Pod Save America - “A jury of Trump’s peers.”

Episode Date: December 16, 2019

The House prepares to impeach Donald Trump as new polling shows an uptick in support, Chuck Schumer tries to prevent Mitch McConnell from rigging the Senate trial, and the Democratic presidential candidates prepare for their final debate of 2019.

Language supposedly has all these rules. Most of us never have to think about those rules, but the hidden hand of language guides nearly every interaction we have with other people, determining whether we connect, entertain, confuse, insult, or dazzle the people we communicate with. In Radio Lingo, the new podcast from Duolingo and Crooked Media, we explore how language shapes our world and how our world shapes language. I'm Amad El-Yakber. I'm an audio journalist and James Beard award-winning writer. I am in awe of language, its complexity and its simplicity, the way we can use it to

create both distance and understanding. I'm going to be your guide. Join us as we take you on a linguistic journey. From Crooked Media and Duolingo, this is Radiolingo. New episodes out Tuesdays on your favorite podcast apps. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Gentlemen, merry impeachment. Thank you. This is the week. This is the week that Donald Trump becomes the third president to be impeached by the House.

We're going to talk all about it. We're also going to talk about the state of the primary as we head into a Democratic debate that may or may not happen right here in Los Angeles later this week. Before that, love it. How was the show this weekend? Great love it or leave it. John Hodgman, Amanda Seals, my friends Dan Hernandez and Benji Samet came by to talk about the science of Star Wars. Dan and Benji were on? They were.

They finally got a yes from their publicist. And the one, the only, Brian Boitler did a rant, I believe. Of course. Brian Boitler did a rant, too. He did a great impeachment rant. Sorry, I slipped my mind for one second. But he made a really important point, which I think, and he's been making on Quirkit.com, which is. Trump is bad?

Trump is bad. And it can't be said often enough. But also that the impeachment inquiry should remain open regardless of the vote because of the potential of the president to continue to commit crimes and the fact that there may be subpoenas that are still up in the air. Wouldn't it be great to impeach him twice? I'm not going to go there. All right. A little announcement from us with 2020 coming up. didn't go there all right a little announcement from us uh with 2020 coming up your friends here at crooked media and pod save american vote save america wanted a way to send you the most important information about the election directly so we're trying something new we have a new phone number

that the number is 323-405-9944 if you text us to that number we'll answer your questions we'll send you some of the stuff we're paying attention to in politics no backsies on this thing love it we'll tell you his best jokes uh so again our number is 323-405-9944 save it and shoot us a text we're excited to hear from you probably the kids tell us this is uh this is this is gonna be great's going to be a lot of three bubbles, then they disappear. So yeah, that's exciting. Finally, if you need a reminder about why protecting voting rights is the most important thing we can do right now to win in 2020, think about the news in Wisconsin late last week where a judge ordered as many as 234,000 names to be taken off the voter rolls in that state um we were talking to ben wickler chair of the wisconsin democratic party there over the weekend uh it's very bad that the court has done this but um you know now he thinks that the democratic party will be able to at least

get a list of the people that they are taking off the rolls who may have moved or they just may have been taken off the rolls uh accidentally um and the good news about wisconsin is it does have same day registration and so you know we can be able to find these people and register them but because of shit like this it's going to take a lot more work and um we need to fight voter suppression everywhere you've heard us talk about the work we're doing to support stacy abrams and her team at fair fight well apparently right now Tanya just notified us this morning, we're less than $150,000 away from our goal. We're very close. We're at $1.859 million. That's big. It's a lot of money. So close. We're so close to two. So close. So we're trying to get

to two million so we can get these organizers and these teams on the ground fighting voter suppression as early as possible. You can't do it a couple months before the election. You've got to do it early. So please chip in. And we'll probably, you know, we're trying to get there before the end of the year. Got to do it. VoteSaveAmerica.com slash Fair Fight to chip in.

Okay. Let's get to it. On Friday, the House Judiciary Committee voted 23-17 along party lines to approve two articles of impeachment against Trump. And they released a report today that says Trump also committed multiple federal crimes, including bribery and wire fraud. How about that? Wow. Yeah. The articles now go to the full House for a vote, which is expected to happen on Wednesday.

Wire fraud. house for a vote which is expected to happen on wednesday wire fraud yeah it's uh it's a communications thing because he was talking to uh people over the he's talking to sonlin on the phone as he was trying to uh commit bribery so it just feels like it's a an old timey crime right yeah it's a throwback it's a good throwback like it also it you know it evokes words like racketeering very well he you know he and he is very mafia so yes he is so as a few last undecided members make up their mind about this vote polling from cbs and fox news over the weekend showed slight increases in support for impeachment from last month cbs found that 46 percent of respondents believe that trump deserves to be impeached compared to 43 percent in november

and fox fox news found that 54 percent now believe he deserves to be impeached, with 41% opposed. Let's start there. What was your take on these numbers? And did you see any other interesting stats or numbers that stuck out at you guys in all the polling that came out this weekend? I think there were a few more this morning as well. You know, there has been a slight uptick, but the point I made, I think, about the polling last week or the week before, I think, were a few more this morning as well. You know, no, there has been a slight uptick.

But the point I made, I think, about the polling last week or the week before, I think, remains true. If this if we had come to a place where 54 percent of the country favored impeaching Donald Trump over the course of many months of this unfolding, it would, I think, be a shock to the system. I mean, these are the kinds of numbers that Nixon had toward the very end, before he was forced to leave office. That Fox number was almost exactly the same as the number that Gallup found for Nixon on the eve of his resignation, right before the tapes came out. Yeah. And, you know, regardless of what it ultimately means for the Senate trial, it is worth remembering that Donald Trump is still, despite the attempts of the right wing media to say, oh, he is basically kind of beyond reproach.

He's a deeply unpopular, divisive president. He is definitely within reproach. He is. He is reproachable. The reproachables. And, you know, his approval rating has has been just glued to 41, 42 percent for such a long time, in part because the of the kind of fundamentals around the economy being ones that would traditionally mean a president was favored for reelection. But due to his, let's call him peccadillos, he is very weak. Yeah. And look, I think the most important thing to remember is we're playing a long game that's about educating voters in advance of the 2020 election. And from that perspective, I think impeachment has been successful. A lot of people know about what happened in Ukraine.

We got a lot of information that we would not otherwise have been able to get because of impeachment. And so I think that's a success. I don't think any of us ever thought he was going to be impeached and removed. And I also think that, look, if you're going to poll people on whether you should impeach and remove a president, it does sound drastic. So I'm not surprised that there's a bit of a delta between people who support impeachment and removal. But the other thing that I think is just a reminder that we need to always think about what's achievable because convincing Trump's hardcore Fox News only watching base, it's impossible. It just is. We're past the point of no return. They lie for him. They spin for him. When the IG report came out about the FISA application on Carter Page, they literally just made shit up and parroted Trump's spin. So we're never going to get to those people. So look, I mean, there's a lot of debate right now about whether this is smart politically, whether it's dumb politically, is this going to hurt

Democrats? Is it going to help Democrats? At the risk of being in the prediction business, my guess is it's going to feel like ancient history by the time we get there. But now, feel like ancient history by the time we get there. But now, whoever runs against Donald Trump has a whole bunch of evidence, video testimony to use against them as we prosecute that case in an election. Yeah, I mean, Dan spoke about this a little bit on Thursday. But I think, you know, something that's been sort of undercovered here is Donald Trump and his campaign team and the Republican Party wanted to use this time to start making the case for his reelection, right? And last week, you know, they were running around saying, oh, it was one of the best weeks of his presidency because he got the trade deal and

the China deal and all this kind of stuff. None of that was really covered because of impeachment. Impeachment has sort of taken over the news cycle and he's losing time to make a case. And like you said, Tom, he needs to make a case for his re-election because his approval rating is higher in some of these battleground states that he needs. But his campaign team isn't happy where he is right now. He definitely could win this election, but he's not in a strong position right now. And impeachment is causing him to lose time on this, and he's going to continue to lose that time through January. I also thought that it was interesting in the Fox poll, a new high of 45%

of independents favor impeachment up from 38 in late October. I mean, some of these numbers, 53% believe he abused the power of his office, 48% think he obstructed Congress, 45% of voters say he committed bribery in a Fox News poll. president states 45 believe he committed bribery that's a lot and no one believes his spin that he was doing this because he cares deeply about corruption in ukraine right and like look you we know he's not happy about this because donald trump tweeted that fox news polls are always inaccurate and are heavily weighted towards dems so ridiculous yeah i mean he's having a little temper tantrum here. And even if you don't,

even if you don't think it's impeachable, which like, you know, like you said, Tommy, you can see some people saying, okay, well, it's bad what he did, but there's the election coming up. 60 to 24% voters say it's wrong for Trump to ask leaders of foreign countries to investigate political rivals.

So that there is no, no one's buying this Republican defense. Right. It's not only do they think it's wrong, they also recognize that it's not normal, that it's not something presidents traditionally do. The other just it's sort of taken for granted that, OK, 85 percent of Democrats support it, 85 percent of Republicans oppose it. And then, you know, the battle takes place amongst independents. And John just ran through the numbers. I will say 85 percent of Republicans is not as consolidated as it could be for Donald

Trump. It just isn't. A different Republican president, different circumstances, you could see that number being much higher. So the lack of full consolidation amongst Republicans is, I think, still a little interesting. Do you guys think the media narrative reflects where the polling is? There was another New York Times analysis piece over the weekend that literally used the phrase both sides four different times in the piece. I have run out of whatever, whatever, whatever super soaker filled with rage I have for the New York Times political desk and their complete failure to appreciate the magnitude of this moment and their role in it. And the kind of even as the editorial board,

by the way, has a great editorial calling for Trump's impeachment. And there's such a kind of luxury. They're operating with a comfort that this kind of coverage is fine and sustainable and kind of the normal course of business as if we're not in an emergency, as if they will be rewarded for the largesse they've shown these Republicans in some future confrontation, as if there's any hope that they'll be able to prove to the Fox News viewers and to the Republicans in Congress that they are fair arbiters of politics, if they were to be more honest in some future story. I just... Yeah, I mean, you know, look, there's just been weeks and weeks of credulous reporting about Republican complaints about the Democratic process. And then Mitch McConnell goes on TV this weekend. He's like, yep, conspiring with Trump to make sure this thing is rigged. And Lindsey Graham's out there saying, I don't care. I'm not going to be impartial. I'm voting against it. I mean, I'm just I'm very frustrated and done with

the reporting where there's a Republican quote and a Democratic quote side by side and no effort to adjudicate the factual nature of those two quotes. It's deeply it's also. And by the way, this is this has been true lately for a lot of reporting on Trump, especially on trade like USMCA, the new NAFTA. As of this morning, there's a huge monkey wrench in the thing because the Mexicans don't support this provision that would allow U.S. inspectors to go into Mexican plants, right? So that's not a done deal yet. Trump manufactured a crisis with the Chinese, right? There are all these underlying trade issues with China. Trump threw a bunch of tariffs at it, created a crisis, alleviated a portion of that crisis, and that's getting reported as a win. I mean, he's able to get the press to play into these narratives time and time again, despite the fact that the guy's got nothing done. There is zero reason for any reporter to write the sentence, Democrats and

Republicans can't agree on the same set of facts. You are in the business of telling us what the facts are. That actually is your job right so tell us who both both sides can't agree on the side of facts that's technically true now tell us what the facts are well i would even go and tell us what and it's not it's not impossible like look the washington post i think has been doing a fantastic job in their reporting in their news analysis it's not news analysis that is slanted towards democrats i don't read them and think oh this is this is really good for us but they sort of get that the main story of impeachment is the Republican Party's decision to either act as an accomplice for Donald Trump or to finally stand up for him and to stand

up to him. That's really the story of this impeachment. There's no other story here. It's also not about whether or not Democrats and Republicans can agree to a set of facts. It's whether Democrats and Republicans will say out loud that can agree to a set of facts. It's whether Democrats and Republicans will say out loud that they agree to a set of facts, right? There's no, even we've started to see from in the Senate trial that some Republicans are floating that actually what you're going to see is a lot of agreement about the facts and just a disagreement about the gravity of what's at stake, i think that there's there are more uh republican adults in the senate which isn't hard to isn't hard to beat the uh the number of adults in the republican house chamber which is uh zero

yeah anyway well let's talk about the senate trial uh tommy started talking about this um you know mitch mcconnell the senate's supposed to be the jury so of course the jury foreman mitch mcconnell has been has just announced that he's been conspiring with the defendant and his defense team. Everything I do during this, I'm coordinating with the White House counsel. There will be no difference between the president's position and our position as how to handle this. That's Mitch McConnell speaking about the rules of the trial. And then of course, Lindsey Graham went even further, quote, I'm trying to give a pretty clear signal i have made up my mind i'm not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here this is like if that uh that demi moore movie the juror was two minutes and 30 seconds long the other the

other great quote from him is the best thing we can do is deep six this thing oh okay got it so he so i think mcconnell and especially McConnell and especially Lindsey Graham screwed up a bit here because in response to all this, Chuck Schumer sends a letter to McConnell on Sunday night saying he expects a fair trial with the ability to call witnesses like Mick Mulvaney and John Bolton and get documents from the White House and ask for the same trial rules that Mitch McConnell already voted for during the Clinton impeachment. What did you guys think of the Schumer move here? I think it's really smart. I mean, look, I am not surprised by McConnell or Graham's sentiment.

I am surprised that they said it out loud. And what it says to me is that Mitch and Lindsey Graham would rather get praise from Fox News and get donations from MAGA people than give a shit about even a seeming fair. So I do think from that perspective, like there, there's probably a political goal here for them. I do think they just, you know, muddied up the thing in a big way. I want Democrats to pivot to a coverup message in a big way soon. I mean, I'm glad that Schumer put forward this gambit to get real testimony from Mulvaney and

Bolton, uh, and some of the other folks who actually worked in the White House, who spoke to Trump, who understand his mindset, who could undercut all these hearsay arguments that keep complaining about. And I think we need to put pressure on Trump and McConnell to put those witnesses forward. But we also need to put pressure on senators like Cory Gardner and Susan Collins to agree to a process that would allow those people to be subpoenaed by the Senate process. Yeah. So here's where I think McConnell sort of slipped up by saying this out loud on Fox. He has 53 Senate Republicans in his caucus, right? He has a lot of power to shape the rules in this trial. But to do that, every decision Mitch McConnell makes, he needs 51 votes,

which means that basically to have a fair trial, Democrats need four votes, four Republican votes to have a fair trial. And so Mitch McConnell really can't lose that many Republicans. And, you know, so Schumer goes and demands this fair trial, demands witnesses, all this kind of stuff. And McConnell's response to Schumer is, you know, as as was scheduled previously, we're going to talk about this. If McConnell had the votes to do whatever he wanted for that trial, McConnell would have told Schumer to fuck off. He does not have the votes, which is why he's in a bit of a pickle right now, because Susan Collins, like the people you just named, Tommy, Susan Collins and Tom Tillis and Martha McSally and Cory Gardner, who are up in 2020, and then you have people like

Murkowski and Romney who've made some noise in this too, they have to decide, right? Like, it's one thing to say, we heard all the evidence, we heard all the witnesses, and we just don't think this rises to the level of an impeachable fence, right? Which they might end up doing. It's another to say, we helped Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell rig the trial. We decided there would be no witnesses, no testimony, no nothing. And we're going to sweep the whole thing under the rug. That's a hard that's a harder thing for someone who's up in a purple state like Susan Collins or or Cory Gardner to do. It's interesting. I mean, Lindsey Graham has been kind of off the rails for a while.

Conalding was strange in that usually he kind of recognizes the need to pretend that there's a kind of distance between him and the White House. And part of me wondered watching what he was doing is, is this a kind of an opening gambit he screwed up because there are negotiations going on? Right. Is it is it that his actual intention is to get a vote in which there are literally no witnesses in the Senate? Quote, trial and quote, which wouldn't be a trial, be opening closing statements. That's all it would be. And or is it an understanding that he went out there to say my opening position is no witnesses. Schumer's position is many witnesses, although Schumer proposed, I think he's doing it in a very smart way because he's he's not he's talking about a a, you know, a limited trial, a trial where witnesses aren't allowed to be witnesses are called for no more than eight hours. It is a it is very clearly that they are both trying to figure out how how much they can get out of those three or four Republicans.

Or maybe Mitch just knows that he can respond with a letter of his own. And the headline will be dueling letters sent. Not sure what they say besides hello to a new era of partisan rancor yeah both sides to fucking death i do think i think i think it puts it puts these senators uh that are up in in a tougher spot and i think they have to decide because look greg sargent made this point of the washington post i thought was smart in um the white house when it was in the house said we're not letting anyone testify or sending over any documents documents because this whole thing is illegitimate right mitch mcconnell can't take the position that the his own trial is

illegitimate you can't do that so what's mitch mcconnell's excuse going to be on why they shouldn't have any documents or evidence or witnesses for trial what's his actual excuse but i mean can he just say the inquiry is illegitimate? Thus, we're moving forward as fast as possible. I think that Mitch is the most cynical motherfucker on the planet and he'll say whatever he has to say to get through this. He will, but I think, I don't know that Mitt Romney or Susan Collins or Cory Gardner can stand saying

the whole thing is illegitimate. I think they can say it didn't rise to a level, but I think it's hard for them to say no witnesses should be called. We'll find out. I know, I mean, just Susan Collins has a long history of taking totally irrational, illogical positions and getting away with it. Yeah. Well, then she's free to do that. And then it will look even worse to her. I mean, we've had a whole bunch of stories now about how this is all a tough vote for the moderate Democrats.

Time to have a bunch of stories about how this is tough for people like Cory Gardner and Susan Collins. I'm also curious what Mitt Romney says in the next couple of days, because one of the roles he played early on, although no one really followed him, was to signal what a serious, not anti-Trump, but whatever, middle of the road between Trump and anti-Trump position could sound like to give some space for people to follow him to a compromise vote. Yeah. The problem with that, though, is in those early days, I mean, even like one of the morons on Fox and Friends was saying, boy, if he traded military aid for dirt on Biden, that would be real bad. And then they learned the facts. He has every right to pretend we didn't say that. So, yeah, I mean, I think the key point, though, is, hey, major publications, send your beat reporters to Colorado and Maine and start talking to voters. We should also briefly talk about Representative Jeff Van Drew, who told staff that he's switching parties and becoming a republican uh van drew is one of only two house democrats who opposed the impeachment

inquiry and he reportedly had internal polling showing him potentially losing his next democratic primary because of his anti-impeachment stance cool guy huh i i do i do yes i mean he's very cynical completely cynical decision obviously shameful there is a very funny thing that happens, though, whenever someone switches parties, which is, you know, three days earlier, they're like, you know, we're waiting for him to make his decision and we hope he does the right thing. And then two days later, he switches like that motherfucker. I hated him from a goddamn jump. I think Van Drew.

Although people have hated him. No, I know. I know. But it's just anyway. I've never thought of Jeff Van Drew before this weekend. I'll never think of him after today. I mean, the idea that you could vote with Trump only 9% of the time and then switch to his side and go to a meeting with him in the Oval Office about protecting him from impeachment in this era. It's just like it shows that you you you only care about having the job.

You don't give a shit about anything you're supposed to do when you get there. I don't even think it's that shrewd of a political move right like you said the guy only votes with trump seven percent of the time there's a bunch of other republicans in this primary would you rather someone who's really like trump or someone who just pretended to be like trump so he could avoid a tough primary if you're a republican voter on the other side like what does this say about impeachment? It should have been safe for Jeff and drew to come out against impeachment in a district that voted for Trump by five points. It is clearly not because he looked at polling saying that democratic voters

would punish him for this stance, right? Like, and that, that should, that should actually buck up a lot of other Democrats who are voting for impeachment in tough districts. And by the way, last month he vowed to remain a Democrat. I mean, as of last month, he was publicly saying that he wouldn't do this. It is true. You just step back for one second, like, okay, I guess you really need this job. Right. You need it so bad. So bad.

So bad. Not clear you'll be able to keep it regardless but my god to look at the world and say this is what i want my footnote to be this is i'm going to be a footnote and this is the footnote i want to be the guy that switched parties to protect donald trump from a clearly justified impeachment it is a very what a pretty pretty dark and embarrassing decision. Uh, so finally, before we move on to 2020, uh, house Democrats have to decide which members they'll appoint as impeachment managers who essentially act as prosecutors, uh, who present the case against Trump during the trial on Sunday, the Washington post reported that 30 freshmen Democrats are trying to convince Nancy Pelosi to appoint Justin Amash. The only former Republican member of the House who's come out in favor of impeachment, is one of their impeachment

managers. One of those Democrats, Dean Phillips from Minnesota, said that Amash is willing to consider the final decision is Nancy Pelosi's. What did you guys think? I'm in. Honestly, look, there have been some people like, oh, why are you bothering to pretend, you know, no matter what you do, oh, you put a very conservative former Republican. It won't affect what the Republicans in the Congress do. I don't really care about that. I think it does send an important message about the fact that. And that's the point of this whole thing, to send a message.

It sends an important message. The other thing, too, is Amash is smart. Yeah. And he asks smart questions. And some of his critiques he's had of what hasn't been asked during the Judiciary Committee hearings, I think, were also very smart points. So I think it's a good idea. Yeah, it's certainly good messaging. It would be great to have it be a bipartisan prosecution team.

Ultimately, I just want someone to perform well. Like, I want an Adam Schiff up there that is incredibly competent, knows the rules concise, like drills down on the point. Schiff and Amash. Let's get them both. Nancy's five. Yeah, it'd be interesting. I mean, you know, I just, I don't know enough about him

to know how he would conduct himself. I mean, that doesn't mean I think poorly of him in any way. I just like don't know if there are party lines he'd be asked to tow that he wouldn't be okay with that would maybe undercut impeachment.

But certainly it would be, you know, it's a good message. And also the bipartisan, the case against Trump is bipartisan. They just threw a mosh out of the fucking Republican party, right? It doesn't make it, doesn't change the fact that he believes the president should be impeached and removed. We just talked about the media stuck in their both sides narrative. And, you know, you can complain about the game, which we do, or you can

play the game, which this would be. Yeah, exactly. This is, you know, the media that is obsessed with both sides of everything. If they see a House impeachment manager team that is Democrats and a former Republican together making the case against Donald Trump, we'll give Democrats credit for that. I also know that's going to happen. I also do think, too, as we think about like the messaging around the trial itself, especially given what we've been talking about, sort of how how easy it is to kind of get this partisan critique into the into the political bloodstream. I think it's also fair to say Democrats in the Senate do not want a partisan impeachment trial. No, they want a they want a bipartisan impeachment trial. And, you know, this is something that the Republicans in the House

have known is a very useful cudgel. As long as none of them participate in the process, it is partisan. And as long as there is a partisan process, they can claim they won't participate in it. And that no matter the fact that they got to call witnesses, no matter the fact, as John, as you pointed out many times, that the most damning witnesses are people that have worked for or continue to be part of the Trump administration, no matter what they have been able to say, oh, this is a partisan impeachment, it has led to the headlines saying that this is all a bunch of partisan rancor. We should be just adopt that. Do not give it just because they claim the House portion of this was partisan does not mean we have to give up. This is very important. And I

think fair talking point to say we do not want a partisan impeachment trial. But just one note. So over the weekend, The Times, one of their stories wrote a small number of their conservative leaning members are deeply uncomfortable with the idea of taking part in a Democrat only impeachment vote and are spending the weekend torn over how to proceed that's factually false justin amash is an independent so it's not democrat only already he's really a republican he just got tossed out of the party so it's like come on guys you know well that's another reason too because we we may lose a few democrats we're gonna lose final vote absolutely and then if we lose a couple democrats but then amash is one of the impeachment managers that will highlight that there was a republican

who was for this and he's now going to play a starring role in the trial and even if he doesn't we don't get to pretend that he was not a republican he's in the freedom caucus he's a right winger he was one of he's a class he was voting no because nothing was conservative enough for him for so long. Yeah, I just. That's one just another thing, too. It's just like Donald Trump as a litmus test on human beings has been, you know, just if you imagine. Imagine us talking about Justin Amash before Donald Trump became president, sitting here thinking whether Nancy Pelosi should appoint him to such an important position would never have been considered. But but, you know, Trump reveals all.

So let's talk about 2020. The last Democratic presidential debate of 2019 is scheduled to take place right here in Los Angeles on Thursday night. I say scheduled to because the candidates have all threatened to skip it in order to stand in solidarity with workers at Loyola Marymount University who are in a labor dispute with a food services company used by the college. So I guess we'll see what happens there. I don't know. Maybe they'll reschedule, relocate, hopefully solve the labor dispute in favor of the workers.

I was looking at this last night preparing for the pod, and I thought by this morning we would have a resolution and we do not. So it's confusing, right? Because the labor dispute is between this food service company and then workers from, I think, like Unite here, one of the locals. Loyola Marymount, I don't think actually is a party to the dispute. So they're now they're just trying to help solve it. Their hands are kind of tied with Tom Perez. Again, we move this.

We move this debate from UCLA to Loyola Marymount to avoid another labor dispute. This feels like a rake to the face here for the Democratic Party. Do you guys think we could just put a few more chairs around this table and just get them here? Well, it depends on if the Booker letter goes through or not. Well, that's next. How about that segue? So another issue with the debate. Over the weekend, candidates signed onto a letter circulated by Cory Booker calling on the DNC to loosen the qualification rules for debates in January and February, allowing candidates to participate who hit either the polling threshold or the fundraising threshold, but not both, as is currently the case.

both their viability and their commitment to the Democratic Party are being prematurely cut out of the nominating contest before many voters have even tuned in, much less made their decision about whom to support. In response, Tom Perez and the DNC said no. Quote, the DNC will not change the threshold for any one candidate and will not revert back to two consecutive nights with more than a dozen candidates. Our qualification criteria is extremely low

and reflects where we are in the race. What do you guys think about this one? It's a sticky wicket. There's no doubt about it. Okay, bold stance. No, it is. It is because I'll tell you, you know, the point that Cory Booker made

that I think is incredibly valid is candidates are being shut out of the debates before a lot of voters have tuned in. That is certainly true. One poll, I'm not sure which of the polls that came out this weekend, found that even now only, I believe, 24% of Democratic primary voters have made up their mind.

That's a huge percentage of Democrats who still are kind of trying to take a look at the field. I'm very sympathetic to that. At the same time, the point that Tom Perez and the DNC has made is very good as well, which is the thresholds are pretty low because keep in mind for Cory Booker, he has made the donor threshold. So what he is entirely focused on is the fact that he cannot reach the polling threshold. And that is after basically a year of campaigning. So I am

torn about it. Because I also agree, by the way, we don't want two nights with so many candidates. It makes it incredibly hard to have a focused conversation to really adjudicate some of the frontrunners who at this point are more likely to be the nominee than some of the candidates who are performing lower. So hence, sticky wicket. Yeah, I agree with my colleague, Benedict Cumberbatch. This is indeed a sticky wicket. And I wouldn't want to bowl this one. No, you're right. I didn't know it was a cricket thing.

I don't know if it is at all. I'm just being shut up i like cory booker a lot i like his team i'm really sympathetic to their their plight here because i mean they keep getting polls keep coming back that don't count in terms of the list of polls that qualify that would have gotten him into the debates right these the These polling firms keep polling states like Michigan and Corey hits the 4% threshold, but not early states that would have qualified. So like, it just sucks for them. I feel very frustrated on their behalf. That said, I don't know that you can change the rules at this point, because as much as you like Booker, as many people have been mad about the size of the debates as who has been in them. And so where do you draw the line? Does that mean that Booker, Castro, Tulsi, Bloomberg, maybe

Marianne Williamson would all be in? I mean, how willing are we to open up this process at this point in the game when it's supposed to be shrinking? I hope Cory Booker makes it. I'd love to see him on the stage. I think he's a, you know, a valuable voice in the party. But Tom Perez is a tough job here. Yeah, I think the best argument on the Booker side is that all the other candidates who've made the December debate signed on to the letter. So it's not just, it wouldn't just be changing the rules for one candidate. I mean, because, you know, the other candidates have agreed to it. But they all felt forced.

And they're all backgrounding these outlets saying a prisoner's dilemma well see that's what that's what i was gonna say god i hope no one listens to this fucking letter i signed i think it's tough because i think all of the candidates knew the rules knew the thresholds at the beginning and all signed on to it and it is hard to change in in midstream i think um and you know i'm sure from tom presnett dnc's perspective they're like imagine going back to you know two nights two different debates every night as we're trying as so many people like you said love it are still undecided and they're trying to make up their minds and now we're saying to people all right there's gonna be more people on stage again we're gonna get bigger i think that's tough i mean I hate to say this because I think when initially they announced that

they were going to do polling and fundraising thresholds, so they didn't have two nights, one regular debate, one undercard debate. I thought it was a good idea. Thinking back to it, maybe the undercard wouldn't have been so bad. I don't know. I hate to say, I mean, this is, this is what people do who don't have to actually make the decisions. But so I feel for the DNC and I feel for the candidates here, but it's tough. Yeah. And sort of the other thing that I think would probably be unfair about changing the rules now is, you know, because of this donor threshold, you had a whole bunch of candidates and campaigns

readjusting their spending priorities to get more donors, right? And not doing things like voter contact or running TV ads or all these other strategic choices. So you might really piss off a lot of people who would have run a different race if these rules had been changed at the time. And look, I think that if you're going to really get mad about these rules, unless you're one of the people actually debating, you have to come up with an alternative that's better because it's not fair to just kick the shit out of Tom Perez, who's an incredibly good guy, who's like as

progressive as they come who's a labor leader himself who said he wouldn't cross the picket line to go to this you know event at loyal and marymount just harkening back to our previous conversation so it's it's tough also like there's been a lot of critique uh rightfully so of billionaires like tom steyer and mich Bloomberg. Well, not Bloomberg because he's not gotten on the debate stage, but Tom Steyer essentially buying his way into the debate stage. I think that criticism is fair. But there's other candidates who are on that debate stage who didn't have a ton of advantages who've made it this far. Andrew Yang. Andrew Yang made it to the debate stage. He didn't have a big name or a big email list or a lot of money when he started

off. He just made it there. Amy Klobuchar is still there. There's a lot of people who, there's still people who made the debate. Kamala Harris made the debate stage. She just dropped out because she didn't have money to continue the campaign. So there are people who got to the debate stage the way that the rules told them to get there. Yeah. And it's also, I'm sympathetic to the Booker argument, but then I also think, well, this is someone who's been on the debate stage for every debate we've had up until this moment, and it isn't catching in the polling. Now, I don't know what a better standard is to demonstrate who's a serious candidate who deserves to be on that stage that wouldn't be immediately pilloried as being subjective. But if the purpose of being on the debates is not just for the debate itself, but to kind of propel your candidacy forward, the fact

remains that up until this point, the debates have not done this for Cory Booker, even though he's had some really strong debates. One other point about this too, which is about how, you know, what's the alternative. There are problems with an objective set of rules like this, where all candidates basically know in advance, these are the rules we have to meet. But one of the positive results is if it were to be subjective. I mean, we just went through a primary in 2016 where a lot of people walked away feeling as though Bernie Sanders was mistreated by that process, mistreated by the DNC. And whatever your views are on that fight, it was very important going into this primary that everybody understand that these were a fair set of rules applied equally to everybody. Yeah. I mean, look, the billionaire's point, yes, it sucks that you can buy your way into a debate, but our campaign finance system is a joke and a disaster. And that's the problem. That's because of the Supreme Court, not Tom Perez. So I just think there's a lot of frustration and rage in the primary process, especially when you feel like your personal

candidate is being mistreated. We just have to make sure we're focusing on the right people. And by the way, Cory Booker has got a hell of a team in Iowa. He's running hard there. Like he still has a chance. Yeah. Maybe the debates don't end up mattering. It's not over. So if this debate does happen, it'll be the smallest debate stage we've seen so far. It's just seven candidates participating. Biden, Bernie, Pete, Warren, Klobuchar, Yang, Steyer. Let's talk a little bit about strategy here. Biden has been the national frontrunner since the beginning, even though he is considerably weaker in Iowa and New Hampshire. Lately, he's benefited a bit from Pete and Warren focusing on each other. Do you guys think, does anyone try to draw a contrast with Biden in this debate, knowing that he's still probably the

candidate with the best chance to win? Slightly, I would say. Elizabeth Warren has been testing out some lines that target Pete and Biden. So I wouldn't be surprised if that's the tack she takes in the debate were it to happen. Hope it happens somewhere. So I wouldn't be surprised to see if she tries that. I think that if you're going to go after Biden, you have to make almost a purely electability argument. That is his strength. His strength is name ID and that people think he can beat Trump. And that is what a lot of voters in these early states who are paying attention more than the rest of the country are particularly seized with, especially in Iowa. So I think that if we get bogged down in another conversation about Medicare for all versus the public option or financing of it. I think it's a missed opportunity for all of these candidates. And, you know, if I were them, I would just want

to make the case that I'm the one who can win. But one exception to that probably is Bernie Sanders, who's just been doing his thing, running this campaign that in some ways seems to like feel parallel to what the others are doing and just slowly, steadily gaining traction. Well, he's another one who sort of benefited from the focus that Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren sort of have on each other. Someone noted that this is it's a similar dynamic potentially to what happened in 2004, which is as we get closer to the Iowa caucuses, Howard Dean was at the top of the heap. Dick Gephardt was right behind him. John Kerry, I was on the Kerry campaign. Tommy, you were on the Edwards campaign. We were way down towards the last. And because Gephardt

and Dean went after each other so furiously, as you know, Iowa voters don't really love when people attack each other too much. And it left an opening for Kerry to come right through. And Edwards did a lot better than expected as well. Now, I think that the Pete Warren exchanges have been pretty tame so far. The supporters are getting a little feisty, but I think the two candidates themselves have been pretty tame with each other. So we'll see. What do you guys think about sort of Elizabeth Warren's strategy

lately? She's she had a big speech last week. She was on sort of on top of the poll. She's fallen a little bit behind. She's trying to she's trying to come back now with a big speech. She took, you know, like you said, Lovett, she took a sort of oblique shots at both Pete and Biden for being naive about the challenges that Democrats will face from both Republicans and rich people once we're governing again. Yeah. And she also, I think, said Bloomberg by name, which is a funny decision. It's funny looking at the landscape. You can see why she sees no cost to saying Bloomberg's name, but does worry about seeming too antagonistic to some people that are polling better than her. It's interesting, I think, for two reasons. One, clearly, I think she's trying to reset after six weeks, two months of kind of health

care argument conversation that wasn't, I think, exactly where she wanted to be. There is something about calling them naive that I think must speak to her own liabilities that she's trying to address, right? That whether it's around Medicare for all or some of the big structural proposals, I think whether she's seeing it in polling or it's just a gut instinct about what's preventing her from kind of regaining the traction she had earlier is this idea that, oh, yeah, you know, let's not be naive. We just need somebody super safe, someone like a Joe Biden, right, to just get us over the finish line. And I think trying to say that he's naive about change as a way of addressing her own weaknesses while trying to project them onto

others. Yeah. I mean, look, you never want to lose half your support in a lot of polls, right? Obviously, that's objectively bad. But like if I were to be if I were to spin this for them, I do think that there's probably a concern that she got hot a little too early. And once you start leading in the early states, you become the target and you're getting shot at. And now she is absolutely not the target. You're seeing Mayor Pete take a lot of incoming fire from other candidates, from folks on Twitter, from whomever. And just more scrutiny. Yeah, just more scrutiny generally. That's exactly right. And so I think that ironically, Warren could be better positioned, but it will take a lot of work. Now,

like the good news for her is that she's been in Iowa for a long time. She's been organizing hard, like they have a really good team there. And if your threshold for success goes from winning the Iowa caucuses to a strong second or a strong third, like if the expectations get managed in that way, then you can come out okay. I also think she is currently trying to reframe the debate, right? She was pulled into the debate of is the Democratic Party moving too far to the left, the left versus the center, left, blah, blah, because of Medicare for all. now she's going around in this last week talking about i mean she put out her medicare for all plan and um she's talking more

about how she's offering people a choice to switch from their current insurance to a medicare for all option during the transition period in her plan and she's trying to reframe it from left center left versus center left to corruption versus anti-corruption which is where she's strong which is where she's always been the strongest. And she's trying to highlight, you know, other candidates' connections to wealthy donors, to fundraising. And she's trying to present herself as, I mean, I think the line in her speech was like, we want the most anti-corruption platform in history to take off, to take on the most corrupt president in history in the general, which in itself is an electability argument.

And she said, and to do that, I want to unite not just Democrats, but independents and Republicans too. So she's finally trying to build an electability argument based around taking on corruption in DC, which is where she's always been strong. And she also said, it's not about big government versus small government. It's about who does government work for? Yeah. Which I think is, uh, uh, the only thing that was striking about that line is if it came out of the mouths of people to judge or joe biden they would be ripped to pieces canceled but but it's interesting that like her strength she you know she yeah her strength is i think she has the confidence fairly of the left of the party maybe not some of the twitter left but the the larger left of the party that she can kind of

make that anti-corruption argument in a non-ideological way, which I do think is a strength. Yeah, Michael Barbaro did an interview with her that came out last week, maybe on Friday, that went back to the financial crisis and the appearance she did on Jon Stewart's show at the time when I think it was like a big coming out party for her where she was seen as someone who was able to explain an unbelievably scary, complicated issue in a clear, concise way and actually made people feel better. And hearing that conversation just reminded me of this core strength she's had and how little we've actually talked about that set of issues, fixing the financial system, reforming big banks, like reigning in Wall Street because of this health care debate that really is frankly not something that she was focused on for most of her career. Yeah. I will say, though, to Tommy's point about electability, one thing that was really striking in this Fox News poll was they looked at Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden versus Donald Trump in Wisconsin, and it found that there was basically a 15 point gap. Basically, if that the Joe Biden versus Donald Trump amongst women, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren perform the exact same way. Yeah.

That for women, they look at Joe Biden, they look at Elizabeth Warren and they see them as the same kind of choice versus Donald Trump. But for men, there was a 15 point delta. And as someone who greatly admires Elizabeth Warren, as somebody who admires the kind of the leadership she's brought to the Democratic Party, let alone this campaign, to me, the electability conversation in favor of Joe Biden is one that has a mirror, which is what do you do to address the concerns of people that might support someone like Elizabeth Warren, might believe in her platform and her, but do you have this gut worry whether or not you believe it's fair? In fact, because it is rooted in misogyny. How do you have this gut worry whether or not you believe it's fair? In fact, because it

is rooted in misogyny. How do you answer that question? What is your fact-based or evidence-based response to people who say, I want you to be my nominee, but I'm afraid that you can't win? Yeah. And that's what's, it's a gut punch looking at numbers like that. But I think that's what's it's a gut punch looking at numbers like that but i think that's partly why i think she's trying to reframe sort of the medicare for all stuff and the corruption stuff because at some at some level you say there's there's a lot of sexism and misogyny out there and i'm not going to be able to change that but i can go find voters elsewhere right and i can find and i can build coalitions out elsewhere and what i don't want it to be is pegged also with some far left candidate, you know, especially since like, you know, just saw another poll out this weekend. I think it was in the Fox poll.

It had different policies and still the most popular policy of all. They had the wall in there. They had Medicare for all. They had all the other stuff. Wealth tax, like 67 percent of people agree. So her anti-corruption policies are very popular among the broader electorate and she probably wants to pivot back to that i also think the good thing for her is that these electability questions are answered by winning a state for sure you know

what i mean it's just things that simple now there's a lot of structural disadvantages that make it harder to get there but when brock obama won iowa it told a whole bunch of people in south carolina in particular the african the African American community that white people would vote for him. And then he could be a strong general election candidate and win the presidency. And it helped us take off. Okay. Well, so if the debate happens, then Dan will be here and we will, all four of us will do a post debate podcast on Friday morning The debate is supposed to be Thursday night. The debate doesn't happen. Stay tuned. We'll figure something else out And I would also just say I really

Like find a place without an audience find a place get this fucking debate to happen. Yeah It is LA they could find a studio somewhere find a studio find someplace to do it. I don't need the crowd I do think like this would be one of the first debates that could have a real conversation to it, despite whatever criticism we've already discussed. And like, I just want this debate to happen, especially because not only has impeachment taken the microphone away from Donald Trump and his best week ever. It's also, I think, taking the microphone away from these Democrats. So I just I really hope it happens. No, I thought the same thing. We talk about impeachment

all the time here, but I want to hear some Democratic debate. You know, we're going to be voting soon. All right. We'll talk to you later. Bye, guys.

Bye. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Somanator, and Katie Long for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmel Coney, and Yael Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as a video every week.