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Did the Supreme Court Just Save Trump? · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:22
Speaker 1: On today's show, Mitch McConnell says he's stepping down as
0:25
Speaker 1: minority leader, House Republicans' impeachment blows up in their face,
0:29
Speaker 1: RFK Jr., Maybe on the ballot in Arizona and Georgia.
0:32
Speaker 1: And later, strict scrutiny's Leah Littman stops by to talk
0:35
Speaker 1: about the Supreme Court's latest gift to Donald Trump. But first,
0:41
Speaker 1: we had ourselves a showdown in Texas on Thursday, Dan.
0:44
Speaker 1: One border, two presidents, a few hundred miles apart from
0:47
Speaker 1: each other. Trump was in Eagle Pass, ranting and raving
0:50
Speaker 1: about a migrant invasion, which seems like exactly the kind
0:53
Speaker 1: of event he had in mind when he ordered Republicans
0:55
Speaker 1: in Congress to kill Americans. a bipartisan border deal that
0:58
Speaker 1: would have made it tougher for him to demagogue the issue.
1:01
Speaker 1: Here's a clip.
1:01
Speaker 3: Because everybody I speak to says how horrible it is.
1:04
Speaker 3: Nobody explained to me how allowing millions of people from
1:08
Speaker 3: places unknown, from countries unknown, who don't speak languages. We
1:13
Speaker 3: have languages coming into our country. We have nobody that
1:15
Speaker 3: even speaks those languages. They're truly foreign languages. Nobody speaks them.
1:20
Speaker 1: What do you think he's talking about with the languages?
1:23
Speaker 1: You always have to do like a little deep dive into...
1:28
Speaker 1: the dark recesses of his mind.
1:31
Speaker 2: It feels like something.
1:32
Speaker 1: Did he hear about a language that he, someone said
1:35
Speaker 1: something about a language that he hadn't heard about before,
1:37
Speaker 1: that he hadn't heard of before, so now people are
1:39
Speaker 1: coming in, they don't even speak languages. They don't even
1:41
Speaker 1: speak languages.
1:41
Speaker 2: I mean, he's heard of what, five languages? Maybe total.
1:44
Speaker 2: And Pig Latin's one of them. I don't know. I'm
1:47
Speaker 2: sure Elijah knows the answer as to whatever weird thing
1:50
Speaker 2: is going around in mega media that may bring it
1:52
Speaker 2: up on Trimily Online or something.
1:53
Speaker 1: I don't know. Okay, that's great. Meanwhile, President Biden was
1:56
Speaker 1: in Brownsville to meet with Border Patrol and accurately point
1:58
Speaker 1: out that the border isn't more secure right now because
2:00
Speaker 1: Donald Trump wants to scare people into voting for him
2:03
Speaker 1: so that he can spend another four years not doing
2:06
Speaker 1: anything to fix our immigration system. Here's Joe Biden.
2:09
Speaker 4: We need to act. It's time for the speakers and
2:11
Speaker 4: some of my Republican friends in Congress who are blocking
2:14
Speaker 4: this bill to show a little spine. Pass a bipartisan board. Bipartisan. Remember, bipartisan.
2:21
Speaker 4: Conservative leaders supported this border security bill. Let's remember who
2:26
Speaker 4: we work for, for God's sake. We work for the
2:29
Speaker 4: American people. Let me end with this. I understand my
2:34
Speaker 4: predecessors in Eagle Pass today. So here's what I would
2:37
Speaker 4: say to Mr. Trump. Instead of playing politics with the issue,
2:41
Speaker 4: instead of telling members of Congress to block this legislation,
2:44
Speaker 4: join me or I'll join you in telling the Congress
2:48
Speaker 4: to pass this bipartisan border security bill. We can do
2:51
Speaker 4: it together. You know and I know it's the toughest,
2:55
Speaker 4: most efficient, most effective border security bill this country has
2:58
Speaker 4: ever seen.
2:59
Speaker 1: I wonder how that's going to work. They're going to
3:00
Speaker 1: join each other. Maybe they'll give a co-state of the
3:03
Speaker 1: union together. What do you think of the dueling visit, Stan?
3:06
Speaker 2: I think it's great that President Biden went to the border.
3:09
Speaker 2: Trump was going there first. Biden made his trip afterwards.
3:13
Speaker 2: I'm operating the assumption they did that on purpose.
3:15
Speaker 1: He says he didn't. He said, I didn't know my
3:17
Speaker 1: friend was going.
3:18
Speaker 2: Well, he may not have known, but I imagine someone
3:21
Speaker 2: inside the White House did know. And I think that's
3:22
Speaker 2: the right choice. I think it's a good thing that
3:25
Speaker 2: the president intentionally went to the border because it shows
3:28
Speaker 2: that he is becoming more aggressive as this election goes on.
3:30
Speaker 2: Going to the border on Donald Trump's strongest issue on
3:33
Speaker 2: the same day as Donald Trump It's not a low-risk endeavor.
3:36
Speaker 2: It's a sign of aggressiveness. I think it's good. It
3:39
Speaker 2: means also it's going to get more attention. CNN carried
3:41
Speaker 2: it live. MSNBC carried it live. We're talking about it here,
3:44
Speaker 2: which is a sign of a gigantic news story in
3:46
Speaker 2: and of itself. And so I think that was the
3:50
Speaker 2: right thing to do. I also took note of the
3:52
Speaker 2: fact that the president brought up comprehensive immigration reform at
3:55
Speaker 2: the beginning of this. And one of the things I've
3:57
Speaker 2: noticed about the conversation around this issue is we have
4:01
Speaker 2: gone entirely to border security and border security only. And
4:04
Speaker 2: it's leaving out the fact that comprehensive immigration reform, fixing
4:07
Speaker 2: the whole system, remains incredibly popular. And I think there's
4:10
Speaker 2: a benefit to Biden to broaden the conversation back that, yes,
4:13
Speaker 2: we have to secure a border. Yes, we have to
4:14
Speaker 2: deal with a specific crisis happening right now. But we
4:16
Speaker 2: also have to fix the bigger problem. And Donald Trump
4:18
Speaker 2: sure as hell not going to fix the bigger problem.
4:21
Speaker 3: Yeah.
4:22
Speaker 1: Pathway to citizenship, very popular. Citizenship for dreamers, very popular.
4:28
Speaker 1: Very tough bipartisan border deal, also popular. when you test
4:33
Speaker 1: all the polls that have tested it so far.
4:34
Speaker 2: 66% in the Navigator poll out today.
4:37
Speaker 1: And popular with Democrats as well. This is not just
4:39
Speaker 1: an independent Republican thing. Yeah, no, I think it was...
4:42
Speaker 1: I'm glad that he went, met with Border Patrol, whose
4:46
Speaker 1: union supported the bipartisan deal, something that he noted. And then,
4:50
Speaker 1: you know, he's just... The message is, I'm willing to
4:53
Speaker 1: compromise with Republicans because I care about solving the problem.
4:56
Speaker 1: Donald Trump doesn't care about solving the problem, cares about himself. It's,
5:00
Speaker 1: you know, the border is... Maybe the most salient example
5:05
Speaker 1: of that, but it works for any number of issues
5:08
Speaker 1: that we'll be talking about over the course of this campaign.
5:11
Speaker 1: New polling from Gallup says immigration is now people's number
5:16
Speaker 1: one concern. They asked an open-ended question about issues, immigration
5:20
Speaker 1: number one. And voters also say that they trust Trump
5:24
Speaker 1: a lot more than Biden, even though Trump brags about
5:28
Speaker 1: killing the border deal, takes credit for it. tells people
5:31
Speaker 1: that he killed it, and yet still people trust him
5:35
Speaker 1: a lot more than Biden. This does seem to me
5:38
Speaker 1: more of a policy issue than a messaging issue, but
5:41
Speaker 1: what do you think?
5:42
Speaker 2: You mean in terms of the deficit between the two? Yeah,
5:46
Speaker 2: it's obviously a policy problem, right? I don't know whether
5:48
Speaker 2: this Gallup poll is correct. I'm a little skeptical that
5:51
Speaker 2: immigration has now gone ahead of inflation, jobs, the economy,
5:54
Speaker 2: but that's beyond the point. In every poll, the salience
5:58
Speaker 2: of immigration has gone up. And The intensity of concern
6:01
Speaker 2: about it has gone up. Even a majority of Democrats
6:03
Speaker 2: in some polls now say what's happening at the border
6:05
Speaker 2: is a crisis. And so this is not Biden's not
6:07
Speaker 2: saying the right thing. It's not that he's not talking
6:09
Speaker 2: about it enough. It's that there's a very real thing happening.
6:12
Speaker 2: People are seeing images of it. And because largely the
6:15
Speaker 2: cynical ploys of Republican border state governors, the problem is
6:19
Speaker 2: arriving in people's states, right? There are cities are dealing
6:22
Speaker 2: with the influx of migrants as putting strain on social services.
6:25
Speaker 2: if you walk around places, you will see people with
6:28
Speaker 2: signs saying they're migrants who were brought there. It's in
6:30
Speaker 2: people's face in a way that is very, very real
6:33
Speaker 2: and is why President Biden is, you don't generally just
6:36
Speaker 2: go pick the issue your opponent has a 35 point
6:38
Speaker 2: advantage on to go talk about, but the salience has
6:41
Speaker 2: gone up so much that you have to do it
6:42
Speaker 2: and you have to address it. And that's why he
6:43
Speaker 2: was doing it today.
6:45
Speaker 1: Yeah. And to the point that it's a policy issue,
6:48
Speaker 1: Biden says he might act without Congress to curb the
6:50
Speaker 1: flow of migrants across the border, but that his options
6:53
Speaker 1: are limited without legislation. So there's been reporting that he's
6:57
Speaker 1: considering an executive action that may allow him to close
7:02
Speaker 1: down the border between ports of entry when the border
7:05
Speaker 1: is as crowded as it has been over the last
7:08
Speaker 1: several months. He's also getting some pushback from progressives on
7:11
Speaker 1: this who think that the rumored executive action would be
7:14
Speaker 1: too tough on legitimate asylum seekers. There's also A huge
7:19
Speaker 1: question as to whether it would survive a court challenge
7:22
Speaker 1: since when Trump used a similar authority in the Trump administration. Basically,
7:29
Speaker 1: the courts ruled that, yes, the president has a lot
7:31
Speaker 1: of leeway and power when it comes to the border,
7:33
Speaker 1: but they can't run afoul of asylum law. So thoughts
7:38
Speaker 1: on what the right move is here?
7:40
Speaker 2: I just don't feel like I know. I'm deeply steeped
7:43
Speaker 2: enough in the policy to be able to parse the
7:46
Speaker 2: arguments made on both sides of this. People we really
7:49
Speaker 2: respect have said that it is going to have certainly
7:53
Speaker 2: an unfair disproportionate impact on some legal asylum seekers who
7:56
Speaker 2: we should be trying to help in this country. That's
7:58
Speaker 2: what America is about. But then you also have these
8:01
Speaker 2: Democratic governors, progressives, who are begging the president to do something.
8:05
Speaker 2: Biden's just in an impossible situation. There are no good answers.
8:08
Speaker 2: There is not something that is going to ensure access
8:11
Speaker 2: to as many legitimate asylum seekers as possible and deal
8:15
Speaker 2: with the crisis at the border. And this crisis is
8:18
Speaker 2: being exploited politically by his opponents, and they will not
8:21
Speaker 2: give him the help to address it. And so he's,
8:23
Speaker 2: I think, from a purely political standpoint, right, just to
8:26
Speaker 2: set aside for the actual policy implications, in general, you
8:29
Speaker 2: were at your strongest as president when you were taking
8:31
Speaker 2: executive action and then hitting Congress for refusing to give
8:35
Speaker 2: you the tools to further address the challenge. And so
8:38
Speaker 2: I understand politically why that would be the right thing
8:40
Speaker 2: to do. I just am uncomfortable declaring it's the right
8:43
Speaker 2: thing to do without fully understanding the details of the
8:46
Speaker 2: plan and what it would mean for the people we
8:48
Speaker 2: do care about and are trying to help, if that
8:50
Speaker 2: makes sense.
8:51
Speaker 1: It does make sense. And I was going to take
8:53
Speaker 1: the politics out of it for a second. And let's
8:57
Speaker 1: imagine that Joe Biden is not running again, is a
8:59
Speaker 1: lame duck president, didn't care about the politics, but does
9:03
Speaker 1: deeply care about a border crisis that, as you said,
9:07
Speaker 1: even Democratic governors and mayors are asking for help with
9:11
Speaker 1: because it's just more migrants crossing than in any time
9:15
Speaker 1: in recent memory, right? So what would you do? The
9:18
Speaker 1: policy problem is only solved, as the Biden administration is saying,
9:21
Speaker 1: with legislation. And the legislation you would want is not
9:25
Speaker 1: just legislation that addresses the border, but as we were saying,
9:28
Speaker 1: legislation that fixes the immigration system that probably increases legal immigration,
9:32
Speaker 1: that gives a pathway to citizenship for the millions of
9:35
Speaker 1: undocumented immigrants in this country already, that provides more resources
9:39
Speaker 1: at the border and more resources in the interior. So
9:41
Speaker 1: that's what you would do. Since he can't do that
9:44
Speaker 1: because of the politics, the only other policy solution is
9:47
Speaker 1: like everything else that he has to do that Congress
9:49
Speaker 1: has blocked, which is executive action, right? And the challenge
9:52
Speaker 1: with executive actions is you just don't know if they're
9:55
Speaker 1: going to hold up in court. And because a lot
9:58
Speaker 1: of them aren't meant to be taken by, the president alone,
10:00
Speaker 1: they're meant to be legislation, but we have a broken
10:03
Speaker 1: fucking Congress because Republicans refuse to do anything that might
10:07
Speaker 1: help Joe Biden politically. So he's probably looking for policy
10:11
Speaker 1: solutions like this executive action that would help a little bit,
10:15
Speaker 1: But as the Biden White House is saying, like they're
10:18
Speaker 1: not going to it's not going to solve the problem
10:19
Speaker 1: and it might be struck down in court. But I
10:22
Speaker 1: do think you're right, like showing that at least he
10:24
Speaker 1: tried every available option, working with Congress, being willing to
10:28
Speaker 1: compromise on a bipartisan border deal that is not the
10:31
Speaker 1: one he would write himself if he if he had
10:34
Speaker 1: his had his wishes and then taking executive action, even
10:38
Speaker 1: if it's knocked down by the courts. He's at least
10:39
Speaker 1: at that point saying, look, I tried everything I could
10:43
Speaker 1: to solve this problem. And no Republicans wanted to.
10:46
Speaker 2: This is why it's so much harder to run for
10:47
Speaker 2: reelection than it is to just be an insurgent challenger,
10:50
Speaker 2: because Biden has to actually make decisions that have impacts
10:53
Speaker 2: on people's lives. And I remember when we were in
10:55
Speaker 2: the White House, just sitting in one of these meetings,
10:58
Speaker 2: not on the border on another topic, where Congress wouldn't
11:01
Speaker 2: do what we wanted them to do. So going through
11:03
Speaker 2: a series of suboptimal policies to try to address it
11:07
Speaker 2: that would be wouldn't solve the problem wholly, would fix
11:11
Speaker 2: some of it, have some effects in the wrong direction
11:14
Speaker 2: in other ways, and could be struck down by the court.
11:16
Speaker 2: And I remember someone in that meeting saying, welcome to
11:18
Speaker 2: the White House, the department of shitty options, because that's
11:21
Speaker 2: exactly what it is, right?
11:22
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of what we went through with
11:24
Speaker 1: the Dreamers, right? We wanted to make sure that Dreamers
11:28
Speaker 1: in this country were protected, that they couldn't be deported.
11:31
Speaker 1: The legislation could not pass Congress because Republicans refused to
11:35
Speaker 1: work on that with us. And so You know, everyone's like, oh,
11:38
Speaker 1: why did Obama wait so long to protect the dreamers
11:40
Speaker 1: and do an executive action? Well, when he finally did,
11:43
Speaker 1: because the lawyers told him, I don't know how much
11:45
Speaker 1: that's going to hold up in court. And sure enough,
11:47
Speaker 1: he took the executive action. Dreamers were protected temporarily. But
11:51
Speaker 1: then as soon as Donald Trump took office, they weren't
11:53
Speaker 1: because an executive action is not as strong as legislation.
11:56
Speaker 1: So when everyone said, oh, why doesn't the president do something,
11:58
Speaker 1: do something, do something? Congress.
12:00
Speaker 3: Yeah.
12:01
Speaker 1: Like the Congress is you need Congress to pass laws.
12:04
Speaker 1: You can't just take executive actions. Student loans. immigration, whatever
12:08
Speaker 1: you may want. Yes, the president should try, and this
12:11
Speaker 1: president has tried on a whole host of issues, but
12:13
Speaker 1: there's only so much you can do. The laws of
12:15
Speaker 1: the country are that you need legislation passed by Congress.
12:18
Speaker 2: Particularly if you need funding.
12:20
Speaker 1: Particularly if you need funding, especially if you need funding.
12:22
Speaker 1: It says so in the fucking constitution.
12:24
Speaker 5: All right.
12:24
Speaker 1: Speaking of Congress, Republicans are on quite a run lately.
12:27
Speaker 1: Killed the border deal, blocked a bill to protect IVF.
12:30
Speaker 1: Did that yesterday? Remember they were all like, oh yeah, no,
12:32
Speaker 1: we're for IVF. What are you talking about? Those Those
12:35
Speaker 1: kooks in Alabama?
12:35
Speaker 2: No, not us.
12:36
Speaker 1: We're Republicans. We value life. We're for IVF. Tammy Duckworth's like, okay, well,
12:40
Speaker 1: here's a bill that would protect IVF on a federal level. No,
12:43
Speaker 1: absolutely not. No, I think it's a state thing. We're good.
12:45
Speaker 1: We're good.
12:46
Speaker 2: Oh, they think it's a state thing.
12:48
Speaker 1: It's a state thing. Oh, just like abortion.
12:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That seems familiar. Yeah, yeah.
12:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, just like everything else. They are still refusing to
12:55
Speaker 1: help Ukraine fend off Putin's invasion, still can't figure out
12:58
Speaker 1: how to keep the government open, so they just pushed
13:00
Speaker 1: the funding deadline another few weeks. I guess they got
13:03
Speaker 1: that done. they procrastinated. Yeah, they legislated procrastination this week.
13:08
Speaker 1: That's what they did. But the reason they can't get
13:11
Speaker 1: to all of this is because, you know, they are
13:13
Speaker 1: just using all their time to focus on what's really
13:16
Speaker 1: keeping people up at night, Hunter Biden. House Republicans asked
13:20
Speaker 1: him the dumbest possible questions for over six hours on
13:23
Speaker 1: Wednesday and still can't find a shred of evidence that
13:27
Speaker 1: Joe Biden did anything wrong, let alone illegal, which is
13:29
Speaker 1: making impeaching the guy a bit tricky, especially after their
13:33
Speaker 1: star informant turned out to be a Russian double agent
13:37
Speaker 1: who's been charged with lying to the FBI about a
13:40
Speaker 1: fake bribery allegation involving Joe Biden, just totally made up,
13:44
Speaker 1: given to him by Russian intelligence, foreign intelligence sources. He
13:48
Speaker 1: passes it on. Republicans, you know, they believe it. Hook, line,
13:52
Speaker 1: and they take it. They take the bait. They launch
13:54
Speaker 1: an impeachment inquiry against the president of the United States
13:58
Speaker 1: based entirely on Russian disinformation. They were victims of a
14:03
Speaker 1: Russian operation, a Russian intelligence operation, because they're that fucking dumb.
14:08
Speaker 1: So not much left after that in the impeachment inquiry.
14:12
Speaker 1: And even Republican media is having a tough time defending
14:15
Speaker 1: the impeachment inquiry and Hunter's testimony. Let's listen.
14:19
Speaker 6: Congressman, do you think maybe the American public is getting
14:21
Speaker 6: a little tired of this because they can't fight?
14:24
Speaker 2: Understand it.
14:25
Speaker 6: It's complicated.
14:26
Speaker 7: They don't know all the names and places and faces.
14:29
Speaker 6: And you haven't proved the basic point yet that President
14:31
Speaker 6: Biden was directly involved.
14:32
Speaker 2: Is the public getting tired of it? Well, large scale
14:35
Speaker 2: international money fraud schemes are by their very nature complicated.
14:40
Speaker 8: I just don't know how much longer this investigation can
14:43
Speaker 8: can go on. without bearing some fruit. Now, I think
14:46
Speaker 8: that there are Republicans in the House that would like
14:49
Speaker 8: to see, hey, Hunter might be in the courtroom at
14:51
Speaker 8: the same time that Donald Trump is in the courtroom
14:53
Speaker 8: if that happens over the summer. And that would be
14:54
Speaker 8: hugely embarrassing for the White House. Have you had any
14:57
Speaker 8: conversations with our new House Speaker Mike Johnson or James
15:00
Speaker 8: Comer or Jim Jordan about moving the ball down the
15:03
Speaker 8: field here? Because every time I have a member of
15:05
Speaker 8: Congress on, and I understand.
15:07
Speaker 2: I hear you.
15:08
Speaker 8: But they say the exact same thing you just said.
15:11
Speaker 7: So I think when the transcript comes out, it's going
15:13
Speaker 7: to read well for them because they did a great
15:15
Speaker 7: job prepping for a read, but that's, but the reality is, yeah, yeah.
15:21
Speaker 7: But when you get down to it and you start
15:23
Speaker 7: parsing the words, you start realizing, oh yeah, yeah, that's
15:26
Speaker 7: very interesting.
15:27
Speaker 1: Okay, so that was Stuart Varney on Fox Business. And
15:32
Speaker 1: then it was a Newsmax host interviewing a Republican member
15:36
Speaker 1: of Congress. And then that last interview was Republican House
15:40
Speaker 1: member Andy Biggs. He's one of the people that I'm
15:43
Speaker 1: not a fan of Kevin McCarthy. So pretty extreme. And
15:46
Speaker 1: he was basically saying, yeah, you know, I think when
15:48
Speaker 1: everyone reads the Hunter Biden transcript of the interview, it's
15:51
Speaker 1: going to read pretty well for him because it reads
15:53
Speaker 1: well because they prepped him well. But but if you
15:55
Speaker 1: really parse the words, you might be able to find something.
16:00
Speaker 1: It seems pretty bad for them, huh?
16:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just– it's so embarrassing because they launched this–
16:06
Speaker 2: they launched this entire thing only to throw red meat
16:09
Speaker 2: to the Freedom Caucus to make them believe their own
16:12
Speaker 2: Fox News pickled brain MAGA conspiracy theories without any plan,
16:17
Speaker 2: any evidence. And the evidence they had was completely and
16:21
Speaker 2: totally made up by someone hanging out with Russian spies.
16:24
Speaker 2: Just absolutely– It's just an amazing self-own from these people
16:29
Speaker 2: on an issue the American people could not have given
16:32
Speaker 2: two shits about to begin with. Just wild.
16:34
Speaker 1: Do you know how complicated this story is? We have
16:37
Speaker 1: not talked about this a ton, partly because you have
16:40
Speaker 1: to put up your fucking whiteboard and get out your
16:42
Speaker 1: red string to understand all the allegations, just about all
16:45
Speaker 1: of which are completely just false, wrong. They continue to
16:50
Speaker 1: say all these crazy things that aren't true. They keep
16:52
Speaker 1: saying that Hunter Biden had a bunch of shell companies,
16:55
Speaker 1: not true. They said that a Russian woman had paid
16:59
Speaker 1: millions of dollars to Hunter Biden. Not true. Disproven by
17:02
Speaker 1: one of their own witnesses. They did the whole story
17:05
Speaker 1: about how Joe Biden's brother paying back Joe Biden alone
17:09
Speaker 1: was somehow nefarious when Joe Biden wasn't vice president or president,
17:14
Speaker 1: just alone. And this whole claim that like Hunter and
17:17
Speaker 1: James Biden had 20 million dollars, they keep repeating that.
17:20
Speaker 1: cable news hosts keep debunking them like during their interviews
17:24
Speaker 1: that they're saying this there's there's nothing there's nothing all
17:27
Speaker 1: they get like you have Hunter Biden who um suffered
17:30
Speaker 1: through addiction is now facing charges for anything that he
17:35
Speaker 1: did wrong and yet they can't get beyond that right
17:39
Speaker 1: they can't get beyond Hunter's issues and to connect them
17:42
Speaker 1: to Joe Biden in fact Just about everything that has
17:45
Speaker 1: come out about what Joe Biden hasn't done shows that
17:49
Speaker 1: he was acting exactly as he should have acted. As
17:53
Speaker 1: a father who very much cared about his son, who
17:56
Speaker 1: was going through a lot and did some bad stuff,
17:58
Speaker 1: but didn't do anything wrong himself. Forget about illegal, nothing
18:04
Speaker 1: even improper from Joe Biden. These people are, it's ridiculous.
18:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is what happens when a group of particularly
18:09
Speaker 2: dumb people who consume really bad information get power.
18:12
Speaker 1: They're all swimming in the crazy swamp and they're just like,
18:15
Speaker 1: they're hearing all the shit from right-wing media.
18:17
Speaker 2: And they believe it.
18:18
Speaker 1: And they believe it. Totally believe it. Totally believe it.
18:21
Speaker 1: I just love that the entire basis for the impeachment
18:26
Speaker 1: turned out to be like a Russian intel operation. It
18:28
Speaker 1: reads like a bad episode of The Americans. It's not,
18:30
Speaker 1: like the guy's name is Smirnoff.
18:32
Speaker 2: There are no bad episodes of the Americans. I just
18:34
Speaker 2: want to stipulate that.
18:35
Speaker 9: I know.
18:35
Speaker 1: Well, that's what I'm saying. As if it was just
18:37
Speaker 1: like a, I should have said like a bad ripoff
18:39
Speaker 1: of the Americans.
18:40
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
18:41
Speaker 1: That's what I read. So apparently their next step is
18:43
Speaker 1: a public hearing where they ask Hunter all the same
18:46
Speaker 1: questions that they asked him in the private hearing. Hunter
18:48
Speaker 1: originally wanted a public hearing. They said no. They wanted
18:51
Speaker 1: to do it behind closed doors. Now the behind, now
18:54
Speaker 1: the closed door hearing was a disaster for them. And
18:57
Speaker 1: so now they want to go back into the, out
18:59
Speaker 1: to the public. And Democrats reaction, I guess Jamie Raskin
19:01
Speaker 1: was asked about this. He's like, I mean, I don't
19:03
Speaker 1: think we should have a public hearing, but like we
19:05
Speaker 1: need a public hearing. But go for it if they
19:06
Speaker 1: want to go for it and make asses of themselves
19:09
Speaker 1: to the public by doing what they did behind closed doors. Like,
19:11
Speaker 1: go for it. Doesn't matter.
19:12
Speaker 2: Great. Fully support it.
19:15
Speaker 1: Just more just more wasting time, wasting everyone's time because
19:19
Speaker 1: their boss, Donald Trump, needed one more talking point to
19:22
Speaker 1: go after Joe Biden in the general election. That's why
19:24
Speaker 1: they're doing all this. All right, let's turn to the
19:38
Speaker 1: Senate where they've got 99 problems, but a Mitch ain't one, Dan.
19:45
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
19:47
Speaker 2: I have to say that's a bit.
19:49
Speaker 1: You saw the script. You going to surprise you.
19:50
Speaker 2: I read the script. I know that's unusual.
19:58
Speaker 1: Not all the hoes, too.
20:01
Speaker 2: But the playbook subhead was Mitch move, get out the way,
20:06
Speaker 2: which I thought was pretty good, too.
20:07
Speaker 1: That was pretty good. Good for playbook. But it's true.
20:10
Speaker 1: On Wednesday, McConnell announced that he'll be stepping down from
20:12
Speaker 1: his leadership position in November, ending his run as the
20:16
Speaker 1: longest serving Senate leader in history. The news led to
20:20
Speaker 1: a lot of tears here at Crooked. We appreciate all
20:22
Speaker 1: the condolences. McConnell's Republican colleagues in the House also took
20:26
Speaker 1: it pretty hard. Here's a statement from the Freedom Caucus.
20:30
Speaker 1: Our thoughts are with our Democratic colleagues in the Senate
20:33
Speaker 1: on the retirement of their co-majority leader, Mitch McConnell, in parentheses, D-Ukraine.
20:41
Speaker 7: Unreal.
20:42
Speaker 1: One thing you can't say about Mitch, he's well aware
20:44
Speaker 1: of how much he's despised. Here's a clip from his announcement.
20:48
Speaker 6: Believe me, I know the politics within my party at
20:53
Speaker 6: this particular moment in time.
20:56
Speaker 9: I have.
20:57
Speaker 6: Many faults. Misunderstanding politics is not one of them.
21:04
Speaker 1: First of all, Dan, how are you doing?
21:06
Speaker 2: Well, John, I was doing pretty good this morning. Then
21:08
Speaker 2: I woke up early as I do, and I opened
21:11
Speaker 2: up my computer. I started reading some news, and I
21:14
Speaker 2: read a lot of lionization of one Mitch McConnell.
21:19
Speaker 1: Where did you find that? I didn't even find that anywhere.
21:21
Speaker 2: I mean, the tributes from Capitol Hill reporters who've covered him.
21:25
Speaker 2: What is this? Is this the end of the old
21:27
Speaker 2: Republican Party, one of the last institutionalists, one of the
21:31
Speaker 2: lions of the Senate? And I wanted to tell every
21:34
Speaker 2: one of those people to go fuck yourselves. Because the
21:40
Speaker 2: way that this is being portrayed is that Mitch McConnell
21:42
Speaker 2: is the one last Republican standing in the way of
21:46
Speaker 2: the MAGA takeover of the party, and that he waved
21:48
Speaker 2: the white flag and handed it to Donald Trump. But
21:52
Speaker 2: here's the thing. I know you're going to disagree with this.
21:53
Speaker 2: I prepared myself for that fact. I know you're going
21:56
Speaker 2: to come in with some more common sense than I'm
21:59
Speaker 2: going to bring here, but so be it. There is
22:02
Speaker 2: no person walking the planet today more responsible for America
22:06
Speaker 2: being on the cusp of stumbling ass backwards into authoritarianism
22:11
Speaker 2: than Mitch McConnell.
22:12
Speaker 1: I completely agree. Go ahead. I was going to arrive
22:16
Speaker 1: at the same point from a different direction, but go ahead.
22:18
Speaker 7: Okay.
22:18
Speaker 2: I want to think about this.
22:19
Speaker 1: You go first.
22:20
Speaker 2: No one has done more to give billionaires corporations access
22:22
Speaker 2: to our political system than Mitch McConnell. The first big
22:26
Speaker 2: suit challenging campaign finance on this country was McConnell versus FEC.
22:30
Speaker 2: After his judges gutted campaign finance, and when we tried
22:33
Speaker 2: to close the Citizens United loophole, Mitch McConnell blocked it.
22:36
Speaker 2: After his judges... gutted the Voting Rights Act. He was
22:39
Speaker 2: the person who stopped bipartisan efforts to reinstate the Voting
22:43
Speaker 2: Rights Act for a decade now. We've gone a decade
22:45
Speaker 2: without reinstatement of the Voting Rights Act. The person who
22:49
Speaker 2: helped elect Donald Trump by stealing a Supreme Court seat
22:52
Speaker 2: from Barack Obama. The person who then rigged the court
22:55
Speaker 2: that is now trying to rig the election for Donald Trump.
22:58
Speaker 2: And most importantly, more than anything else, after a violent
23:02
Speaker 2: mob of people were sent by Donald Trump to almost
23:04
Speaker 2: murder Mitch McConnell, He came out and he blamed Donald Trump.
23:07
Speaker 2: He believed Donald Trump was responsible. He held the ability
23:11
Speaker 2: in his hand to convict Donald Trump in the Senate,
23:14
Speaker 2: ensure that Donald Trump could never run for office in
23:16
Speaker 2: this country again. And what did he do? He walked away.
23:19
Speaker 2: He blinked at the last minute because he thought it
23:21
Speaker 2: would hurt fundraising for the NRSC. That is Mitch McConnell.
23:25
Speaker 2: He's not an institutionalist. He's not a bulwark against right-wing
23:29
Speaker 2: populism or Donald Trump. He is someone who brought Donald
23:33
Speaker 2: Trump to us because he cares more about right-wing judges
23:36
Speaker 2: and low tax rates for corporations that the country itself.
23:39
Speaker 2: And he could just go away and never come back.
23:41
Speaker 2: And I, any effort to, I'm going to scour the
23:44
Speaker 2: internet to fight back against efforts to try to lionize
23:46
Speaker 2: this man. Cause he is a bad, he has been
23:49
Speaker 2: a evil figure in American history. Was that unhinged?
23:52
Speaker 1: I think he's misunderstood.
23:55
Speaker 2: You're like, I was just texting my friends with a
23:56
Speaker 2: bulwark yesterday.
24:00
Speaker 1: What I was going to say is I have some
24:03
Speaker 1: begrudging respect for for how mitch mcconnell throughout most of
24:08
Speaker 1: his career understood power and used power to further his
24:14
Speaker 1: own political interests and his own political agenda which is
24:18
Speaker 1: an agenda that i find abhorrent but like the way
24:22
Speaker 1: that the guy was able to stack the courts right
24:26
Speaker 1: and and get he all he cared he you talked
24:28
Speaker 1: about a lot of horrible things he did but like
24:31
Speaker 1: He cared about judges from the get-go. Cared about Supreme Court,
24:34
Speaker 1: cared about the rest of the judiciary, and all he
24:37
Speaker 1: wanted to do was just stack those courts with judges.
24:40
Speaker 1: And he really cared about keeping the Senate majority more
24:43
Speaker 1: than anything else. Those are like the two things that
24:45
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell cared about more than anything else. I want
24:47
Speaker 1: Republicans keeping the Senate so that we can appoint as
24:49
Speaker 1: many of those judges as possible, right? And he figured
24:52
Speaker 1: all these sort of underhanded, bend-in-the-rules, break-in-the-institutions type way to
24:58
Speaker 1: get that done. But You're right. He didn't, he hates
25:02
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, right? I don't think, I don't think he
25:04
Speaker 1: is like true MAGA in his heart, but he made, he, he,
25:09
Speaker 1: whether it was a calculation, whether it was cowardice, whatever
25:12
Speaker 1: the fuck it was, we would not be sitting here
25:14
Speaker 1: today dealing with the possibility, the good possibility of another
25:20
Speaker 1: Trump presidency. Were it not for Mitch McConnell's failure to
25:25
Speaker 1: take action in the days after January 6th, I was,
25:30
Speaker 1: reading some of the Mitch McConnell stuff today, although I
25:33
Speaker 1: didn't see any of the lionizing that triggered you so hard.
25:36
Speaker 1: But I was reading the Washington Post story about what
25:41
Speaker 1: McConnell said to Jonathan Martin for his book. And I
25:46
Speaker 1: forgot about this, but he apparently said to Jay Mart,
25:49
Speaker 1: this was right after January 6th, I feel exhilarated by
25:53
Speaker 1: the fact that this fellow, meaning Donald Trump, finally, totally
25:57
Speaker 1: discredited himself. He put a gun to his head and
25:59
Speaker 1: pulled the trigger. Couldn't have happened at a better time.
26:03
Speaker 1: What do you hear about the 25th Amendment? This is
26:05
Speaker 1: how Mitch McConnell was talking privately like the day of
26:09
Speaker 1: January 6th. I think it was that night he said
26:11
Speaker 1: that to Jay Mark. He thought that Donald Trump would
26:14
Speaker 1: just just like screwed his own political career, that we'd
26:17
Speaker 1: never hear from Donald Trump again, that he wouldn't have
26:19
Speaker 1: to rally at least 10 or 12 Republican senators to
26:25
Speaker 1: join Democrats and the other Republicans in impeaching Donald Trump
26:29
Speaker 1: and convicting Donald Trump. And if they had convicted Donald Trump,
26:32
Speaker 1: he would not have been allowed to run for president again.
26:33
Speaker 1: We wouldn't be here right now. No, Mitch McConnell thought
26:36
Speaker 1: that like he just looked at the polls or he
26:38
Speaker 1: just in his gut. Oh, no, people aren't going to
26:40
Speaker 1: like this guy again. And he had the power to
26:42
Speaker 1: do something about it. He chose not to. And that's
26:45
Speaker 1: where we are today. And that's honestly all the other
26:47
Speaker 1: stuff you said. Bad stuff. It's like normal bad policy stuff.
26:51
Speaker 1: And then it gets to like, yeah, you're sort of
26:53
Speaker 1: like breaking norms and bending institutions. Yeah, it gets to
26:56
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff too. But like what he, on
27:00
Speaker 1: his tombstone, it should just say he didn't, he let
27:04
Speaker 1: Donald Trump free after January 6th. That's it. That's all
27:07
Speaker 1: you need to know. Whatever the intent was, whatever the
27:09
Speaker 1: motivation was, that was his decision, his decision alone. And
27:13
Speaker 1: he made it. And now we are all living with
27:16
Speaker 1: the consequences of it.
27:17
Speaker 2: And it is somewhat fitting that one of his last
27:19
Speaker 2: acts of power will be to get on his hands
27:22
Speaker 2: and knees, and endorse Donald Trump.
27:24
Speaker 1: Endorse Donald Trump. Endorse Donald Trump, the guy who just
27:28
Speaker 1: makes racist jokes about his wife and sent a violent
27:33
Speaker 1: mob to his workplace. That's the guy he's endorsing. And why?
27:38
Speaker 1: Because what does Mitch McConnell care about most? Got to
27:41
Speaker 1: keep the Senate. Thinks that if he doesn't endorse Donald Trump,
27:44
Speaker 1: Republicans might not keep the Senate. And that would be
27:47
Speaker 1: bad because he loves that Senate because the Senate is a...
27:50
Speaker 1: Right wing judges machine. That's what he wants. So the
27:55
Speaker 1: race to replace him is on. So far, Republicans have
27:57
Speaker 1: their choice of Johns. John Thune from South Dakota, John
28:00
Speaker 1: Cornyn of Texas, John Barrasso of Wyoming are the front runners.
28:03
Speaker 1: But even though they've all endorsed Trump, Trump may want
28:06
Speaker 1: someone who has their head even further up his ass.
28:09
Speaker 1: What do you think, Dan? What's going to happen here?
28:12
Speaker 2: This is different than the House, because the rules are different.
28:14
Speaker 2: In the House, you need a majority of the entire House,
28:18
Speaker 2: which is why Kevin McCarthy had to, first Kevin McCarthy
28:20
Speaker 2: and Mike Johnson had to get almost the entire Republican
28:23
Speaker 2: caucus to support him. In the Senate, it's not a
28:25
Speaker 2: real constitutional position. Senate majority leaders just decided by, it's
28:29
Speaker 2: a secret vote in the caucus, and you only need
28:31
Speaker 2: a majority of the people voting. And so the ability
28:35
Speaker 2: to hold him, 12 mega senators can't hold the leader hostage.
28:39
Speaker 2: But if These three people named John all run against
28:44
Speaker 2: each other. They're all just– they're all kind of somewhere
28:47
Speaker 2: between McConnell and Trump. They're not really– They've all endorsed him.
28:52
Speaker 2: They've all endorsed him. Cornyn kind of tries to pretend
28:54
Speaker 2: to be a little more MAGA-friendly. But in general, they're
28:57
Speaker 2: none of them. Trump doesn't love any of them. So
28:59
Speaker 2: if all of them ran, could another person– you would
29:02
Speaker 2: only need like 11 votes at that point if four
29:04
Speaker 2: people ran to win. So that is possible. But the
29:07
Speaker 2: secret ballot thing is really critical here. Because you can
29:11
Speaker 2: vote and Donald Trump doesn't have to truth about you afterwards, right?
29:15
Speaker 2: You can vote for a random John and get away
29:17
Speaker 2: with it in a way you can't in the House.
29:20
Speaker 1: Until J.D. Vance steals all those secret ballots and sends
29:24
Speaker 1: them to Donald Trump and tells on everyone.
29:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess that.
29:27
Speaker 1: I hope they lock him away somewhere. Yes.
29:30
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm sure.
29:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do think I think that the secret ballot
29:34
Speaker 1: might save those three more than anything else, because some
29:37
Speaker 1: of these Republican senators really don't want. uh, a MAGA
29:41
Speaker 1: minority leader or majority leader, but they're afraid of Donald
29:44
Speaker 1: Trump like everyone else in the Republican party is.
29:46
Speaker 2: So they usually just want someone who will get them
29:48
Speaker 2: out of there, uh, by Thursday evening and, um, ask
29:50
Speaker 2: them to come back until midday Tuesday. So that's, it's
29:53
Speaker 2: less about these majority of the leader things are less about, uh,
29:57
Speaker 2: large policy positions and more about quality of life for
30:00
Speaker 2: an elderly, wealthy Senate.
30:03
Speaker 1: There's some reporting that Trump might want Steve Daines, who's
30:05
Speaker 1: Senator for Montana and head of the NRSC. So he's
30:09
Speaker 1: in charge of trying to get Republicans to win the Senate.
30:14
Speaker 1: I guess if he succeeds, yeah, maybe that works. If not,
30:17
Speaker 1: probably not.
30:18
Speaker 2: All right.
30:18
Speaker 1: Some news about another politician who's helping Trump win the election.
30:21
Speaker 1: The super PAC supporting RFK Jr. says they've gathered enough
30:24
Speaker 1: signatures to help get him on the ballot in Arizona
30:26
Speaker 1: and Georgia. He's so far only on the ballot in Utah,
30:30
Speaker 1: but the Super PAC has pledged to spend $ 15 million
30:33
Speaker 1: to get him on the ballot in every other state.
30:35
Speaker 1: So it's my understanding this doesn't make it a done
30:38
Speaker 1: deal in Arizona and Georgia, right?
30:41
Speaker 2: No, it's not a done deal. These signatures have to
30:43
Speaker 2: be validated by the Secretary of State. The way people
30:45
Speaker 2: get these signatures is they often stand outside of supermarkets
30:47
Speaker 2: and just ask people to sign. And they have to
30:51
Speaker 2: be valid signatures. real people who live in the state,
30:55
Speaker 2: accurate addresses. Now, the super PAC is expressing real confidence
30:59
Speaker 2: that they have done this, which usually means they have
31:02
Speaker 2: gotten not the exact number of signatures, but well beyond that.
31:05
Speaker 2: There's a number you generally have to get that assumes
31:08
Speaker 2: that a certain percentage of your signatures will get tossed
31:10
Speaker 2: because people fill it out incorrectly, don't take it seriously.
31:14
Speaker 2: are visiting from somewhere else and just fill it out
31:16
Speaker 2: or whatever else. So I think it's not a complete
31:19
Speaker 2: done deal, but it seemed we should prepare for the
31:22
Speaker 2: fact that he's going to be on the ballot in
31:23
Speaker 2: these two States. And they announced he's, they have 60
31:26
Speaker 2: to 70% of the signatures they need to get on
31:28
Speaker 2: the ballot in Michigan too. So they're getting close there.
31:33
Speaker 1: So what's your level of concern over this news? I
31:37
Speaker 1: see like, I'm more concerned obviously, because now he's on
31:40
Speaker 1: the ballot in swing States, but, Try this out. If
31:43
Speaker 1: he's not on the ballot in every state, I do
31:46
Speaker 1: think that some of the very low info voters who
31:49
Speaker 1: show up and see his name on the ballot in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan,
31:54
Speaker 1: wherever else he is, like they could just vote for him.
31:57
Speaker 1: But I think if you can message to other voters
32:01
Speaker 1: who are RFK curious that, oh, you know what? This
32:04
Speaker 1: guy is on the ballot in 10 states. And so
32:08
Speaker 1: it's impossible for him to win. because he's not even
32:10
Speaker 1: on the ballot everywhere, so he's not a real candidate
32:12
Speaker 1: because he can't win the election, then you might be
32:15
Speaker 1: able to persuade more, a lot of those people that like,
32:18
Speaker 1: they're just throwing their votes away if they vote for him.
32:20
Speaker 1: But maybe that's just too optimistic.
32:22
Speaker 2: I would never say too optimistic. But yes, you can
32:27
Speaker 2: do all those things. It would be much better off
32:30
Speaker 2: if he was not on the ballot in swing states.
32:33
Speaker 1: Given, yeah.
32:34
Speaker 2: And he is more concerning to me than Jill Stein
32:38
Speaker 2: or Cornel West.
32:39
Speaker 1: Well, Cornel West is also– he's not on the ballot
32:42
Speaker 1: anywhere yet.
32:43
Speaker 6: Anywhere, yes.
32:43
Speaker 2: I'm just picking other potential candidates. Those guys are already
32:46
Speaker 2: on the ballot in some pretty alarming places because– as
32:49
Speaker 2: the Green Party nominee. But RFK Jr. gets up to
32:53
Speaker 2: double digits in some of these polls, 7%, 8%. Everyone
32:57
Speaker 2: else is 2%, 3%. And third-party numbers tend to go
33:01
Speaker 2: down as you get closer to Election Day and people
33:03
Speaker 2: sort of sort into voting for someone who might actually
33:05
Speaker 2: be president. but it's starting at seven to 10 is
33:08
Speaker 2: more problematic than starting at two to three. So yeah,
33:11
Speaker 2: I find it, I find it, it's not great is
33:13
Speaker 2: what I would say.
33:14
Speaker 1: Where are you on a best strategy to deal with this?
33:17
Speaker 1: Is it like, is there a concern that if you
33:20
Speaker 1: talk about him too much, you're elevating him is, or
33:23
Speaker 1: should you just go at him hard now and try
33:25
Speaker 1: to disqualify him in the minds of voters? Like what,
33:28
Speaker 1: what do you think?
33:28
Speaker 2: I think you have to, he is a Rorschach test
33:30
Speaker 2: for a lot of voters right now.
33:32
Speaker 3: Right.
33:32
Speaker 2: Some people just see him as a Kennedy, right? That's
33:34
Speaker 2: all they know. And they think of, his father and
33:37
Speaker 2: his uncle and the family legacy. Other people see him
33:42
Speaker 2: as a truth teller, right? Or an environmentalist or an
33:48
Speaker 2: anti-war candidate because he's talked a lot about opposing funding
33:52
Speaker 2: for Ukraine and he's talked about Gaza and those other things.
33:55
Speaker 2: We have to define him as a MAGA-adjacent kook because
33:59
Speaker 2: that's what he is. And I think if we– just
34:00
Speaker 2: you can't leave this one to chance because I've mentioned
34:04
Speaker 2: this on the podcast before. Hallie brings up to me
34:06
Speaker 2: all the time. There is a lot of RFK Jr.
34:09
Speaker 2: stuff happening on TikTok and Instagram. He is very big
34:15
Speaker 2: because of his environmental history, a lot of what he
34:18
Speaker 2: said about eating and farming and his very discredited views
34:23
Speaker 2: on vaccines. He's very big on health lifestyle influencer media.
34:29
Speaker 2: And he says out there seeming normal to these people
34:31
Speaker 2: who do not consume any political news at all. And
34:33
Speaker 2: we can just not lay that to chance. So I
34:35
Speaker 2: think we should be aggressive. The DNC recently brought on
34:39
Speaker 2: board Liz Smith, who you and I both worked with
34:41
Speaker 2: on the Obama campaign, who was sort of the media
34:44
Speaker 2: mastermind behind Pete Buttigieg's campaign to work on the third
34:48
Speaker 2: party problem. And she is a very strategic and aggressive
34:51
Speaker 2: rapid response person. And so I imagine that this is
34:54
Speaker 2: in the offing as we get closer and as he
34:56
Speaker 2: is getting on the ballot. But I think ignoring this
34:59
Speaker 2: problem is only going to make it worse in this
35:01
Speaker 2: media environment.
35:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I agree with that. OK, one quick thing
35:05
Speaker 1: before we go to break. Next week is State of
35:07
Speaker 1: the Union. And last week I had the great privilege, Dan,
35:10
Speaker 1: of sitting down with our good pals and former White
35:13
Speaker 1: House colleagues, Alyssa Mastromonaco and Cody Keenan.
35:16
Speaker 2: What a fun group.
35:17
Speaker 1: I know we had a great time. Talk about how
35:20
Speaker 1: these speeches get put together, why they're important or not important.
35:24
Speaker 1: The notes that we think Biden should hit and some
35:27
Speaker 1: fun stories like these.
35:29
Speaker 2: Did you ever get a wild or really funny policy pitch?
35:32
Speaker 1: The wildest situation I had been in was the great
35:34
Speaker 1: salmon controversy of 2011.
35:37
Speaker 4: Yes, this is one of my favorites.
35:39
Speaker 9: Please tell it.
35:41
Speaker 1: Interior and Commerce were very angry that we were going
35:44
Speaker 1: after the duplicative salmon supervision that was happening in the
35:48
Speaker 1: federal government. And I was like, what am I supposed
35:50
Speaker 1: to do? He's about to give the State of the Union.
35:52
Speaker 1: And Bill Daley's like, no, it's true. You don't have
35:54
Speaker 1: to change it. And Gary Locke's like, I think you
35:56
Speaker 1: should change it. And I was like, You know what?
35:58
Speaker 1: It's a funny joke. Let's just deal with it.
35:59
Speaker 5: The Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they're
36:03
Speaker 5: in freshwater, but the Commerce Department handles them when they're
36:06
Speaker 5: in saltwater. I hear it gets even more complicated once
36:09
Speaker 5: they're smoked.
36:12
Speaker 2: It's not a funny joke. That's the thing.
36:13
Speaker 1: It's not a funny... It was better than the spilled
36:16
Speaker 1: milk joke, but it's still not a funny joke. All right, anyway,
36:19
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36:21
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36:23
Speaker 1: You can also get... Start listening to episodes of Polar
36:26
Speaker 1: Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer if you become a friend. All
36:28
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36:30
Speaker 1: Go sign up. Crooked.com slash friends. Go be a Friends
36:33
Speaker 1: of the Pod subscriber.
36:34
Speaker 5: All right.
36:35
Speaker 1: When we come back, Leah Lippman will join us to
36:37
Speaker 1: talk about the Supreme Court's decision to take Trump's immunity case.
36:51
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court has ruined yet another week for freedom-loving
36:55
Speaker 1: democracy-enjoyers everywhere. The court announced on Wednesday that they will
36:59
Speaker 1: take up Trump's claim that presidents should be able to
37:01
Speaker 1: commit whatever crimes they'd like while in office, because apparently
37:04
Speaker 1: only the nation's top jurists can figure that one out.
37:08
Speaker 1: Real legal quandary. But the real concern is their timeline.
37:11
Speaker 1: They won't hear arguments until April 22nd, which could mean
37:14
Speaker 1: Trump's election subversion trial doesn't happen until late summer or fall.
37:18
Speaker 1: And it may not happen before the election at all.
37:21
Speaker 1: Here to help us understand what the hell is going
37:22
Speaker 1: on is our brilliant pal Leah Littman from Strict Scrutiny. Welcome.
37:26
Speaker 9: Thanks for having me.
37:28
Speaker 1: Okay. What is your best guess on what happened here
37:32
Speaker 1: and why the court did what they did?
37:34
Speaker 9: It's extremely messed up. I mean, why they did what
37:36
Speaker 9: they did and why it took them so long. I'm
37:38
Speaker 9: sure there were probably three votes for just Donald Trump's
37:42
Speaker 9: position of grant the stay delay, you know, to decide
37:47
Speaker 9: it until next term, effectively prohibiting any trial from happening
37:50
Speaker 9: before the election. And then the chief justice, right, who
37:53
Speaker 9: is ostensibly leading this fine institution, thinks, OK, well, I
37:56
Speaker 9: need to compromise with those crazy pants and the people
37:59
Speaker 9: who recognize that actually there should be a trial before
38:02
Speaker 9: the election. And so he comes up with this great
38:04
Speaker 9: strategy of taking two weeks to come up with a
38:06
Speaker 9: briefing schedule, granting the case and scheduling argument for two
38:09
Speaker 9: months out from now, and potentially creating a situation in
38:13
Speaker 9: which they release a decision sometime in June and thereby
38:17
Speaker 9: block a trial happening before the election.
38:21
Speaker 1: Like... Let's pretend for a second that this decision came
38:24
Speaker 1: from a court where all the justices were acting in
38:26
Speaker 1: good faith. Can you think of a legitimate reason for
38:29
Speaker 1: the decisions they've made on this case and the schedule
38:32
Speaker 1: they've set out? Because I did read a couple, you know,
38:35
Speaker 1: legal analysts who were like, well, they're moving faster than
38:38
Speaker 1: they would normally move on a case like this. They're
38:41
Speaker 1: just not moving at Jack Smith's preferred pace.
38:45
Speaker 9: Well, they're moving faster in this case than they do
38:48
Speaker 9: in most cases. But the point is, this isn't most cases.
38:51
Speaker 9: And they have acted more quickly, particularly at Trump's request,
38:54
Speaker 9: when they have been asked to do so. In the
38:56
Speaker 9: Colorado case, right, they granted that, you know, request within days.
39:00
Speaker 9: And then they schedule that case for argument a month out.
39:03
Speaker 9: In the Bush versus Gore case 20 years ago, right,
39:06
Speaker 9: the court was granting petitions within days, issuing decisions daily.
39:09
Speaker 9: Within weeks, that wasn't exactly a model for great decision-making.
39:12
Speaker 9: And I think the best defense of what the court
39:14
Speaker 9: is doing is it is trying to act in this
39:17
Speaker 9: case with a sort of, you know, judicious behavior and,
39:22
Speaker 9: you know, thinking about all of these issues that courts
39:25
Speaker 9: try to do. But the point is that's not really
39:26
Speaker 9: necessary given the frivolous underlying legal issues and the fact
39:30
Speaker 9: that they could have taken this case up months ago
39:33
Speaker 9: in January when Jack Smith asked them to take the
39:36
Speaker 9: case before the D.C. Circuit ever weighed in.
39:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. Why do you think they why do you think
39:40
Speaker 1: they didn't take the case then? And then if they
39:43
Speaker 1: were only going to take it this many months later?
39:45
Speaker 9: I mean, they didn't take it because that's the normal
39:49
Speaker 9: process for judicial review, right? Wait until you have a
39:51
Speaker 9: court of appeals decision. And then after the court of
39:53
Speaker 9: appeals acts, then the Supreme Court weighs in. But the
39:56
Speaker 9: fact is they depart from that model of decision making.
39:59
Speaker 9: Sometimes when it suits them. They have a case on
40:02
Speaker 9: their docket this term that they just heard last week
40:06
Speaker 9: in which Ohio has asked the Supreme Court to block
40:09
Speaker 9: an EPA, you know, climate regulation, a clean air regulation
40:14
Speaker 9: before the D.C. Circuit has even weighed in. And the
40:16
Speaker 9: court was like, yeah, we'll schedule argument on that, baby. So,
40:19
Speaker 9: you know, they sometimes depart from usual procedures. And the
40:23
Speaker 9: question is, like, why didn't they do so in this case? Again,
40:26
Speaker 9: given the timing that was staring them in the face.
40:29
Speaker 1: If the liberal justices are worried that some of their
40:31
Speaker 1: colleagues might be intentionally dragging their feet on this, will
40:34
Speaker 1: we ever know? Can Jack Smith ask them to blink
40:37
Speaker 1: twice during oral arguments?
40:39
Speaker 9: We have asked them to propose safe words so we
40:42
Speaker 9: know what's going on. They haven't yet taken up that suggestion.
40:47
Speaker 9: But I don't know that we will ever know, really,
40:50
Speaker 9: because they are in a position where they are effectively
40:53
Speaker 9: coerced into silence. This is partially why you see Sonia
40:56
Speaker 9: Sotomayor utterly beclowning herself on the speaking circuit with Amy
41:00
Speaker 9: Coney Barrett, talking about how, you know, friendly all the
41:03
Speaker 9: justices are and what a warm and happy place it is, right?
41:06
Speaker 9: When you need to secure the votes of Chief Justice
41:09
Speaker 9: Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, right, in
41:12
Speaker 9: order to keep the place kind of not from descending
41:15
Speaker 9: into the nihilism of Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito, like,
41:18
Speaker 9: you are not really in a position to poke the
41:20
Speaker 9: bear that much. And so they don't really have the
41:24
Speaker 9: luxury of speaking out in the way that we might
41:26
Speaker 9: want them to.
41:27
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. Can you help people
41:28
Speaker 1: understand why an oral argument in late April could mean
41:31
Speaker 1: a trial that might not happen before the election? You
41:34
Speaker 1: just said that they could hand down the decision in
41:37
Speaker 1: late June, which I guess is the end of their term.
41:39
Speaker 1: But couldn't they also, like if oral arguments were the 22nd,
41:43
Speaker 1: couldn't they issue a ruling in one week, two weeks,
41:46
Speaker 1: three weeks from then?
41:48
Speaker 9: Oh, absolutely.
41:49
Speaker 2: Right.
41:49
Speaker 9: They could issue a decision, you know, as soon as
41:51
Speaker 9: it is ready. There's some possibility that any justices, you know,
41:55
Speaker 9: who might want some delay or who might dissent from
41:58
Speaker 9: that ruling might try to draw it out and say, oh,
42:01
Speaker 9: I'm still like wordsmithing this absolute like shitpost of a writing.
42:05
Speaker 1: But right.
42:06
Speaker 9: Assuming that that doesn't happen, there's already considerable delay built
42:09
Speaker 9: into the system because what the Supreme Court did in
42:11
Speaker 9: its order granting this case is it said the Court
42:14
Speaker 9: of Appeals, that is the D.C. Circuit. shouldn't actually release
42:18
Speaker 9: its mandate until the delivery of the Supreme Court's judgment
42:23
Speaker 9: in that case. That sounds super technical, but what it
42:26
Speaker 9: means is the Court of Appeals can't release its mandate
42:29
Speaker 9: and thereby give the case back to the district court
42:33
Speaker 9: to actually start up trial proceedings. until the Supreme Court
42:37
Speaker 9: releases the judgment in the case. But under the Supreme
42:41
Speaker 9: Court's rules, sometimes they don't actually deliver the judgment until
42:45
Speaker 9: 30 days after they release the opinion. So there's a
42:48
Speaker 9: potential 30-day gap. between the Supreme Court decision and when
42:53
Speaker 9: the case would return to the district court. Again, it's
42:55
Speaker 9: possible they would, you know, deliver their signed opinion sooner,
42:59
Speaker 9: but I wouldn't count on it. And then you add
43:01
Speaker 9: to those 30 days the 80-some days that Judge Chutkin
43:05
Speaker 9: said were necessary, you know, to actually do the pretrial proceedings.
43:10
Speaker 9: Then you're at 110 days. So if they waited until
43:15
Speaker 9: the end of June, then 110 days from July 1,
43:20
Speaker 9: that's already into November. And so if they're not releasing
43:23
Speaker 9: this decision in May, it's already really making it difficult
43:28
Speaker 9: for a trial to begin, much less commence or much
43:33
Speaker 9: less finish before the election.
43:36
Speaker 1: And let's say that Chief Justice Roberts is is trying
43:39
Speaker 1: to engage in some kind of compromise here and dealing
43:42
Speaker 1: with the three crazies and also trying to like move
43:45
Speaker 1: this along and get a trial before the election. Can
43:49
Speaker 1: he hurry the dissenting justices along if they're trying to
43:53
Speaker 1: drag it out? Can he shorten that period between when
43:56
Speaker 1: the opinion is issued and when the judgment is issued?
44:00
Speaker 9: He can absolutely shorten the time between when they release
44:03
Speaker 9: the opinion and when they deliver the copy to the
44:06
Speaker 9: Court of Appeals and the district court. He can absolutely
44:08
Speaker 9: do that. But then as to hurrying up the dissenting justices,
44:12
Speaker 9: I mean— Of course, he could try to do some things.
44:14
Speaker 9: He could threaten to release the opinion, you know, before
44:17
Speaker 9: their dissents are ready. That's actually something some courts have done, right,
44:21
Speaker 9: including the Supreme Court sometimes. So that's a possibility, a
44:24
Speaker 9: tactic he could use. But he doesn't necessarily have a
44:28
Speaker 9: ton of other tools at his disposal, you know, beyond saying, like,
44:33
Speaker 9: guys be reasonable. And they're not necessarily going to listen
44:37
Speaker 9: to that.
44:37
Speaker 1: How much power does Judge Chicken have to move this
44:40
Speaker 1: along once the court rules?
44:43
Speaker 9: She has a good amount of power. It depends a
44:45
Speaker 9: little bit on what the Supreme Court says in any opinion.
44:48
Speaker 9: It's possible that the Supreme Court issues an opinion that
44:51
Speaker 9: says in some subset of cases involving criminal activity while
44:57
Speaker 9: in office, you need to make the following determination before
45:01
Speaker 9: you conclude this person isn't entitled to immunity. And so
45:04
Speaker 9: they could say, well, actually, before you begin the proceedings,
45:08
Speaker 9: you need to have additional briefing, make these additional determinations.
45:11
Speaker 9: So You know, she could try to shorten the 80-some
45:14
Speaker 9: day window that she suggested she would give the parties. But, right,
45:18
Speaker 9: there's still going to be something she has to do,
45:21
Speaker 9: and you just can't hurry that along.
45:24
Speaker 1: Do you get any hints from the order about how
45:27
Speaker 1: they might rule or even how they're thinking about the
45:29
Speaker 1: case and how they wrote it?
45:30
Speaker 9: There's absolutely no way that they actually adopt his version
45:34
Speaker 9: of immunity. I think it's ultimately like even if they
45:39
Speaker 9: embrace his version of immunity, there's a bunch of stuff
45:41
Speaker 9: in the January 6th indictment that doesn't pertain to official acts, right,
45:46
Speaker 9: or stuff he did using the office of the presidency.
45:48
Speaker 9: So it's not going to make the indictment or the
45:50
Speaker 9: case go away entirely. But it really bothers me that
45:53
Speaker 9: people are setting this up as, oh, the big issue
45:56
Speaker 9: is whether the Supreme Court says presidents can just commit
45:59
Speaker 9: crimes while in office and be immune. No, the big
46:00
Speaker 9: issue is their timing of the decision and whether they
46:03
Speaker 9: actually interfere with the legal process that is attempting to
46:07
Speaker 9: actually work its way through.
46:09
Speaker 1: Dan, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the political
46:11
Speaker 1: implications of the two possibilities we're facing here. One, a
46:15
Speaker 1: trial that happens in the fall. or late summer, fall,
46:18
Speaker 1: and ends right before election day. And two, a trial
46:21
Speaker 1: that doesn't happen before election day.
46:24
Speaker 2: What about a third option where a trial starts before
46:26
Speaker 2: election day, but doesn't finish?
46:28
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean, yeah, that's a good one. Why don't
46:31
Speaker 1: you take that one too?
46:32
Speaker 2: It seems like that's the most likely of options given
46:34
Speaker 2: the calendar that Leah just laid out, right? Because if
46:37
Speaker 2: they're going to proceed and they just don't get it done,
46:40
Speaker 2: but either way. So I.
46:43
Speaker 2: Call me a naive optimist here, but I'm just going
46:46
Speaker 2: to go out on a limb and say that I
46:47
Speaker 2: just cannot imagine a world where one of our two
46:49
Speaker 2: presidential candidates being on trial for fomenting a violent insurrection
46:53
Speaker 2: is a net positive. It's just not. It's just not.
46:57
Speaker 2: We put aside all the logistical things about how he's
46:59
Speaker 2: got to be in court and can't be campaigning in
47:02
Speaker 2: all the various battleground states and can't do his daily
47:06
Speaker 2: diet of Fox News interviews. It just is a reminder
47:09
Speaker 2: of the one thing that voters like least about Trump,
47:11
Speaker 2: which is all of the big libel shit. And so
47:14
Speaker 2: that is not good for him.
47:16
Speaker 1: I'm glad you said that because I've had a take
47:19
Speaker 1: on this that I didn't want to say out loud
47:21
Speaker 1: to jinx it. But I was like, if... the trial
47:25
Speaker 1: ends up happening before the election, but it's just very delayed.
47:28
Speaker 1: And we spend October with Donald Trump on trial for
47:31
Speaker 1: trying to subvert the election. It's possible we may look
47:34
Speaker 1: back on this and be like, thanks, SCOTUS. Thanks for
47:38
Speaker 1: delaying a little bit because I'd rather that be in
47:41
Speaker 1: voters' minds right before the election. It's even better if
47:44
Speaker 1: it's in voters' minds in October than it is in
47:47
Speaker 1: the summer.
47:47
Speaker 2: You basically, given our experience with the Access Hollywood tape
47:51
Speaker 2: in 2016, that conviction has to come Like on Halloween.
47:55
Speaker 2: Like any day before that, it's going to get flushed
47:57
Speaker 2: down the memory hole before people vote.
47:59
Speaker 1: That's true. Now let's do no trial. No trial ever.
48:02
Speaker 1: It's just that they've decided to push it and it's
48:06
Speaker 1: just Donald Trump in the hush money trial. Or I
48:09
Speaker 1: guess while we were recording, Jack Smith just asked for
48:12
Speaker 1: a July 8th trial date for the classified doc case.
48:15
Speaker 9: I'm sure Eileen Cannon will get that to happen.
48:18
Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, I'm not going to... I'm a naive optimist,
48:22
Speaker 2: but I'm not insane. So I'm not going to agree
48:24
Speaker 2: with that. If there is no trial, then it is
48:27
Speaker 2: going to be incumbent upon Democrats, including President Biden, who
48:31
Speaker 2: has not talked about this for all the reasons we've
48:33
Speaker 2: talked about before. to drive home the argument that we
48:37
Speaker 2: are about to elect a person who could be, months
48:41
Speaker 2: after being elected president, sentenced to prison. And the only
48:44
Speaker 2: reason he wouldn't is because his first act as president
48:46
Speaker 2: would be to pardon himself for the crimes he committed.
48:48
Speaker 2: And that is a way of driving the narrative we've
48:50
Speaker 2: talked about all the time on here, which is that
48:51
Speaker 2: Donald Trump is not running for president to help you
48:54
Speaker 2: or help your family. He's not thinking about you. He's
48:56
Speaker 2: thinking only about himself. He's running to simply avoid accountability
49:00
Speaker 2: for the crimes he committed because he believes The rich
49:02
Speaker 2: and powerful people like him do not have to play
49:04
Speaker 2: by the same rules as the rest of us. And
49:06
Speaker 2: we have to drive that every single day.
49:08
Speaker 1: Not running for president, running from the law.
49:11
Speaker 2: Sometimes you can do both.
49:12
Speaker 1: Running to stay out of jail. Yeah, no, I do
49:15
Speaker 1: think that will rile everyone up pretty good. And also
49:18
Speaker 1: at that point, the Supreme Court will come under... some
49:20
Speaker 1: um withering criticism as it has in recent years for
49:25
Speaker 1: basically i mean leah these people read like the new
49:28
Speaker 1: york times and they follow all the news like do
49:31
Speaker 1: you think that that like the outcry is like will
49:34
Speaker 1: weigh on Roberts at least during these next couple of months?
49:38
Speaker 1: Or do you think they're just insulated from all that
49:40
Speaker 1: and they don't give a shit?
49:42
Speaker 9: I think it really depends on the justice. I mean,
49:44
Speaker 9: Sam Alito hate reads the times and it's not going
49:46
Speaker 9: to move him, you know, an inch. But I think
49:49
Speaker 9: there is some possibility, right, that the justices like the chief,
49:53
Speaker 9: for example, are concerned about public criticism of the court
49:56
Speaker 9: effectively giving Donald Trump an ability to slow walk the
49:59
Speaker 9: trial and run off the clock on the election interference case.
50:03
Speaker 9: But I think he's also banking on the fact that
50:05
Speaker 9: he is going to get and the court is going
50:06
Speaker 9: to get a ton of credit when they ultimately reject
50:08
Speaker 9: the immunity claims and pair it with a decision that
50:11
Speaker 9: allows Trump on the ballot. And they are going to, again,
50:14
Speaker 9: bank on the media covering this as a neutral, moderate
50:17
Speaker 9: court that occasionally rules for Trump and against him. And
50:20
Speaker 9: they think that will get them enough goodwill to buy back, right,
50:24
Speaker 9: any criticism they get from slow walking the trial.
50:29
Speaker 1: So but basically, if if. If the district court gets
50:33
Speaker 1: the case in May, mid-May, it's still possible. But like
50:38
Speaker 1: if we go into June, not possible. Is that where
50:40
Speaker 1: we are?
50:41
Speaker 9: I think, yes, the end of May is an important
50:44
Speaker 9: inflection point where any later than that makes it extremely
50:48
Speaker 9: difficult to get a trial off the ground before the election.
50:52
Speaker 1: OK, well, fingers crossed. Again, liberal justices blink if blink
50:57
Speaker 1: if everything's OK. All right, Leah, thank you so much
51:00
Speaker 1: for joining us. Everyone have a fantastic weekend, and we
51:04
Speaker 1: will talk to you next week. Bye, everyone. If you
51:09
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