Pod Save America - "A song of fire and fury."

Episode Date: August 10, 2017

The U.S. confronts a madman with nuclear weapons as well as Kim Jong Un, and Trump picks a fight with McConnell. Then NARAL President Ilyse Hogue joins Jon and Dan to talk about litmus tests, and Ana Marie Cox discusses Sinclair Broadcasting's subtle propaganda. 

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, Elise Hoag, and the host of Crooked Media is with friends like these, Anna-Marie Cox. Also be sure to check out Pod Save the World this week. Tommy has Ben Rhodes on to do a special emergency update on North Korea. And then Tommy talks to Bill Browder on how he became Putin's number one enemy. It's a great episode of Pod Save the World, so check it out.

Also, I believe that Love It or Leave It's going to be at Outside Lands up in San Francisco this weekend. And Dan, are you going to be a panelist? I will be a panelist. I'm pretty excited about this. I've been really prepping hard for this. It's very tricky being a panelist on Love It or Leave It. I know. I've been mainlining Love It or Leave It. I haven't even gotten to Pod Save the World yet

because I've been listening to a backlog of Love It or Leave It's recently to try to prepare for the various games. Yeah. I mean, there's the rant wheel. You're pretty good at it. You could go on quite a few rants, so that should be easy for you. Yeah, I'm hoping to get called on during the rant wheel you're pretty good at you could you could go on quite a few rants so that should be easy for you yeah i'm hoping i'm hoping to get called on during the rant wheel really the key is on love or leave it is to just um just to speak up don't be afraid to speak up because otherwise love it will just talk the whole time so it's a lot like being on the monday version

of pod save america exactly again it'll be a good test to see if love it listens to this okay so let's start with dan what you aptly titled on the outline the song of fire and fury great game of thrones reference dan i'm trying so on monday we said that um that august is always quiet until something crazy and unexpected happens and here we are threatened by a madman with nukes and also kim jong-un um did you workshop that all day just just this morning just on my drive over here all right so this the current nuclear mishap began on tuesday after the washington post reported that north korea has successfully miniaturized a nuclear warhead so that it's small enough to fit on a ballistic missile uh Very dangerous.

And I think some of this leaked out after, of course, the United States and the United Nations passed very stringent sanctions on North Korea, additional sanctions, passed the Security Council 15-0. So now we're told by the New York Times that this news about the miniaturized nuclear warhead put our President Donald Trump in a confrontational mood, was the description, right before he was scheduled to deliver a statement on the opioid crisis from his golf club in New Jersey. Instead of conferring with his national security team about what he should say in response to the story, Trump decided to just wing it, which, you know, totally makes sense when you're talking about a global nuclear crisis. And he said the following,

quote, North Korea best not make any more threats to the united states they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen so dan let's start with like what's the normal process for a statement like that i let me say a couple things first please do one is ever since this happened, I've been nervous about two things. One, dying. And two, I have a real problem saying the word nuclear. And I say it wrong. You have like a George Bush thing? Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, and every time I do it, our listeners very helpfully remind me of that fact.

And so I've been practicing. So I'm still going to screw it up. And I may just use the term intercontinental ballistic missile with plutonium war tips instead of nuclear. Instead of the N-word? Okay. So that's one. To answer your question, the normal process for this would be the interagency would get together. And that means is that all the relevant national security agencies would be coordinated by Russian bot enemy, H.R. McMaster. It would be the Department of Defense, the CIA, the United, the Ambassador to the UN,

the State Department, probably the Director of National Intelligence would get together and decide what the appropriate response is. It would be in very specific, careful language that would take into account all the various questions like what does it mean if we say this and then Kim Jong-un does this? What message does it send to the Chinese? What does the message send to the rest of the world who are listening to this? How does it affect our various equities in the other things we're doing? How does it affect our chance to get another UN resolution? And so it would be a laborious, annoying process, but a smart one.

In our world, what that would have meant is we probably would have started the – the president would never have gone out to take questions from the press without some process to, to have a recommended answer. Now, the president is not a, is not a robot. He could change his mind and he could overrule and say something different, but there would be a process to say, this is the consensus recommendation of your team of how to approach this, what you should say. And you would just be late. You wouldn't be like, well, I've got this scheduled event, that's basically a beard for my vacation. So and I'm gonna take a question, I'm gonna say whatever the hell I want, you would talk about it and, and think about it be part of our process. And what I think is so alarming about this is, we're supposed to all

feel better, because Trump has hired General Mattis and General Kelly. And I mean, maybe some people feel better about Rex Tillerson. I don't. But we have these people with experience who are supposed to be in this job, supposed to be the guardrails of government that keep Trump from driving the car off the cliff. And he doesn't even bother to listen to him in the single most important time you could possibly do that. And again, we should say that the process that you just outlined is not some typical Obama overcautious type of process, right? This is a process that is the same. You could ask people in the Bush administration what they would have done. I'm sure they would give you the same answer as you just gave about how the statement would be conceived. Same thing with the Clinton administration, the Reagan administration, the Carter administration,

right? Every single president would go through this kind of long process and consultation with all of your national security officials, consultations with allies, meetings, drafts, sign offs, all that kind of stuff. Every administration goes through this except this one and this president because he is fucking nuts. I think they probably were in the middle of going through this process when they looked up from their desk and saw Trump on TV saying insane things and threatening nuclear Armageddon against the world. And we're like, oh shit, I guess we should, I guess that meeting happened an hour too late. So the next question you put on the outline is, are we all going to die? Which is, you know, maybe we should have started with that one. But I think Max Fisher has a piece in the New York Times where he sort of, you know, tamps it down a little bit,

the threat right now. So read that if you want to be a little less scared. Also, I thought, of course, go listen to Posse of the World. I thought Tommy and Ben did a good job on this on yesterday's episode. But basically, Fisher's point is a couple of things to Fisher's worries a little less. One, we've been threatening Korea for a long time. Remember, Bush called them, made them part of the axis of evil right before we invaded Iraq. Also, there's been a lot of words so far, but fewer actions from the Trump administration. Fisher was saying, you know, start worrying a little bit more if Trump moves thousands of troops from Guam to South Korea right now. It's all

bluster and words, right? There's also the fact that neither side has the incentive to escalate right now. North Korea knows that this is a conflict they would lose. And the U.S. knows we want to avoid a conflict that would risk a nuclear attack on a major American city. At least, you know, I hope Trump wants to avoid that. Have to believe that he does. So, you know. It's a bit in which city it could solve a lot of his popular vote problem. That's true. That's true.

I'm sure that's crossing his mind. So the North Korean response to this, in response to the North Korean military said, quote, sound dialogue is not possible with such a guy bereft of reason and only absolute force can work on him. He went on to blast Trump for playing golf while, quote, failing to grasp the ongoing grave situation. I mean, I have to say not a ton to disagree with in that statement. The DNC should hire that dude. He's pretty good. The more frightening response from North Korea is they said that they were drawing up plans to launch

four intermediate-range ballistic missiles into waters near Guam. That would be the closest ever strike by North Korea close to American territory. In response, we could try to shoot the missiles down while they were in the air. Who knows how that would work. But yeah, that's where we are right now. That is where we are. Pretty scary. Have you have you seen the cable news coverage of like all these reporters have gone to Guam and they're reporting from Guam? I have not. The people of Guam are chill as fuck. They're just like, yeah, they're just going about their lives so like whatever we're not worried about you know north korea and here in the united states everyone

is you know buying an emergency pack and building a fallout shelter into their house right now good for them i guess um maybe they're not watching cable maybe that's why i i have been a little calmer about this because i haven't turned on cnn or msnbc or or fox or anything so i've just been trying to read twitter which um you know oh that's fucking healthy which well twitter is more like sardonic and people are like tweeting memes and making bunker jokes you know which is sort of dark but um it's it's still better than the like chyrons blasted across the screen and the maps and the explosions and the music that they all have on on on cnn and the other places so you know i will i will defend cable news here and i will disclose

once again my uh do you do you work on cable news but sometimes cable goes too far no question sometimes the internet goes too far sometimes the press generally goes too far the difference between cable and the rest of the press is really not that big a difference. But the United States, the North Korea has made a major advancement in their ability to launch nuclear weapons against the United States. And the President of the United States said, if he threatens me again, I will launch fire and fury like the world has never seen, basically threatening a preemptive nuclear strike against North Korea. I think it's okay to be – Time to take it to 10. Yeah, it's fine. The only reason I'm not taking it to 10 is just if we were to live in a world where we accept our president as a complete buffoon, doesn't know what he's saying, and no one's actually going to act on his orders, which is possible.

But if you just take at face value the United States, the president of the United States said that, I think it's okay to be pretty alarmist in your coverage. And then when you read that story, I wish I could remember where I saw it, but I obviously saw it on Twitter. But basically there are no checks and balances on launching a nuclear strike. It's just like the president just does it. No one can stop him. And so Trump says that. You read that. You realize that he's pretty insane.

You know, I'm OK with the world being alarmed for a period here. Point taken. Point taken. I hear what you're saying there. Well, let's talk about the administration response to Jonathan J. Ropey's New York magazine. That was pretty smart, which is like and also also scary. The president Trump goes out and says all this kind of stuff. And then basically the rest of the administration is left to tell the world, like, you know, don't pay much attention to him.

He's sort of nuts. Like Tillerson goes out and delivers a statement saying Americans should rest easy and sleep well at night. We have to worry about this. Mattis basically releases a statement that redraws the red line that Trump drew when he said, if they threaten us again, he will rain down fire and fury. And Mattis said, no, no, it's going to be like if they attack or they do this. So and then, you know, administration sources are telling the Post and the times oh trump was in a bad mood he was a little uh you know he's a little he was in an angry mood and all that kind of stuff which you know as chate said basically amounts to them saying the president is a weird old man who wanders in front of microphones don't pay

any attention to him which is a very sad state of affairs in the world, right? I mean, it's dangerous, number one. But number two, the fact that this is how the world is looking at the United States now, which is the president, the leader of the country goes and says something. And then they have to wait for the rest of the government to sort of clean it up. Like, it damages our credibility and standing in the world in a way that I think is going to take quite a while to recover from if we can survive Trump. The government seems to have two responses to the crazy things Trump says. One is been way out of their way to try to make the crazy thing he said seem true and build policy around it. seem true and like build policy around it. Like Trump says there were millions of illegal votes. And so we're going to start this voter suppression commission to,

you know, to go prove him to be, prove his bullshit thing to be true. And then the other one is he said this crazy thing and we're just going to not do it. Right. We're going to, and I mean,

and I really, this one is, I'm going to, I'm really torn about this. And like in the short term, I'm glad that Trump tweets – Commander-in-Chief tweets, we are going to – there should not be transgender troops in the military. Basically saying he's going to kick them all out. And the military is just like, nope, not doing that. Right.

And I'm glad because that's my policy preference, right? I'm glad that they chose the thing I want. But there is something alarming about the military just saying, we're going to do what we want to do. We don't care what you – we're going to call your bluff. And I think also in the North Korea case, this is the – I'm glad that they are just saying – they're trying to fix Trump's error as opposed to deciding that because he said it, they have to prepare the missiles just in case Kim Jong-un pops off again.

But this is a very – it's easy to get lost in how crazy – with everything happening, but how crazy it is that what the president says is not taken seriously by his own government. It's a very unique and alarming situation that we're in. And I think that a lot of these government officials are walking a tightrope. I think the military, in sort of refusing to respond to Trump's tweet on kicking out transgendered Americans from the military. You know, if what they basically said was, well, if he issues a formal directive, right, like presidents are supposed to, and he goes through the process,

you know, we will follow his order, but we're not going to follow order by tweet. So none of them have completely resisted the commander-in-chief just yet. They're trying to find that space where they can sort of resist a little, but still within the bounds of what's legal and what their job is supposed to be. I'm not saying that because I feel sorry for a lot of them, people like Mattis and Tillerson and Gary Cohn and Dina Powell and all these people who were constantly told are saving us even though we can't see it. They're choosing to do this, but they are trying to figure out where they can push him, where they can push back on Trump, and where they have to follow orders. And it can't be fun. I assume you're referring to that amazing story in Axios this morning about the Coalition to Save America. I just can't. It's really unbelievable.

We should all be thankful. We should all be thankful for all the people in the White House who are just trying. We don't know the people in the white house who are just trying they we can't we don't know the extent of the bad decisions and the bad things they're stopping from happening but we should be grateful that they're in there trying i just it's really it's really i i need to change my morning reading order because it really gets me way too worked up first thing in the morning it's the first thing i read it's the first thing I read.

It's the first thing that comes in. I appreciate it in itself because I appreciate the brevity and the tech coverage they do when some other stuff is really great. But the morning lionizing of Gary Cohn and Dina Powell is just really too much for me. It reminds you that it's not just Trump that's the problem, but Washington and the Washington culture in general. I always think about Leibovich's This Town when I read that. It's not just the Trumpists. It's like the journalist, politician, establishment vortex in Washington that tries to protect certain people. Let me say one more thing on Axios. There's a line in Washington that, you know, tries to protect

certain people. Let me say one more thing on Axios. There's a line in there that says Republican congressional leaders won't win any profiles encouraged for standing up to Trump, but almost all could move against the president. Special Counselor Bob Mueller finds crimes. The president's becomes a radical instincts. Yeah, they could. I, they technically could in the sense that they are sentient human beings. And that is an option. But, but I call bullshit on that. I there we've already the facts to date suggest that they will roll over in service of tax cuts for the wealthy.

And so I'm very, I found that part to be particularly irksome this morning. So we talked about the administration response. We talked about the regular media, the traditional media response. Now let's talk about the MAGA media response. Seb Gorka was running around all those crazy networks calling the US not just a superpower, but a hyper power, drawing all kinds of comparisons to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and said, we have to come together and support the commander-in-chief no matter what. This line was repeated by people all over Fox.

Sean Hannity tweeted, in light of dangerous North Korea threat, I'm stopping all petty political disagreements for at least next 12 hours. Oh, aren't we so lucky, Sean Hannity. Thank you for blessing us with that. Well, he didn't, because he attacked Mitch McConnell five and a half hours later. He did, which we're going to get to very shortly. Yeah, but you did have some version of this, we have to get behind the commander-in-chief and help him as he's dealing with this.

And so there shouldn't be any disagreements and any criticisms whatsoever. I got in a fight with former Bush betrayer Mark Thiessen on Twitter, who just started attacking Obama out of nowhere. I made some joke about Twitter on Twitter. He said, Twitter's really useful in a nuclear crisis. And he was like, it was Obama's fault that we're in this North Korean mess right now. I was like, what? What are you talking about, dude? They first tested a nuclear weapon when George Bush was president.

I'm not blaming him for that, but what are you doing? And then, of course, he went with, how about we all just agree to unite and support the president while he deals with this crisis? Okay, Mark Thiessen. When Obama was deciding whether to attack Syria and deal with ISIS, he was on Fox News making fun of him for golfing. on Fox News making fun of him for golfing. So it's just... Well, Mark Thiessen's presence on the Washington Post at an op-ed page on a regular basis is proof that Jeff Bezos is not infallible.

He's the second Bush speechwriter who has a column. Michael Gerson should have a column in Washington Post. Michael Gerson is a wonderful writer and a very reasonable person, even if I disagree with him on a lot of things. Mark Thiessen is just... yeah yeah mark michael michael gerson is a wonderful writer and he we agree with him more than the average republican but i would mark mark teason has terrible opinions and he writes terribly so i would be much happier like for as much as i don't

like george will when he was on that page, he was at least an interesting writer. And so it took me all of the caution I possibly could in self-restraint to not jump in the middle of your Twitter fight with him. I got so worked up about it. I don't even know why I bother. the message coming out from the MAGA media here that they're going to, that no matter what Trump does, no matter what he says, no matter what action he takes, they're going to support him, which is alarming because, you know, that means that most Republican voters, probably over half of Republican voters, if not more, are also going to support him. And, you know, this isn't back to, should we go into Iraq or not? Are there weapons, just mass destructions or not? We're talking about like first strike nuclear wars

here. Like I, it's just, it's, it's so scary and so irresponsible on behalf of this media. There is an argument to be made in times of national crisis that the country should come together. Right. Sometimes that argument is good. Sometimes it's bad. I mean, it was one of the reasons we ended up in Iraq was this view that we had to, it was unpatriotic to question the President of the United States after 9-11. And Democrats, many of them, rolled over in that political environment. Democrats, many of them rolled over in that in that political environment. But if you're going to make that argument, if the if Trump has decided I and his team has decided I'm going to be a presidential, a wartime presidential leader, and I'm going to try to rally the country to my side,

you probably don't want to go golfing in the middle of it. And two, you probably don't want to wake up in the morning and retweet an Internet poll that suggested that you were a better president than President Obama. So it's just like pick which one you want to do. Like I am all for dissent in times like this. We should we should have that. But if you're going to take the path of calling for unity, you have to act like a unifier. You can't be the normal everyday asshole that you are and do that at the same time. I think that's right. I think that's very correct. Let's talk about the home front a little bit. One piece of news that was completely sort of just disappeared in all this North Korea, for good reason, with all the North

Korea crisis stuff happening, is that the Washington Post reported yesterday that a week ago the FBI raided Paul Manafort's house. Of course, to get a warrant to do that, you need probable cause for a crime. So that's the first time we've seen probable cause. And Manafort was already handing over documents which suggest that the raid happened because he wasn't being cooperative or they think he's trying to hide stuff. And some people are saying that what the FBI is trying to do is to maybe nail Manafort on an unrelated case in hopes that he'll cooperate on the Russian collusion case. Seems like a big deal. Not every day that a president's former campaign manager's house gets raided by the FBI.

I don't remember that happening to Plouffe. No, it did not happen to Plouffe. I mean, there's some interesting things about this. I guess two things. One, right after this happened, this could be coincidence, could be coincidence, but Trump went on a tweet storm against Andrew McCabe, who was the, at the time, it may still be the acting director of the FBI, accusing him of partisan bias because his wife ran for Congress and raised money from Democrats, including Terry McCullough, friend of the Clintons. Terry McCullough, friend of the Clintons. But it was right after this raid happens, which some people have raised the question, did Trump know about this? And then this morning, Fox News has an email that Trump's attorney, not crazy Jay Sekulow, but John Dowd, one of these new serious people that Trump has hired to handle this, shows that Trump knows. The email between the Wall Street Journal reporter who wrote about this and Trump's attorney suggests that Trump's attorney knows a lot about the circumstances of this raid, the circumstances of the warrant and everything. So this, Trump did not just learn

about this yet yesterday or the day before when the rest of us learned about it. Yeah, they've known for some time and they must be getting a little a little nervous over there that it just it goes to show that like you know this this is not just some uh fishing expedition without some kind of larger goal or purpose or or uh or evidence here um you know you need you need probable cause to get a warrant like that and so muller muller thinks he's got something so uh we shall see and speaking of trump lashing out on Twitter, it started a little fight with Mitch McConnell yesterday that has gone into today because, of course, Trump likes to drag these out into as many news cycles as possible. This whole thing started when McConnell was in Kentucky.

He was giving a speech, and someone asked him about why they didn't pass health care. And he said, you know, I think Trump had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process. So, as you noted earlier, this led Hannity to tweet to McConnell, you are a weak, spineless leader who does not keep his word and need to retire. Very subtle. The next day, Dan Scavino, former caddy turned social media director in the White House, wrote on Twitter,

More excuses. Must have needed another four years in addition to seven to repeal and replace Obamacare. Hashtag drain the swamp. And then hours after Scavino, we had Trump tweet something about Mitch McConnell. And then he tweeted again today. His tweet today was, Can you believe that Mitch McConnell, who has screamed repeal and replace for seven years, couldn't get it done? What do we think about this, Dan? Who's right here? Whose side are we taking in this war? Let me quote a New York Times reporter and one time Keeping 1600 guest, Glenn Thrush. One could argue that Trump's strategy with Kim Jong-un is a lot more sane than his strategy with Mitch McConnell. That's great, Glenn. That is perfect except for one thing,

the use of the term strategy. There is no strategy here. There is just an angry man lashing out. Yeah, there's no strategy. I have to say, Trump had a point, though, saying after seven years, you couldn't figure out how to get it done. You had seven years to figure out how to repeal and replace Obamacare. That's right. That's right. Also, I don't feel too bad for Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell has been such a fucking enabler of this president for so long. He sort of deserves it. Let me be very clear. I also do not feel bad for Mitch McConnell.

I never feel bad for Mitch McConnell. That is not my sentiment. Look, Trump is right in some ways and wrong in others. The ways in which he's right is Mitch McConnell and Republicans spent seven years on repeal and tried to handle replace over lunch. So no wonder the plan failed. But Trump is also president of the United States. He was a presidential candidate. And he could have had a health care plan.

He could have done something as president to try to pass this because at the exact same time Mitch McConnell was engaging in a failed half-assed strategy to reimagine one-sixth of the economy, Trump was picking a fight with his own attorney general on Twitter. And so Trump never rallied for this bill. He never stumped for it. He didn't go out and give speeches. He didn't meet with doctors and nurses and insurance executives and pharmaceuticals, all the stakeholders. He didn't do anything to do that. He just said it. He's basically, he was as involved in the Republican effort to pass Trumpcare as I was in the Warriors championship run. I sat at home. I tweeted about it.

I was happy when they won and mad when they lost, but that's it. Dude, he confused health insurance for life insurance. He thought health insurance was what he saw on a commercial during Fox and Friends, which was $12 a month, and then you build it up over time, and you get, like, he didn't even know

what health insurance was. That's why he wasn't helping. He didn't know health insurance and life insurance, Medicare for Medicaid. I mean, it's so funny. Who was it who wrote the piece about trump falling for all of it was it might have been john that shade all the senior scams

on fox news commercials like his next plan is going to be to buy gold you know he's like he's calling up he's calling the gold number in the middle of the night and he's he's he's buying a bunch of gold he's asking him to ship it to the white house he wants to make sure he wants to make sure he's buying survival kits he's he's getting all he's he's he's ordering all those alex jones health supplements it's just it's crazy i'm not sure i'm not sure the uh survival kits is is a uh ill-informed purchase that's true that's true we're gonna have we're gonna have crooked media branded survival kits for this so So what are some of the consequences of Trump whacking McConnell here? I mean, theoretically, he probably needs McConnell for tax reform.

He wants to keep the Republicans together on that. Again, they need to, you know, I don't know that it's going to be any easier than health care reform, but maybe a little bit easier because all Republicans love giving tax cuts to rich people, but still a challenge. but still a challenge. He also sort of needs McConnell on board for if Mueller decides to recommend impeachment charges to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, probably wants them on his side, though, as you've pointed out, I'm sure they'll be there because God knows they're not going to stand up to him. Jake Sherman from Politico Playbook tweeted, it's tough to overstate how bad of an idea it is for the president to go on Mitch McConnell's bad side. And I understand that argument in theory.

Mitch McConnell is smart and he's mean. But it's not clear to me what he's going to do differently because Trump tweeted at him than he otherwise would. He's going to try to pass tax reform. Trump could accuse Mitch McConnell's dad of killing JFK, could attack the looks of McConnell's wife. He's still going to do that. There is no red line that is going to stop McConnell from trying to pass Trump's agenda, and they already did the Russia sanctions. So it's not a good idea in the sense that it's wasted energy and time, right? Like you, Trump has a, is under criminal investigation. Most of his family's under criminal investigation. The, his White House staff is still in disarray and his approval rating is swirling around

the bottom of the toilet. And so it doesn't seem like this isn't just a wise thing to do. It would be like in the middle of World War II, the U.S. invading the United Kingdom. It just makes no sense. But I don't know what the actual consequences are. Right. Just another thing for all of us to just smack our heads over.

Okay. When we come back, we will be talking to NARAL Pro-Choice America's Elise Hoag. This is Pod Save America. Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. On the pod today, we are very lucky to have the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America's Elise Hoag. Elise, welcome to the pod. Thanks for having me. Well, so we wanted to talk to you, among other things, about this abortion litmus test controversy that's popped up over the last few weeks. So this started when the chairman of the Democratic

Congressional Campaign Committee, Representative Ben Ray Lujan, said, there is not a litmus test for democratic candidates as we look at candidates across the country you need to make sure you have candidates that fit the district that can win in these districts across america what do you think he meant by that and what's your response well i mean i think you'd have to ask him what he meant by that but um i think that what we've been dealing with is a lot of straw men that need to be dispensed if we're going to win this election cycle. And one of those is that Democrats are going to win if they run anti-choice candidates. There is a very significant difference in the way people think about themselves as being pro-life, their sort of personal opinions about what they

would do in their own on personal life and uh... being anti-choice which means that you're gonna legislate your own personal ideology on your constituents the anti-choice position always a losing one and that's what pro-life people have not only been welcome in the democratic party but have been in the democratic party forever and without a problem since 1980,

which is the first year that abortion rights was part of the Democratic Party platform. So this is kind of much ado about nothing. There is absolutely seven in ten Americans identify as being in support of legal access to abortion. It's true in red states. It's true in blue states. It's true that a majority of rank-and-file Republicans support legal access to abortion, and a plurality of pro-life individuals say they don't want the government making that decision. So if you're talking about running candidates that match their district, this is not a challenge for the Democrats to win the necessary consensus

to put them over the margin of victory in elections. And in fact, they're going to alienate more voters who actually are super alarmed about what's going on in the country right now by telegraphing that they're giving ground on them than they stand to gain. It's an interesting distinction that you have between someone who may have a certain view in their personal life, but not want to impose it on others, and people who would vote in a certain way if they got to Congress or wherever else. I guess the question I would have for you is, in a hypothetical situation where the voters of a district, Montana, North Dakota, one of these states that we might have a shot of winning. The Democratic primary voters picked a candidate who was the sort of candidate that you've been concerned about, about the DCCC funding. They picked it,

and it was a choice then between a Republican or this Democrat. Is it your view that the DCCC should not support that person? You know, I think that is also a hypothetical that's not useful dealing with right now. Right now, the Democrats should be focused on finding the best candidates in every single district that reflect the core values of Democrats and swing voters, of which this is one. I think at the end of every single election cycle, Dan,

we see candidates who fall short on Democratic Party principles in every arena. I happen to be talking to you from Colorado. Colorado is an 83% pro-choice state. Democrats running in Colorado have a harder time defending the Democratic Party position on gun rights than they do on choice. And yet we're not actually talking about gun rights in this conversation this far out of the 2018 cycle. And so I think what we need to be focused on is saying we're going to find candidates that are the best in every single district, every cycle.

We're always going to have a handful that fall short of our values, be it on climate change, gun safety. of a handful that fall short of our values, be it on climate change, gun safety, and singling out any one issue right now is not worth the message that it sends to the core constituency, the base of the Democratic Party, that are women who need to know that Democrats have our backs right now. Yeah, you said it was much ado about nothing, and it got me thinking, like, part of this controversy seems to be partly media driven and partly driven by like sort of silly not very sharp answers from the d trip chairman on this you know like i don't know because i i kept reading his statement and i was like i can't tell if he's saying like like i

obviously don't expect the d trip to go around funding in primaries because they don't really fund in primaries anyway like pro-life candidates? I was wondering if it was what Dan was saying, which is, say you get to the point in a general election where you have, you know, an anti-choice Democrat and anti-choice Republican, but the anti-choice Democrats liberal on a whole bunch of other issues and maybe even more liberal on choice or more, you know, more pro-choice than the Republican, then as Democrats, don't we want to support that candidate to make sure the Republican gets in, even though that candidate's not our best choice?

Yeah, look, I think there is no doubt we have a number of dynamics at play right here. I think last weekend, Dave Weigel published a piece in the Washington Post that basically was like, I'm a reporter. You guys have a media problem, right? said basically was like, I'm a reporter. You guys have a media problem, right? So there's no doubt that putting a little more thought in how these answers come out of the mouths of Democratic leaders right now would go a very, very long way. I think the fact that they haven't actually invested the time to think about how to answer these questions strategically and do some basic media training that, you know, Weigel was saying, pivot, guys, pivot, you know.

That's something to pay attention to, especially at a time where not only is your base activated around women's rights specifically, but also a Priorities USA poll showed that the drop-off voters that we need to win in 2018, for women, the two issues driving them to the polls in 2018 are health care and abortion rights. So the Democrats need these women to win, and these women need to know the Democrats have their backs. So I think you've got a media training problem. But I also think that there is absolutely no doubt that the GOP loves this story. And the reason that they love this story, I mean, they want a Dums and Disrays story, of course they do,

but the reason they love this story is because they know if they cleave women from, or not even cleave women from the Democratic Party, but even dampen the enthusiasm of the largely female base to make phone calls to knock on the doors, that that goes disproportionately to a GOP victory in 2018. So they're certainly stroking the fires. I think, you know, the challenge that I have is when people say, so you know all that, so why don't you just pipe down, right? Women love to be told to pipe down.

And the answer to that is, A, I have a job to do. I have members to represent. And B, we're actually trying to help the Democratic Party here, right? We're trying to have them take a real look at the data, the analysis, and the messaging that is going to build the necessary coalition and the necessary enthusiasm to win in 2018. And I would love nothing more than to move past this silly conversation as we move into the fall so that we can keep our eyes on the prize. I think that you hit on a very important point here. It's one of the things that we've heard from either our listeners or people we know in our lives about this is

no one went out and said, well, we're going to support pro-gun candidates or anti-immigration candidates or whatever else. And that like you got like your organization and some other people have a very understandable right to be angry that this was the one issue that was singled out. I was curious if, you know, in my experience, does it really matter who the chair of the DCCC is because Nancy Pelosi runs the DCCC, as the leaders tend to do? Have you heard anything from Leader Pelosi or the DCCC to try to contextualize these remarks or put it in context in a way that makes you feel more comfortable where this is going? I mean, we're in constant conversation with all of leadership. And, you know, I think that they appreciate not just that we have a job to do,

but that we bring significant power to the table. I mean, we are one of the largest membership organizations. We're actively growing. We mobilize really hard for the candidates that stand for our values. And, you know, I do hear appreciation on that. I think that they are working to understand the concerns and get it right. And I think the sooner we can do that, the more unity we'll have in terms of winning in 2018. Back to when candidates and the DTRIP and people like that

get this question from reporters, they're all going to get some version of the question, okay, should there be a litmus test for candidates on abortion? What other litmus test should there be? Should there be a litmus test on single payers? Should there be a litmus test on gun rights, right? Does it seem like the right answer here is to say, look, if you want to know what the Democratic Party stands for, look at the Democratic Party platform, right? We are unequivocally pro choice. We believe in common sense, right? Like, and you just sort of go through the platform stands for look at the democratic party platform right we are unequivocally pro-choice we believe in common sense right like and you just sort of go through the the platform itself and then say

that's what we're hoping for that's what we're fighting for that's what we hope that all of our candidates uh who were running in 2018 yeah right yeah i think you just talked yourself into being the chair of the d triple c john um that was a great answer way way easier being a podcast look even those who are sort of not totally with us um within the caucus are moving in that direction right right there is unanimity on not defunding planned parenthood there was unanimity among the democratic caucus on full scale reproductive health services including abortion for victims of sex trafficking. The country is actually moving in the direction of supporting the Democratic position on this, and what we don't want is the Democrats to move in the opposite direction of the country

at a time where this issue is victory for us. It does seem like a very old debate, right? I mean, I saw that even majority PAC polling had 56% of white working class voters pro-choice and another 22% are more pro-choice than not. Only 33, 34% were pro-life. So, and you've pointed this out. It's not like this is an issue dividing the party or even really dividing america like the vast majority of the answer or at least the consensus is clear on this and get flat any person who out there food voting fully to restrict women from accessing abortion

it never gonna vote democratic for two reasons one they've always got a better choice on the g l p side of the ballot and to they don't agree with us on most anything else because really strict anti-abortion adherents aren't about abortion at all. They would join hands with us and fight for contraception and the kind of policies that support working moms if they were, but they don't do any of that, right?

It's a clash of ideological worldviews. And the extreme right, you're never going to win on this issue. They have their own candidates. And just so our listeners understand what the stakes are in this debate, how badly are pro-choice policies under attack today in this country? Really bad. I mean, I think this election was a wake-up call because you had the misogynist-in-chief joining forces with one of the most extreme anti-choice politicians we've ever seen, Mike Pence.

But abortion access specifically, I'm from Texas, which is ground zero for these sites, is so, so difficult, particularly if you're not economically well off, that a totally independent researcher who was diving deep in Google Analytics came up with the conclusion, it was actually an ancillary conclusion, his primary conclusion was that America is more racist than we like to admit based on Google searches. But his ancillary conclusion is that we are living in the middle of a crisis of self-induced abortion.

And the scorched earth approach by the extreme anti-choice movement, who have been very effective in electing their own people to state houses and Congress, has led to things like happened under Mike Pence, where he closed women's reproductive health care clinics across the state. And what did we see? We didn't see the number of abortions go down. We did see the number of self-induced abortions go up. We also saw a spike in HIV, such that it was like a pandemic in parts of the state, and we also saw women able to access less prenatal care, therefore birth outcomes and maternal outcomes went down. This is not about abortion.

It's just not about abortion. Like you said, that's an old debate, and we can't be fooled by what this extreme minority's real agenda is in thinking that we're going to negotiate with them to some kind of common agreement. We don't need to. We are the majority. We have consensus. And we don't actually stand for anything they stand for. Okay. Good to keep in mind as we look ahead to 2018 and 2020. Elise Hoag, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate you taking the time.

Thank you, John and Dan. It's my pleasure. Thank you. Take care. Don't go anywhere. This is Pod Save America, and there's more taking the time. Thank you, John and Dan. It's my pleasure. Thank you. Take care. Don't go anywhere. This is Pod Save America, and there's more on the way. With us, the host of Crooked Media is with friends like these, Ana Marie Cox. Ana, how are you feeling as you read the news this week? Oh, God.

I mean, you know, we already have the Trump-adjusted terms kind of idea. But the bar is getting lower and lower, right, to be okay in Trump-adjusted terms. Like, I'm not currently under my desk. There. How's that? That's like, I haven't actually been practicing duck and cover. Have I looked at buying pre put together go bags i have i have done that we were just talking about that we're talking about

crooked media branded survival kits we i would sure that that you should tell crooked media the fine and trump adjusted terms go back i am panicking in trump adjusted terms so we were talking about north korea we talked about sort of the uh the mega media response to all this i want to talk to you about there's a poll that was referenced in the washington post today done by two political scientists they basically got 650 people who identify or lean as republicans asked a bunch of questions here are the or lean as Republicans, asked a bunch of questions. Here are the startling results. 47% believe Trump won the popular vote. 68% said millions of illegal immigrants voted. 73% said that voter fraud happens somewhat or very often. And 52% said that they would support a Trump suggestion to postpone the 2020 election until the country can make sure that only eligible citizens can vote.

John, I think it's really cute that you still find this startling. Yeah, I mean, yeah, let's what is the term of art these days? Shocked but not surprised. Yeah. I have a couple couple thoughts about this. One is that, yes, it's startling to hear. But another thing is that polls like this really raise a question about, like, what should people be polling? Yeah, I thought so.

Because I had the feeling, and I don't know if you guys share this or not, but every time someone did in the field poll about obama being a u.s citizen they were making the problem worse right uh because they were giving people people didn't even know that was an option right there was like some group of people out there probably that hadn't even heard birther conspiracies but had bad feelings about obama so if you ask them is he american citizen or not they're like oh wow i guess i didn't realize that there was a conspiracy theory I could be buying into. You know? Yeah. The political nerd term for this is push polling.

Right. Well, there's also there's like more aggressive push polling, but this is like a kind of like subtle, more subtle push polling. And I think with this postponing the election thing, you probably are running into some group of people who didn't even realize that was an option. You know, like haven't even been thinking in those terms. But now you've given them the opportunity to accept Trump as a, you know, authoritarian, more literally. And so, of course, they embrace it. And in the other news, it's sort of like, you know, Trump voters are going to Trump. Right. I mean, yeah, like that's we're seeing those headlines all the time.

And at some point we'll be we'll stop running them, I guess. And not just and it's not just about Trump, too. It's about Republican voters in general and partisanship. Yes. You know, these voters are just that people when they respond to some of these polls, they just, there's a knee-jerk partisanship that, you know, causes them to answer one way or another. And I know that I've talked about this on the show before, but it's always worth, it bears repeating, but, you know, social science tells us that this tribalism is how people come to develop beliefs. It's they pick a tribe first, and then they accept the beliefs of that tribe. So of

course, you know, people are going to say that Trump won the popular vote, because that's like the Republican position on some level, right? Not officially, not establishment Republicans, not certain sane Senate Republicans. But there is this sense, actually, I asked you guys this, are you getting the same sense that I am that the Republican Party is just moving to back Trump? Like there's like the Senate Republicans are kind of high and dry in a way. And the party establishment, like the actual RNC and rank and file voters, aren't really leaving him. Right. Aren't really leaving him.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, it's tough. I've seen like conflicting polls. In some polls, it shows like there may be some base erosion. I saw that there's a poll in New Hampshire the other day that had Kasich versus Trump in a 2020 primary and had Kasich at 52 and Trump at 40. But then there was another New Hampshire poll where, you know, more than most Republicans

were still supportive of Trump, even though he's sitting at 36% approval overall in the state. Well, I mean, I guess part of it is that people who still call themselves Republican are going to support Trump. I mean, I think that's one of the things that's happening, right?

Is that people like my husband, for example, who considered himself a Republican until last summer, Trump was a reason he no longer calls himself a Republican. Which is being fortified by an alternate media universe that tells them this exact story that the poll kind of bears out. And that is only getting worse. There's a story this week that Sinclair Broadcast Group, which is another MAGA media outlet, plans to buy 42 local stations from Tribune Media, which will allow it to reach 72% of U.S. households. We've known this for a while, but the news was that is double the legal cap of 39%. And the reason they can go over that cap

is thanks to the approval from the FCC chairman that Trump elevated this year. This to me is, the story kind of flies under the radar. You see it pop up every once in a while. I know Johniver did a piece on it we read about various developments but um sinclair reaching 72 of the u.s population u.s households uh through local television news which is the kind of news that people might not think is ideological one way or the other they just expect to get their local news

what's going on and so to like subtly have that be conservative um or not even conservative but supporting trump conservative but it's and it's disinformation too like they are actively lying to people yeah i mean and i don't i don't mean that i'm not exaggerating right um they've been Yeah. a representative of reality that john oliver did did do this whole thing about them and what's really uh sneaky is something you mentioned which is that it's not like choosing this alternate reality like the people who watch fox news you know they've chosen to get their information from what they already know to be a somewhat they might not think it's they might think it's still reality but they know it's conservative right they've made that choice with sinclair like people aren't making the choice to get their information from a conservative biased point of view they just think they're turning on the local news like you said and yeah and they see boris epstein um who yeah i can just laugh at boris

epstein that's all i can do look i. Look, I think this is very alarming. In a short-term view, it's very alarming that people are going to be unknowingly, as you point out, will be exposed to what is essentially state-sponsored propaganda. So that's alarming. It also, to me, suggests part of a longer-term trend that sort of the way in which we think – have thought about journalism for a long time is sort of coming to an end and that it of, you know, like the Hearsts and like partisan broadsheet newspapers and pamphlets where everything has some sort of, the exception to the rule will be the way the New York Times, the Washington Post are now. And most everything else will be a place where people gather for ideas for news from, it'll be like tribal newsletters, basically, to try to torture the tribe metaphor. But the question is, will they be overt or will they be subtle?

Or not even subtle, but will they try to lie to people and say that it's objective and really it's a bunch of propaganda, which seems far more insidious. Right. And because I think that's insidious and different because it means that people aren't making the choice right i mean that's people at least when they choose right-wing media outlets today like they know they're rejecting something right they you can you can art you can actually get them to admit they're rejecting another

worldview right um they may not think that worldview is valid but they're acknowledging like that it exists whereas if it's a more subtle you're already soaking in it kind of thing i think it's harder to even find a point of entry for a conversation or a debate it's not great guys it's not great um podcast though man those are going to be... Oh, and texture. Texture is also a really good thing for magazines. Look at that.

Who knows? I don't even know if they paid for an ad in this episode, but they're getting a little shout out. Anna, who do you have on the show this week? I have on... Well, we're talking... In these trying times, it may not seem like a super, super urgent thing, but we're talking about pop culture and racism. dragging that happens over insufficient wokeness uh which is interest of interest to me um insufficient wokeness is a definite thread in the with friends like these catalog and then i get to talk to someone who i really trust on those matters which is ira madison the third who i

think you guys know as well we love ira hey it's love it here that young i'm here i just if it's 10 i'm here okay it's a reminder guys we got to finish our work before 10 i mean i'm here. I just, if it's 10, I'm here. Okay. It's a reminder, guys, we got to finish our work before 10. I mean, I'm here, so I'm going to talk. But that article was fascinating. And so I'm excited about that conversation. That's all I wanted to chime in and say. Wonderful. One other point.

Oh, here we go. The local news thing, it's not just Boris Epstein. They also choose what we cover. Local news has always been conservative in a lot of ways. You know, if it bleeds, it leads. But. Crime. Car crashes. Disaster. disaster well what are they going to cover they're going to cover raids against children being deported or they're going to cover crimes by undocumented people right so

and that's already happening and that'll get worse can i actually make a larger point on this too which is that one thing that happens when you have the 72% of the stations, households reached by these people, they also homogenize the news too, right? And they nationalize everything. And that can mean that people have an experience in their own backyards that they think is out of step with the rest of the world. And they think that maybe it's just them. Things are bad in their their hometown but but hey it looks like things are happening or great elsewhere and it creates like this dissonance and resentment that i think just feeds something like the trump phenomenon so it's bad are we all agreeing it's

bad it's bad we don't like it we're not happy about it um all right guys i think that's everything for today i think we covered it all is there anything you want to ask me? All very cheery. Hi, Dan. Dan is going to be a guest. We did it. We did it. Well, I wanted to talk about it. Well, now it's an outro. The music's going. Here we go. So it's fine. Bye, guys. I'll have to talk to you next week. Bye. Thank you to Elise Hogue for joining

us. Thanks to Anna Marie Cox, Dan Pfeiffer, John Lovett for coming, and the whole family's here. We'll see you guys later. If we don't die, we'll talk to you next week. And I'll see you tomorrow, Dan. If we don't die. If we don't die. Okay.

See you later, everyone. All right. Bye, guys. Bye.