Pod Save America - “A government eclipse.” (LIVE from Denver)

Episode Date: February 9, 2018

Paul Ryan needs Democratic votes to keep the government open, and the Democrats can’t decide whether to demand a vote on dreamers. The White House covers up a senior aide’s domestic abuse allegations, and Pennsylvania may be headed towards a constitutional crisis. Jon, Jon, Tommy, Dan, and Alyssa are joined by business owner and community activist Wanda James live on stage in Denver, Colorado.

🎵 Sit down. Sit down. I want to both seem humble and let the people listening at home know that there was a standing ovation. Hello, Denver. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. Me? Oh, I'm Alyssa Mastromonaco.

I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. We have a great show for you this evening. Business owner and community activist Wanda James is here. New Era Colorado is also here. They are the largest. This is the largest youth voter mobilization organization in Colorado, one of the largest in the country. You probably saw them on the way in. They were registering voters. Please see them if you haven't. And

also, if you haven't registered or you have friends that haven't registered, go register to vote. Please. Right here in Colorado, you have the highest proportion of millennials in any swing state in the country. And most millennials aren't registered. So you guys did a lot of good work here.

Register your millennials, Colorado. That's my message this evening. Get those millennials on the books. Get them registered. Don't let them out of your sight. Get the form between their phones and their faces. All right, let's start with the news.

As you guys know, here in Trump's America, we only fund our government in six-week increments. Because we are an aging banana republic. And so at midnight this evening, the whole thing shuts down, possibly. What will we do? Who will save the day? So here's the state of play. Right now, both parties in both houses of Congress have made a deal that includes increases in defense spending that

Republicans want, increases in other spending that Democrats want, including more funding for community health centers, disaster relief, opioid treatment, mental health initiatives, medical research, veterans health clinics, infrastructure, and funding the Children's Health Insurance Program for 10 years. That's good news. In the Senate, thanks to the last shutdown, Mitch McConnell has also promised that after this deal is passed, he will hold an open process on a bill to protect the Dreamers. Allegedly. So what this means is, instead of starting the Senate debate

with the Trump-cotton-keep-out-people-from-shithole-countries Act of 2017, which he was never going to do, which he was going to do before the shutdown. That was the plan, to start with a cotton bill. Now he's going to allow a vote on whatever bill can get the support of 60 senators. So now this brings us to the House of Representatives, where right now about 50 to 70 of the worst House Republicans hate the Senate's budget deal because it spends too much money keeping people healthy, I guess. So that means that Paul Ryan needs Democratic votes to pass this bill and keep the government open. This is the same Paul Ryan who has refused to allow any vote on any bill to protect the dreamers unless Trump okays it. So, Dan, what do the Democrats do in the House of Representatives with this leverage that they have? Well, here's what

they shouldn't do. Do Paul Ryan's job for him, right? I mean, let's have a little history here. The reason that dreamers are facing the threat of deportation is because Donald Trump unilaterally decided to end the DACA program. And Democrats want to solve that problem. Donald Trump claims that he wants to solve that problem. Paul Ryan claims he wants to solve that problem. And if Paul Ryan needs Nancy Pelosi to deliver votes to him to fund the government when Paul Ryan is in charge of the Republicans in the House, then he better give Nancy Pelosi something. And I think it is totally worth asking for the same deal that Mitch McConnell gave Chuck Schumer, which is, let's have a vote. And the reason Paul Ryan does not want to do that is because he knows it'll pass.

So it looked yesterday, on Wednesday, like Nancy Pelosi was heading that way. So she spoke on the floor for a record-breaking eight hours. What do we think of the speech, Alyssa? What do we think of Nancy's move yesterday? I know you're a big Nancy Pelosi fan. First, we know my nickname for her is Nasty Pelosi. Nasty in the best possible way.

She killed it. I mean, she was down there. I mean, I thought the four-inch heels, she would have scored the same points without them, but I mean, she killed it, and everybody was there, but at the end of the day, what does it do? Well, so that's the question. So Nancy Pelosi gives this very long speech and yet today it does not look like she is actually

whipping the entire caucus to vote against this bill she's saying she's certainly against it unless ryan holds a vote for the dreamers but there's like a lot of confusion about whether other democrats are supposed to vote against the bill or can just vote their conscience. What do you think is going on here, Tommy? I don't know. I think the unfortunate reality is we have little leverage in the Senate, which Schumer has used, some would say deftly, to get us to here

and to the budget deal that's currently on the floor. It has gotten a promise from a notorious liar, Mitch McConnell, on DACA. So we're not thrilled yet, but we got something. We got CHIP. We got some other budget priorities. In the House, we even have even less leverage. And she gave an impassioned eight-hour speech that I think went a little ways towards, again, highlighting this issue and how important it is and showing the Democratic Party's commitment to getting a fix for the dreamers who were left hung out to dry by donald trump as dan mentioned earlier but the machinations have just begun in terms of this process it's hard to predict but like it's so hard to take the republicans seriously for anything this like 75

percent of republicans support dreamers right so like why not just do a good faith effort and do that vote first? If everyone's so... Like that's, to me, it's like, do it. George Bush was out there today saying, do it. Mitt Romney was saying, do it. Everyone's like, do it. So just do it, and then, you know, you can drive the government off the cliff. It is a strange phenomenon,

which is, we are trying to use the few levers we have to get Republicans to do what they claim to support. The reality is they would rather not deal with this issue. They don't actually support doing something for the Dreamers. They might support doing something for the Dreamers with a gun to their heads, political gun to their heads, but they don't want to do it. Paul Ryan says, I can only go for something that Trump wants, or I can only go for something that the House Freedom Caucus wants. And he acts like he's a hostage, like he's not an agent in these events, but he is. It's, you know, the Freedom Caucus, Donald Trump, they're holding

a super soaker at him. And he's like, oh my gosh, you know, take whatever you want. Because the truth is he has the votes. he has the votes at any moment so the reality too is we're actually pursuing two parallel strategies at once in part because we don't know how this will shake out trying to get a vote in the senate from mitch mcconnell that's fair is about jamming paul ryan right there is still a chance we can get this done even if paul ryan refuses to promise a fair vote for the dream I guess what I'm saying is this might be the most that Paul Ryan will ever get jammed. Because he's going to lose? Well, what I'm trying to figure out is why Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic caucus

can stand up and say to Paul Ryan, you need anywhere from 50 to 60 Democratic votes to pass this bill because you have 50 to 60 defections in your own caucus because the Freedom Caucus doesn't want to do this. You want those votes. We love the budget deal that passed. We think it's bipartisan. It's great.

We agree with the Senate. All we're asking is to get the same deal from you that the Senate Democrats got from Mitch McConnell, which is a promise that you hold an up or down vote on the DREAM Act knowing that it will pass this house and i don't understand i just i don't understand why the democrats don't say yeah let's try that so play it out dan what's the what's the downside of them doing well at first i would say it's about nancy pelosi strategy which is we worked with her for all eight years brock obama was president and she is as savvy a legislator has ever walked the halls of the Capitol. That's for sure. And she knows what she's doing. Yeah. And if she were

to, there are members who are nervous about this. They're nervous about the politics. They're nervous about how the shutdown played out when the Senate Democrats waved the white flag after breakfast basically. And so that... They didn't last as long as Nancy Pelosi's speech on the floor. And

so instead of going to these members who might be in the closer districts or might think they have tough races and saying, you have to vote this way, she's going to let them vote their conscience, but she's making it very clear the way she's going to vote and trying to get them to come to a decision on their own. This is how she did this for a lot of really tough votes in the Obama administration and every single time she delivered. And that's the best way to do it. Because if you try to rule with a hammer, it's not going to work. And so here's the danger of the process. So let's say the Democrats do not give the votes. The bill fails, the bipartisan deal, which funds things that we care about, the additional four years. All those good things I just talked about. All

those things. And then what the House does is then it turns around and passes with only Republican votes another six-week CR or a three-month CR. That goes to the Senate. We know there are more than 60 votes to keep the government open because that's what happened the last time. So the same Democrats plus Republicans who voted to end the shutdown will then vote for that. And so we will continue. So now we lose all the budget deal and all that other good stuff. So everything that was good in the budget deal, which is better than I think we thought we could possibly get in a completely Republican-controlled government, goes away, and the Dreamers still

aren't helped. And so I think that is part of the calculus of some of the members who believe very strongly that Paul Ryan will never put a bill, a dream, a dream act on the floor of the house because it only takes two dozen house members to call for a vote, a re-vote for his leadership, which is why Boehner quit. And so that their view is we're never going to get the dream act. So let's at least take this because we can help some people. We have so little opportunities to help people when we're in the minority like this. That's the counter argument. Will Ryan lose some people on this vote

regardless because of the spending? I mean, they just passed a $1.5 trillion tax cut. These crazy assholes that have hijacked the government, the House of Representatives, the Freedom Caucus, it's like the dumbest people you can put into a fishbowl. They call themselves the Freedom Caucus. They all... Which is a challenge.

They were going to explode the debt ceiling in 2011 because they were so offended by Barack Obama's spending. Suddenly we're throwing, what, $300 billion over two years of additional military and domestic spending? I'm not saying that I think these guys are coming at these from a deep well of principle, but there's got to be a few of them that are offended by this deal. Yeah, no, they think they...

Well, that's why he needs Democratic votes. They think they have lost about 50 to 70 Republicans on this, which is why you'd think that Democrats have leverage. But you're right, Dan, in this scenario, I guess if the government shuts down, Ryan says we open the government with a quick CR. And so basically, the House Democrats problem is the Senate Democrats then turning around and saying, oh, if we get a CR from Ryan, we'll just keep the government funding and we won't have this deal. So why walk the plank if the Senate

Democrats aren't going to do the same? What Dan said I think is really important. It's a simple question. Do you believe political pressure can get Paul Ryan to promise a vote on the DREAM Act? If you believe the answer to that is yes, it's worth going all the way for it.

But it really may not be the case he really may not be able to put himself in a position and he has it already he's been asked this question he's answered he said no and he squirrels his way out of it by saying i want to protect the dreamers i'm totally committing to doing for something for the dreamers uh but i'm going to do something that the president supports and what that means is i will not bring a clean dream act i will do a dream act but it will have some noxious anti-immigration piece of it so I can get the House Freedom Caucus along and keep my speakership.

So I guess if we wake up tomorrow, by the time people listen to this podcast, and the Democrats have caved and they give Ryan the votes he needs to pass it, what are the prospects of a deal to protect the Dreamers at that point? What comes next then? So now the senate

moves on to a bill perhaps it seems like you could get 60 votes in the senate because there's enough normal republicans there who want to do this that you could maybe get a bill out of the senate not guaranteed but maybe one that people could swallow and then does it just die in the house because again ryan says no i don't want to bring this bill up. That's a real fear. Yes. I mean, that's what happened. Like, we've seen this movie before in 2013, after Republicans were so concerned about their poor showing with Latinos and other folks, they had to get right on immigration. And so Marco Rubio, of all fucking people, got together with Chuck Schumer, a bunch of other people, and they passed a good bill. It had some things Democrats did not like.

There was a lot of border security in there. And it went to the House. And the House said, we cannot vote on the Senate bill. We're going to start over. And that meant they were never going to do anything. And then they reset Marco Rubio back to his day one settings to see what would happen when they ran it again. And he actually went the opposite way.

I didn't mean to interrupt him. You can always feel free to interrupt with a Rubio or a Ryan attack. Or a Westworld reference. I guess stepping back from this, the problem is, no matter how you calculate this, we are in the minority, and we do not have the power necessary to really get this stuff done. And we were, look, we wanted Democrats to stand firm in the Senate against a long-term funding bill. We made a big deal about that at Crooked Media. And the government shut down for a couple days. And they got this promise out of McConnell. And we were disappointed when the government, you know, when they just caved as much as anyone.

But when you really look at the whole situation now, the long-term answer here is to fucking win the election in November. Because it's just like... Because think about it this way. So you take the bill that can get 60 in the Senate, and if we do all these elections, we might have more Democrats, right? It might be a 50-50, so we might have the majority. And then Nancy Pelosi controls the floor of the House. Right.

So she can pass whatever the Senate passes, or she can send something over to the Senate, which the Senate can then amend its back, and then you've got to send it to Trump's desk. Then we have to force Trump to veto. But how many dreamers have lost their status? Too many. I mean, that's the problem.

That's why we're doing it. Look, I totally agree with you. But, you know, when we extracted this promise from Mitch McConnell during that flickering shutdown, the government eclipse. Here's our episode title. Shutdown, back up. All right. I don't know. There's a flicker in the lights.

Did the government shut down or did I just have a weird brain thing? What were we talking about? The shutdown. So when we extracted that promise, we said at the time, there's one of two ways this can go. It can either be meaningless and it was wrong to give up on the shutdown when they did, or there's a chance that it could be made meaningful. We don't know what the outcome of that process will be in the Senate. And we can't control what Mitch McConnell does does but we can control what we do and i think we have to push democratic

senators and republican senators to make clear that that they stick to what they said which is a fair process on in the senate that protects the dreamers and that you know even goes along with border security because by the way this dance about the wall we've done it once before and at the end of it we gave him his fucking wall yeah you know what we'll give him the wall again everybody just brace for it it's happening it's the only way we can protect the dreamers and we already made that decision once and i think we should make it again it is a possibility to get a bill out of the senate that does border security in a way that we don't necessarily agree with but that protects the dreamers it is possible for mitch mcconnell to get donald trump to think it's a good idea because

donald trump uh has a fit of whatever, he reads something and was like, yeah, great sounds like a good deal, I'll sign it and then he tells Paul Ryan to pass it it's not inconceivable, it's not done that's the hopeful scenario, that something gets out of the Senate somehow, they get Trump in a room, they sort of lock Stephen

Miller in a closet they're giving him a bunch of headshots and they slip the bill in there the fuck did I sign? someone Miller in a closet. They're giving him a bunch of headshots and they slip the bill in there. The fuck did I sign? Someone gets onto the set of Fox and Friends and looks into the camera and says, sign the bill, Trump, sign the bill.

John, you know that's not a secret plan. I'm going to go on Fox and Friends and deliver a message to the president. It is true. Don't tell them. If we get something out of the Senate we get trump then it's we have the maximum pressure on paul ryan and that's our best chance it's still our best chance and everyone should fight for that i think that's that's what we need to do right now so you're right we have to keep the pressure on democratic senators and

republican senators to do what they said they were going to do and pass a fucking bill out of the Senate. So, um, all right. Let's talk about the White House. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The White House staff secretary, Rob Porter, resigned on Wednesday. After his two ex-wives revealed that he physically abused them, one of the women released pictures of herself

with a black eye that came from Porter punching her in the face, and the other revealed that she had filed an emergency restraining order against him. one of the women released pictures of herself with a black eye that came from Porter punching her in the face, and the other revealed that she had filed an emergency restraining order against him. Before Porter resigned, multiple White House aides, including Chief of Staff John Kelly, went out of their way to defend him. Kelly called him a man of true integrity and honor and a trusted professional.

Multiple outlets then reported that senior White House aides have known about the allegations since late last year. And since that time, he was elevated, helped write the State of the Union. Alyssa, let's start with what does the White House staff secretary do and why is it such an important job? So there are so many funny things about this. Well, it's actually not funny at all, but you know. So the staff secretary is the person

who receives all of the documents that people want to send, like all the problems they were having with Trump, how people were just like leaving shit on his desk. With a proper staff secretary, that doesn't happen. They get the information, they check it, they make sure that everybody has signed off, that's like a stakeholder in the memo,

and they run the entire process that gets briefings to the president. They usually have a TS SCI clearance because they handle all foreign policy documents. What does that stand for? It stands for Secret Compartmented Information.

It's the top secret in the... SCI is the compartments. The best of all the clearances. It's the one they gave Kushner. It's the compartments. The best of all the clearances. Best of all the clearances. It's the one they gave Kushner. It's the one they gave Kushner. We'll get there. They actually haven't given it to him yet. So the thing about it is the office that the staff secretary actually sits in is called a SCIF

because the person should have SCI clearance. So it's hilarious. He sits in an office with, you know, higher clearance than he has. But, you know, like something funny to think about, like you see that he's just sort of like floated around. I just wanted to, in case you guys didn't know who other staff secretaries had been, David Gergen was staff secretary. John Podesta was staff secretary. Harriet Myers was staff secretary. And our staff secretary, when we first got to the White House, Lisa Brown was from the American Constitution Center and is now the legal counsel

the general counsel at Georgetown University so they're like proper professionals proper professionals credentialed so Tommy, Porter's ex-wives Coldy Holderness and Jenny Willoughby also said that the FBI asked them

about these allegations during their background check and specifically asked whether they believed Porter could be blackmailed, to which Willoughby answered yes because so many people knew of his abusive behavior. Are you surprised that that didn't keep him out of the job? Yeah. I mean... Talk about the FBI

background checks and why they asked those questions. This fucking guy. So, yeah, I mean, the FBI background check, you fill out a form, you talk about where you've lived, what your jobs were, who your roommates were, arrests, drug use, felony offense, like everything in your life. It's incredibly intrusive.

They interview you about it. They vet it with people, friends and family. And the whole thing is designed to make sure you're worthy of trust of national security secrets. And so ultimately that process, like the FBI leads it and runs it, but it's adjudicated by the White House. So the president can say, you know what? I know so-and-so made a couple mistakes along the way, but let's give him the clearance. The fact that they were sitting on this information, that these women felt so strongly about this guy

and how fucking evil he was to them, that they told the FBI, they said he couldn't be trusted, they said he could be blackmailed, and then they just turned a blind eye to it. It's fucking appalling. Now, we shouldn't be surprised. This is a president who sexually assaulted a dozen women.

This is a president of the United States who endorsed a man who molested children, right? So like there, they have taken the moral depravity to another level, but this one is truly shocking. And then hours before this information is revealed, you have John Kelly, the chief of staff, coming out and giving this quote about his honor and integrity when he should have known full well. Now, the reality is the process to defend him was probably run by Hope Hicks, his current girlfriend, who was probably convinced by this scumbag that it was all bullshit. And now, but they all look terrible. But I mean, in a normal environment where you had a non-Jellyfish as Speaker of the House,

you had a non-Republican Senate House-house. People who actually exercised oversight. We would be investigating tomorrow why this guy, without a clearance, was looking at every piece of paper. And why Jared Kushner, by the way, who's running the Middle East peace process and hanging out with all the Chinese, also has an interim clearance. The entire election was fought over Hillary Clinton's emails and her ability to protect classified information. And these people are as reckless as anything I've ever heard in my life. It is appalling. It's not just that Paul Ryan is not doing oversight. Paul Ryan is actually blocking oversight on this because Democrats have been requesting for almost a year now information on how the White House processes clearances because it is unprecedented for

people in the position of the highest sensitivity to be operating for months and months and even a year with these interim clearances, essentially rejecting the recommendations of the FBI and the intelligence community about these people's fitness for office. And they're all getting the PDB. these people's fitness for office. And they're all getting the PDB. 14 people have the PDB. Yeah. Also, it's not like the FBI kept that information hidden from the White House.

It's not like the FBI heard that there was someone applying for security clearance whose ex-spouses believed that he could be blackmailed. I mean, that is... Can we just... I just have a very personal example I'll share. Sure. So we all filled out our SF-86 forms together.

How personal is this going to be? It's personal for me. Just personal for me. Flop sweat right here. Where they're like, have you smoked marijuana? I was like, oh my God, this is a thing? It's a thing. And so I was so afraid because they teach you,

they teach you that lying is worse than any bad thing that's right done right and so this goes to like Jared Kushner and his 97 revisions to his sf-86 form so when you've gone through it but so I answered mine very honestly and I got a call and they're like he's got a little bit of a problem and uh I had to go see our chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and he's like, I understand you're a good person, but you're going to be drug tested, like,

randomly for a year. And I was like, that's fine, that's fine. But, like, this is something so small in comparison. I had a conversation. I knew he knew about it. I felt guilty about it

for a long time. I don't anymore. But that's not true. Clearly. I'm doing good here in Colorado. I'm doing good here in Colorado. But that's actually really important because one thing they tell you when you're going through this process is you can have done things that were bad in the past, but they need to make sure that you're trustworthy now. And that's making sure that you're honest about what your past, what happened in your past so that you can't be blackmailed. Blackmail is the fear.

Blackmail is the number one thing that they're worried about. They're worried about putting someone in a position, like staff secretary, who literally determines what the president sees and does not see. And someone having access to that person and being able to influence that person. Give me those documents. I want to see those papers or I will tell the world about your spousal abuse. That is what, that is the thing they are afraid of. And it's extremely dangerous. This is, you know, I even, you know, this got put into the basket of Trump bad staff stuff and Gorka's ridiculous. And he had a Hungarian warrant for whatever the hell, uh, you know, being a douchebag for shooting, for shooting a rifle on the anniversary of the Nazis winning in 32.

But Gorka was trying to get invited to meetings and getting booked on Fox and Friends. This is a new level of sensitivity. This is worse than Kushner. I mean, this is appalling. And if this were a Democrat And if this were a Democrat, if this were a Democrat, you can, this would be the source of a giant scandal, months of hearings, every single committee. It's as it goes. Rightly so. And rightly so. This is as close to the

president as a person can get. They were, and the White House knew about it. I was at Don McGahn, apparently, reportedly got a phone call about it. house council don mcgann white house council don mcgann gets a call about a woman what from a third from a third woman uh warning them about this and i think two things about that one it was his responsibility to get that guy out of that job immediately and two the world we're living in he did not think the fact that his staff secretary is a serial spousal abuser was the hardest legal problem on his desk that day. But it just seems self-evident to me that these awful, awful human beings who work in that White House right now are more worried about a story redounding on the president's reputation because they know he assaulted women. They know the horrific things he was accused of in divorce filings by his ex-wife. They know

he's a bad person who if you fire someone for spousal abuse, suddenly they might show just this much. They actually give a shit about protecting women. And that they might hear about it. Not even Ivanka cares about the women. That is the thread that runs through Roy Moore, Roger Ailes, Bill O'Reilly, and this.

Steve Wynn. Steve Wynn. Steve Wynn. Which is the White House believes from Donald Trump to John Kelly to Sarah Huckabee Sanders that to believe a woman is to admit that Donald Trump is guilty. Right. And, like, unless there is one caveat to that hard-fought rule in the White House, which is if it is a woman accusing a Democrat,

then they will immediately call for the resignation of that Democrat. I want to talk about John Kelly, too. This was supposed to be the adult in the room. He was hailed as a true leader when he came to the White House, you know, briefing room to give his speech once. A moderating force for Trump. So far, he has refused to apologize for falsely attacking a Democratic congresswoman, blamed the Civil War on a lack of compromise, said that Robert E. Lee was honorable,

said that Dreamers didn't sign up for DACA because they were too lazy to get off their asses, and now this. Does Donald Trump attract bad people, or does Trump make people bad? That is my question. That's a good question. It's the ancient question, John. Nature or nurture? We've grappled with this.

I gotta say, I was one of the people that, like, you have to be a pretty impressive person to rise to get a four star, or to be a combatant commander. You have done a lot of things well in your life and i was impressed by that obviously everyone in this room is he also lost his son in combat and then just days later gave a speech at a funeral service for two other marines who had been killed in combat that is one of the most uh moving gracious dignified decent things you've ever read. And I let that make me emotional and think that there must be a strain of goodness

that ran through this man. I really deeply regret feeling that way because when you talk about DACA recipients getting off their lazy asses, some of the things he said, it's just sort of the same nativist coded racist language that you hear from everyone else in the Trump administration.

But the thing that's so interesting, though, is that every other member of the military said the opposite. So that's what makes him so outrageous. You know, even Mattis today, like, whatever, it's low hanging fruit. But he's like, if you are DACA and you're in the military, you won't be deported. Right. are DACA and you're in the military, you won't be deported. Every time Donald Trump has come out and said something when he wanted to

ban transgender from the military, all of the Joint Chiefs stood up and said, we're not fucking doing this. Kelly is like the outlier. I never saw that coming. My tweets did not age well. I was like, yay, John Kelly, it's a new day. We knew

that he was a hardliner on immigration that he was going to be nativist like donald trump from stories about him at the department of homeland security yeah we knew that as he went up the chain of command as he got closer to general he became more extreme on immigration that that was in the works a lot of this other stuff though like the lazy asses and the attacking frederica and talking about civil war and all that bullshit, like that I definitely did not see coming. That's so much has happened in six months. Yeah. Just to keep up the happy talk,

I want to cover a brewing constitutional crisis in the state of Pennsylvania we have. So, after the 2010 elections, Republicans won full control of Pennsylvania, of the state government, and they gerrymandered the shit out of the congressional map. They now control 13 of 18 congressional seats.

Just to show you how crazy this is, Democrats in 2012 got 51% of the vote, and they won only 5 of 18 seats. they won only five of 18 seats. So, in June of 2017, Pennsylvania's League of Women Voters filed suit to have the map invalidated as unconstitutional. So, the state Supreme Court recently agreed in a five-to-two decision, they ordered the Republican legislature

and Democratic governor to submit a new map by tomorrow, February 9th. They said that the League of Women Voters is right, the map is unconstitutional, submit a new map by the 9th. And they said, if you can't do that, the court will draw a map itself. So Republicans then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied the Republican request to delay the ruling until after 26. It's not quite a happy ending yet, guys. So now, some Republican legislators are threatening to impeach the five members of the state Supreme Court that ruled in the majority in this case.

They all happen to be Democrats. It court that ruled in the majority in this case they all happen to be democrats um it requires a majority in the house and two-thirds of the senate to impeach judges which the republicans have dan yes john uh gerrymandering expert how much does this matter politically what are the stakes here politically if the if is redrawn? Well, it could be what decides control of the House. If the maps are drawn as they should have been drawn to begin with, they are drawn in a fair way. Right. Depending on how it's done, Democrats could pick up three to five seats.

Which is huge. Huge. And that's just in a normal Democratic year. 23 seats in the House. Three to five is, that's, yeah. And so in a normal Democratic year, they pick up three to five. In a wave year, they could pick up more. And so this is now ground zero in the battle for the House,

which is why Republicans are considering such an extreme measure. Because if this happens, and then just Democrats perform as you would expect in districts that Hillary won, Republicans are unlikely to hold the House. And so this is going to be a real test of whether there are any norms that the Republicans are willing to adhere to.

Like if I were a betting person, I think they will try the impeachment thing because we saw what happened in North Carolina when the Democrats won the governorship and then the Republicans in their last session changed all the laws with the outgoing Republican governor to dramatically reduce the ability of a Democratic governor to implement policy and make it easier to vote. Because the big thing was Republicans won all their power by undergoing massive voter suppression, cutting polling places. And so the Democrats were going to fix that because, you know, people should be able to vote. And so Republicans then took the power from the governor and gave it to the locally elected election boards, which were mostly Republican.

And so, like, we are staring down the barrel of a true constitutional crisis here. And hopefully there's a Republican adult who will stand up. But I have yet to find that person in the last 17 months. So that's what politically could happen. Tommy, what's the institutional damage here that could happen? I mean, I think this is one of those moments when you teeter between democracy to banana republic, right? Like on his way out the door, Hugo Chavez named 13 new judges. He was like, eh, you know, we just lost a whole bunch in the legislature. Let's just pack

the courts. And when you show that kind of totally reckless disregard for institutions, especially the judiciary, when you refuse to play by the rules and you pick up your ball and go home or in this instance, beat the shit out of the other guy and declare yourself the winner, I think that is a truly frightening scenario and one that, as we've seen with everything else in the Trump administration, if that kind of activity starts to get normalized and not be like a nationwide uproar,

it's something that could be frightening. Yeah. Lovett, what do you think? Yes, I agree with all of that. What we are seeing at the state level is what I think we need to worry about happening next at the national level, or in some cases is already happening.

Again, it comes back to these guys are like raptors and they've been testing the fences, and what they've discovered is a lack of interest among voters and people who don't vote, who would largely vote against them, atomization of the way

we consume media, the declining power of shame in our culture, all of it removed the social barriers to deeply immoral behavior on the part of politicians. They see that with Trump, they saw it with McConnell, they see it with Ryan, they see it with politicians every single day, they saw it with Roy Moore in Alabama, and the discovery, discovery the scary discovery is once those shame barriers were removed once someone like kelly ann conway could kill the part of herself uh in bowling green that prevented in bowling green that prevented people from simply from simply let us never forget the thing that stops serious adults from looking into the camera and lying or simply totally ignoring the question or acting aggrieved when they're making it up, all of that. Once they killed that, a lot of people discovered that, wow, it turns out that the political barriers aren't what I thought they were.

It's a lot easier now. It's a lot easier. You get rid of the shame and the politics was simpler than we could have imagined. The local papers are gone. People aren't paying attention. And we can run roughshod over democratic institutions. So I agree. We have to fight this tooth and nail.

And we can run roughshod over democratic institutions. So I agree, we have to fight this tooth and nail. We have to be very honest about what it looks like and what it feels like, that just because it's America, a state can stop becoming a democracy, right? We saw that North Carolina was viewed in some international survey as not being a democratic state.

Fair enough. They're trying in other states too. And they're trying in other states. And by the way, this is also part of voter suppression. This is part of what conservative activists have been doing across the country. This is the destruction of public sector unions. This is about stopping people who can stop them from having power in the voting booth. But we need to think really hard about the larger forces and ask ourselves, what do we do to raise the political price for this kind of behavior?

And I think anyone who says they have the answer to that question is not being honest. I think it's a really, really hard and serious question that we're going to fight this on a bunch of different fronts. But we're going to be dealing with this for a long time until we figure out how to win this game the way Democrats do. Not immorally and not by destroying institutions, but in a way that actually is equal to what's been brought against us. Because right now we have lost a lot. Anyway. to what's been brought against us because right now we have lost a lot. Anyway.

What, um... Alyssa, what does it teach us about, like, what Democrats can do? So, let's talk about Democrats because gerrymandering is gerrymandering and they do it too. Yep. And, um, so everybody should be held to account.

But it's good when we do it. You had your gerrymander filibuster. It's a gerrybuster. Love it buster. Love it buster. Bring this energy to love or leave it. Don't you worry. In Illinois 3, there is a congressman, Dan Lipinski.

He took his father's seat. His entire district is gerrymandered to keep him in the seat. He is the most conservative Democrat out there. He was the first. He voted against DACA. He voted against the Affordable Care Act. He was the first Democrat, I think, to march in the March for Life. He's completely pro-life.

Right? So why does he have his seat? Because the Madigan machine in Chicago has gerrymandered it so he can keep it. So everyone should just put in the back of their head, there's a wonderful woman, Marie Newman, who's running against him. She's primarying him. And she's a small business owner and an entrepreneur. And they were all in SEIU behind her.

But the real one, she's wonderful, but the real story is like, we all have to be held to the same standard. Gerrymandering is terrible. Yeah, it's right. Well, it also teaches us, by the way, that we focus on the presidential race in 2020 as we should. We're all focusing on the 2018 congressional elections. But this is why you vote and fight and run

in local and state elections. Like, this is why, like, this is why state legislature races really matter. Yeah, Republicans do a lot of shit to stop voters that we don't do. state legislature races really matter. Republicans do a lot of shit to stop voters that we don't do, but they don't gerrymander better than us. They just won all the elections. No, and that's the truth.

Losing in 2010 was not just about us losing the House of Representatives. It was about us losing the right to draw the maps for that census year. And we have been living with the consequences ever since on the state level, on the local level, and in Congress. And 2020 is the next census and the next time you get to draw the map. So as if there was one more thing to make this the most important election of our lifetime in 2018,

it is the party that wins 2018 is the party that gets to draw the maps. 2018 is the party that gets to draw the mats. I didn't even know that. And we have some good news too. By the way, in Missouri, this week, Tuesday, Mike Rivas, a 27-year-old procurement

manager at Anheuser-Busch, squeaked out a win in a suburban Missouri statehouse district that Trump carried by nearly 30 points in 2016. And the DCCC, by the way, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, just added seven more seats to their target list. So now we're at 101 seats

at the DCCC. So it's good. Polls are getting a little tight, but we're adding more seats, so get to work. You just sound like Barack Obama. The polls are going to tighten. The knot in your stomach will not leave. Enjoy it. Keeps you, reminds you of what's happening.

All right. Now. All right. So transition. A seamless segue. Even as we campaign to win the House, we're also in a fight to win the Senate. The president of the Senate is a man named Mike Pence. Mike Pence is Donald Trump's closest advisor who has no idea what's happening at the White

House ever. He is informed of everything from the news, which brings us to a segment we call OK Stop. Here's how it works. We watch a clip when it piques our interest, when we're angry and say, OK, stop, and then we talk about it. This week on OK Stop, Vice President and Botox enthusiast Mike Pence is... What?

I completely agree. Filler. Save this for the clip, man. He gets a little in his forehead and a little in his soul. Currently in South Korea for the Olympic Games. When he got off the plane, he was asked about some news back in Washington. Let's roll the clip. There are reports now that General Kelly and others in the White House have been aware of these allegations

for several months. Okay, stop. We have done more than 100 podcasts. This might be the first time we've ever talked about Mike Pence. I know! This is why we wanted to do this clip. The staff sent around so many clips for tonight

and we couldn't figure out the clip. And then we saw the Mike Pence clip and we're like, wait, yeah, we've never talked about Mike Pence. Because where the fuck has he been the whole time? There he is! Do you believe the president is being well-served by his senior staff?

Okay, stop. Did anyone hear what the question was? The question was, good point, John. Just thinking about the audience, guys. The question Mike Pence was asked is, lead up blah, blah, blah, I'm a reporter, do you believe the president is being well-served by his senior staff?

You go to Air Force Base in Japan, we're on our way to the Olympics. Okay, stop. That is some of the most mundane filibustering I've ever heard in a press conference. I've been to a billion interviews with Barack Obama, and he was never like, my tie is red, my shoes are on. I'm thinking about having enchiladas for lunch. And I learned as I awoke this morning of those developments.

Okay, stop. He heard about that when he woke up this morning. That's when Mike Pence, Donald Trump's right-hand man. Does that even work from a time zone perspective? Mike Pence believes it is immoral to not be on Bethlehem Time. A scandal that has been brewing in the administration for at least since last year about an abusive senior staffer. He just found out this morning. In fairness to Mike Pence, Donald Trump also learns most of his information

when he wakes up in the morning from the news. But also, if you're Mike Pence, would you ever go to South Korea not knowing what the hell Trump's going to tweet? No. I mean, would you want to be on the other side of the DMZ? I mean, right? Yeah.

We'll comment on any issues affecting White House staff when we get back to Washington. Okay, stop. That's a new rule, which is I only can answer questions about Washington in Washington. Washington stops at the water's edge. Washington stops at the other end. This is now a number of times when you found out,

you're the vice president, you're number two in the administration, where you found out about something very late after a number of other senior staff. Okay, stop. Stop. First of all, that was friend of the pod, Ashley Parker. Okay, stop, John. She was on the show on Thursday. Huge shout out to

Ashley Parker, hucking, just gunning a fastball in Mike Pence's head. And what happened was, it hit him. It bounced off for the reasons Lovett mentioned. And he's staring at her currently like, I'm gonna kill you empathetically.

Also, like, Ashley is so good at asking a question that nasty. So polite. So nice. You are the vice president. You are number two in the government. You do not know shit about anything ever.

She did work for Maureen Dowd. Could you please comment on that? Not knowing shit about anything ever. If there was a thought bubble over Mike Fenton's head, I would say, this is why my wife doesn't let me meet with women alone. We've been in the West Wing, we haven't found out about it.

Again, I understand we're standing here, but can you comment on why you often seem a little bit out of the loop on some of the speeches? You know, it's a great honor for me to serve as vice president. President Trump has been incredibly generous. How much Xanax does he take every morning? That is unbelievable.

I can't talk to my Instacart guy that far. That was an answer he could have given to literally any question. It's a great honor to be the vice president. Responsibilities and opportunities he's given me to serve. Representing the United States on the foreign stage, as we have here in Japan, as we will later today in South Korea, and of course at the Olympics.

Okay, stop. Can't see this at home, but that is his Reagan smirk. That kind of thing he does. And, man, of all the dipshit, mediocre politicians that have succeeded because of Donald Trump, we should just always remember that he is the luckiest. He took this to get out of a losing race in Indiana. He is as surprised as anybody to be standing in South Korea genuflecting before the biggest moron from New York

he's ever raised money from. Because he's thinking in the back of his head, like, I probably have a better chance of being president than most of these guys. It's probably a pretty good chance. He's thinking, maybe I can defect to North Korea and work for less of an asshole. That game looks

pretty sweet. That's the Olympic strategy. Being abducted. Also being involved in the legislative process. I'm very grateful for that. We'll leave those White House staffing matters for when we get back.

White House staff matters. That's get back. White House staff matters. That's what we got from Mike Pence. Thank you, moral hero. When we come back, we'll have an interview with Wanda James. We are so excited tonight that Wanda James is in the house. She is the owner of Simply Pure, a medical and recreational cannabis company right here in Denver. She and her husband were the first African-Americans to own a dispensary in Colorado.

She's a former Navy lieutenant, an influential social justice activist, and political activist. Please welcome Wanda James. Hey, thank you. Thank you. Hey, everybody. How you doing? I'm good. How are you? Good. We're great. Your mic works. Wow. All these people are here for you. I know. So before you got into the cannabis business, you were affected personally by how our drug laws are weighted and enforced. Can you talk about your brother's story and what that experience taught you about the disproportionate impact of drug laws on young people who get arrested?

Yeah. So, you know, it's crazy. So in 1999, I had the pleasure of meeting my brother for the first time. And when I spoke to him, he said, you know, I want you to know I just got out of prison. And he said he had a felony and he was in a maximum security prison.

And I'm listening to this story and I'm like, oh my God, my brother murdered somebody. He hurt somebody. Something horrible must have really happened. And he says, I got caught with four ounces of pot. I didn't believe him. I went to the University of Colorado Boulder. I majored in pot and so did everybody else. So in my world, no one ever got arrested. We'd roll joints in front of Libby Hall. Does everybody remember Libby Hall? And CUPD would walk by and be like, hey, kids, put that away.

We'd be like, all right, roll back up again. And then after I graduated, all of my friends were lawyers, doctors, business people, and they smoked pot, and no one ever went to jail. And when I met my brother, I was like, this can't be possible. You definitely did not get a 10-year prison sentence for four ounces of pot. So I took his case to a friend of mine in LA who happened to be a lawyer and he opened up my brother's paperwork, closed it, put it on his desk and he says, let me talk to you about something. 800,000 people a year arrested for, at the time, 1999 for simple possession. 85% of those were black and brown, mostly boys between the ages of 17 and 24.

It's called slave labor. America has never, never not had a slave labor class. So he finishes his thing in Texas, and he comes out to Colorado, and we get off of the Barack Obama 2008 presidential election. You guys know something about that, right? That was fun. We've heard about that, yes.

Yeah. We raised a lot of money for him here in Colorado. And my husband and I decided to make this a political thing. We said, you know what? Let's open up a dispensary. We just spent a year in the room with the next president. We've been vetted. We're both in the military. We've been vetted our entire life. I said, you know what, they can't make us criminals, so let's do this. We opened up a dispensary

and started talking about it on TV, and all of our friends were like, girl, you going to jail? I don't know, man. But you know what? The thing is, the more open you are about it, the less they can kind of touch you. So we have talked about it and talked about it and talked about it. We have talked about mass incarceration. We have talked about the 85% arrest rate with black and brown people. Here in Denver, 33% of the people who were arrested for simple possession were black. And how many black people have you guys seen in Denver? Anyway. Anyway. But yeah, I mean, it was shocking that my brother went through that. Oh, and he had to pick, oh, just real quick, this is the most disgusting part of this, is my brother only did four and a half years in the maximum security prison, but to get out early,

my brother picked cotton for four and a half years in Texas. He had to pick 100 pounds of cotton a day to buy his freedom. This was in 1865, by the way. It's horrible. Yeah, it is. It's disgusting. Walk us through the process of how you got in the business. How does someone open a dispensary? What are the hoops you have to jump through to do that? Well, in 2009, there were no loops because there were no rules.

And so you went and you got a license to open up a wellness or a yoga studio. Everybody had yoga studios. It was great. It was great. But no, in 2009, there really weren't a lot of rules. Rules making started happening in 2010, 2011, 2012. Of course, now there are a tremendous amount of things that you've got to jump through. So lots of money, one to five million dollars probably to get into a dispensary. Here in Denver, there's a moratorium. So if you want a dispensary, you have to buy one. You've got to go through a background check. They check everything from your student loans to your child support, all of your taxes, all that has to be cleared up. You have to be of good moral character. Yeah, it's quite the runaround. Back when you started doing this,

this was sort of, it was a new thing. Now you have lots of people talking about the cannabis industry. You have publicly traded companies. You have people all over Silicon Valley talking about venture capital investments into cannabis-related companies. There are not very many African-Americans in this space,

despite the disproportionate impact on the African-American community that you were talking about earlier. I mean, how concerned are you about the way, the trajectory of the cannabis industry, and what things can we do to sort of course-correct as we just started? You know, I mean, that's what we talk about all the time, right? So everybody is getting into this. And even here in Colorado, here's the amazing thing.

If you have a drug felon or drug felony, a cannabis possession, you can't own a cannabis business for 10 years from the discharge of your felony. Now, if you're a rapist or a murderer, you can do it within five years. So yeah, go figure. So basically when we look at all of the visionaries in cannabis are locked up, because if you were growing weed in the 70s or the 80s or the 90s um you're the visionary right you were doing in your garage kind of like you know steve jobs and all those guys right so i mean it's interesting and we locked up our visionaries yeah um but you know uh we came back the rebellion lived and we taught a whole bunch of people in

colorado how to you know grow cannabis and but the problem that we're seeing, though, is black people, A, ended up with the most felons, so we were cut out of the business. And then, two, we didn't trust this, you know. I mean, my brother was arrested. People, cops busted into homes in inner city neighborhoods. So we have been very nervous about coming into this industry. But we're now seeing a resurgence of people fighting to get in. So we're seeing Massachusetts that has laws on the books that doesn't allow penalizing people who have drug felons. California and Oakland are trying to set up laws to allow more people to get into the industry so that it is becoming more diverse.

But even right now, less than 1% of dispensary owners are black. Wow. Some news was made in San Francisco recently where marijuana was legalized via ballot initiative in California. That started in January of this year. And then the district attorney in San Francisco went back and cleared a lot of convictions for people who were busted with marijuana. And I'm curious, which seems like the right thing to do, of course,

but I'm curious whether there's any momentum to do something similar in Denver or in Colorado. And what can folks here do to maybe make that a reality? So I saw today that the governor is considering letting a number of people who are in jail for their third strikes for marijuana. We've been trying to fight these laws for a while. We've had a couple of bills that haven't been able to get our communities to be able to expunge people's records or seal their records if what they did would no longer be considered a felony. So we're trying really hard because I think, look, I'm not a fan of beer, but I don't think that anybody should go to jail for drinking beer.

And I think that that's kind of the feel for cannabis right now. Whether you enjoy it or you don't enjoy it, nobody should be going to jail for the use of cannabis. Nobody should be going to jail for the use of cannabis. America's favorite fascist Keebler elf, Jeff Sessions, said, good people don't smoke marijuana. Listen up, audience. He also continues to push, despite so much evidence to the contrary, this notion of marijuana as a gateway drug to opioids and is somehow responsible for the opioid crisis.

If he were sitting in this chair, what would you say to him? And can you tell him, like, what are the people who you meet in your dispensary, what are they like? Who does smoke marijuana in Colorado these days? Educate him. Let's see.

Apparently, these people. I haven't seen the final numbers for last year, but I think we came up on $1.4 billion worth of sales last year in Colorado. Yeah, so there's about a billion people out there smoking. You know, here's the thing that we see with cannabis. If the people who drink beer, some of them smoke cannabis. The people that drink wine, some of them smoke cannabis. Moms, some of them smoke cannabis.

College students, some of them smoke cannabis. White people, some of them smoke cannabis. Black people, some of them smoke cannabis. I mean, there is no demographic, and I just saw as well, too, that Republicans have now decided at the number of 51% that cannabis should be legal. Republicans smoke cannabis. Oh, my God. I mean, really, I have yet to meet anybody.

Well, I personally have not. I know they're out there. I have personally not meet anybody well I personally have not I know they're out there I have personally not met anybody that is completely anti cannabis most people will say I tried it but I didn't really feel good about it so I just don't really smoke it good people wanna James you are a hell of an effective spokesperson for the cannabis industry thank you for being here tonight Thank you for all your work for Barack Obama. How are you guys doing out there? How do you pronounce it?

Marijuana. Marijuana. It's a local thing. I've seen been on the upswing as well. We obviously all, like you, reacted to the news with shock and despair. However, we pulled ourselves up from the doldrums and realized that there's probably a better way to react to the vacillations of poll numbers, and we thought we'd tell you about them in the form of a game. Now for a game we call Polar Coaster. With a dash, okay. With someone... What did you say?

The dash? Yeah, if it's an adjective, it's a dash. Polar Coaster game? Polar Coaster game. Hmm. We'll talk about the dash after the show. Thank goodness it's an adjective, it's a dash. Polar Coaster Game? Polar Coaster Game. Hmm. We'll talk about the dash after the show. Thank goodness it's an audio medium. So confused.

For the people listening at home, there was no dash between polar and coaster. Would somebody out there like to play the game? Travis is in the house. And hi, what's your name? Hi, I'm Gina. Gina. Yes. Hi, Gina.

Hi. Are you from Denver? Originally, I'm Gina. Gina. Yes. Hi, Gina. Hi. Are you from Denver? Originally, I'm from Colorado, not from Denver. I am a native. Native of Colorado. But now you live in Denver. Yes. You're equivocating.

You're being a real pence about this. It's a thing here. Where are you from? Pueblo. Pueblo. Pueblo. And how long have you been in Denver? Three years.

Great. Yeah. Great. What's the defensiveness for? Trust me, it's a thing. Ask everybody. And you guys each have your cards. I have my card.

Got the cards. Let's start the game. Earlier this week, the Quinnipiac Taco Bell poll showed that Democrats are losing ground to Republicans in a generic ballot. Their lead shrunk from 14 points to just 7 points. What should you do with this information? Is it A, calmly and methodically debunk the poll in a 24-part tweet storm and hope for a retweet from Nate Silver? Is it B? from Nate Silver.

Is it B? Point out in a 500-word Facebook post why the person who conducted the poll runs a company that has refused to stop advertising on Breitbart. Or is it C? Remember that your friend Todd went to Quinnipiac, and he was a moron,

so these pollsters must also be morons. Tough hit on Quinnipiac is a D. Get off your ass this weekend and go knock on some fucking doors, for God's sake. Goddamn. Well, what's your answer? I feel like we should knock on some fucking doors. There you go.

We're in for one. You got it. Did it make the noise? Yeah. The altitude. Question number two. It's nine months until the midterm elections and polls show Donald Trump's favorability numbers

slowly inching upwards. Do you remember who was ahead in GOP polls just seven months before the last Iowa caucus? Was it A? Ben Carson, who had no idea he was running for president? Was it B, Scott Walker, who had just been caught throwing union members into a well?

Was it C, Christine O'Donnell, that nice woman everyone thought was a witch? Or was it D, Marco Rubio, sorry, this is an obvious joke answer, Marco Rubio never let in any polls and he would be

a tragic figure if he didn't think he was the hero in a saga we are all blessed to be observing from afar oh man

that had some real answers in it yeah so one minute one minute what do you think is what happens here is it

Ben Carson Scott Walker Christine O'Donnell or Marco Walker, Christine O'Donnell, or Marco Rubio? Christine O'Donnell. It's somewhere I get to say not even close. I just wanted to get a little Chimamata Monaco answer because I love you.

It was Scott Walker. You've already gotten it wrong. There's no way out of it. We knew you were trouble. You wouldn't even tell us where you were from. Question number three. Just days before the Alabama special election, Doug Jones was losing to Roy Moore in polls 49% to 44%. How did Doug Jones end up winning?

Was it A, teams of volunteers on the ground and extremely motivated Democratic electorate in the hope that Alabama would do what's right? B. Millions of MS-13 gang members flooded over the border and intimidated poll workers into letting them vote for a centrist Democrat. Centrist really got me. Was it C?

The Illuminati, whose headquarters is at the Denver airport. You can look it up. What was it, Dave? Alabama Republicans moved by a sudden feeling of Democratic bonhomie. Removed a number of barriers to voting, including a punitive voter ID law after Jeff Sessions, weeping, said in a press conference, I don't care if Republicans lose. Voting is the bedrock of American political life.

God, if only that were true. That's an A. It was A. You've gotten it right. Final question. Follow me. Final question. Following Donald Trump's historic State of the Union address, where he managed to finish

the speech before blundering into an obstruction of justice charge within 12 hours. 48% of respondents to a CNN poll said they had a very positive reaction to the speech. What is the proper way to respond to this information? Was it A, text your Trump supporter cousin, tell him he's uninvited to your wedding because you can't have that energy on your special day? Was it B, tweet at CNN pundits explaining why they should not televise the State of You can't have that energy on your special day. What's it be? Tweet at CNN pundits explaining why they should not televise the State of the Union as it's wrong to give Trump a platform. Oh, these are hitting liberals a little, aren't they?

Some people are like, ooh, that was my tweet. I still hate socialism. Can I delete it? Well, it's don't come, huh, when it's directed at our own. This is a multiple choice question for each of you. Was it C? Remember that George W. Bush and Barack Obama both had State of the Unions with a 48% positive reaction from CNN

and both of them still lost control of the House that same year. Or was it D? Print a photo of Trump, Ryan, and Pence during the speech. Place it under glass and preservative. And etch in a piece of tungsten carbide a series of pictograms that tell the story of these three men

causing the downfall of civilization. Then bury the photo in plaque under an obelisk in the desert so that future humans will find it and understand. and plaque under an obelisk in the desert so that future humans will find it and understand. You pushed these up.

Can I offer an alternative? What was your answer? Can I offer an alternative? No. You can offer an alternative when you... It's C, you're right. You've won the game. You'll take your parachute gift card back to Pueblo.

But everyone should also remember, even though you've won, and even though these polls will go up and down, we can't assume we'll win the house. We have to stop reacting to polls and do what we can to win, which is why you should go to crooked.com slash crooked7. Look up your closest swing district

and donate as much as you can to the Democratic candidate. And that's all you can do. And that's Polar Coaster. Thank you for playing. When we come back... Questions. Q&A. And we're back. We have time for about four or five

questions. Travis is right there with the mic. Hi. First of all, I want to thank you guys so much for kind of getting out there and trying to help us DACA kids they're clapping for you not us now my questions gonna sound really dumb no seriously though I've lived here for a very long time, and this is the first time I've ever been scared of not being a citizen.

We love you! We love you! So, what chances do you guys think we have at the Utah 4th? That's so good. You win. M. Night Shyamalan over there makes us cry and twist on the question. I was going to say, I don't think I'm emotionally prepared to answer a question. Look, it's tough.

I mean, I don't know. I don't know. To be honest, I don't know anything about the district. I know that obviously Donald Trump did extremely poorly in Utah. I think that was mainly because of Donald Trump himself and not because of a surge in Democratic support in Utah. But I don't know. What do you think? That's the old Jim Matheson district, right?

Yes, that got gerrymandered. So, yeah, a Democrat held that district before it got gerrymandered out of their seat. Oh. And, look, if it is a plus-six Republican district, it is 100% winnable in a way. That's true. And so does that mean it's easy?

Does that mean the most likely tipping point to 2018 is Utah 4? No. But what has, in 2006, when Democrats took the House, what happened was we ran people everywhere. And we won districts that no one ever thought you would win because the wave came. And so if there are people on the ground organizing and we have a good candidate,

there is a legit shot that you can win that district. You just got to fucking work for it, right? And so there's no district that we should write off. And as John pointed this out earlier, the DCCC has expanded their map to 101 districts, but we can do better than that. It's not up to the DCCC to decide Utah 4 is going to be a target. I don't know if it's on that list, but the people in Utah 4 can go win that district, right? Yeah. I know it wasn't your question, but I just want to say thank you for coming here. Thank you for asking the question. Thank you for talking about being a dreamer, the stakes involved, because I think these cowards in Congress who won't look a dreamer in the eye

before taking a vote, if they hear the stories, if people understand the individuals we're talking about, the stories, the contributions to society, to the military, 20,000 teachers, it is a no-brainer decision. So, thanks for fighting for this. Denver, you've been fantastic.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Wanda James. Thank you, guys. Register to vote. We'll see you later. Thank you.