Pod Save America - “A prison of political caution.”

Episode Date: July 11, 2019

The Affordable Care Act is in legal jeopardy, House Democrats argue over how to handle the latest Trump scandals, Tom Steyer runs for president, and our new PollerCoaster results show a 5-way tie for first. Then Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib joins to talk about Nancy Pelosi, impeachment, and the humanitarian crisis at our border.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Later in the pod, I chat with Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib about all kinds of stuff in the news. Before that, we've got a lot of news to get through from the lawsuit that might undo the Affordable Care Act, to the latest Trump scandals, to some brand new polling we're releasing today about the 2020 primary. A few programming notes. A few programming notes. We'll be releasing a bonus episode of Pod Save America on Friday featuring our interview with World Cup champion Megan Rapinoe, who will be dropping by Crooked HQ later today. The entire staff is very excited, Dan.

That's awesome. That is very cool and I'm very jealous. Also on the latest episode of Pod Save the World, Tommy and Ben talk about Trump's Twitter fight with the British ambassador to the U.S. as well as big updates out of Iran, North Korea. And make sure to check out our new Crooked Minis series called Reclaiming Patriotism hosted by former Navy pilot and congressional candidate Ken Harbaugh featuring interviews with people like Pete Buttigieg, Tammy Duckworth, and Barbara Lee. It's an excellent series. Go check it out. Finally, we will be in Denver on July 17th and in Salt Lake City on July 18th. That's next week. The shows will be co-hosted by Hysteria's Aaron Ryan. So make sure to come see us live. Get

tickets at crooked.com slash events. There are still some available. All right, let's get to the news. Donald Trump and Republicans moved one step closer towards their longtime goal of destroying the Affordable Care Act this week, when two out of three judges on a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel seemed amenable to the argument made by Republican plaintiffs that the entire law is unconstitutional now that the individual mandate has been eliminated by Congress. Dan, obviously the Affordable Care Act has had some close calls before. How did this particular legal challenge come about? How did we get to this place? How did we get to this place?

So late last year, a very conservative judge in Texas struck down the law. And the argument behind it was that the individual mandate was unconstitutional. Now, in 2012, the Supreme Court held that the individual mandate was constitutional, but they did so by saying that the government could require people to have health insurance because they had the power to tax. In the Republican tax bill of 2017, they struck down the individual mandate. Thank you, Susan Collins. And so this judge said, since the Congress was no longer taxing, that they didn't have the power to do this. And then the judge said, because the individual mandate was unconstitutional, the entire law was.

So the law stayed in place as this argument was happening. It went to the Fifth Circuit, I believe. They had this argument where they're going to test two questions. One, whether the individual mandate is unconstitutional if the government is not taxing. And two, this idea of severability where could you remove the individual mandate and keep the rest of the law?

And so those are the two fundamental questions are, is the individual mandate constitutional? And if it is not, is it quote unquote severable from the law? And you got all of that because I took three constitutional law classes at Georgetown. I was going to say, you know, I'm no legal expert, legal scholar. I'm not a lawyer. But there's two pretty common sense answers to the questions at the heart of this case that you just raised. One, is the individual mandate still constitutional? Well, it was like you said, it was held as constitutional because it's a tax and congress has the power to tax all congress did in the 2017 bill was take the tax from whatever it was down to

zero so now there's just zero dollars of fine if you uh if you go without health insurance so i don't know how that changes the constitutionality of it. And the second question, can the law survive without the individual mandate in place? Well, we've had two years since they brought the fine down to zero and the law has survived. And so I don't understand this legal argument. And we should point out, by the way, that it's not just a bunch of like liberals and Democrats who are arguing that this challenge, this particular legal challenge is absurd. There are some very conservative legal scholars, most notably this guy named Jonathan Adler, who is a law professor at Case Western, who had previously filed briefs against the Affordable Care Act when it was being challenged legally and it appeared before the Supreme Court. And now he's saying this legal challenge from conservatives is, quote, absurd. So legal scholars from across the political spectrum think this challenge is absurd. And yet

they found this judge in Texas who decided to uphold, you know, decided to side with the plaintiffs. And now two out of three judges on this circuit court panel, one was appointed by George W. Bush, one was appointed by Trump. And they both at least, you know, during the argument, they seemed like they might be amenable to the plaintiff's case. So how scared should we be here? We should always be scared. Absolutely. I mean, there are reasons to not panic, and we can talk about those.

But I found this very worrisome because the arguments flew in the face of reality. I mean, I say the arguments. The arguments from the people who want to get rid of the ACA, yes, that was absurd, as it was meant to be. But the questions that the judges asked, like Judge Elrod, who is, I believe, the Bush appointee on the panel, basically said, Congress didn't make it clear that they wanted to preserve the law when they got rid of the individual mandate, except there are two problems with that. Congress had voted against repealing the law about less than a year before, or about a year before they voted to get rid of the individual mandate. And the swing votes on that, on the individual mandate

provision have said that they support the law. So there is both, there is actions that happened beforehand and comments afterwards, which should both make it pretty fucking obvious what Congress was trying to do here. And so that part to me is very worrisome. It's seen from the questioning, right? And there are lots of caveats here, but it's seen from the question that the judges were looking for a pretext to overturn the law and send it to the Supreme Court. Yeah, I mean, what you were just talking about is that the judges are basically trying to divine congressional intent here. So did Congress intend to get rid of the whole law when they repealed the individual mandate? when they repealed the individual mandate.

And one of the judges, Judge Elrod, actually said, don't you think that maybe when Congress repealed the individual mandate, that they said, aha, this is the silver bullet that will destroy Obamacare? But like you said, the big problem is they had an opportunity to destroy the whole law. They voted it down. They didn't have the votes to destroy the whole law. They don't want to. So just it's it's absurd it is completely absurd so what are the reasons for optimism here if um let's say what we think

will happen happens and the fifth circuit uh basically sides with the judge in texas on holding the whole law unconstitutional what happens happens next? Well, the reasons for, I don't even want to say optimism because optimism just feels like the wrong thing to offer people, but is into, and I say that because there are, this is not, I have optimism when the public can do something to affect the outcome. Right. When you have a bunch of federal society, the outcome. When you have a bunch of federal society born and bred judges in this circuit and the Supreme Court making decisions that are in line with the Republican Party policy and the wishes of the Republican donor class, then I am cynical. When the public has a chance to weigh in, then I am optimistic. And in this case, there are reasons for it here. But the reasons, just to provide some context for this, is in 2012, when the Affordable Care Act had its Supreme Court hearing, the hearing went so poorly that everyone presumed the law was dead.

It was just seen to be a disaster for the Obama administration, and the law was preserved. for the Obama administration, and the law was preserved. The other reason is that despite all the changes that have happened in the Supreme Court, the jamming through of people like Brett Kavanaugh, the stealing of the Merrick Garland seat, the five justices that ruled to preserve the Affordable Care Act in 2012 and 2015 are still on the court. Right. So we will see what happens here. I mean, the Fifth Circuit has to rule, and then if they happen to rule against the judge in Texas and against the plaintiffs, then the Supreme Court will probably never hear it and the whole thing will be done. But if they do agree, then, yeah, then we'll have another, probably the third legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act to reach the Supreme Court. And this will also likely be in the middle of the 2020 election.

This will also likely be in the middle of the 2020 election. So obviously there are tremendous political implications, as well as the sort of horrifying consequences for Americans if this law is repealed. In terms of the political implications, let's start with the primary. Most of the debate thus far has been about whether or not to move to a single payer system. How, if at all, does the debate change now that the Affordable Care Act is in jeopardy? I think this is going to go two ways. Beach in South Carolina last weekend, is essentially trying to rerun the play that Hillary Clinton ran in 2016, which is to take on the advocates for Medicare for All or a single-payer system by making himself the defender of the Affordable Care Act, right? That it is Affordable Care Act versus Medicare for All.

And if the Affordable Care Act is not around, that makes that a harder challenge. I think the big question for Democrats will be, does the argument shift towards preserving the Affordable Care Act? The Affordable Care Act has almost been an afterthought in the healthcare conversations in this primary. It's all been about what comes next and not so much about what is here now not so much about what is here now and how we protect it. And I wonder whether it's going to, for some portion of the primary, of our very large primary field, we will start having more of a conversation about what is good about the Affordable Care Act as opposed to what is missing and what needs to be added onto

it or changed or scrapped to have a better, more affordable, more accessible universal healthcare system in this country? Yeah. I mean, it's probably useful to think about this in terms of we all want guaranteed universal coverage. We all want affordable and quality coverage. And where does the Affordable Care Act fall short on those goals? And then how can we reach those goals? And that could mean, you know, covering the people who still aren't covered, making sure that deductibles and co-pays and out-of-pocket expenses aren't as high as they still are for a lot of people. And I think the question is, can you achieve those

goals by adding a public option or improving the Affordable Care Act in other ways? Or is the only way to achieve those goals to finally move to a single payer system, which would look very different than what we have right now, even with the Affordable Care Act? Act. And I do think like Biden's people have at least hinted in recent weeks that this is where they want to take the health care debate. One Biden aide told Politico, we're headed for a health care conversation in this party. I think he'll be talking about it more in the coming days. And then Biden himself in Charleston on Sunday said, quote, on health care, we strongly disagree. I don't want to do away with Obamacare, start all over and trash it. What do you think about that argument? I don't love it for a whole host of reasons. I think there's a legitimate policy discussion

about whether you take the Affordable Care Act and you build onto it with a Medicare buy-in or a public option or something else, as opposed to over a transition period, scrapping the entire system and building a new one that is single-payer based like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and others have advocated for. I think that is a legitimate policy debate. What I find uncomfortable about the Biden approach, which I think was also endemic to the Clinton approach in 2016, is it turns this into a proxy conversation about your love for Barack Obama, right? Are you going to stand with Barack Obama and be for the ACA? Are you going to be against Barack Obama and suffer the political consequences of being the other side of someone who has a 96% approval rate in the Democratic primary? The problem is Barack Obama himself is very clear-eyed, open, and honest

that the Affordable Care Act is the beginning of a process to get us universal health care and has talked about Medicare for all as an eventual goal and supported a Medicare buy-in in 2010 when we were trying to pass the bill and supported a public option, all those things. And so I think we should have a legitimate conversation about what the best policy is and a frank conversation about the political ramifications for choosing one of those sides. Like what are the political consequences both in terms of the general election and also for a president who was newly elected who was trying to enact that policy? Like this should not be some sort of ivory tower conversation. There's politics involved here, and that should be part of

the conversation that happens. But I think it is an oversimplification of the process to say you're either with the ACA and Obama, or you're with Medicare for all and against Obama, because I don't think that's how Barack Obama would come down on that issue. Yeah. No, I think there's a... I mean, I'm hoping there's a sort of robust policy debate about health care in this primary that doesn't sort of resort to, you know, are you on the side of Obamacare or are you not? this in Vox, like I think this debate about abolishing private insurance or not is a bit of a red herring in terms of what the real differences are between all the plans and the real heart of this debate is, which is about sort of financing this new system, right? Like in Bernie's bill that Warren and Harris and others are on and support. Literally everything is free. Your doctor's visits are free. There's no copayments. There's no out-of-pocket. Everything's covered.

Every procedure is covered. But also, the government sort of sets prices and has to figure out what is covered. And to finance a system like that, Bernie's folks will say, well, you're not going to pay premiums anymore. So when you pay more in taxes, that's finance completely free medical care, you know, Medicare that is more generous than the Medicare program we have now, and more generous than most countries with a single payer system. And the question is, how do you how do you finance that? And who pays what? And what do the tax increases look like? And what do the reimbursements to hospitals and doctors look like? And these are all really important questions that go far beyond, are you going to, quote unquote, abolish private insurance or not? Right. Even though that is an important question, both, because it may be the right thing to do, it may be the wrong thing to do, but it has

implications. And it sort of damages some of the comparisons to other countries who have government-run healthcare or single-payer healthcare that also still have some measure of private insurance. That is an element of the plan that is interesting and notable to a lot of people. Yeah. So if the Supreme Court kills the Affordable Care Act, it's pretty obvious how it becomes a major issue in the election. If it doesn't, though, or if we're still in limbo, how do Democrats make the Republican threat to repeal the law a more central issue than it's been so far since we've been talking so much about Medicare for All? Well, let's start with the worst scenario and work our way backwards. So let's say the Supreme Court strikes it down.

What I would then recommend that the Democratic House does is immediately pass a version of the ACA that is almost word for word what we currently have without the individual mandate. And sends it to the Senate and forces the Trump administration to oppose it and all of those vulnerable Republican senators to oppose it and filibuster it. That's what we should do. We should put, if the ACA is gone, if the parameters of the Democratic healthcare discussion has been the Affordable Care Act is the floor, and we're debating what the ceiling can be in the near term about the US healthcare system, then we got to put the floor back in place. And so if we were able to do that, I think that would put tremendous pressure, put the ACA back on the table, would reignite the conversations that were happening in 2018 that were so beneficial to Democrats about the future

of the Affordable Care Act being on the line. The Affordable Care Act is popular, which is a weird thing for those of us who were around in the early days to say, but it is quite popular with a large swath of voters. And we can, like, that would be the recommendation. I worry that we would wrap ourselves around the axle about that with, like, should we do that? Should we make it the ACA plus? Should we do the ACA plus something else?

But, like, just do the simplest thing that puts the ACA back on the table and puts pressure on Republicans to show that they are against all of the parts of the plan that are incredibly popular. Protection of people with pre-existing conditions, preventive care, lifetime limits, caps on out-of-pocket costs, all the things that are incredibly important and popular, and make ourselves the advocate for that again and make it very clear who the opponents are. Yeah, well, especially, I mean, we need to highlight the very human stakes of what happens if this law is killed, which Republicans have advocated for for a very long time. It's 20 million people who will lose their health insurance. This isn't like, you know, you had private insurance and then you transition to

a government program like we're talking about with Medicare for All. This is losing your health insurance. You have no health insurance. This is all the prescription drug discounts in the bill go away. The protections for preexisting conditions go away. So an insurance company can prevent you from getting insurance if you have a preexisting condition or drop you from your insurance if you have a pre-existing condition or drop you from their insurance, from your insurance if you have a pre-existing condition. It means young people can't stay on their parents' health insurance until they're 26 anymore. So it's not just even the uninsured or people who buy, you know, insurance on the exchanges

that get screwed here. It's millions and millions and millions of Americans who are paying less for their health care because of the Affordable Care Act and who are paying less for their health care because of the Affordable Care Act and who are protected from the worst practices of the insurance companies because of the Affordable Care Act. All of that goes away. And I think Democrats can very fairly lay that at the feet, not just at the courts, but of every Republican politician who's advocated for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and voted for it numerous times over the last 10 years, and Donald Trump himself, who supports this lawsuit, who's filed brief after brief in support of this lawsuit, it is their fault that the Affordable Care Act is in jeopardy right now.

And if the law dies, it is the Republicans' fault. And I think it's also good for Democrats to say, even if the Supreme Court upholds the law, well, it's nice that the Supreme Court upheld the law, but if you vote for Republicans, if Donald Trump is reelected and a Republican House is elected, this is exactly what will happen. They will finish the job. They have promised to finish the job and they will kill Obamacare and these devastating consequences will be felt all throughout this country. So I feel like that's going to be the argument, right? And the question is how you deliver that argument, right? How do you get it in front of people? Because here is the Affordable Care Act.

Here's something that affects millions of people. From a domestic policy perspective, it should be the single most important story in the land. important story in the land. And Donald Trump's social media summit slash grievance gathering is going to get nearly as much coverage because that's just how the press works this day. And I just think, like everyone talks about what are the lessons 2018? What works so well that help us do so well in 2018? How can we replicate that for 2020? And the argument in 2018 that was so powerful with voters was that Democrats would protect their formal character, Republicans would get rid of it, right, in order to pay for tax cuts for millionaires and Wall Street executives. But it is not true that all the news stories in the run-up to the election were about health care. In fact, none of them were. The reason it was on the ballot was because Democratic candidates and campaigns put it on the ballot by advertising about it digitally and, yes, on television and elsewhere and talking about it on the stump every single day.

They did it with zero help from the press. Yeah. Right? And so we see this and you see it in all the talking points and press releases that we see from Democratic politicians and campaigns. It's like, oh, something's happening that will allow us to talk about the ACA for five minutes. And that's great. We should do that, take advantage of the opportunity to try to get a little coverage. But the way you penetrate, there is no way to make healthcare a top long-term news story in this country because that is not who the press is. That is not what the economic model of media

and the digital ad age, that's not how it works. And so campaigns have to decide to do this. The presidential campaign has to decide to do this. The presidential candidates have to decide to do this. All the Senate and House candidates have to decide to do it. They have to invest money in doing it. And the Democratic super PAC and party apparatus has to invest money in doing this.

And they have to start now. Yeah. Every candidate for office, every Democratic presidential candidate, every candidate everywhere else should be saying they want to take your health care away at least five times a day. I mean, you know, it's like it's got to be a central part of the message. It's got to be a central part of the message. And you're right that you have to be creative enough and persistent enough that you get this message out in a way that doesn't rely on the media that has ADD. You can't rely on them to do it. You can't wait for opportunities like this.

You just got to keep saying it every single day. I am a broken record on this. I'm going to scream about it till my head explodes or we win this election, whichever comes first, which is if you think the mainstream media, everyone from the New York Times to CNN is the primary vehicle for getting your message in front of voters, you are going to lose. That was barely true 10 years ago. And in this age, particularly in the era of Trump, it is impossible. It cannot work. It is a strategy doomed to failure. It was a lesson in 2016. The lesson of 2018 is that there is another way to do it. And we have to adopt a new fundamental understanding of communication in the modern age. End of rant. Agree.

All right, let's talk about what Democrats in the House are doing or not doing about the ever-growing pile of crimes and scandals around Donald Trump. On Wednesday, the president's labor secretary, Alex Acosta, defended his handling of a 2008 plea agreement he offered as a U.S. attorney to Jeffrey Epstein, a rich, politically connected investor who's now facing fresh charges of running a child sex trafficking operation. Under the deal, Epstein entered a guilty plea in state court and served only 13 months in jail and was allowed to leave to work in an office during his trying 13-month stay in a jail. Acosta said he made the deal with Epstein because he didn't want

to risk Epstein not going to jail at all, which he thought would have happened if he didn't make the deal. Congressional Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are calling on Acosta to step down. But Pelosi also basically ruled out impeaching Acosta and said that accountability for Acosta is the president's problem and that it's, quote, his cabinet. This comes after Pelosi chose not to fight Republicans over the recent border bill, continues to resist impeachment, and said a few weeks ago that Congress had too many other things going on to investigate the recent rape allegation against Trump. Dan, let's start with the Acosta-Epstein drama. Who is Jeffrey Epstein and why does this story have a political connection in the first place,

aside from the link to Acosta that we just spoke about? Jeffrey Epstein is a shadowy rich guy. It's not clear how he got to be as rich as he claimed to be or if he is even that rich, but he was very politically connected. He was close friends with Trump in his papers that were released. He had 14 different numbers in his contacts for members of the Trump family, from Trump to his assistants to Melania to Trump's ex-wife, to Ivanka. So very connected. Also very close with Bill Clinton. Claims to have been intimately involved in the idea for the Clinton Global Initiative. Has traveled with Clinton on a couple of times on his planes many years ago.

So he's been in and around for a long time. And so the political connection is his connection to both Clinton and Trump, who do seem to have an amazing ability to be friends with some of the worst people in the world, which would be the one thing I think those two men have in common. Yes. And then the fact that his plea agreement was negotiated and signed off on by Alex Acosta, was negotiated and signed off on by alex acosta who's now trump's labor secretary has put that what would be an otherwise a political case right in the middle of uh american politics yeah so why i mean why does acosta still have a job right now and what can what could the democrats do about it i mean this guy the more you look into this deal, he gave this scumbag of a human being, the more enraged you get, right? Like the fact that this guy only served 13 months

when there were, I think Acosta set aside, I think the number is 54 different charges in a federal indictment that had to do with sex trafficking trafficking sex trafficking of minors i mean it is truly disgusting stuff and the fact that he only gets 13 months in jail uh during which time he gets to leave to go to work um when you compare that to what you know people who are convicted of very minor drug offenses the prison prison time that they go to. I don't know. Having a now legal substance on their person. Right. Exactly. Yeah. No shit. So when you compare how Epstein was treated to how most people in this country are treated,

especially people of color, especially people who are involved in minor drug offenses, it's pretty sickening. offenses um it's it's pretty sickening and you know and also by the way we should note that a federal judge ruled the deal unlawful because Acosta did not notify the victims um Epstein's victims and you know Acosta gave all kinds of excuses for this yesterday but a judge ruled that it was illegal so how does this guy still have a job? Well, I want to go back a second to Nancy Pelosi saying that accountability for the cabinet is the president's responsibility. Right. That is not true. I am sympathetic to Nancy Pelosi on a lot of things.

I think she was put in an impossible position on the border bill. Could it have been – should we have a better bill? Yes. Could it have been handled better? Yes. But all of the blame for that does not fall on her. A lot falls on Senator Schumer and a shitload of Senate Democrats who wanted to go home for the holidays. But on this one, she is wrong. Alex Acosta is the Secretary of Labor. He is responsible for human trafficking policy within the administration. The idea that the person in charge of human trafficking policy within the administration. The idea that the person in charge of human trafficking policy gave a sweetheart deal to a politically connected billionaire who was accused of sex trafficking is something that the Congress should look at.

Congressional oversight is not an option. It is a responsibility, not a privilege. It is something that they are supposed to do. That is their job. And the idea that we're going to count on Trump to enact accountability on people who have done things that have protected sexual predators is an absurd idea. And it is absolutely something that Congress should look at. idea. And it is absolutely something that Congress should look at. Whether they can actually, they could impeach him. And now could that, we're not counting on the Senate to convict, but they should absolutely look into this deal and expose to the public what can be exposed. That is their job. That is the job we pay them to do, and they should do it. And it is just, it is, I think it is a true, it is a bizarre abdication of responsibility from the congressional Democrats to not look into this. It really is. And I think it's really unfortunate.

I don't even understand what political itch they're trying to scratch by avoiding this. reversed themselves yesterday when, I guess, Elijah Cummings, who is the chair of the Oversight Committee, sent a letter to Acosta asking that he come testify and answer some questions. Now, I don't know if a subpoena will be issued or what. I sort of wonder, I wonder what you think about this. If there's sort of a logic problem for Pelosi, like if she says that the House will look into and possibly begin impeachment proceedings against Alex Acosta, who covered up for a sexual predator, then isn't the question, well, then why won't you begin impeachment proceedings against a real sexual predator in the White House who also committed a whole bunch of other crimes? who also committed a whole bunch of other crimes. Like, to me, I feel like she has trapped herself. She has backed herself into a corner by every day seeming to close the door on impeaching Donald Trump so that every other investigative question, every other potential scandal,

everything else she's asked to look into, she starts worrying that if she goes down the road, that road leads to impeachment, which she doesn't want to do. Like, to me, it seems like this is the problem with not just saying, I don't know about impeachment yet, but it's an option and we'll see where the facts go. But instead, what she's been saying, which is, you know, Donald Trump is self-impeaching and I don't think we want to do this and basically just throwing cold water on impeachment every day. It seems like she's trapped herself. Yeah, you're right. She has put herself in a maximum security prison of political caution, which is everything flows from that choice, right? And the problem is it's pretzel logic because the actual – like if you were doing the politics of it, let's just say you are Nancy Pelosi.

You've decided either you yourself believe or the majority of your caucus believe that impeachment is a political error and we should not go down that path. So one option would be to try to shy away from investigations and oversight, which is what they're sort of doing. It's like a fits and starts process. The other thing to do would be to aggressively investigate everything. And then if you find something, then you can maybe reverse your position on impeachment. But you're setting the end goal. Basically, you're working backwards from an end goal as opposed to just going through the process. And I do think one of the things that is affecting our House leadership is, whether it's Clyburn or Steny Hoyer or Pelosi or a lot of the other

people there, they've been around for a very, very long time. They are the products of their experience. And one of their experiences is in the 90s, when the Republicans took the House after the 1994 election, they investigated Bill Clinton like lunatics, like obsessive conspiracy-laden things to the point where it even seems ridiculous to tell this anecdote. But the person who had Elijah Cummings' job back then, Dan Burton, was convinced that Vince Foster did not commit suicide. He was actually murdered. And in order to prove his point, he once shot a gun into a watermelon as part of a hearing. And so they were insane. And the view in that time was the Republican zeal to investigate Clinton led to Clinton's reelection. And the problem is, Clinton is not Trump. Pelosi is not Gingrich. Then is not now. Because something happened in

the 90s doesn't mean it's going to also happen in the 2010s. And so I think they are in some ways just, it is this caution born of a very unrelated experience that is keeping them from being as aggressive as they should be. And it causes them to miss the stakes of what is happening here. Yeah. And again, if you are spending every day shitting on the idea of impeachment, which Pelosi does every time she gets asked about it, as opposed to just, you know, a sort of go slow strategy where she says, who knows what might happen and where the facts may lead. The question remains, what are you doing all these investigations for? Why are we hearing from Mueller next week if there's no possibility of impeachment? Why do any investigations or oversight at all if it's not possible that what you uncover would lead you to impeach the president?

And I think that's her, you know, having it both ways, trying to appease the pro-impeachment crowd with some investigations, with sending a subpoena here, throwing a letter there, but then appeasing the anti-impeachment crowd by saying, oh, we're not going to go there. We don't think it's politically wise, is a terrible strategy. It's just a terrible strategy. Like, pick one, you know, either go out there and say, we're not going to impeach this guy because the Senate's not going to convict him. And so therefore, we're going to focus entirely on other shit. I don't know what it is. I guess passing fucking message bills that will die in the Senate. I guess that's the big strategy. We're going to focus on other shit. Or at least leave open the fact that at the end of

these investigations, you may impeach the president of the United States because he has committed these crimes and is surrounded by a bunch of other criminals and people who protect sexual predators and all the rest. I don't know, man. I'm really losing patience. I have tried to be very sympathetic to the position that Pelosi and the Democratic leadership is in. Because I do believe that Nancy Pelosi in her heart, believes that Donald Trump should be impeached. And she is both making a political decision, which one I disagree with, but a political decision.

But it's a rational, it's not an irrational political conclusion to make about impeachment, but also serving as a shield for her many members who are hesitant on impeachment or worry about the politics of it and are now able to say, well, Nancy Pelosi said we're not going to impeach. And so they don't have to suffer the wrath of the 85% of Democratic voters who want impeachment. Well, let me ask you about that because Brian and Boitler and I were sort of talking about this yesterday. Brian thinks if it was put to a vote right now,

the House would vote, there would be enough votes to impeach, or at least to move forward with impeachment proceedings. And that Nancy Pelosi is basically actively whipping against this, or at least not providing the leadership that would bring over some of these moderate Democrats onto the side of impeachment, because Brian's argument is, look, if they were given a choice, maybe they're sort of skeptical of impeachment now. But if you're given the choice to stand with Jerry Nadler and launching an impeachment inquiry or standing with Trump and protecting him, then, you know, a majority of Democrats in the House would vote for the inquiry. Do you agree with

that? Or do you think that Nancy Pelosi is doing this because there are not enough votes and there are plenty of members who are just saying, absolutely not, I do not want to vote for even beginning impeachment proceedings? I think the reality is a little more nuanced in a couple of ways. One, I do not think she is whipping against impeachment. I have not heard anything to suggest that. It would be uncharacteristic of Nancy Pelosi's style to be whipping against impeachment. Second, she is certainly not making it easier for people to come for impeachment, right? So that is also true. So she's not actively whipping, but she's certainly creating an environment where it's more challenging to come out for impeachment, particularly for committee chairs and members of her leadership team. I think Nancy Pelosi is right. If there

was a secret ballot where no one had to put their name on their vote, I think impeachment would fail. Yeah. Because I think a lot of people, and I've talked to some of these newly elected freshman members, and this is very worrisome to them. They look at their district. Many of them have polled it, and they think it is, as it currently stands, very unpopular. They depend on a large number of independent votes to get over the top. And so they're very worried about it. I think it's a battle they can win, and right now we're living in a world where you're getting the worst of all worlds, but they believe that I think if we, if Nancy Pelosi were to decide she was for impeachment and were to say,

we're going to have a vote, the, it would pass. People would vote reluctantly. They wouldn't want to do it, but being on the 15% side of an 85, 15% issue in your party is pretty close to impossible if a vote were to be called. And so it's sort of,

I don't think there's a whole bunch of people who secretly are for impeachment. I think there are a bunch of people who would be dragged to it by the base if they were forced to stand in the well of the House and pick one side or the other. And Nancy Pelosi is protecting them from that outcome. For a reason.

But having said all of that, I think the pay, like the, we have been sympathetic. I have, I have been sympathetic to the position they're in, even if I disagreed with their outcomes. But I think we like between the continued fight with the quote unquote

squad, the sort of the half measuremeasure approach on this stuff, the way the border bill played out. There's a lot to be very frustrated about how things are going. That does not mean – the answer here is not to disengage from politics and disengage from the House of Representatives. The answer is to re-engage with them and continue to put the pressure on them to do the right thing time and again.

Yeah, I agree with that. Okay, let's talk about 2020 and the results of our brand new post-debate poll with our friends at Change Research. We polled 1,261 voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina and found that a week after the first set of debates, Kamala Harris has gained quite a bit of support and Joe Biden has lost some. As a result, we see a very close race in the early states with Bernie Sanders at 19%, Elizabeth Warren at 19%, Joe Biden at 18%, Kamala Harris at 17%, Pete Buttigieg at 15%, and no other candidate above 3%. Harris and Biden are the only candidates whose numbers moved by more than one percentage point in either direction following the debates between our pre-debate poll and our

post-debate poll. Overall, the survey found that the debates changed the minds of about a quarter of the voters contacted. That is a tight race, Dan. Five-way race. That's all within the margin of error, basically, between 15% for Pete and 19% for Bernie and Warren. Would you think of the results and did anything stand out at you? Well, I think we now have established two very clear tiers. There had been several tiers within the race of maybe Biden at the very top and then Bernie in a second tier all by himself and a bunch of people competing for the third. It is now there is a top tier and there is everyone else. There is a top tier and there is everyone else. And while there's still a lot of time left, the time is starting to run out for some of those candidates who aren't in that top group to get in that top group to have a real chance to make an impact in this race.

So that's one. Two, Kamala Harris's debate performance was even more impactful than we thought it would be, both for her and for Biden. And that sets a stage for what's going to come in these next set of debates for the need for her, you know, her, the need for her to maintain her new status for Biden to recover from where he got. And for a whole bunch of candidates who probably now see the path to the top of the polls is to take a pretty big swing at someone. So I think that's going to impact what happens on the stage. So, I mean, this is a incredibly tight race. The last thing I'd say is it's very interesting how different the polling in the early states is than the national polls.

Even though you see some of the trends in the national polling, what happened in the debate is even more impactful in the early states where people are more engaged. And they have a context for understanding these candidates because they are there all the time. Yeah, and I think that the two big differences between national polls and I think some of these early state polls, especially our early state poll, is Bernie Sanders seems to be holding on to his support. I know that the poll shows him in first here, but his number did not change between our pre-debate poll and our post-debate poll which is very interesting he was a 19 in the pre-debate poll and wasn't in first place and now he's tied for first with warren i mean everything's within the margin of error here um so he does seem to have this it's bernie's bernie's not growing support and and none of these other polls are showing him sort of gaining any support but he's not really

he probably lost a little bit since he got in the race but he's not it seems that he has a floor right now um at least in some of these early states and i'm that's so that's sort of an interesting thing to watch is that enough i don't know it seems like you need to grow your support at this point um and then in this poll it is enough yeah this poll exactly which is well that it's an interesting thing right like the other candidates could start splitting the vote so much that as long as bernie holds on to the you know anywhere between 15 and 19 percent that he has in a lot of these polls then who knows if that's enough maybe it is um the other thing is i think pete budaj who in some of these national polls has either leveled off or sort of lost some support in the early states,

especially in Iowa, is still doing really well. And that – so two things about this. The Bernie thing is very important because if he were to – like there is movement among other candidates and Bernie is rock solid. And they're like – as you said, there's a question about whether his floor is enough to win. But the sequence of the early states is very favorable to Bernie Sanders if he is able to hold on to that floor. We've seen other polls where he has dropped below his steady level in recent months because Elizabeth Warren has gained or others have gained.

But let's just take our poll because it's ours. So if he stays there, Iowa, he almost won last time. He's incredibly strong in New Hampshire. And you knock those first two out, you're very great. So there has been, I think, a little bit of like Bernie went from, I think, being overestimated, having a strength overestimated to now being underestimated. And our poll sort of shows right where he is, which is a very, very legitimate contender for the nomination, particularly in a field where you have several strong contenders. And there are other contenders, other people in this poll who are doing not well now, but have show room for growth.

And some of that growth could come at the expense of some of these other candidates, right? We're running out of free percentage points for people to get as candidates become more known. Yeah, I think to the first point that you made about the poll about how there's sort of two tiers now. The other point I thought was interesting from our poll is how difficult it is to sort of break out of that bottom tier, even if you've had a good debate performance. So let's take Julian Castro. He was a pleasant surprise in the debates to 23 percent of respondents, which was behind only Kamala Harris, who was at 26 percent. But while Harris's horse number horse race numbers skyrocketed as a result of the debate, Castro is still at one percent support and he's the second choice of only two percent more. So obviously his name ID is still very low it was helped and his favorability

ratings were helped by the debate but it didn't really even though he had that moment um and had this great debate it didn't really change the horse race numbers for him all that much and and he's the one who had in the lower tier who had a really good debate i'd say cory booker did too and his numbers didn't really change so sort of shows the challenge of breaking out of that bottom tier. It'll be interesting if we ever get to a point where the debate stage is narrowed, right? And I was thinking that was going to happen in September when the third debate happens and the DNC requirements go up. But we've seen a number of candidates who were in danger of not making that stage either get there or come very close to get there. Castro announced, I believe, the other day that he got the 130,000 grassroots donors. Andrew Yang was

incredibly close to that number a few weeks ago, so I imagine he crossed it. The problem is your good performance is diluted by being one of 20. Yeah. The problem is your good performance is diluted by being one of 20. Yeah. Right. And particularly if you are less known, you've been less in the mindset. There's a handful of very well-known candidates, and it is – and coming into this race, right? Like Biden at 100% name ID, Bernie Sanders at 100% name ID, Elizabeth Warren, very well well known, been on the national scene for a long time. Kamala Harris, newer to the national scene, but came into this race with a big boost of momentum with someone who was talked about. If you read about her, as she

announced, you're like, oh, this is someone who could definitely be president. Mayor Pete put himself onto that list by dint of an incredibly successful communication strategy and an appealing message. The other candidates have been unable to do that. Even some who are like Booker or Klobuchar who have some knowledge. It's just, it's very, I think it's very hard when there are 20 people for people to, like, I think when the average people who are interested in this process are thinking about it, you can't think about all 20 people, right? So you're kind of narrowing it to a list.

And getting into that list of conversation is very challenging, even with a debate process. It may be easier if there are only 10 of you on stage, right? And like if it had been one debate and Castro had had his huge moment on that one debate and it hadn't been overshadowed the next day by Kamala Harris and Biden's exchange, maybe it would have meant more.

Being on the first debate was probably a disadvantage to a lot of people who are trying to break out. Yeah. The one other thing I thought was interesting from the poll, Democratic voters favor the more progressive position on other top debate issues. Voters would abolish private insurance, 58% to 23%. Voters want a government health plan to cover undocumented immigrants, percent to 24 percent and voters favor decriminalizing unauthorized border crossings 75 to 13 percent now i was not surprised that obviously democrats are probably going to favor the more progressive position um but i was surprised at the margins were you because those are some pretty big margins for favoring those positions that we have all talked about are pretty lefty.

criminalizing the border, just because that is a newer issue. You know, we've been talking about private insurance for a long time, the conversation around healthcare for undocumented people has been around for a long time. It also is like, it's easy to understand, right? Like in on its face, what it means, the do criminalizing the border one is much more, it's newer, like really had not been discussed in the national conversation until Julian Castro put it in the national conversation. So I was surprised by how strong it does. And it does, I think, speak to the reaction within the Democratic primary electorate to the absolutely inhumane treatment of migrants and undocumented people under this administration and the desire to move as far away from that as humanly possible yeah i think that's right um one last point in our poll

before we move on um we asked uh we asked what issues you wanted to hear more about and then we asked a question do you think that uh the dnc should hold a climate only climate change only debate and 65 percent of voters said they want a climate debate. And climate was the number one issue mentioned that people wanted to hear more about in the next debates. So I thought that was pretty interesting. Yeah. And I would, I would just say one thing about this, which is if the campaigns wanted a climate debate, they could have one because the campaign managers all speak to each other. They move and block. And so if Biden's campaign manager called, Kamala Harris's campaign manager called, Bernie Sanders's campaign

manager called, Elizabeth Warren's campaign manager, and they said, we want a climate debate, there would be a climate debate. In 2008, David Plouffe, our campaign manager, talked to Patty Solis Doyle, Clinton's campaign manager, talked to folks at Edwards campaign. Whenever there was a question about a new debate or a new forum to sort of move in mass together because we determined what happened. And so the campaigns could make a climate debate happen tomorrow if they wanted to. And so I think as activists are looking for places to pressure, it's not just the DNC, it's the campaigns themselves. Yeah. Last 2020 thing. This week we said goodbye to Congressman Eric Swalwell. He dropped out of the race. And then we said hello to billionaire philanthropist Tom Steyer, who has entered the

race. You have any thoughts on the departure or the entrance of more candidates? Well, let's just say, you know, we obviously had some fun at Eric Swalwell's expense after his debate performance. And he certainly had a lot of very cheesy lines, which is like – it's like all of our pet peeve. And so we got annoyed by it. But I think we should at least say two things. One, he put gun violence prevention at the center of his campaign, and that should be applauded, and more candidates should do that. And he was very aggressive about it. And two, having the sense about when to drop out, having that level of self-awareness is important. And he had a reason to get out that only a handful of others do, which is he has another office to run for. He wants to run for re-election to the House. So there was a point at which he was going to make that not a viable option for him and other candidates would get in.

So he had to do that. That really, I think, only applies to Seth Moulton and Tulsi Gabbard, who, if they want to run for reelection to their health seats, the rest of the candidates do not stand for election in 2020. So this is, I don't know that this presages a massive exodus of candidates in the race. Don't forget Tim Ryan. Oh yeah, Tim Ryan. Sorry. I like Tim Ryan. Yes. Also Tim Ryan. My apologies to Tim Ryan. It's hard to keep track of everyone, man. No, I feel the same way about Swalwell. And look, you talked

about him bringing sort of uh gun violence making it central to the campaign to his campaign and you know when he was on the debate stage um he was able to sort of like force a discussion on the government uh buying back assault weapons um and a couple candidates committed to that on the debate stage so good for him you know That's good that he did that. What do you think about Steyer? Disclosure being that I know Tom Steyer and I like Tom Steyer and I did some consulting work for Tom Steyer a few years ago. I just find it hard to imagine you're a human being who looks at this field, whether it's our poll or the other polls, or sees Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren or Mayor Pete or the former Vice President of the United States or Bernie Sanders and says, what this campaign needs is another candidate. This is a strong field. There are times in which people come in late to a field that people think is weak.

They're supposed to be some sort of white knight savior candidate. And this field is in no need of that, right? We have too many good options. We don't need another one. Look, Tom Steyer is the biggest donor of Democratic causes for all of the shit people give him about his ads on impeachment. He invests a tremendous amount of money in organizing and youth voter registration and fighting for climate change. And that should all be applauded. I certainly hope that the $100 million that he spends, he has pledged to spend on this campaign, does not come at the expense of those other efforts because they're incredibly critical to a lagging progressive infrastructure that needs all the help it can get. Yeah.

I mean, I sort of feel the same way. Like, I think that the most important question any candidate can answer is sort of like, why you, why now, and why not the other people? And, you know, he made an attempt at answering that in his opening video and in some of his interviews that he's done. But, you know, he said all these Democrats, you know, have great ideas, but none of them are going to come to pass unless we stop the corporate takeover of our democracy. But like, you know, that's what Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are saying. And and a lot of other candidates talking about sort of the, you know, corporate influence in our democracy and have some great plans around democratic reform and how to do that and so i'm still not quite sure besides his hundred million dollars what steyer brings to the race that other candidates don't

have or have not offered yet um and i think he is going to have to answer that question and he's probably that's a more urgent question for him to answer than even any of the other candidates because he's decided to get into the race so late and you know you've already seen sort of warren and sanders sort of take shots at him by saying like i you know those two candidates are out there and they've raised a lot of money so far from a lot of just grassroots donors without getting doing a lot of high dollar fundraisers and they're out there saying like why do we need some self-made some billionaire in the race um when we were able to raise the money we need from grassroots from the grassroots and i think that's a pretty fair criticism you know yeah it like trump's message in 2000 trump when he ran 2016 told everyone that he would not be

um influenced or basically purchased by special interests because he was funding his own campaign. Now, he didn't fund his own campaign and was also bought and purchased by special interests both at home and abroad. But that message was appealing. The difference between the Republican primary and the Democratic primary is the Republican candidates were all being funded by billionaire and pseudo-billionaire super PACs. And you have candidates in this race, like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, who are raising all of their money in a grassroots fashion. And so that's a harder, you know, the sort of the political advantages of self-funding will not be as prevalent in this primary as they potentially have been in the past or in the Republican primary. Yeah, I agree with that. Okay,

when we come back, my interview with Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. Joining us today, the Democratic Congresswoman representing Michigan's 13th District, Rashida Tlaib. Congresswoman, thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. So, obviously, there's been a lot of back and forth in the D.C. press about the relationship between you, some of your closest friends in the House, and Nancy Pelosi. I won't ask you to get into who said what about who, but from a legislative and political standpoint,

I'm wondering what has frustrated you about some of the decisions leadership has made, or at least the working relationship right now? Well, you know, I've been so focused on my district. I have a third poorest congressional district. And some of this, you know, just the discussion around the border and what's happening children, and we're talking about thousands of children that have been ripped away from their parents. Some don't even know where their children are at this point. Just yesterday, having a woman talk about her two-year-old daughter dying shortly after leaving custody with ICE claiming that they did a medical exam of the child before releasing them, which was completely false. Just hearing about the culture around detention and what's happening at the border that has been fueled by the ideology of Trump,

of othering and dehumanizing our immigrant neighbors. And all of that is very, you know, fueled. And for many of us, especially, I think for some of my colleagues, it is very personal for us. We're very passionate about those issues. But I think from day one, many of us came here saying we want to defund hate and we want to defund ICE. And we haven't wavered on those issues. And we hope, as many of us continue to do, is educate and mobilize people to understand the importance of real fix to our immigration crisis, not, you know, throwing money at a broken system, especially when agents, many of them,

were very sincere, three or four of them, at least taking me aside out of over a dozen giving us a tour at El Paso border, you know, saying don't throw money at this. It's broken. I wasn't trained to rip two-year-olds away from their children, from their parents. And I wasn't trained to be a social worker, a medical care worker. I was trained to be at the border defending, you know, our country from drug and all these other kinds of illegal activities. This is not what they were, you know, they signed up for. And I can tell you, you know, I jokingly talk to my team about this, that I'm very lucky that I'm reading a book right now that's kind of helping me, you know, prioritize and be centered around what's important. And right

now what's important is that my district feels like they have a voice here in Congress. But yeah, I'm reading Mark Mason's The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. And I think reading that book while this has been going on has been helping me and try to, you know, people hear me say this all the time, but outwork it and just continue to be on a mission to making sure that I'm elevating the voices of those that don't feel like they have a voice here, trying to push real economic justice issues like around the Boost Act, where, you know, getting people $6,000 back in their pockets, really trying to push back against discriminatory

practices on car insurance. And on top of that, I have to deal with a president that should have been impeached months ago. At least the inquiry should have happened. I mean, we are dealing with a lawless president. No matter what we pass here, whatever the Supreme Court decisions are, he is going to do what he wants to do because he is king-like, and no one is holding him accountable to that. And that's unfortunate, but we're going to respectively disagree. We're going to do it in a professional way. But I think, you know, leadership starts at the top. And as a woman of

color in this space, it is hard when you do sometimes feel a pushback of trying to silence you or oppress you or even belittle the fact that you represent 650,000 people that believed in, you know, my ideals and the values that I bring at the table. So on the border bill, on the debate over the border bill, what do you think that Pelosi and Schumer could have done differently to force McConnell and Trump to sign off on some of the protections for migrant children that you advocated for? You know, I think it's really important that the separation policy needs to end. We had a tremendous amount of leverage there to really elevate that. And that's one of the agents actually said that, you know, the separation policy is creating this crisis.

In the 1980s, we actually had more people show up at the border and detention was very unusual as a tool to address it. We have an asylum process that needs to be followed. I mean, it's a legal process. And again, we have an administration that is using this in some sort of way to deter, but also to demonize immigrants. This is not a person that wants to fix the immigration crisis or even pass immigration reform. This is a person that wants to push out people that are fearing persecution in our community, fearing death in their own countries

and coming to our border. If they have a claim or not, it doesn't matter. The fact that they comment and they are able to do it is a legal process that we have in our country. And that's something we should have been able to uplift and we should have been able to push back and saying, we'll do this, but we have to stop the separation of children. That should have Pelosi and the rest of the House Democrats on board, you have a majority in the House, we obviously don't have a majority in the Senate, we don't have the presidency. What can you do with the power that House Democrats have, and knowing that there's some Democrats in the Senate too, to actually force the administration to accept some of these protections for migrant children. And this is where we actually have a real wall

and what I call the real crisis is that we have an administration that no matter what we pass here, no matter what we push forward, from even passing bipartisan subpoenas out of committee asking for the names of the children at the border that have been separated, even the pushing back against the crisis in Yemen and saying that Americans shouldn't be paying for any kind of humanitarian crisis and fueling that,

all of that has been just ignored by the administration. So we have a deep-rooted crisis here that we do have an administration that is acting very lawless. We have an administration, honestly, that, but for the fact that we haven't been able to put them forward and say, look, we need an impeachment inquiry into these offenses, that congressional subpoenas cannot be ignored, that you can't come and lie to the United States Congress and get away with it, that, you know, we have asylum laws and legal processes that you can't come and lie to the United States Congress and get away with it. That, you know, we have asylum laws and legal processes that you're not abiding by. This goes far more than any other previous president.

And when there has been impeachment inquiries in the past, it gets to the point, like, do we continue giving this administration money that doesn't believe in human rights, that doesn't believe that there should be an asylum process? You know, when do we say enough is enough? And that's the thing that we're dealing with, the fact that we are a co-equal branch of government and we want to pass something. But, you know, even when the House moves forward in something that many of my colleagues lived, thought that was livable, like we could support something like this. What did they do? They sent something back that was completely blank of any accountability on the private detention centers, on pushing forward on basic, you know, health care standards for children, making sure that there was some accountability on where the money was being spent.

None of that was even included in what came back. Yeah. So it does seem like from listening to you and from reading the news that all roads sort of lead to impeachment here, right? Like no matter what we're trying to do, whether we're investigating, whether we're trying to force the White House to do something, No matter what we're trying to do, whether we're investigating, whether we're trying to force the White House to do something, impeachment seems like the only answer here because it's the one real tool that the House has. You were in the news way back when for saying we're going to impeach the motherfucker. You were obviously right about him being a motherfucker, but the House has not impeached him yet. If the full House were to vote on moving forward with an inquiry today, do you think it would pass? Look, I know when the Watergate class came, and by the way, we're the largest class since Watergate, ironically.

And when the Watergate class came together and said, look, we have to hold President Nixon accountable, they didn't run on impeaching that president. They didn't run on the possibility of this. But at that moment, they had to do what was right for our country, what was right for our democracy. And they moved forward, even though they weren't sure it's going to get through the Senate. But they did what was right. And, you know, organically, Nathan, or maybe it was the people power outside of the halls of Congress where I think real change matters and makes us do what is required to putting our country first. I can tell you from just hearing about what he's going to do about the census, I mean, the United States Supreme Court said, sorry, Mr. President, sorry, Trump administration, but we need more of a reason of why you're putting the census question on there.

Just clarify more. He decided he's going to go ahead and do it anyway. And understand what this means. This is not about U.S. citizens and counting them. It's about how the lines are going to be drawn and about reducing the number of communities of color and our neighbors. He doesn't want us counted. I mean, again, this is about an ideology and about a precedent, a very dangerous precedent that is being set right now by allowing this president to go forward without holding them accountable. It seems no amount of subpoenas. We're going to be passing contempt charges. I mean, we just did out of committee. It's going to go through the floor where we're holding the United States Attorney General and the Commerce Secretary in contempt. And you see no, not even no blinking by the current administration. They, you know, him and many of his cabinet

members are moving forward as if the other, you know, branches of government don't exist. And it's really dangerous. I mean, think about it. This will not be the last crooked CEO that runs for president. And he needs to understand this is not a business. This is a government. This is about people. You can't run it the same way.

Yeah. So I think the question is, you know, what do you say to some of your more skeptical colleagues who are new House members who won in pretty conservative districts with, you know, a bunch of Republican votes for people, Republicans who didn't like Trump or don't want, you know, Trump to take away their health care. But these members are worried about impeachment being unpopular or they're worried about running on immigration. But, you know, you know that their heart's in the right place and they want to do the right thing. How do you persuade some of your more skeptical colleagues in the House that this is the right path forward? And I want you to know many of them, I think all of them, are sincere

about doing something about the children and making sure there's better conditions. And, you know, we all have different views, but I think at the heart of it is like, we have to do something, right? It's just different than what we think we should be done. But I can tell you this. You know, I think about Truman and the fact that he went to war without going through Congress and how every single president since then has done that, has kind of just decided to go to war without going through the process of going through Congress. And to me, that sets a dangerous precedent. And I think for many of us in this chamber, we need to understand what does this mean in 20 years? Will this be the last CEO that runs for president?

Absolutely not. And when we do this, when we look back, was it the right thing to do to basically say, well, this is not, we'll just, political strategists are coming forward and telling a lot of my colleagues, look, let's just get rid of him in 2020. Well, guess what? Nixon won his second term and that's when they decided to impeach him. And at this moment, there is not only an immigration crisis, but you have changes being made in the EPA, being done in HUD right now, and even in how transportation funding is being implemented.

You know, I sit on oversight. Every week we're hearing more and more details about administrative changes, executive decisions being made. Just the other day, you know, we had folks that are in charge of like the AmeriCorps program. This is a huge volunteer program that helps, you know, refugees and helps like low-income homeless communities, even national crises, you know, like when we have flooding and hurricanes and all of those things. And there are being changes done right now that they want to completely, you know, they call it transformation, but no, they're intent because they're zeroing it out and the administration's zeroing it out. They're intent to just completely get rid of that. And these are going to take years for us to just get the years back. And some of you all get the years back for our families that are going to be

directly impacted by decisions being made by this president that doesn't feel like he needs to be held accountable or that he needs to come before Congress to making sure there's a transparent process. Again, you know, we can't allow all of this to proceed and think that, well, it's just better, we'll get rid of it later. No. that, well, it's just better. We'll get rid of it later. No, if we don't do anything now, then who comes along next and thinks that they don't have to follow subpoenas, that they don't have to, that they lying to the United States Congress, misleading the United States Congress is okay. Yeah. I mean, last question. There was news this morning that Pelosi urged House Democrats to get the word out about immigrants' legal rights ahead of Trump's planned immigration raids this weekend. What do people need to know?

What they need to know is I want you to understand you are allowed, if somebody knocks on your door, you are allowed to not enter that door. But also, more importantly, you're allowed to ask what your rights are. You're also allowed to ask for an attorney, to speak to an attorney before you speak to anyone. But I also want them to lean on community organizations in their local neighborhoods, even the church communities, faith-based communities. People are really gearing up and trying to push back. But the fact that we're even talking about this right now, I am so worried, and the trauma that we're going to just ejected throughout the communities all across the country. And I don't think people realize how much this is going to impact their not only their livelihood, even if they're U.S. citizens or naturalized.

It doesn't matter. You are going to see the pain and suffering of what it means to uproot people within our communities that have been there. But no fault of the fact that we just haven't passed any fixes to immigration crisis. I mean, I have U.S. citizens married to non-U.S. citizens that can't adjust their status because of the broken immigration system. I have people waiting years to hear their asylum cases in court because they don't have enough judges. I have children that, you know, their parents are U.S. citizens, but they can't adjust their status and become legal permanent residents. We have a broken system. And instead of fixing it, we're going to actually go and terrorize these communities, many of which have helped our neighborhoods grow. I grew up in

southwest Detroit. We have 20 different ethnicities. But for my immigrant neighbors, I grew up in southwest Detroit where I have 20 different ethnicities. But for my immigrant neighbors, I think we would have been able to we would have actually suffered more when our city filed bankruptcy. And they were there strong side by side with all of us to make sure that we all were protected. Congresswoman Tlaib, thank you so much for joining us. Keep up the good fight and and come back again soon. Thank you. Thanks to Congresswoman Tlaib for joining us today.

And we'll talk to you guys next week. We'll be on the road in Denver Wednesday night, but we'll have a pod on Monday before that. So we'll talk to you then. Bye, everyone.