. Now,
41:31
Speaker 1: the reason we're not talking about a lot of these
41:32
Speaker 1: things is because some Democrats are getting cold feet about
41:36
Speaker 1: these tax proposals. Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine wrote
41:39
Speaker 1: a piece on Saturday where he argued that the biggest
41:41
Speaker 1: threat to the Biden administration's agenda is moderate Democrats who
41:44
Speaker 1: are afraid or reluctant to raise taxes on the rich.
41:47
Speaker 1: He cites this Politico story that said corporate executives and
41:50
Speaker 1: lobbyists in Washington, New York and around the country say
41:53
Speaker 1: they are confident they can kill almost all of these
41:55
Speaker 1: tax hikes by pressuring moderate Democrats in the House and
41:58
Speaker 1: the Senate. Tommy, you were just making, what do you
42:01
Speaker 1: think of that argument? You were just saying the Democrats
42:03
Speaker 1: should make this a key part of their agenda.
42:05
Speaker 4: I mean, look, the key problem, the biggest threat is
42:08
Speaker 4: a Republican party, right? Like they wake up every morning
42:10
Speaker 4: hoping to stuff the courts full of people who are
42:13
Speaker 4: gut regulations and then use reconciliation to pass tax cuts
42:16
Speaker 4: for the richest people. But, you know, if Republicans are
42:19
Speaker 4: holding up the bank, Democrats are driving the getaway car, right?
42:22
Speaker 2: Especially these moderates in wealthy districts. I like to love
42:27
Speaker 2: its point earlier.
42:29
Speaker 4: I don't think Democrats have played this issue well because
42:31
Speaker 4: for decades we have gotten bogged down in a fight
42:35
Speaker 4: about the estate tax and how it somehow might impact
42:38
Speaker 4: farmers when that was total bullshit.
42:40
Speaker 2: It's really about the Koch brothers.
42:41
Speaker 4: In truth, in some ways, we're past the point of
42:44
Speaker 4: that estate tax fight even mattering anymore because rich people
42:47
Speaker 4: have found so many new ways to avoid even paying
42:49
Speaker 4: the estate tax. So I think Elizabeth Warren did a
42:52
Speaker 4: lot of great work pushing for the wealth tax. There
42:54
Speaker 4: are questions about the constitutionality that they're going to have
42:56
Speaker 4: to work out, but I think it's worth the fight.
42:58
Speaker 4: On the Biden piece of this, John, like one, I
43:00
Speaker 4: think it absolutely makes sense to tax capital gains as income.
43:04
Speaker 4: It's a no-brainer to me. I don't think that's going
43:06
Speaker 4: to slow down investment. It's clear that a lot of
43:09
Speaker 4: these economic arguments against taxing the super rich are bullshit
43:13
Speaker 4: when you read about how these people are literally just
43:15
Speaker 4: hoarding wealth literally forever until they die, right? So I
43:19
Speaker 4: could care less about those. I would love to see
43:21
Speaker 4: more proposals like Biden's that are basically message bills. I
43:25
Speaker 4: want to see tough votes on these issues, like force
43:28
Speaker 4: a vote on a tax increase on income and cap
43:30
Speaker 4: gains for millionaires only. I don't care if it doesn't
43:34
Speaker 4: raise all the revenue we need. Just force the issue
43:36
Speaker 4: because Biden has it in his plan. But I think
43:39
Speaker 4: the Democratic Party needs to do a lot more to
43:41
Speaker 4: make this a really uncomfortable issue.
43:43
Speaker 2: For Republicans.
43:44
Speaker 4: And look, if some moderate Democrats are swept up into
43:47
Speaker 4: the fight because they represent a bunch of hedge fund
43:49
Speaker 4: people in like Greenwich, Connecticut, I don't really care.
43:53
Speaker 2: I think like we have to be for this.
43:55
Speaker 1: This is also, this is not just about the principle
43:59
Speaker 1: of making sure that the wealthy pay their fair share,
44:02
Speaker 1: though that is an important principle. And also it is
44:04
Speaker 1: incredibly politically popular, but like budget rules, and we're using
44:08
Speaker 1: budget rules because we can only pass things through reconciliation now,
44:11
Speaker 1: mandate that that any permanent increase in the deficit be financed,
44:15
Speaker 1: which means that Biden and the Democrats either tax the
44:18
Speaker 1: rich or they don't pass the child tax credit, pre-K,
44:22
Speaker 1: community college, climate, health, anything else. it is not often
44:27
Speaker 1: that you get a policy that is economically, morally, and
44:29
Speaker 1: politically compelling. Raising taxes on the wealthy hits all three.
44:34
Speaker 1: And I see like, you know, there's a lot of
44:35
Speaker 1: senators and the Sunrise Movement now are saying, you know,
44:37
Speaker 1: no climate, no deal, which I completely agree with on
44:40
Speaker 1: the infrastructure deal. I would say no taxes, no deal.
44:42
Speaker 1: Like this should be a centerpiece of the Democratic Party's
44:45
Speaker 1: platform for this year, for next year, going into the midterms,
44:48
Speaker 1: going into 2024. There is a populist rage in this
44:53
Speaker 1: country about the fact that rich people get away with
44:56
Speaker 1: murder and not paying their taxes. And by the way,
44:59
Speaker 1: we have all of these social programs that we can't
45:01
Speaker 1: fund without doing that. It is insane to me that
45:05
Speaker 1: Democrats might be cautious about this.
45:07
Speaker 5: Insane.
45:07
Speaker 3: I mean, we've been talking about this for a long time.
45:09
Speaker 3: So first of all, there's a bipartisan infrastructure proposal Raising
45:14
Speaker 3: taxes even a tiny bit on the wealthiest human beings
45:16
Speaker 3: in the history of planet Earth is a non-starter, but
45:18
Speaker 3: there's potentially an increase in the gas tax, which hits everybody. Wild, wild.
45:23
Speaker 3: But like, you know, we talk a lot. We've talked
45:26
Speaker 3: on this show many times about the fact that there
45:28
Speaker 3: is this Democratic brand problem. It's a deeper issue about
45:32
Speaker 3: why Democrats struggle to win, even in places where their
45:34
Speaker 3: policies do quite well. And like, you look at what
45:37
Speaker 3: we've just been talking about, enforcement against wealthy tax cheats,
45:40
Speaker 3: Closing loopholes like carried interest and stepped up basis, higher
45:43
Speaker 3: taxes on the rich and corporations, including changes in the
45:45
Speaker 3: laws to prevent dynastic wealth, antitrust and like pro-worker, pro-union laws.
45:49
Speaker 3: That is progressive populism. That is an answer.
45:52
Speaker 1: We're sitting here facing populist authoritarians on the rise here
45:56
Speaker 1: in the United States and all over the world that
45:58
Speaker 1: threaten to unravel democracy. And this is a way to
46:01
Speaker 1: tell people, yes, we're making sure that people in power
46:04
Speaker 1: actually are held accountable and pay their fair share. And
46:06
Speaker 1: it is just sitting right there for the Democrats.
46:08
Speaker 3: And it's the other half of, it's the other half of,
46:11
Speaker 3: we have, you know, we have talked many times about
46:13
Speaker 3: the importance of policies that show people actual improvements in
46:17
Speaker 3: their lives. This is the other side of this, which
46:19
Speaker 3: is choosing the right opponents, choosing the right opponents.
46:22
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a lot of like leftist critiques of the
46:24
Speaker 4: Democratic Party that I find frustrating and at times unfair.
46:28
Speaker 2: This is not one of them.
46:29
Speaker 4: It is a problem that there are a bunch of
46:32
Speaker 4: Dems who have been more willing to listen to and
46:36
Speaker 4: do favors. Yeah, I would just I would leave everyone
46:39
Speaker 4: with this and then we can move on. The investors
46:42
Speaker 4: business daily poll, which was a poll that was very
46:44
Speaker 4: favorable to Trump and the Republicans during the.
46:56
Speaker 1: Campaign. It was commissioned by investors who probably wanted a
47:00
Speaker 1: very different result. In late April, found that 65% of
47:04
Speaker 1: Americans are in favor of a proposal that would raise
47:06
Speaker 1: the capital gains tax rates for couples earning more than
47:08
Speaker 1: $ 1 million.
47:08
Speaker 5: 65%.
47:09
Speaker 1: And I could list a million other polls for the
47:14
Speaker 1: last five years that say the same thing about any
47:16
Speaker 1: kind of proposal to raise taxes on wealthy people. It's
47:19
Speaker 1: not only popular with Democrats, but overwhelmingly popular with independents
47:22
Speaker 1: and probably half of Republicans.
47:24
Speaker 5: So....
47:33
Speaker 1: President Biden is on day five of his first big
47:36
Speaker 1: foreign trip. Today, he's taking part in his first NATO
47:38
Speaker 1: summit as president. Tommy is our world's own chief. Can
47:41
Speaker 1: you tell us what's happened so far on this trip
47:43
Speaker 1: and what do we need to know about?
47:45
Speaker 4: Guys, it's been a blast, been a hell of a trip.
47:47
Speaker 4: So he met with the G7 countries in the UK.
47:50
Speaker 4: G7 is US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan.
47:53
Speaker 4: Now he's in Brussels. On Wednesday, he goes to Geneva
47:56
Speaker 4: for a meeting with President Putin. So I want to
47:59
Speaker 4: give you guys two buckets of things we can talk
48:02
Speaker 4: about today. some news you can use, and then some
48:04
Speaker 4: stupid shit. Because foreign trips will always spin out all
48:08
Speaker 4: kinds of stupid narratives. So let's start with the news
48:09
Speaker 4: you can use. The first is around COVID. That's obviously
48:12
Speaker 4: the focus of the G7. The US announced they're going
48:15
Speaker 4: to donate 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine as
48:17
Speaker 4: part of a roughly 1 billion dose broader commitment by
48:20
Speaker 4: the G7 to COVAX, which is this international organization to
48:24
Speaker 4: get the world vaccinated.
48:25
Speaker 2: Now, like a billion doses, it's obviously a lot. It's
48:28
Speaker 2: obviously good.
48:29
Speaker 4: But it is well short of the 11 billion doses
48:31
Speaker 4: that the World Health Organization says they need to vaccinate
48:34
Speaker 4: 70% of the planet. So a lot of activists have
48:38
Speaker 4: been really hammering the G7 for falling short on this issue.
48:42
Speaker 4: There's obviously a moral element to the need to get
48:45
Speaker 4: the world vaccinated. But I guess my question for you
48:48
Speaker 4: guys is, do we think these G7 countries should be
48:52
Speaker 4: a little more concerned about this, in particular for selfish reasons,
48:55
Speaker 4: because an ongoing pandemic is is going to stall the
48:58
Speaker 4: entire global economy and make it harder for everyone in
49:01
Speaker 4: the same ways we saw ourselves like limp out of
49:03
Speaker 4: the financial crisis. That seems like a bad setup to me.
49:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, as I'm looking in the headlines today,
49:10
Speaker 1: like now everyone's talking about this Delta variant and the
49:13
Speaker 1: Delta variant started in, you know, came from India and
49:17
Speaker 1: it is more transmissible and it is possible. deadlier. And
49:22
Speaker 1: you're going to get more variants like that that could
49:25
Speaker 1: potentially be more dangerous and more transmissible in places where
49:29
Speaker 1: the population is largely unvaccinated, which was happening in India
49:32
Speaker 1: before COVID. it was hit with that terrible surge. So like,
49:36
Speaker 1: as long as there are countries out there with unvaccinated
49:39
Speaker 1: populations that do not have access to these vaccines, that
49:42
Speaker 1: is a threat to the United States. That is a
49:44
Speaker 1: threat to everyone else, both to the unvaccinated people in
49:47
Speaker 1: these countries. And if the variants get bad enough, possibly
49:50
Speaker 1: vaccinated populations as well. So it is in the self-interest
49:53
Speaker 1: of every single country and every single person around the
49:54
Speaker 1: world to make sure that the entire globe is vaccinated.
49:58
Speaker 1: Do you think, Tommy, that it was like a a
50:00
Speaker 1: political issue why they don't donate more? Or is it
50:03
Speaker 1: like a capacity issue? Like, I can't tell if it's
50:05
Speaker 1: like we haven't vaccinated our own country first, so we
50:07
Speaker 1: don't want to be given away too much. I couldn't
50:09
Speaker 1: understand that.
50:10
Speaker 2: I couldn't tell either.
50:11
Speaker 4: I do think that the politics of this are harder
50:13
Speaker 4: for some of these European countries that are behind us.
50:15
Speaker 4: But there is certainly a capacity issue. It's not just
50:18
Speaker 4: like the number of doses you can manufacture. It's actually
50:22
Speaker 4: building the infrastructure to get those doses into the arms
50:24
Speaker 4: of all the people who need them. And I think
50:26
Speaker 4: that's that last mile problem has proven to be a
50:28
Speaker 4: problem with some of these COVAX programs.
50:30
Speaker 2: The other big issue is climate change, right?
50:32
Speaker 4: So the G7 countries came out of this, they committed
50:33
Speaker 4: to getting to net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Activists, again,
50:37
Speaker 4: wanted a lot more. Specifically, they wanted the G7 to
50:40
Speaker 4: agree on a hard date to stop the use of coal.
50:43
Speaker 4: And they wanted the rich developed countries that are part
50:45
Speaker 4: of the G7 to cut checks to help developing countries
50:48
Speaker 4: cut their emissions. So like, you know, guys, it's always
50:50
Speaker 4: fun to transition from a conversation about one existential threat
50:54
Speaker 4: to humanity to another. But again, like, again, people are
50:57
Speaker 4: very frustrated about this outcome. Lovett, do you think it's
51:01
Speaker 4: fair to expect more out of Biden on climate change
51:06
Speaker 4: like this early in his first term? And do you
51:07
Speaker 4: think this just, again, like raises the stakes on passing
51:10
Speaker 4: our own climate infrastructure bill?
51:12
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, it's obvious. Yeah, I mean, it's very fair.
51:15
Speaker 3: It's a threat to humanity and life on this planet.
51:18
Speaker 3: And we have to move much faster than we are.
51:19
Speaker 3: The US has not been a leader. And we have
51:22
Speaker 3: to like, not just make up for the damage Donald
51:24
Speaker 3: Trump did over four years in pulling us out of Paris.
51:26
Speaker 3: We have to demonstrate that we're serious about leading the
51:29
Speaker 3: industrialized world and moving much faster than we've been moving.
51:32
Speaker 3: I do think as important as an international agreement on
51:36
Speaker 3: this is, it is more important that we lead by
51:41
Speaker 3: example and demonstrate that we're actually serious about reducing our
51:45
Speaker 3: carbon footprint as a country and demonstrating that it's not
51:48
Speaker 3: just good for the planet, but a good economic decision,
51:51
Speaker 3: that it will help us sort of lead in industries
51:53
Speaker 3: and have like a beneficial effect for job creation and
51:56
Speaker 3: our economy. I think that's the far more important thing.
52:00
Speaker 3: But yeah, there is absolutely no reason not to put
52:02
Speaker 3: incredible amounts of pressure on the Biden administration to lead.
52:05
Speaker 2: There's no reason.
52:06
Speaker 1: Do you think Biden had to say to the other
52:08
Speaker 1: G7 leaders, Sorry, I got a fucking coal miner as
52:11
Speaker 1: my prime minister back in the States. Joe Manchin's my
52:14
Speaker 1: 51st vote. And so I can't do much.
52:17
Speaker 2: I mean, probably.
52:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, look, I mean, the G7 countries, I think, are
52:19
Speaker 4: like 20 to 25 percent of global emissions, which obviously
52:22
Speaker 4: is just a piece of the puzzle. But it does
52:24
Speaker 4: require some leadership from us, from the more developed countries
52:27
Speaker 4: to then go pressure China and India and other countries
52:31
Speaker 4: whose economies are still developing to say, hey, please stop
52:34
Speaker 4: using these plants and we'll help you with that transition.
52:37
Speaker 2: Okay.
52:37
Speaker 4: Last thing was a big change in tone on China.
52:39
Speaker 4: So at the beginning of the year, the European Union
52:41
Speaker 4: had signed this major trade and investment deal with China.
52:44
Speaker 4: That deal is now in life support because they're frustrated
52:47
Speaker 4: with the Chinese. And this week, the G7 called on
52:50
Speaker 4: China to respect human rights on Hong Kong.
52:52
Speaker 2: They called on the respect human.
52:53
Speaker 4: Rights with the Uyghurs, and they basically told China to
52:55
Speaker 4: chill out with threats against Taiwan. And now the Chinese
52:58
Speaker 4: military is a big topic at NATO. So it was
53:00
Speaker 4: interesting to see this shift from Europe cutting a deal
53:03
Speaker 4: with China to pushing back relatively hard for them on
53:07
Speaker 4: a bunch of fronts. But I guess my question for
53:09
Speaker 4: you guys is, does it ever make you nervous that
53:12
Speaker 4: the only thing that seems to rally the US Congress
53:15
Speaker 4: or apparently the G7 leaders is anti-China sentiment? I do
53:19
Speaker 4: feel like we're kind of walking backwards into a bit
53:21
Speaker 4: of a new Cold War here, but I don't know.
53:24
Speaker 2: What do you think?
53:26
Speaker 3: Sometimes I think it does seem a little bit like domestically,
53:30
Speaker 3: Joe Biden has this moderate persona and that's allowed him
53:35
Speaker 3: to do far more sweeping and progressive policy changes. And
53:39
Speaker 3: then internationally, he strikes such a different tone and tenor
53:45
Speaker 3: on virtually every issue than his predecessor. And in practice,
53:49
Speaker 3: of course, but that the actual changes we're talking about
53:51
Speaker 3: here are more incremental. Like it's almost like the opposite
53:53
Speaker 3: kind of dynamic. Because, you know, there is a genuine
53:59
Speaker 3: challenge posed by China. And we do need to address it.
54:04
Speaker 3: And obviously, we've talked about this before. We do not
54:06
Speaker 3: want to address it by kind of fanning the xenophobia
54:09
Speaker 3: that Donald Trump saw as central to his domestic politics.
54:14
Speaker 1: I mean, Dan and I talked about this Thursday, but
54:16
Speaker 1: it did get us a quarter of a trillion dollars
54:18
Speaker 1: in investment for research, science, and technology in America. So
54:21
Speaker 1: that's something. No, but I have noticed that Biden and
54:25
Speaker 1: Tony Blinken, Secretary of State Blinken, and others in the
54:28
Speaker 1: administration have really tried to emphasize this. that it's not
54:31
Speaker 1: just China, but it's China and other authoritarian governments. And
54:35
Speaker 1: so they're trying to talk about this in terms of
54:37
Speaker 1: authoritarianism versus democracy and not make it just about China itself.
54:42
Speaker 1: They try to throw Russia in there as well. And
54:45
Speaker 1: I always wonder, as someone who doesn't pay as close
54:48
Speaker 1: attention to foreign policy, how much of this is political
54:51
Speaker 1: and how much of it is sort of real changes
54:55
Speaker 1: in China's posture over the last five, 10 years that
54:59
Speaker 1: we should be concerned about because they're more aggressive? I
55:03
Speaker 1: just don't know the answer to that.
55:04
Speaker 4: I mean, I think the answer is like there have
55:05
Speaker 4: been real changes since Xi Jinping came on the scene
55:08
Speaker 4: and he's been increasingly aggressive, not only at home with
55:11
Speaker 4: like installing a surveillance state and throwing the Uyghurs into
55:14
Speaker 4: the concentration camps in Western China, but also just hammering
55:17
Speaker 4: any country that dares to criticize the Chinese on any issue,
55:21
Speaker 4: hammering the NBA, hammering, you know, movie companies, John Cena,
55:25
Speaker 4: like literally everybody who gets cross-eyed.
55:28
Speaker 3: Well, it's... It is like there was this bet made
55:34
Speaker 3: in the 90s that just seems to have been completely wrong,
55:38
Speaker 3: like liberalize their economy and we'll liberalize their politics. That
55:42
Speaker 3: has not happened in any way. It's the opposite has
55:44
Speaker 3: taken place. They got all the economic might that they
55:46
Speaker 3: had hoped for, but none of the reforms internally. And
55:49
Speaker 3: so it's like there is a kind of, I think,
55:52
Speaker 3: grasping for what a replacement theory on China should look like.
55:56
Speaker 3: That's not what we were doing in the past, ignoring abuses.
56:00
Speaker 3: and hoping that things would change, and certainly not the
56:02
Speaker 3: Donald Trump posture, which is, you know, a lot of
56:04
Speaker 3: kind of sound and fury.
56:06
Speaker 4: No, you're absolutely right. Trump's approach was trade war and
56:11
Speaker 4: then pay off the farmers in the U.S.
56:13
Speaker 2: Who were hurt.
56:13
Speaker 4: Biden is trying to internationalize the problem, and I think
56:16
Speaker 4: that's a better approach long term. I mean, but, Levi,
56:18
Speaker 4: you're right that, like, fundamentally the biggest difference on this
56:21
Speaker 4: trip is just the vibe. Like, even Boris Johnson, who is, like,
56:24
Speaker 4: Trump's biggest cheerleader, is calling Biden, quote, a breath of
56:27
Speaker 4: fresh air.
56:28
Speaker 2: That's remarkable. That was so good.
56:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, he had racist attacks against Barack Obama not long ago.
56:34
Speaker 4: And there was a Pew poll that showed these 12
56:36
Speaker 4: countries they surveyed, they found that America's favorability basically doubled
56:39
Speaker 4: as we went from Trump to Biden. So, okay, like
56:42
Speaker 4: we said, a lot of these trips include important foreign
56:45
Speaker 4: policy announcements. All of them generate stupid narratives and headlines.
56:49
Speaker 4: So let's talk about some of those because they're more fun.
56:51
Speaker 2: The first, guys, is bromance.
56:54
Speaker 4: The Daily Mail declared that bromance is in the air.
56:56
Speaker 4: President Biden was seen joking with Justin Trudeau, the Canadian
57:00
Speaker 4: prime minister. He was seen locking arms with French President
57:03
Speaker 4: Emmanuel Macron. Macron tweeted out a photo or video of
57:06
Speaker 4: himself talking like super close with Biden that one Twitter
57:09
Speaker 4: user described as him looking like a coked up tech
57:12
Speaker 4: founder pitching Biden on his startup.
57:15
Speaker 2: Love it. Question for you. When did bromance enter into
57:17
Speaker 2: our lexicon?
57:20
Speaker 3: I don't know. I do hate it.
57:23
Speaker 2: I hate it too.
57:26
Speaker 1: It's like a fun word for journalists who are usually
57:28
Speaker 1: pretty boring to use.
57:30
Speaker 3: Well, I guess it's what I thought.
57:32
Speaker 6: Yes.
57:33
Speaker 3: It's just sort of like, you know, they're collegial. I think,
57:35
Speaker 3: isn't it just a romance? What makes you so uncomfortable
57:38
Speaker 3: about it just being a romance? Like it's a non-sexual.
57:41
Speaker 3: That'd be such a funny headline. Non-sexual romance podcast. between,
57:47
Speaker 3: you wouldn't say that, of course, that sounds ridiculous, but
57:50
Speaker 3: that's what they mean. When they say bromance, they mean
57:52
Speaker 3: two men who do not want to have sex with
57:55
Speaker 3: other men have chemistry.
57:57
Speaker 1: Yep, that's right.
57:58
Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
57:59
Speaker 3: That's a, that's a, that would be hilarious.
58:01
Speaker 1: Long headline, but that would be very, that would be, that.
58:04
Speaker 3: Would capture it a little bit better. Reuters, Reuters, Dateline, Paris,
58:08
Speaker 3: non-sexual attraction scene between Biden and Macron.
58:13
Speaker 4: So I did some quick Googling and found references to
58:16
Speaker 4: Obama bromances with Biden, John Boehner, Prince Harry, Justin Trudeau,
58:21
Speaker 4: David Cameron, Narendra Modi, David Brooks, although I think we'd
58:24
Speaker 4: all agree that was more of a torrid love affair
58:26
Speaker 4: over many years. I could go on and on, but yes,
58:29
Speaker 4: to your point, love it. The longer headline is more apropos. Okay,
58:32
Speaker 4: also on these trips, leaders give each other gifts for
58:34
Speaker 4: some reason. The results can range from poignant to boring
58:37
Speaker 4: to weird. So I don't know if you guys saw this. Apparently,
58:40
Speaker 4: Biden gave Boris Johnson a fancy handmade bike from Philadelphia.
58:44
Speaker 2: It cost like six grand. It was a nice thing.
58:46
Speaker 4: Boris Johnson gave Biden, quote, a framed photo of Frederick
58:49
Speaker 4: Douglass printed out from Wikipedia.
58:52
Speaker 1: What? I didn't see that.
58:53
Speaker 2: What?
58:57
Speaker 1: More and more people are talking about him now. More
58:59
Speaker 1: and more.
58:59
Speaker 2: That's right.
59:00
Speaker 1: He's getting more and more notice. I forget what that was.
59:02
Speaker 3: It's very arrogant to give art as a gift because
59:06
Speaker 3: it's saying, I want to decorate your house.
59:08
Speaker 2: It's hard. It's a hard call.
59:10
Speaker 1: Oh my God. Print it out from Wikipedia.
59:12
Speaker 3: Are you thinking about a specific piece of art that
59:15
Speaker 3: you were given as a gift?
59:16
Speaker 2: No comment.
59:19
Speaker 6: And now I am.
59:20
Speaker 4: I titled this section age is just a number. So
59:23
Speaker 4: like symbolism, public diplomacy, they're a big part of every
59:25
Speaker 4: foreign trip. I tried to get out of that one
59:27
Speaker 4: fast in the UK. A critical piece of that is
59:30
Speaker 4: President Biden's visit with the queen. So Biden became the
59:32
Speaker 4: 12th president to meet the queen. And he said she
59:35
Speaker 4: reminded him of his mother, which I enjoyed because Biden
59:38
Speaker 4: is 78 and she is 95.
59:42
Speaker 2: Leaving that one.
59:43
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe in hollywood she could play the mother hey
59:45
Speaker 3: tommy you were given a gift of a work of
59:47
Speaker 3: art where did you hang it in your house uh
59:50
Speaker 3: in my home where is somewhere prominent in my office.
59:55
Speaker 4: Okay last thing uh every foreign trip involves a fight
1:00:00
Speaker 4: over press access uh in one case i remember an
1:00:03
Speaker 4: obama foreign trip uh robert gibbs almost got his foot
1:00:06
Speaker 4: broken by a bunch of folks in, I think, the
1:00:09
Speaker 4: India security services who are trying to lock our press up.
1:00:12
Speaker 4: That's a good version of the fight. The bad version
1:00:14
Speaker 4: of the fight is when reporters complain that they can't
1:00:16
Speaker 4: cover stuff. So right now, as of my count, the
1:00:19
Speaker 4: press seem pissed that Biden and Putin aren't doing a
1:00:21
Speaker 4: joint press conference. I think Biden's doing one solo because
1:00:24
Speaker 4: the last joint press conference with Putin in Helsinki went
1:00:27
Speaker 4: so well for America. They're also mad that they didn't
1:00:30
Speaker 4: get access to Biden's inspection of the honor guard at
1:00:33
Speaker 4: Windsor Castle. And this morning, they're pissed that Turkey put
1:00:36
Speaker 4: out a readout of the Biden-Erdogan bilateral meeting faster than
1:00:40
Speaker 4: the Biden team. All of this, frankly, is like normal
1:00:43
Speaker 4: and probably a good push and pull. But it reminded
1:00:45
Speaker 4: me of one of my favorite moments from the 2012
1:00:48
Speaker 4: campaign when a Mitt Romney foreign trip moment went viral.
1:00:53
Speaker 2: Let's play a clip.
1:00:54
Speaker 4: Governor Romney, do you have a statement for the Palestinians?
1:00:57
Speaker 1: What about your gaffes?
1:00:59
Speaker 5: Governor Romney, do.
1:01:00
Speaker 1: You feel that your gaffes have overshadowed your foreign trip?
1:01:03
Speaker 1: Show some respect.
1:01:07
Speaker 2: Show some respect.
1:01:08
Speaker 4: We haven't had another chance to ask him questions.
1:01:11
Speaker 1: This is a holy site for the Polish people. Show
1:01:14
Speaker 1: some respect.
1:01:16
Speaker 4: That's a Romney flack telling the press to shut up
1:01:19
Speaker 4: because it's a holy site.
1:01:20
Speaker 2: Sorry, John.
1:01:21
Speaker 1: However many views that clip has on YouTube, I am
1:01:27
Speaker 1: about 70% of them. It is my favorite. And never
1:01:31
Speaker 1: in my life have I been more on Mitt Romney's
1:01:34
Speaker 1: side than on that clip. And he's just trying to
1:01:37
Speaker 1: walk away. What about your gaffes? What a question. What
1:01:41
Speaker 1: about your gaffes? What about your gaffes?
1:01:44
Speaker 3: I do think like, shout out to, is that Ashley Parker?
1:01:47
Speaker 3: It is Ashley Parker.
1:01:48
Speaker 1: We've talked to Ashley about it before. She's a good
1:01:50
Speaker 1: sport about it. It was Ashley Parker and Phil. And
1:01:51
Speaker 1: Phil Rucker was the other one too.
1:01:53
Speaker 3: Because no, because what about your gas became the question.
1:01:56
Speaker 3: But that really the comedy of that question really does
1:01:59
Speaker 3: rely on the very specific kind of full question that
1:02:04
Speaker 3: Ashley shouts. Like it's like a full question. It's not
1:02:06
Speaker 3: just a shout.
1:02:06
Speaker 1: It's a question.
1:02:07
Speaker 3: And then what about your gas? It's the best.
1:02:10
Speaker 2: It's the best. It's the best.
1:02:11
Speaker 1: And then also, do you think that your gaffes have
1:02:13
Speaker 1: overshadowed your foreign trip? What answer are you expecting to that?
1:02:17
Speaker 3: Yes.
1:02:17
Speaker 2: Yes, they have.
1:02:18
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
1:02:18
Speaker 1: My foreign trip has been 100% overshadowed by my gaffes,
1:02:22
Speaker 1: which you have reported.
1:02:23
Speaker 3: This is a holy site for the Polish people.
1:02:27
Speaker 4: These trips are high wire act. So far, I think
1:02:29
Speaker 4: Biden's doing pretty well. I mean, look, you know, not
1:02:31
Speaker 4: all of the deliverables that activists and policy folks want
1:02:35
Speaker 4: to see out of every summit. But again, it's the
1:02:36
Speaker 4: first one.
1:02:37
Speaker 3: So, you know, Look, for a guy known for a
1:02:40
Speaker 3: lot of gaffes, we have not seen a lot of
1:02:42
Speaker 3: Biden gaffes.
1:02:43
Speaker 1: Well, it's also, I mean, the big difference in this
1:02:46
Speaker 1: foreign trip, just like everything else in the Biden presidency,
1:02:49
Speaker 1: is sort of like the low expectations that Donald Trump
1:02:52
Speaker 1: set for him, right? Like, you know, looking at the
1:02:54
Speaker 1: news over the last week, it's like, oh, there's not
1:02:56
Speaker 1: like something fucking crazy every few minutes about the United
1:03:00
Speaker 1: States president going overseas, which is what happened when Trump
1:03:03
Speaker 1: went over there. It was just sort of quiet, which
1:03:05
Speaker 1: is good.
1:03:06
Speaker 3: And it's like, yeah, I mean, right.
1:03:07
Speaker 2: It's like, you know.
1:03:10
Speaker 3: As Joe Biden would say, don't judge me against the Almighty,
1:03:13
Speaker 3: judge me against the alternative. It is nice not having
1:03:16
Speaker 3: a president threatening to exit NATO on a sort of
1:03:20
Speaker 3: near constant basis.
1:03:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, the previous Almighty made headlines at one of these
1:03:24
Speaker 4: events by punching the president of Montenegro, I think. So yeah,
1:03:29
Speaker 4: Biden's stepping over a low bar here, but good for him.
1:03:32
Speaker 3: Well, Well, Tommy, you make a good point. When they
1:03:35
Speaker 3: go Montenegro, we really have to go.
1:03:37
Speaker 2: No, no.
1:03:38
Speaker 3: Not doing it. But these kinds of ridiculous foreign policy
1:03:44
Speaker 3: stories have been around for a long time. And so
1:03:46
Speaker 3: now it's time for a game. International travel. It's an
1:03:49
Speaker 3: opportunity to experience new cultures and Google local tipping practices
1:03:52
Speaker 3: for reporters and administration officials like Tommy Vitor. It's a
1:03:55
Speaker 3: chance to wander exhausted and bleary-eyed through various European conference spaces,
1:03:59
Speaker 3: remnants of Ambien molecules fighting a desperate Leningrad-like battle against
1:04:03
Speaker 3: fresh caffeine in the bloodstream, while trying to figure out
1:04:05
Speaker 3: how to make sense of what amounts to 75% of
1:04:07
Speaker 3: the president's job and 1% of the country's attention. The
1:04:10
Speaker 3: result is nuanced and substantive coverage of the delicate dance
1:04:13
Speaker 3: of diplomacy plus genuine nonsense. So let's focus on that
1:04:16
Speaker 3: in a game we call The World Is Not Enough.
1:04:19
Speaker 3: Here's how it works. I'm going to ask you both
1:04:21
Speaker 3: questions about the most absurd moments of foreign trips past. Tommy,
1:04:25
Speaker 3: I'll start with you. In a scandal dubbed Obamagate, President
1:04:30
Speaker 3: Barack Obama was accused of leering at a young woman
1:04:33
Speaker 3: at the G8. He was exonerated when the video clearly
1:04:36
Speaker 3: showed that that was misleading and was not true at all.
1:04:40
Speaker 3: But it did not exonerate the person with whom President
1:04:44
Speaker 3: Obama was standing, who wasn't absolved by the video footage
1:04:49
Speaker 3: in the same incident.
1:04:50
Speaker 2: Was it Sarkozy? It was.
1:04:53
Speaker 3: It was French President Nicolas Sarkozy. who it seems to
1:04:57
Speaker 3: have been actually leering. John, over to you. Quote, it
1:05:01
Speaker 3: was a mutual and spontaneous display of affection. A Buckingham
1:05:04
Speaker 3: Palace spokesman said, we don't issue instructions on not touching
1:05:08
Speaker 3: the queen. John, who touched the queen?
1:05:14
Speaker 1: Michelle Obama?
1:05:15
Speaker 2: It was. It was Michelle Obama.
1:05:17
Speaker 1: You got it.
1:05:17
Speaker 2: You got it.
1:05:17
Speaker 5: Tommy.
1:05:18
Speaker 3: In 2013, the world was rocked when President Obama took
1:05:21
Speaker 3: a selfie at a memorial service. Who was memorialized? And bonus,
1:05:25
Speaker 3: with whom was the selfie taken?
1:05:27
Speaker 2: Oh, oh, oh, oh. Nelson Mandela's funeral. Oh my God. Fuck,
1:05:32
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna, I'm gonna throw a dart at a
1:05:35
Speaker 2: Nordic country.
1:05:35
Speaker 6: Estonia? No, no, no.
1:05:39
Speaker 2: I know that's not Nordic.
1:05:40
Speaker 1: Was it the wife of the Dutch PM? Or was
1:05:43
Speaker 1: it the Dutch PM?
1:05:44
Speaker 2: Dutch PM?
1:05:44
Speaker 3: It was the Danish Prime Minister, Helg Torning-Schmidt. And who?
1:05:49
Speaker 3: There's one other person in that pick.
1:05:51
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know that.
1:05:54
Speaker 3: It's British Prime Minister David Cameron.
1:05:56
Speaker 2: Oh, my God. I should have stuck with my guns
1:05:57
Speaker 2: and not swerved to Estonia. That's on me.
1:06:02
Speaker 3: John, you know, the Estonian, it's tough to be the
1:06:05
Speaker 3: Estonian leader to get in that kind of stuff.
1:06:08
Speaker 2: You're right.
1:06:08
Speaker 3: John, who rubbed who's back at the G8 in 2006?
1:06:13
Speaker 1: George W. Bush, Angela Merkel.
1:06:16
Speaker 3: One of the weirdest fucking things. It's a really uncomfortable video.
1:06:19
Speaker 3: The photos are of her like- He forgot where he was.
1:06:21
Speaker 3: She's like, get your fucking arms out.
1:06:24
Speaker 2: I'm the.
1:06:26
Speaker 3: Chancellor of Germany. Do you know what we do when
1:06:28
Speaker 3: we get mad? And finally, because it's pride, Tommy and John,
1:06:36
Speaker 3: my no homo majordomos, in 2009, Obama gave Queen Elizabeth
1:06:41
Speaker 3: II an iPod loaded with songs from classic American musicals.
1:06:45
Speaker 2: Name one.
1:06:46
Speaker 3: Name one fucking song from a classic American musical that
1:06:50
Speaker 3: was on the iPod.
1:06:51
Speaker 1: Oh, that was on the iPod?
1:06:55
Speaker 2: John, you first.
1:06:57
Speaker 1: I don't know.
1:06:59
Speaker 3: Name a song.
1:06:59
Speaker 1: Something from Cats? Memory from Cats? Cats?
1:07:05
Speaker 3: Wait, yes!
1:07:07
Speaker 2: It was all there!
1:07:08
Speaker 3: Tommy, you're going to have to guess one.
1:07:10
Speaker 1: That might be the only song from any musical that
1:07:12
Speaker 1: I know.
1:07:13
Speaker 3: It's unbelievable that they got that on there. Honestly, it
1:07:15
Speaker 3: shouldn't even be there. Shame on them for putting it
1:07:17
Speaker 3: on there. Name one classic musical song.
1:07:20
Speaker 2: 521,600 minutes. Is that right?
1:07:27
Speaker 3: Seasons of Love was on there.
1:07:28
Speaker 6: No way!
1:07:28
Speaker 3: Seasons of Love from Rent was on there. Very proud
1:07:31
Speaker 3: of you.
1:07:31
Speaker 2: Some other songs.
1:07:33
Speaker 1: Oklahoma.
1:07:34
Speaker 3: There's no business like show business from Annie Get Your Gun.
1:07:37
Speaker 3: Some Enchanted Evening from South Pacific. Everything's Coming Up Roses
1:07:41
Speaker 3: from Gypsy. And If I Were a Rich Man, Zero
1:07:44
Speaker 3: Mostel from Fiddler on the Roof.
1:07:46
Speaker 2: Wow.
1:07:46
Speaker 3: Very exciting to see that there.
1:07:47
Speaker 4: Hey, love, before we end, I just want to thank
1:07:49
Speaker 4: Congressman Ronny Jackson for the pills on these foreign trips
1:07:53
Speaker 4: and the memories.
1:07:53
Speaker 2: You kept me up. You put me down.
1:07:56
Speaker 4: You were there for me before you became a total
1:07:59
Speaker 4: MAGA lunatic. So thank you for the pills and the
1:08:02
Speaker 4: memories and the erased memories because of the pills.
1:08:07
Speaker 3: Shout out to Ryan Jackson. Yeah, leave it in.
1:08:08
Speaker 2: Oh, leave it all in. You lifted Tommy up. All right.
1:08:13
Speaker 1: Thank you to Congresswoman Val Demings for joining us today.
1:08:16
Speaker 1: I'm glad she didn't have to stick around for all this.
1:08:20
Speaker 1: We will have everyone have a good week. We'll talk
1:08:22
Speaker 1: to you on Thursday. Pod Save America is a Crooked
1:08:26
Speaker 1: Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior
1:08:30
Speaker 1: producer is Flavia Casas. Our associate producers are Jazzy Marine
1:08:34
Speaker 1: and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
1:08:38
Speaker 1: Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somenator,
1:08:41
Speaker 1: Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for
1:08:45
Speaker 1: production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian,
1:08:49
Speaker 1: Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these
1:08:52
Speaker 1: episodes as videos every week.