No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Trump knew Putin placed bounties on Americans' heads. And allowed it.

Episode Date: June 28, 2020

Trump was briefed months ago that Russia was paying the Taliban to have US soldiers killed, and did nothing to stop it. And Congresswoman Katie Porter and I discuss the Senate’s inadequate police reform legislation, how to hold Bill Barr accountable, and how to hold onto districts like hers that have flipped from red to blue in November.Written by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberMusic by WellsyRecorded in Los Angeles, CAhttps://www.briantylercohen.com/podcast/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about the bombshell development that Trump knew that Russia had placed bounties on American soldiers and did nothing about it. And my interview with Congresswoman Katie Porter, where we'll discuss the Senate's inadequate police reform legislation, how to hold Bill Barr accountable for his illicit firing of a U.S. attorney, and how to hold on to districts like hers that have flipped from red to blue as we head into the election. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. I'm going to focus on one story today. and it's out of the New York Times, and that is that Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU,

secretly offered Taliban militants' bounties, meaning cash, to kill U.S. troops, that Trump has known about this since March and that he has done literally nothing about it. So here's what happened. The intelligence finding was briefed to Trump, and then the National Security Council discussed this at an interagency meeting in March.

So according to the Times, quote, officials developed a menu of potential options, starting with making a diplomatic complaint, to Moscow and a demand that it stopped, along with an escalating series of sanctions and other possible responses, but the White House has yet to authorize any steps. They haven't taken any steps, not even asking Moscow to stop. One of the options was just to ask, to ask that Russia, please do not put bounties on American soldiers' heads.

And even that proved too much for Trump. I don't know how I can... Okay, so Trump is the commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, right? and the guy wasn't willing to take the most basic step imaginable to stop the targeted killing of our military men and women who he's supposed to be leading. He didn't even deign to ask. By the way, the GRU is the same Russian intelligence agency

that helped Trump win in the 2016 election. They were the ones responsible for hacking into Democratic Party servers and then using WikiLeaks to publish internal communications. And all of that was done with the express purpose of helping Trump get elected. meaning that this group interfered in an American election to help Trump win and then orchestrated the killings of U.S. soldiers knowing that Trump wouldn't do anything because they helped elect him. And that's not just me saying, oh, they knew he wouldn't do anything.

Because he proved it. He didn't do anything. No punishment, nothing. He knew in March. It's the end of June. You think Donald Trump is just taking his time to come up with a measured response? Fuck no. The guy was never going to do anything.

And if the New York Times hadn't broken the story, we'd have never known that our commander and chief allowed bounties to be put on American soldiers' heads. The worst part is, that was in March, meaning that every move Trump's made between March and today with regard to Russia has been with the knowledge that Moscow is covertly paying cash to the Taliban to have our soldiers killed. You know what happened between March and now? In August, Trump threw a fit to get Russia readmitted to the G7. And then at the end of May, he invited Putin as his guest to come to the G7 here in the U.S.

He went out of his way to invite the guy who placed bounties on the heads of U.S. soldiers onto American soil so that we could give him the presidential treatment so our tax dollars could feed the guy. On May 7, Trump spoke to Putin on the phone and agreed that the Russia probe was a hoax. On May 8th, Trump told reporters that the U.S. and Russia had a great friendship. A few weeks after that, Trump withdrew from the Open Skies Treaty, which Putin wanted. First week of June, Trump announced that he was withdrawing a third of our troops out of Germany, which would weaken NATO, which is Putin's priority. All of this was after he found out that Putin was paying to have our soldiers killed.

Like, I don't know how else to put this to make it any more clear. Putin moved to have U.S. soldiers killed. Trump knew and rewarded him over and over and over. I mean, this is treasonous, right? I'm trying to think of a universe where this isn't treason. I'm trying to think about what Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson and John, Judge Janine and Laura Ingram would say if Barack Obama knew that, that, I don't know, I can't even think of some random authoritarian as an example because Trump and Fox News actually

like them all. The Kenyan president, why not? This is a Fox News fever dream after all, so let's just play into it. The Kenyan president placed bounties on the heads of our troops, and Obama rewarded him by trying to get him into the G7 and then inviting him onto U.S. soil to be our guest at an international summit. Would Hannity even make it on the air or just have a heart attack? in the makeup chair he'd be so excited.

Judge Janine would have just passed out from celebratory boxed wine before the cameras started rolling. They would say that it's treason. They said it was treason when Barack Obama tried to give Americans health care. They called that treason. They said Hillary Clinton committed treason

because four Americans were killed in Benghazi despite a Republican-led committee saying that she wasn't at fault, but they still decided that was treason. And yet when the commander-in-chief is letting paid killings of our servicemen go unpunished, When he's letting a hostile foreign power stick price tags on our troops' heads, well, then it's crickets from those freedom defenders over at Fox.

I mean, Trump literally accused Obama of treason last week. Listen. On Obama and the spying situation, this idea that they were spying in your campaign, you've been asked before about what crime he would have potentially committed. But I remember you talking to- Treason, treason. It's treason. Were you wondering why, randomly, Trump began ramping up accusations of treason?

specifically treason against Obama, because I'd put my money on the fact that Trump knew this story was coming, proving that he was literally guilty of treason. And so he just decided to try and get out ahead of it by deflecting the blame because his only move is projection. Let's take a step back. Besides, you know, besides his cowtowing to Putin, besides Fox News running cover for him, besides blaming Obama, think about this, Trump has saluted American coffins that have returned from Afghanistan.

Just a few months ago, Trump observed the dignified transfer of two fallen soldiers who were brought back to the U.S. He stood on the tarmac outside of the C-17 transport plane, while two soldiers, both 28 years old, kids, right? Inside of flag-drape coffins who were brought to Dover before being transported to their final destinations for burial. He made sure people knew he was there. I don't know if the people who took those Americans' lives were paid cash to do so, but what's clear is that it was happening. Trump knew, and he protected the people who were. doing it. And yet he still had the audacity to stand there and salute coffins when they came home.

That's who Donald Trump is. I mean, really, how many times are we going to be conned into thinking that Trump gives a shit about the military? This is a guy who lied to dodge the draft on five separate occasions, who called not getting an STD, his own personal Vietnam, who lied about donating thousands of dollars to a veterans charity, who attacked us our families, who advocated for our troops to commit war crimes, who insulted John McCain, a prisoner of war, for being a prisoner of war, who's deployed troops to the southern border as part of a stunt to fearmonger about immigrants,

who has already planned to deploy troops at the border again in October, just ahead of the November election to give Fox News some migrant caravan fodder, who skipped a Veterans Day reth-laying ceremony because it was drizzling, who banned trans-Americans from serving, who intervened to help a Navy officer guilty of committing war crimes, who attacked a Navy captain because he sounded the alarm about a coronavirus outbreak, the guy tried to invite the Taliban to Camp David on the weekend of 9-11 last year. The same Taliban that's now collecting cash payments from Moscow to kill our troops.

I mean, this month, Trump forced West Point cadets to come back to New York, which had been a coronavirus hotspot, so that he could make a speech and get pressed from it. And then he stood there and saluted all those graduates, one by one. He saluted them while knowing that Moscow was paying Taliban militants to kill their fellow soldiers, and he couldn't be bothered to do anything about it. He looked every single one of those graduates in the eye and saluted them knowing that. So the fact that we sit here and allow Trump to use the military as a prop,

at the same time that he's laying down while his buddies placing bounties on our soldiers' heads, is just insane. It's insane for him, and it's insane for his entire party who can't manage to find their time. and say a single fucking word about it. They have plenty to say about the military when they're spewing platitudes about American exceptionalism and freedom and liberty and democracy, right? Plenty to say when a black football player

is respectfully kneeling, you know, they'll call that treason. But when the commander-in-chief is a Republican who just allowed a bounty to be placed on U.S. soldiers' heads, well, suddenly it's crickets from the right. Crickets from the party of the military. And now, as predictable as the sun rising in the morning, Russia has denied it, calling it an attempt to, quote,

invent new fake stories. Sound familiar? So don't be surprised when Trump repeats the same thing, since his thing is to just take whatever Vladimir Putin says at face value. Just like he believed when Putin said, no, no, no, no, no, we totally didn't interfere in the election. And Trump was like, well, there you go. He said it strongly.

And in fact, we should start an impenetrable cybersecurity unit together. And while we're at it, let's just put Matt Gates in charge of a new DUI task force. Morrison, Jim Jordan in charge of protecting student athletes. How about that? And as for the White House, Kaylee McAnney came out and said that the president and VP didn't know, saying, quote, neither the president nor the vice president

were briefed on the alleged Russian bounty intelligence, which is just complete bullshit. You don't think the president of the United States was briefed about Russia placing bounties on the heads of American soldiers? Are you kidding me? No one believes that statement. No one's supposed to believe that statement, by the way, other than Trump's base.

That's who that's for. That's who every lie is for. That's who complete and total exoneration during the Mueller probe was for. That's who cases are going to go down to zero was for. That's who this was the biggest inauguration in history, period, was for. The White House doesn't issue these statements for the American people. They issued them to the only audience they've ever cared about, the 35% of Americans who make up their base and who take them at their word

and who believe that, you know, coronavirus went away with the heat in April. Consider, too, that Kaylee never questioned the merit of the story. She didn't deny it. And this is Kaylee McNeely we're talking about. She'd lie about water being wet if it would help Trump. So let's just be clear here and recognize what her not denying the story means. It means the story is true. And by the way, this story's already been independently verified by the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and CNN.

So she probably figured that if she had to lie, she'd pick the easier lie, which is that Trump didn't know, even though there is no universe in which the guy didn't. know. So the question now becomes, what's Trump going to do about it, since it's apparently up to the New York Times to give the president his intelligence briefings? First of all, whatever he's going to do clearly isn't much of a priority, considering this story broke on Friday night, June 26th, and Saturday was spent on the golf course without a single comment about it. But when he does eventually deign to weigh in, likely one of two things is going to happen. So either he'll take some action against Russia and will know that the only reason that the only reason

he's doing it is because we found out. Because again, he knew about this months ago. And so if he does move forward with punishment, it's only to save his own ass, right? Or more likely, he'll just reiterate the apparent White House line and repeat Cayley's defense and say he had no idea. That somehow the president of the United States had no idea that Russia's military intelligence agency was putting contracts on American soldiers' heads. That somehow the New York Times and the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal and CNN and European allies all new, and yet the most powerful person in the world didn't. Somehow that guy has time to literally live tweet Fox News's entire weekday lineup, but didn't have time to read a daily brief stating that his best buddy over

in Russia is paying cash to have our soldiers slaughtered. So he'll pretend he didn't know and he'll buy him enough time to commit yet another scandal so that hopefully we forget about this one. But either way, whatever happens, he comes out of this thing a loser, you know? He comes out looking too weak to stand up to Vladimir Putin. He comes out looking like a traitor to this country. Don't take it from me. Take it from any of the thousands of men and women fighting overseas who are willing to die

for this country. Ask them how they feel about their commander-in-chief protecting, not them, but the guy who put a bounty on their heads. I don't think they'll be hard-pressed to conjure up an answer. Next step is my interview with Congresswoman Katie Porter. You may know her from this moment where she got the CDC

director, Dr. Redfield, to agree to free coronavirus tests for all Americans. Dr. Redfield, will you commit to the CDC right now using that existing authority to pay for diagnostic testing free to every American regardless of insurance? Well, I can say that we're going to do everything to make sure everybody can get the care of the need. We're claiming my time. Dr. Redfield, you have the existing authority. Will you commit right now to using the authority that you have vested in you under law, that provides in a public health emergency

for testing, treatment, exam, isolation without cost, yes or no. What I'm going to say is I'm going to review it in detail with the CDC and the department. No, I'm claiming my time. Dr. Redfield, respectfully, I wrote you this letter along with my colleagues, Rosa Delora and Lauren Underwood, Congressman Underwood and Congressman Delora. We wrote you this letter one week.

ago, we quoted that existing authority to you and we laid out this problem. We asked for a response yesterday. The deadline and the time for delay has passed. Will you commit to invoking your existing authority under 42 CFR 71.30 to provide for coronavirus testing for every American regardless of insurance coverage? What I was trying to say is that CDC is working with HHS now to see how we operationalize that. Dr. Redfield, I hope that that answer weighs heavily on you, because it is going to weigh very heavily on me

and on every American family. Our intent is to make sure every American gets the care and treatment they need at this time of this major epidemic, and I'm currently working with HHS to see how the best operationalize it. Dr. Redfield, you don't need to do any work to operationalize.

You need to make a commitment to the American people so they come in to get tested. You can operationalize the payment structure tomorrow. I think you're an excellent question, so my answer is yes. Excellent. Everybody in America hear that. You are eligible to go get tested for coronavirus and have that covered regardless of insurance. Please, if you believe you have the illness, follow precautions. Call first. Do everything the CDC and Dr. Fauci. God bless you for guiding Americans in this time. So we're at a watershed moment in American politics where I think people are getting tired of lawmakers dicking us around and dragging their feet and doing nothing in response to the very real

problems facing us today, from police reform to voting rights to climate change and everything in between. And so who better to talk to than Katie Porter, who is the personification of actually getting things done in Congress. We have Congresswoman Katie Porter. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat. I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me. Yeah, surprised we didn't get you in the car today. I was really expecting the, I was really expecting the car.

Well, there was a lot of, there was a little bit getting it out of the car and walking back and forth for the votes. But actually, things today in the House representatives ran pretty smoothly in pretty young time, which does not always happen. So let's jump right in. I want to talk about the Justice and Policing Act versus the Justice Act in the Senate. The House bill puts an end to qualified immunity to no-knock warrants. Bans chokeholds. The Senate bill doesn't. And yet the GOP is, you know, parading this thing around like they just penn the Declaration of Independence. And yet they have the audacity to clutch their pearls when Democrats don't jump on board. So who is the performative bullshit for? You'd have to ask the Republicans who they're performing for, but I will tell you that I think

that justice is something that we should be able to agree on as a bipartisan value of this country. And I think one of the things you see in the Senate's Justice Act is something that I've seen many times in the consumer protection space, which is an effort to substitute study and research and pilot programs instead of actual meaningful substantive change. So I don't think we need research to understand that we don't want people to die in police custody because of brutality. that we don't really need to study that. And so we know what the problem is here. Now, is it possible that some of the solutions that we've put in the Justice and Policing Act will work better than others and we'll need to revisit this topic? Of course, because this problem has been a long time in the making.

It is going to take multiple efforts, I think, to get to where we want to be as a country with regard to racial justice within the policing system, much less larger issues of structural racism. But I think this effort to study the problem and have a little pilot program and collect some data really suggest that we don't know whether killing black people is wrong. And it is. And we shouldn't need to study that problem. We should all be able to agree on what the problem is and then move on to debating different kinds of solutions. And I think what's wrong with the Justice Act is it doesn't actually contain any solutions. It just purports to say, we'll take a look at this. So I think that it's, I've seen this so many times in the consumer production space.

Let's require some disclosure. Let's have GAO do a study. I mean, you know, in the concept of credit cards, for example, consumers are getting price-couched. We don't need to study that problem. It's just a mathematical fact. And Brianna Taylor is dead. George Floyd is dead.

And there are so many others. Ahmed Aubrey, like we do not need to study this. We do need to be prepared to assess whether the changes we're making. in the House version of the bill are producing the changes on the ground that we want. But the Senate bill doesn't do anything at all. Right. And I mean, I think it's bad enough that there's no meaningful change in this, but it's only made worse by the fact that they're playing around with it, right? I mean, this is, like we said, I mean, this is, it's performative.

So it's not even that they're not, that they're not willing to move forward on meaningful change or meaningful reform, but they're screwing with us with this bill. Well, and we've seen this so many times. I mean, this is a Senate that has failed to bring up for a vote over 200 bills that had bipartisan support in the House. And now for them to sort of say that somehow the House, the Democratic-led House is in bad faith for not wanting to take up their policing bill is pretty rich. We have literally over 200 bipartisan bills that the Senate won't take up. And they want to come on us for not taking up their strictly partisan approach to so-called justice, I think that's really a problem. Right. And, you know, I do think the American people are smart enough to be able to see through it. So there's that. I did want to ask, do you think this kind of obvious bad faith grandstanding is pushing young people away who seem to be able to see through this kind of stuff? Well, one of the things that I think a lot about, and I don't hear a lot of talk about,

and I would actually love to get your thoughts on too, is the fact that Democrat or Republican majority in the House or the Senate, Democratic president, Republican president, over the last 20 to 30 years, Congress's reputation has gone down. And, you know, Democrats took the House majority. Obviously, I was part of that. I think that's a good thing.

I think we're voting for a lot of things that can improve people's lives. But the reality is, the typical American still has a low opinion of Congress. They see us as corrupt. They're concerned about what they view as a culture in Washington, and they want institutional change, not just partisan change. And I think that's a really important thing to understand and to acknowledge. And I think when we, as Democrats, fail to grapple with that, we're missing an opportunity to connect with younger voters, but also independent and no-party

preference voters who aren't so much moderates that is ideologically between the parties. as they are disaffected with what they view as a corrupt and ineffective and out-of-touch political system. And I think that's something that should concern Democrats. Totally. I mean, look, I think the main thing is you see these people getting paid $174,000 a year to move forward, you know, legislation that basically says, well, let's spend the next five years testing to see if marijuana shouldn't be a Schedule I drug. it's performative. And I think that that's the thing. I mean, we sit here and the rest of the world knows what the answer to this kind of stuff is. And yet we have to sit by and say, okay, well, this is the

process. And I think it's just, like you said, I mean, it leads to a lot of people being disaffected in the system because you see stuff like that happen. And then you just realize that nothing is actually going to change. So, I mean, until we see actual change, it's going to, you know, it's going to reduce our, you know, trust in the system that we're paying for. One of the big changes we have seen in Congress that I often remind people when they say, like, are things changing? How can we make change is, you know, a few years ago, two years ago, three years ago, before the class of 2018 was elected, I think there were six members of Congress, counting House and Senate, that did not take corporate PAC money. And today, last time I checked, that number was 66. That is a really big change in how Washington does business, in how we fund campaigns,

in empowering grassroots voters, and kind of whose voices are going to be heard, whose voices and priorities are going to become ours. So that is a really big difference. And that difference is all being driven by Democrats, by Democrats like me who flip competitive districts around the country, running on anti-corruption, running on getting dark money out of politics, politics running and standing up to corporate special interests and then have done it. So I do want to talk about corruption for a second.

Let's jump over to Bill Barr's firing of Jeffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney at the SDN.Y. We just got the announcement that Bill Barr would come testify next month at the end of July, which gives him plenty of time, you know, to make sure that everything that we're seeing right now settles down and, you know, I'm sure he hopes it's going to be forgotten by then. why does it feel like Democrats can never manage to fight with the tools available to us? Like, why was the answer not to call for him to testify immediately? And if he doesn't subpoena him. And if he doesn't comply with that, hold him in contempt.

And if he still doesn't comply, open an impeachment inquiry. Why aren't we able to use the tools available to us? And especially in the face of such egregious corruption. Yeah. So look, we have used some of those tools. And the reality is those are tools that are designed for unusual tools. and extreme circumstances. This was baked into the Constitution. Impeachment is supposed to be hard and rare. That was part of a delicate system of checks and balances. We didn't want to have a

government where the legislature could quickly toss out the president, but we did want to have a legislative check on the president. So, you know, look, I was the first person who in a really tough seat who flipped a district who came out in support of impeaching President Trump. I was gravely concerned by what I saw in the Mueller report and became those concerns were I think doubled down upon when I read what had gone on with the Ukraine. We did that work and we did not succeed in removing President Trump from office. And I do hear from a lot of my constituents. I can't pay for prescription drugs. I'm spending $1,000 a month for health insurance and they deny all my claims. We have massive unemployment. I cannot say for my kids' college. These are real concerns

that we hear, and I think there is a desire from a lot of constituents across the country to say, can you work on things that will directly improve my life? Now, for a whole lot of reasons, I would argue that whomever is running the Department of Justice does make a difference in everyday Americans' lives, that the quality of justice and the rule of law, law at the top of the system does matter to what happens in everyday Americans' lives. And if we have a Department of Justice who won't enforce housing discrimination, who won't enforce employment discrimination, who won't bring on civil rights cases, then I think there is that lack of justice in our daily lives. But I think there is the tension between

those kinds of issues that people directly connect to their immediate lives that they want us to be working on, and then taking on some of these very important concerns about the president and about his administration. And I am deeply concerned. I think it's very clear that President Trump put Bill Barr into the Department of Justice because Bill Barr would do whatever Trump asked. I think what we're seeing with firing Berman, and I'm very concerned about the potential nomination of Clayton, that what we should draw from that is Clayton will be required to do whatever President Trump asked, because that seems to be a condition of employment for this president. Right. And by the way, I do want to say, I don't think that it's an either or with regard to Democrats

focusing on kitchen table issues and, you know, protecting the foundations of our democracy. And I think when you look at the bills that the House has passed, it's a testament to that. Because like you said, I mean, we have hundreds of bills languishing in the Senate that the House has passed. And they've done it successfully. And they've done it even amazing. amid the corruption that this administration is steeped in. So, you know, I think Democrats have shown that we can walk and chew gum at the same time, right? Yeah. And I always, it's funny, whenever people use that analogy, walk and chew gum at the same time,

which I think Speaker Policy may have been the first one to use. I always think it's aiming a little bit low. I mean, we're not just walking. Like, we are pushing or change. We are pushing for equality for the LGBTQ community that is long overdue. We are forcing a discussion about police brutality in this country that is long overdue. These are really meaningful things that we're trying to advance, the anti-corruption bill, HR1. And so, and I think that, you know, so it's more than sort of walking and chewing gum.

I would say it's sort of pushing while you're pulling, right? I mean, it's really, I think, more effort than I think the walk chew gum analogy kind of suggests. at least I feel that as a freshman number that I am putting a tremendous amount of energy into doing this job and into trying to uphold both of those goals of protecting the system, protecting our democracy, protecting the rule of law, delivering accountability, and at the same time, trying to tackle what real people need improved and changed in their daily lives. Well, I think building off of that, one of your most impressive moments was getting the CDC director to agree to free COVID tests for all Americans. With that said, even now,

there are still ways in which Americans are still incurring costs. So, for example, sometimes people are showing up with symptoms, but they can't get a COVID test until other illnesses are ruled out. And the mandatory testing for those illnesses still costs money. And you yourself got charged. You yourself got charged for a COVID test. So how do we fix this and does it involve getting you back in front of Dr. Redfield or, you know, is he not going to allow that to happen again so long as he shall live?

I think at this point, because in addition to the exchange I had with the CDC director, Dr. Redford, which was the first promise that we got from the Trump administration, that testing would be free, we then enacted that into law in the family's first act. And so we have repeatedly said this, and this has passed Congress, this has passed the House, this has been signed into law by President Trump, as well as this exchange. This isn't just a, I got him to yes, and now I'm holding him to his words. Congress then went and made sure that we doubled down on that, and the president signed them into law.

I think a lot of the issues now reflect what challenges our insurance companies face in delivering, you know, care and in processing claims. And so, you know, what happened to me is that my COVID test was free, but I was charged initially a co-pay for the visit, which was clearly COVID-related. I've been in touch with my doctor multiple times throughout my e-exam. illness and then I got charged for the flu A and flu B tests, which are absolutely necessary to rule out COVID and are really important given that COVID testing is not 100% accurate. So if somebody comes in with a positive test for flu B, that even if their COVID test says

that they're positive or negative, it's really important to do those in conjunction with each other. So the insurance companies say, well, we didn't have the coding set up. We don't have that, you know, we're working with different providers. your doctor didn't use the right claim code. But the reality is they are being paid to sort these things out. And they need to do that work. And we should expect that from our insurance companies. This is exactly what we're paying them to do.

Well, on that note, it seems like a great time to hobble the ACA. We just found out that the Trump administration is still trying to destroy health care. They asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to invalidate Obamacare. This was the issue that Trump ran on in 2018. And that was an election that saw Democrats take the House by the biggest margin in U.S. history. So is Trump trying to lose? I mean, what's the actual political upside here? Because it seems like he wants people to die.

Gosh, I cannot begin to fathom what is going on inside Trump's head here. I will tell you, though, on the ground in conversations, I represent a very politically diverse district. I'm the first Democrat to represent this geographic area in 75 years. and Republicans outnumber Democrats still today, I do not hear from constituents on either side of the political aisle that they want to dismantle the ACA. I think that is an issue that has largely been resolved.

It doesn't mean we don't need to improve the ACA. I've done a lot of work pushing to try to improve the coverage of mental health care under the Affordable Care Act, and we need to be honest about where the ACA is falling short and trying to improve it. But I just, I don't hear, hear any outcry, even in a Republican traditional area like mine, to invalidate the ECA.

I think people right now, particularly with the high rates of unemployment, are very worried about insurance coverage because in our country, as we know, employment and insurance are linked in most situations. And so I'm getting lots of questions for people about, can I still buy insurance on the exchange if I lose my job and I can't afford COBRA? What options are available to me. We've done town halls on that, helping people understand that they're eligible to still purchase insurance on the exchange and potentially get a premium subsidy to do that. So I really don't feel that this is a front and center issue at all for Republicans in my district. In fact, I think the hybrid of unemployment makes them very worried about being able to ensure

continuity of insurance coverage. Right. I mean, look, there's a, you know, pandemic still sweeping across the country as much as the Trump administration tries to bury it. And we've seen 125,000 Americans die from it. It just seems completely upside down that this would be the time of all times to, you know, try to destabilize the system, right? I mean, the one thing I'll say sort of at the general as I look at kind of the issues that are coming to the fore more as we move toward the summer and now into the fall, looking toward the fall is I do think there's an effort to to reboot the play ball, right? To play the game again, to boot it up again.

And so I think we're returning to a number of the themes that we saw in the last campaign. And I think that, you know, Americans have had four years of experiences with this president. They've had four years of seeing where his priorities are. They've had four years to see that, in fact, he has not delivered on infrastructure, right? We've had four years to see that, in fact,

he has not brought down health prescription drug prices. And so I think there's an effort here to kind of repeat what was a winning play, but you're playing on a different field with different players and different conditions. And so that's my best kind of understanding of where this might be coming from. But I have to tell you, I think Americans are rightly worried about hanging on to their insurance coverage and being able to afford health care right now. Right. And by the way, I mean, some of this stuff was a winning play in 2016,

but they used the same strategies in 2018, and it was definitely not a winning play. I mean, we just saw a Department of Defense memo come out just a few days ago showing that the Trump administration is sending troops back down to the southern border in October, as if, you know, I mean, right on cue, right? Like migrant caravans are coming up from Mexico, just like they did, you know, in September, October of 2016, just like they did in September October of 2018. It is the same playbook over and over, and it might have worked, you know, for whatever reason in 2016, but it shows a complete inability to adapt, and they really just, it's one note. I think an inability to adapt and also, I mean, an unwillingness to face up to the problems of the moment. And whether one assigns and how much responsibility one assigns to President Trump for those problems, they are actual problems. This pandemic is killing. people, just killing neighbors and our fellow Americans, and it's killing people around the world.

And we need to meet that moment. And the fact that the president sort of is trying to wish it away or will it away, I think that's a lack of kind of transparency and accountability that crosses party lines. I think that people, again, want that from their government. And, you know, I think I've, in my career, I've sort of been, you know, really been in Congress, or is it now, 18 months. It feels like longer than that. That has, I think, been a real hallmark of how I've tried to connect with Americans across ideological divides is we want a fair system. We want to call out bad actors. We want to know if our taxpayer dollars are being spent the way that we were told they were going to be spent, right? And whether we agreed with that expenditure or not,

we want to make sure that's actually happening. And so I think there's a real inability to look and stare directly in the face and name the challenges this country faces. You can then debate what do you do about it, but this president, I think, is unwilling to even sort of name it and own up to the challenges, which is a little bit separate from being willing to take responsibility for them. The fact that he won't even do that first step, I think, is really troubling. Yeah, and I think he came in, you know,

I think he hit a roadblock that he hasn't hit before in the sense that you can't spin away, 125,000 dead Americans. You know, you can, you can lie about everything else and they have, but, you know, when people see that their friends and their family and neighbors and doctors and nurses who they knew, you know, everybody's been touched by this. And so you can't just spin it away by showing up at the White House lectern and saying that everything's, everything's great. You know, it's disappearing with the heat. It's gone away in April. It's, you know, whatever other excuse they cooked up, you can't spend dead people away. And I think there's also an interesting issue because while I have a lot of concerns

about how the Trump administration has responded to this pandemic from the very beginning through today, this pandemic is not, this disease is not the fault of the Trump administration. Viral illnesses happen. Viruses become a problem. We saw them under the Obama. This is a thing. So I think this is particularly. a good issue to see where the problems with Trump's leadership are, because we don't have to

get into an argument about who caused the virus. The virus is the thing. Now, what are you going to do to lead us forward? Right. And I think that's where he's really struggled is on the execution of strategy to help American people. And I think particularly as we think about school starting in the fall, everything from universities to kindergartens, the lack of a plan, the lack of a strategy, the lack of information from the Department of Education, all of that, I think, is really staring millions of American parents and school kids in the face. Yeah. And by the way, I'm glad that you brought that up because, you know, I think that that's on the right, they'll say that, oh, well, you know, Democrats are trying to blame everything on Trump. They're trying to blame coronavirus

on Trump. And I think the important thing to recognize is that, of course, coronavirus, isn't his fault, but the response does lie squarely on the shoulders of the federal government, right? And we don't live in a vacuum. You can look at other countries. You can look at how Australia and New Zealand and Germany and South Korea and a slate of other countries have responded to this. And you can see what appropriate leadership in government does versus what, you know, bearing your head in the sand and trying to pretend that it doesn't exist does. Yeah, and I think in addition to the actual choices we've made as a country or the failures to use things like the Defense Production Act, there's also, I think, a big problem is there's not a sense of trust that what the president says is going to happen with regard to this administration's response to coronavirus will actually happen. And so I think that is another separate problem. Like we can debate when should we have shut down, how much should we have shut down, when should we have shut down, when should we have. we have begun to import more PPE or show.

I mean, there's all these things. Different countries have done different things. And we are a large country with a diverse population and a lot of international travel. But the lack of trust that this president has a plan and is conveying it to us truthfully, that that's a feeling that Americans have. And I think it's that feeling that is then giving rise to a lot of the lack of confidence in this president. So I want to jump over to your county, Orange County. You were elected as, you know, part of a historic wave where the OC went from all red to all blue. Have you noticed within that county any any grumblings of a resurgence or do you feel like the OC is going to stay reliably blue in the next election cycle? Well, there's still an incredibly diverse ideological population in Orange County. And I think you can see that most clearly just as a factual matter by looking at the county and local government. And so,

So four of our five members of our Board of Supervisors, which the county has a lot of responsibility, particularly with regard to things like public health, four of our five members of Board of Supervisors are Republican, and all of the mayors, all 10 mayors in the cities within my district are Republican. Nine of the ten of them have endorsed my opponent, who's a Republican. So I think there's that there's a real legacy there of Republican leadership, of kind of reflect. of Republican voting, I think that's then being hit squarely in the face with the realities of some of today's Republican Party. And so if you think about, you know, Orange County as being this sort of famous, you know, where Reagan's saying or Nixon saying, I forget which, like, you know, Orange County exists so good Republicans have a place to go retire and, you know, live out their later years or die, like, that's not the Republican Party of today. And so a lot of the things that we

really value in Orange County, like our beautiful beaches and shoreline and protecting preserve land. There were people who moved out of places like LA into Orange County because of concern about pollution. So then when we have a Republican Party that's putting polluters in charge of the EPA and letting the fossil fuel industry write the rules for clean air and clean water, that doesn't align with kind of more traditional conservative values of protecting and valuing our environment. Right. And I mean, look, I think the people in your district, maybe more than any other district in the country, have, you know, a first time representative in Congress who has shown maybe more than anybody else that we've seen this year, you know, that you're willing to fight your ass off for your constituents, not only your constituents for the rest of the American people. So I think that's been made abundantly clear. Well, I think one of the things that it reflects is kind of back to the point I was talking about the beginning about, you know, people. want to trust Congress. They want to feel that Congress is working for them. And so I think a lot of

my freshman colleagues have been quite good at demonstrating that in different ways. But I think a lot of our ability to do that, I mean, this is one of the things that this class has in common. I mentioned a lot of us don't take corporate PAC money. One of the other things this class has in common is relatively few people who were part of the class that made the majority in the House in 2018 had been in elected office before. There's a handful. But by and large, we were people who were doing other things. We come from being business owners, from being professors, from being nurses, from being in the armed services, from all of these different branches of life and walks of life. And I think we bring to that a different sense of accountability that maybe has been the case or at least

the perceived case for elected officials. And I think that is helping to create a sense of connection with elected representatives that has been missing. When you speak to voters, you know, especially coming from what had historically been a red district, what was the biggest misconception that they had about the Democratic Party? And how can we as a party alter our messaging to account for that? I think one of the things that was probably particular to my district and then I'll kind of think about the larger kind of across the country issue. But one of the things that was particular to my district was when I'm back on doors,

people would say, well, you know, I'll, I'll vote for you. You know, I'm actually a Democrat or I lean Democratic, but, you know, there aren't any other Democrats on the street. And you're like, well, I actually just knocked on like five doors and four of the five people said they vote for me. So that this wasn't a place that was very comfortable with having political conversation. And that was really a contrast for me. I grew up in Iowa, you know, where sort of presidential politics comes to dominate and everybody, at least every four years, really talks about their political opinions. And I think in Orange County, we really value civility, we value respecting difference. And so this idea of kind of talking about politics and how do you do that in a civil way

was something that was a change for some of my constituents, that nobody had ever knocked down their door before. These are not people who get perpetually phone-banked in presidential years because this has not been a battleground in the past. California was safely blue, Orange County was reliably red, and sort of just like, you know, in biblical theory, God created Adam and Eve. These are just truisms. And so I think one of the things I've worked really hard to do is to create an opportunity for respectful disagreement and respectful dialogue. And I think that is something that it's really important for Democrats to continue to affirm. And I see that. And I see,

my colleagues across the ideological spectrum really trying to do that within the Democratic side of the aisle. And I think it's really important. And a lot of us really against opponents who wouldn't go to town halls. You know, in my two-year campaign, I laid eyes on my opponent one time. And it was for about 30 seconds. And so the willingness to kind of stand there and answer tough questions. And I mean, I've been in town halls where people ask me, you know, questions that were, I think, designed to be quite hostile. But I really really, took a really glad you asked that. I'm really grateful for the opportunity to talk with you about that subject. Border security is an issue that we need to come to agreement on in this

country, and that starts by understanding the following facts, right? And so I think my background as a professor is to be sort of very factual about trying to give people information. And I think particularly in this moment with this president, the fact that there are facts and we should try to agree on them. And then we can debate what we do about those facts is actually refreshing to a lot of people. And so being a straight shooter, even if people don't agree with you, the fact that you're a straight shooter, I think gets you quite a bit of goodwill. And I've certainly seen that in my district. And by the way, the ironic part about being a straight shooter is that's actually the pretense under which Trump was elected, right? Which is the biggest piece

of irony because he's the biggest purveyor of misinformation. I think it shows you the hunger for that among the American people. So, I mean, look, this was someone who ran on draining the swamp. And, you know, I personally have a lot of concerns that we are actually moving backwards in terms of corruption and pretty serious ways in a lot of our agencies and in our White House. But I don't think that means that the problem or the perception of the problem of Washington being corrupt, of special interest dominating our politics, of lobbyists setting priorities rather than communities is wrong. I think that he tapped into a real feeling,

and I think you see that in the fact that most Americans think that Congress doesn't understand them and isn't putting their interests first, and you see that equally in Republican-held districts and Democratic-held districts. And so I think my whole mission

is to try to show, through my actions, through the questions I ask in hearings, through how I communicate with my constituents that I am accountable. I am tough enough to take on their questions. I am tough enough to take on the powerful people who have for a long time run Washington and to earn their trust in terms of my character, recognizing that debate about issues is a healthy part of democracy. This trust of government is not.

And I think that's an enemy that it's too bad we can't, work more across party lines to tackle that problem of a lack of a lack of confidence in Congress. Yeah. I mean, and I do, you know, I do think that there's a hunger for that on both sides. I don't personally think that we're going to see that with the current slate of Republicans that are serving right now. So with that said, I guess that's a good segue into your new leadership pack called the Truth to Power Pack. So can you explain, well, first, can you explain, I guess, the difference between a leadership pack and, you know, the corporate PACs that you were just speaking about? Yeah. So leadership pack can be set up by a elected official, a federal elected official,

and the money raised into that leadership pack can be used to support candidates for office. And so in our case, this is a grassroots funded pack. And what we're going to be doing with it is supporting new voices and bringing back the majority, of course, but supporting, primarily supporting new voices to help improve the diversity of representation and the quality of representation. And the quality of representation of the American people in Congress. And so I'm really excited about our first slate of endorsements. It includes folks like Candice Valenzuela, who's an Afro-Latino woman, was a young mother. And at one time had been homeless. She's just a terrific person in a tough race in Texas. She has a competitive primary runoff, and then she's taking on an incumbent Republican in the fall.

But I think that the goal of this is to recognize that we do need people who, when they get to Washington, will hold powerful people to account. And with regard to the difference between how this kind of organization like truth to power works and how corporate PACs work, I think a lot of us would agree, cloning across the aisle, at least among the American people, that we think corporations have too much political power, that they are writing the rules about prescription drugs, that they are writing the rules about clean air and water, that they are writing the rules about, you know, so many areas that touch our lives, and that we in fact want our consistent. our voters, our communities to be writing these rules and guiding us and connecting with us. And so your Truth to Power Pack is about finding people who, when they get to Congress, we'll put their constituents first. We'll put people over profit and we'll stand up to corporations. It doesn't mean, by the way, that we don't listen to businesses. You know, big businesses are often big employers.

And I believe in capitalism. But I think we have to push toward having a healthy, strong, stable capitalist system. And I think it's really questionable, for example, what value corporate PAC contributions serve, how that serves shareholders in any meaningful, real way. And so I'm really excited about the organization. I'm excited the first four candidates that had elections, all one. So we're four for four so far and then have a few more elections coming up. But I always say we named the PAC truth to power. But I think the real thing that I hope these candidates will achieve when they are elected is that they will not only speak truth to powerful people, but they will do what I try to do in each of my hearings, which is get powerful people to themselves admit the truth.

And that's a lot of, if you think about my exchange with someone like JP Morgan CEO, Jamie Diamond, I'm well aware of how hard it is to be a single mom and make ends meet because I am a single mom. living in Irvine. But I want him to admit that that is a challenge and that the wage he's paying in his bank leaves a family grasping to pay for food and to pay for rent. And so I think that, you know, the name is not just about speaking fruit to power, but also about getting powerful people to admit the truth and own up to what their responsibility is in trying to tackle problems. So how can we help? Where can we donate? Yeah, well, so let me tell you Truth to PowerPack has a social media handle. It's at Truth underscore PAC. And our website is truth to power pack.com. And when you go there, you can learn more about the PAC. We have a video

there you can watch talking about its purpose. And then we also feature the candidates. And you can make a contribution there to support the organization or to directly support the candidates. Awesome. Well, I think that's it for today. Thank you so much, Congresswoman, for taking the time to talk. and, you know, we're all pushing for you as hard as we can for this upcoming election. Well, we're all going to do it together. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks again to Congresswoman Katie Porter. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week.

You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app. Feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review, and check out Brian Tyler Cohen.com for links to all of my other channels. Thank you.