Pod Save America - “An orgy of corruption.”

Episode Date: August 21, 2018

Mueller gets another witness, Trump and Rudy become more unhinged, conservative donors reward the politicians who made them richer, and Republicans try to suppress the vote in Georgia. Then first-time candidate and 2016 Teacher of the Year Jahana Hayes talks to Tommy about her race for Congress.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. We are coming at you from our new studio here in Crooked Media headquarters. I see a familiar curtain. It's a work in progress. I see a new fern-like thing. That's definitely a fake plant. Elijah told us we have to comment on the public access nature of the studio for those who are going to seek video clips of this.

For you listening to this, it doesn clips of this. This looks like- For you listening to this, it doesn't really matter. This looks like when Laura Trump was doing Trump TV. It's got a real Wayne's World vibe for you millennials who like things that came before your time. You millennials that like your parents' favorite movies. I love that movie. Anyway, today on the pod, Tommy has an interview with Johanna Hayes, a first-time candidate

and former National Teacher of the Year who could make history this fall as the first African-American Democrat ever elected to the Congress from Connecticut. We'll also talk about the latest in the Trump investigation, as well as the corrupt goons who are running Washington. Lovett, how was Lovett Relieve It? So good, John. Last week. Was it amazing? Was it a or Leave It? So good, John. Last week. Was it amazing?

Birthday edition? Yes, it was a birthday edition. They made me dab. I saw that. We also had Lauren Mayberry of Churches came by, and she did a dramatic reading of Omarosa's prologue. We had an awesome panel. It was a great show.

You should check it out. Did Travis just put on the screen, make him dab if he says no, chant until he dabs? Yes. That's great. They did do that. That's such a good joke. And then I dabbed.

Congrats. Thanks. You're like Paul Ryan. So listen to that for the dabbing. Tommy, I know that you just recorded a fresh pod save the world today. I did. I talked with a former deputy director, former acting CIA director, he was both, Michael Morrell, about the John Brennan and other national security officials' security clearance dust-up with President Trump over the weekend. Why is it a big deal?

It's a real Donnybrook. This is the fight we should be picking. We went into great detail, all the context, all you need to know, so check it out. Check it out. And for Pod Save the World fans and any fans of U.S. foreign policy, there's a brand new wilderness episode out today that is called The Blob. It is about Democrats and foreign policy and national security. Ben Rhodes' favorite set of people.

We got Ben Rhodes. We got Samantha Power. We got Marcy Wheeler, Jake Sullivan, all your favorites. Matt Doss. It's going to be great. What are you laughing at? Just my Avengers assemble. Also, you know, we told you we were going to make an announcement. We had a big announcement on Colbert last pod.

That announcement was Vote Save America. Go to votesaveamerica.com. Vote Save America is basically our initiative to make sure that everyone is registered to vote, allow you to find campaign events in your area so you can go help out and volunteer, and you'll get to look at your ballot, a sample ballot. It's a one-stop shop, John. Now, the key here, a couple of things. One, when this idea first surfaced and we were talking about it, we were like, that has to already exist. Turns out it didn't. So thank God Tanya Sominator is here. A couple of things. One, when this idea first surfaced, when we were talking about it,

we were like, that has to already exist. Turns out it didn't. So thank God Tanya Somanator is here. She worked at the White House Digital Office. She helped us pull this together, along with our political director. But not all the features we just described are ready yet. It takes a while to put together your ballot. The state doesn't necessarily have all the polling locations. So don't get upset if it's not there, but you need to sign up now so we can get you the information that you need when it's all available it's worth it it's something we think will help people just be engaged right now the the best thing to do is sign up with your email and what you can do now is check your voting registration and register online and like you said tommy as the as we get into september and

october all the other good stuff will be there. But already there's a ton of events listed so when you actually sign up it tells you what you can do, where you are to participate right now which is a great first step and even more importantly just share it put it on your Facebook page, tweet it out tell all your friends about it because we have no stake in this besides democracy

this is a tool we paid to assemble because we want to make it easier for people to vote and get engaged that's the whole thing and because we want to make it easier for people to vote and get engaged. That's the whole thing. And so we hope people use it. Yeah, do it. All right. Let's get to the news. There are quite a few developments in the investigation into the gang of dipshits running the government right now.

So let's just go through them one by one. Great. Let's just go through them one by one. Great. On Friday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller recommended in a memo that former Trump aide George Papadopoulos serve up to six months in prison for the crime of lying to the FBI, which he pled guilty to. Mueller says that Papadopoulos' repeated lies about his contacts with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign caused damage to the government's investigation. Tommy, what did we learn from Mueller's filing here?

Anything useful? I think we learned, well, with all things George Papadopoulos, it's hard to tell whether he's just very stupid or very stupid and hiding some very bad behavior, but it's certainly a combination of both. I think a lot of people thought that Papadopoulos was cooperating constantly and offering all kinds of good information. In fact, that's not the case, according to Mueller. In this document, it says he lied to conceal his contacts with Russians and Russian intermediaries, which the government says prevented them from adequately questioning key witnesses. There's this Professor Mifsud who was in the United States. Papadopoulos didn't explain how important he was in real time. So

Massoud went back to wherever he is now, and they were unable to fully question him. So, you know, we learned that George isn't like Mueller's golden goose, but he's an important witness. And he also is a reminder that the Steele dossier is not how this whole Russia probe started. It started with an offer of dirt on Hillary Clinton to a bunch of officials, and George got drunk and bragged about it. Yeah, and even though he's not the star witness here, it also, the filing showed just how extensive

I thought the investigation is, because the memo says the defendant did not provide, quote, substantial assistance, and much of the info provided came only after the government confronted him with his own emails, text messages, internet search history, and other info it had obtained via search warrants and subpoenas. Including a phone he used while he was in the UK, which he used to talk with this professor

at great length. And it was the fourth proffer session where he was like, oh, you had the London phone. Why didn't you say that? Like, this guy's in some trouble. I mean, that is pretty stupid. And we should end by saying he still has legal exposure on potential additional charges relating to, you know, acting as a foreign agent, conspiracy to defraud the United States, all the other good stuff Mueller's looking into. What do you think, Levitt? George Papadopoulos is what, technically speaking, he's a dope. He's a real dope. And he's going through quite a little Martin Shkreli phase on Twitter. Oh, yeah, yeah.

And I don't think it ends well for him. Yeah, he's like four tweets away from buying a Wu-Tang album. It's really not good. But when you staff your campaign with criminals and the dregs of Republican politics, some of them are going to end up in jail. That's right. Well, on that note, let's move on to the next goon. Which one?

The New York Times reported over the weekend that White House Counsel Don McGahn has been extensively cooperating with Mueller's team sitting for at least three voluntary interviews

that have lasted more than 30 hours altogether. Well, you know what I say, John? What's that? What's good for the goose is good for the McGahn. That's what I always say the times reported mcgann and his attorney couldn't understand why trump was so willing to let him speak with muller's team but the trump's attorneys felt their client had nothing to hide so trump apparently was also mistaken that the white house

council represents him personally and is there to defend his interests not to to represent the White House and the office of the presidency itself. The Times followed up with a report on Monday that Trump's lawyers still have no idea what McGahn told Mueller's team when he met with them. Then there was a sort of a late-breaking Washington Post story before we started recording that said McGahn's lawyer in an email said that he does not believe that McGahn incriminated the president in his testimony. And that in fact, he sent an email to a bunch of people in the White House and the legal team saying he did not incriminate him. Also, just we just pause for a moment to say that's where things are at the White House, where McGahn has his lawyer.

Hey, can you do me a favor? I'm having a I'm getting real weird vibes at work. Would you mind just sending an email for me I think if I send it it's weird so would you mind sending it and don't even say that I asked you to send it just send it that says I didn't incriminate the president in federal crimes

because I work with these people like you don't understand I work with them every day it's so weird there now well it's funny I mean they did say like well if he had incriminated the president, if he had witnessed the president committing any crimes, he surely would have resigned because I'm sure he's a man of upstanding character. Again, a hilarious standard. I think you'll know the president is a criminal because that's when I'll quit. Tommy, how significant is this story? You know, it's hard to tell. Yeah. I mean, one initial thought I had when I was reading it was I could finally appreciate

how frustrated Trump must be with this whole process because he picks up the paper and he learns about how his White House counsel is cooperating far more than he ever knew with the investigation that could take down his presidency. And now he's in a position where if he fires McGahn, it could be used against him in an obstruction case. So that sucks. I don't really feel sympathy for him, but I get why he's pissed. There's some question, though, about the motive behind this leak. Marcy Wheeler, who we've had on the show, really strongly pushed back on the idea that McGahn is cooperating here by choice and that he's really doing anything special because as the White House counsel, he's the government's lawyer.

He's the lawyer for the office of the presidency, and he doesn't have the chance to assert attorney client privilege like you would in a normal case. And Bob Bauer writes about this on Lawfare. It's pretty well established law. So they're trying to make this argument that they've been incredibly transparent with the investigation. Trump's team loves to cite the fact that they've turned over a million pages of documents. But a lot of this is sort of a smokescreen because if you're turning over like a million pages of emails that are news clippings, it's sort of meaningless. Like the key is that Trump still hasn't sat for an interview Bush and Cheney did during the plane investigation. So the other key thing that Marcy pointed out was McGahn in this whole article is about the obstruction of justice

charges. It doesn't say if Mueller asked McGahn about Russian collusion specifically, even though he was the key lawyer on the case on these issues. So on the on the campaign, I'm sorry, he was the key lawyer on the campaign about these issues. He's like a campaign finance expert. So McGahn faces real risk here. And it sort of glosses over that fact. But I don't know. I just think it's so awesome that McGahn apparently decided to be really helpful and cooperate it because one day, Trump's other lawyers, Ty Cobb and John Dowd went to a fancy steak place and, you know, talked a little too loud at lunch in a New York Times reporter, heard them bitching about Don McGahn. And so he was like, well, these guys are trying to screw me. I'm going to go cooperate with Mueller. And this place is just a snake pit and it's going to kill them all. It seemed as if from all the reporting that McGahn believed that Trump may make him the fall guy for obstruction and be like, well, I was given advice by my White House counsel that I could take these actions, whether it was firing Comey, whether it was telling Comey to let Flynn off, all this kind of stuff. And he remembers that John Dean, President Nixon's counsel, they tried to set him up as the fall guy for Watergate.

Dean obviously pled guilty to obstruction charges and then cooperated with the government to help bring down Nixon. And so from McGahn's point of view, he's thinking, I want to cover my ass. I want to cooperate with Mueller. And like you said, and if I don't cooperate with Mueller now,

he could subpoena me anyway. Yeah, it's interesting. There's been a lot of reporting about whether Trump thinks Trump did anything wrong. What seems to me is obvious is that Don McGahn doesn't believe that Don McGahn facilitated Donald Trump breaking the law at the White House. And so, you made it too, that McGahn is required to cooperate. I am less interested in the kind of meeting out of guilt, like is Trump trying to drop the dime on McGahn? Is McGahn trying to protect himself, whether it's from what happened during the campaign or what happened in the White House counsel had to spend 30 hours talking to Robert Mueller because of all he knows around this investigation and how wrapped up his office now is into a series of investigations into very serious federal crimes, which is, as Bob Bauer pointed out, it's a unique situation for the White House counsel to be in, to have been, to be a witness in this way and to continue and to be a witness while continuing to

play the role of White House counsel. Well, and all the president's lawyers and a lot of the people in the White House have said for a long time, oh, we don't believe that it's possible that Donald Trump could be charged with obstruction of justice or could be guilty of obstruction of justice or could be impeached for obstruction of justice. We don't think this is a real thing. And clearly, Don McGahn doesn't believe that because that's why Don McGahn sat down and wanted to cooperate about this. Now, the question is, why did Trump let McGahn do it? And that seems to be a whole other set of problems. I mean, like, there seems to be a couple buckets of frustration. One, everyone's mad that McGahn's lawyer didn't fully brief

Trump's legal team on how much he said, how long he said it, etc. Two, there was this early strategy where Trump's lawyers, for some reason, believed him when he said he didn't do anything wrong, knowing that he is a long history of lying to everyone, including his family and lawyers. And they decided, let's fully cooperate with this inquiry. And then, you know, the Rudy Giuliani's of the world have shut it down since. McGahn was opposed to that strategy from day one. It sounds like, it sounds like, you know, Steve Bannon has been on the record forever saying that participating or cooperating with the investigation was a mistake. So that fight is happening. I mean,

in the day you have a bunch of largely incompetent people who don't trust each other, battling it out constantly. It's like it's going to be a horrible outcome. Even, you know, even Trump himself can't help but reveal the underlying criminality. We're all assuming as part of this conversation, because he's saying things like Don McGahn's no rat. Yeah, I know. Hey, you can't rat somebody out for not breaking the law. That's not how ratting people out works. Also, have you not watched anything?

I know you fast forward through the nonviolent parts of movies, but have you not caught a conversation in Goodfellas? The villain in the Nixon White House starts with Nixon. He's like, how dare you rat on Richard Nixon. I mean, we can sort of get caught up in details of like who's ratting out who and everything. Right. I want to like step back for a second. All these assholes in the White House are telling Axios that McGahn was a helpful witness to Trump. They're glad he cooperated because he was helpful.

And they said, quote, in the two meetings to discuss firing Comey, the president was instructed by aides that this is not going to end the investigation. It's only going to make it worse. The heat will be turned up. And Trump said, I understand that, but I have no confidence in him. So I'm going to fire him. That's a good fact, said the source. First of all, can anyone imagine Donald Trump saying, I have no confidence in him anymore. I'm going to fire him. Of course not. But also like we know that's all bullshit because Donald Trump told Lester Holt why he fired Jim Comey. And then which is which is because of the Russia thing. And then the next day in the Oval Office, when they were fucking the Russian foreign minister in there, Donald Trump said them, oh, the pressure's off me now because I got rid of Comey and he was on my ass about that Russia thing. There are no also like, well, you know, Donald Trump, what he cares about most of all is competence

and the people who serve in his administration. Loyalty, disloyalty, help him, hurt him. What matters to him is the faithful execution of our laws. Give me a break. Also, I was reminded that Trump tried to get Don McGahn to deny a New York Times report that Trump had pressured him to fire Mueller. And McGahn had to remind him like hey boss you actually did do

that even though Trump and then Trump went and told Rob Porter another great guy working in this White House to tell McGahn that if you refuse to make a statement denying the story that he'd be fired and McGahn again refused so like of course and then McGahn told that to Mueller

all the ways he's tried. Again, ask Comey for a loyalty pledge. Ask Comey to let Flynn go. Fires Comey. Tries to fire Mueller. What else? Tries to get Sessions to fire Mueller. Publicly pressures Sessions to fire Mueller.

Says today that he can take over the investigation anytime if he wants. Again, the legal thing here is a corrupt intent, a corrupt intent to obstruct justice. It's also like you can step even further back from all of this. You know, so much of so much of the stories you guys talked about this on Thursday that that so much is happening out in the open, but as if what we're constantly searching for that secret, that's going to that's going to make the new difference. It's going to change everybody's mind. Here again, what we are seeing is extraordinary

reporting that the White House counsel has spent 30 hours again and again sitting down with an investigation into the president, the White House, and his campaign for crimes, including conspiracy and obstruction of justice. There's a lot of speculation as to why that interview happened. What's the outcome? What does it mean? The fact that it is so embroiled, this White House is in and of itself a very, very big deal and actually the only thing we know for sure. So let's talk about the White House reaction to this news.

Trump obviously taking it all in stride. Cool. He, you know, firstumber He's like a sea cucumber A little threat and he explodes half his body He said that McGann spoke with Mueller because he allowed it And then he attacked The New York Times, John Brennan, Jim Comey

Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Bruce Ohr Jeff Sessions, Hillary Clinton, Bob Mueller His DOJ lawyers Who he called disgraced, discredited thugs and compared them all to Joseph McCarthy. That was. So does this seems like the musings of an innocent man? My favorite. There were so many good tweets, but my OK, my favorite tweet was Trump saying that members of the media

are calling the White House to complain about the New York Times story because it's such fake news. It's like Maria Bartiromo or something yeah right like maybe he's like commiserating with sean hannity at the golf club or whatever but i love the idea that like beat reporters are calling up the new york the white house switchboard being like i'd like to call it to complain about the new york times it's damn balls like hey i want to shoot this shit with the president i'm uh i'm really bummed about this time story again it's like everyone's like well if he's innocent you know he he did nothing wrong, we're told by all of his staff and reporters. If he did nothing wrong, why is he acting like this? Maybe because he's fucking guilty.

Or crazy. Or both. Or both, yeah. I don't know. My second favorite was him encouraging us to, quote, study the late Joseph McCarthy because Mueller and his gang make Joseph McCarthy look like a baby. One, that's a weird image and comment. like a baby. One, that's a weird image and comment. Two, like McCarthy's famously harassed and publicly humiliated officials and made claims about them without evidence, i.e. the Trump playbook. Trump's lawyer was Roy Cohn. It's like it's just the ironies are so rich, it's hard to even grasp. Also, what Donald Trump knows about Joe McCarthy. God, what a thing would be to have Donald Trump in a room, hand him a pad and a pencil and say write down everything you know about joe mccarthy right top to bottom give

me all the facts you've got i think that he would not be able maybe double yeah what what did he do for money what year he knows nothing he was study study joe mccarthy he never hasn't studied anything since he was very well known during Frederick Douglass' time. They're both getting more well known. My Kevin's brother? Yeah. So anyway, Trump's reaction was typical Trump. And then his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, went on the Sunday shows and just crushed it for his client.

In a back and forth on Meet the Press with NBC's Chuck Todd about whether Trump should meet with Mueller for an interview, as well as they talked about the exposure Trump might have to perjury charges, Rudy said, truth isn't truth. Which just, you know, Chuck just started laughing and it's ridiculous. But also, everyone's talking about the truth isn't truth thing. Rudy also lied dozens of times about the investigation during that interview, only some of it which were fact checked on air. Love it. You were tweeting about this on Sunday. What what is Rudy's strategy on these shows and why does that strategy sort of make him a difficult guest to interview? Yeah, I mean, there's this there's this fundamental problem of having people like Rudy on television, you know, Rudy has this vague,

confusing way of speaking, but it's offered as common sense, like from a place of wisdom, like Chuck, you're being crazy. Let me tell you, this really works. How it really works is up is down. Everyone's stupid but me. And, you know, as if from a place of wisdom and strength, but of course, it's frazzled and hard to understand and improvised and full of factually inaccurate renderings of the case against Donald Trump. The problem is, so lying in real time is a lot easier than fact checking in real time. And, you know, I saw that there was this big pile on on Chuck Todd for he should have known that the email said this. She should have known and had been ready with that fact. OK, you know, maybe maybe there was a place for a follow up immediately right there that he shouldn't have missed. Fine. But but let's not we shouldn't we shouldn't be that officious about this because it's really

hard because Trump people lie on television. They do it constantly. And, you know, in print, people can break something down, take their time, show where the inaccuracies are, show where the confusing kind of word maze doesn't actually hang together. But in real time, you don't just have to have facts on the ready. For a fact to be effective on television, you have to deploy it and then it has to show weakness in your opponent. When someone like Chuck Todd or Jake Tapper or John Dickerson is facing Kellyanne Conway or Rudy Giuliani or Sarah Huckabee Sanders or any of them. They have to offer a fact and then you have to see if that fact exposes them some way. I didn't understand until Trump was president that facts and shame are tied together,

that facts are the carrot and shame is the stick. When you throw a fact at Rudy Giuliani, he doesn't seem injured by it. He doesn't seem chastened by it. He doesn't seem weakened by it. He just withdraws to some new generality to get out of the problem in the moment. And it works because shamelessness is an incredible shield on television. Because as long as you don't look weak, it doesn't look like you've lost. I get that to an extent. I agree that television as a medium makes that a problem because you only have a certain number of minutes to interview someone and they can just bullshit their way through it.

But I think we've also seen instances where, and Chuck has done this effectively in the past, and Jake has done this, Jake Tapper's done this effectively. You sort of, at some point when someone's lying to you, you throw out the script for the rest of the questions that you have for that person. And you actually do dig in on the one lie and keep going, going, going. Now, what does it get you in the end? Like, at the end of the interview, does Rudy Giuliani throw up his hands and say, I give up, he's guilty. Like, no, that doesn't happen. But, I mean, what happened was, you know, Giuliani said to Chuck,

all they knew was that a woman with a Russian name was going to meet with them. They didn't know she represented the Russian government. This was in reference to the Trump Tower meeting and meeting with a Russian name was going to meet with them. They didn't know she represented the Russian government. This was in reference to the Trump Tower meeting and meeting with the Russian lawyer. Of course, they did know she was a representative from the Russian government. It was stated in an email that

Don Jr. tweeted out for all of us to see. Back when he was George Papadopoulos-ing on Twitter. It's not a major error, but you do wonder what would have happened if Chuck said, no, no, no, Mr. Giuliani, of course, that's not, Mr. Mayor, that's not true at all. In Chuck's defense, it's hard to have all the facts ready on the tip of your tongue. It's also hard when you're doing a remote interview. You have an earpiece in, you can half hear them.

But just like the truth isn't truth comment, it's a bizarre soundbite, but the longer statement is sort of worse because he's trying to say that if two people offer a different account of an event it's impossible to ever know what really happened so trump shouldn't sit down for an interview isn't that literally what happens in every court case where you don't plead guilty rudy giuliani was a prosecutor what is he talking about he just like throws different rational like generalizations at the wall all day long. He doesn't seem well. Nonsensical. But that's, yeah, he seems unwell.

Or, look, let's just say it. A lot of people speculate that he drinks before a lot of the evening interviews. Yeah, he's not. Seems that way. Certainly lost a step. But this is, yeah. This is why, though, it is such a challenge. And I don't like the way people just watch and wait for the chance. Here's what I would have asked.

Like, Rudy Giuliani goes on there. It is a blizzard. It is a torrent of bullshit. Some of it are just complete factual inaccuracies. Some of them are kind of a spurious analysis about how the law works from his experience as a prosecutor, which he's sort of using like he's sort of arguing from experience in a way that's hard to refute. Because like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. That's not how I understand it to be. This doesn't make sense to me. It's it's pure. It's pure gaslighting. But there's something else about this too, because it is hard to fact check in real time. It is hard to deal with someone who's just making shit up and improvising on the fly. But what I was thinking about in

watching these interviews is that the worst thing for a host to say is not, wait, you're wrong, or wait, that's inaccurate. It's, I don't know. So none of these people can ever say during an interview, you know, you're making that claim. I'm actually not sure if that's accurate. Something about that doesn't when we come back, I want to I want to go back to you on that or or they don't come back from commercial and say, you know what, I should have followed this just to verify this claim, because we still demand that the host of these Sunday shows speak from this position of authority sitting between two equal sides. And, you know, I'm sympathetic to it because the shows are based on a kind of naive, but honorable notion about how debate is supposed to work. You know, two people show up,

they are ultimately maybe biased, but seeking the truth and coming with faith in their own ideas and battling it out. And they may spin, but you're there to help kind of navigate between spin and fact and help people figure out what happens at the end of this conversation and help them navigate the truth. But when you have someone like Rudy that goes on television and is like up his triangle, it's tough. They have not updated these shows to the reality of a world in which one party is not based in fact or truth anymore. And it's just all bad faith all the way down. Right. And I do think you have to at some point, the people who do these interviews, you have to ask yourself, what is the purpose of having this person on? What is the goal here? Is it to convey a better understanding of the issues to the

American people? And because if that's the case, it's not doing so because these people are liars. Right. You know, so is it just to allow both sides on to both give their spin? And if it's lies, then it's lies. And we'll just move on because then, you know, that's sort of where it's at right now. Right. I mean, so I'm sympathetic because, you know, all these hosts have talked about it. There has to be a bias towards having officials from the government, the White House on your show. And I guess that to me, that compromises,

I think you're right. I think you do have to have Kellyanne Conway on. I think you do have to have Sarah Huckabee Sanders on or Rudy Giuliani as the president's lawyer in the middle of an incredible investigation. But it just means that the work is harder. You have to be ready for the fact that these people are not just going to spin you. They're going to lie to your face. So coming attractions, Michael Cohen, who the New York Times reported on Sunday, is under investigation for bank fraud of more than $20 million. Not good. Anyway, the New York Times reported that he may be indicted or charged by the end of the month.

So that's something that may happen. The end of the month is so soon. It's so, so soon. The Times reported that prosecutors are particularly interested in loans obtained by taxi businesses that he and his family own. And he's also under investigation for potential campaign finance crimes related to arrangements made to buy the silence of women who alleged to have had affairs with Donald Trump. And that goes right to Trump. I mean, also, these guys are sloshing around in money. $20 million?

For this bozo? Also, he's so dumb. Also, it's so hard to make $20 million legally. This is where our friend. Look at that dumb. This is where John Dean comes back. John Dean, again, was Nixon's White House counsel. He initially helped cover up Nixon's involvement in Watergate, but later cooperated.

since White House counsel, he started, initially helped cover up Nixon's involvement in Watergate, but later cooperated. The funniest thing that happened this weekend was Michael Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis, telling Politico that he's been in touch with John Dean just to talk best practices, just to see how things went back in the day. That must make Trump's head explode reading that. Yeah. Yes. John Dean went to jail.

Yeah, but he played down for lesser things. Cohen's out there. It looks like he could get charged. And if he does, he's already sent quite a few signals that he will cooperate. And they do. And the Times reported this, that any cooperation deal will probably include, will almost definitely include an agreement to cooperate with Mueller on his investigation, even though they're two separate issues. Can I say something, John? Sure. I've had a long running beef with Lanny Davis, Michael Cohen's lawyer, and it occurs to me now that I'd like to offer an olive branch. Now, I do believe that Lanny Davis represents everything that's wrong in Washington and

everything that's wrong with Democratic politics. However, if in his role as the lawyer for Michael Cohen, he helps bring down Donald Trump, I will apologize. I will praise him publicly. I won't. Why? He's getting paid. Yeah. Some other

lawyer could have done the same thing. I withdraw my offer. You think it's a genius move to tell Michael Cohen it might be in his best interest to cooperate with Robert Mueller? You basically just tickled Lanny with your olive branch and then yanked it back. I take it back. I love it. How did he ever come up with that one? I take it back. Lanny, you're a sleaze.

You can't win me back. Let's talk about corruption, but let's broaden it out from the Trump White House to the broader Republican Party. And this is more in the legalized corruption realm. There was a story in the New York Times over the weekend that basically tells you everything you need to know about the alliance between filthy rich Republicans and Donald Trump. Here's the lead. Republicans are struggling to make the $1.5 trillion Trump tax cuts a winning issue with voters, but the cuts are helping the party in another crucial way, unlocking tens of millions of dollars in campaign donations

from the wealthy conservatives and corporate interests that benefited handsomely from it. It goes on to highlight donors like Sheldon Adelson, who got $700 million from the Trump tax cuts and then donated $30 million to Paul Ryan's Super PAC. Other donors include oil companies and Wall Street types. And the best part is very few of the Super PAC ads that they are funding talk about the tax cut at all because they know it's not popular with the rest of the base.

Do you think that Sheldon Adelson uh gave paul ryan five stars when he added that tip or i mean or what my reaction to this story was like yeah no right like the coke brothers aren't good guys they cut these the republicans huge checks because they get 10x a return on their investments so they don't even try to hide it. I mean, my favorite part of this story, check it out online. There's a photo of this guy, Corey Bliss, who's the executive director of the elitist super PAC in the story. And it's like someone called him and said, Corey, the New York Times is writing a story about how we're giving away money to fat cats. And he was like, honey, hold my putter while I run down to the club and get my pink tie and my baby blue supper jacket to pose for this photo.

This guy looks ridiculous. And it's like, yeah, they just lean into it. They don't give a shit. And it also says a lot about sort of this, the alliance between the Trump populist nationalists and the rest of the Republican Party that's sort of dying off right now. It's completely funny. It's like Trump campaigns. I'm going to be a champion for working people, right? His only legislative achievement in office is a tax cut,

a trillion plus dollar tax cut for the biggest corporations and rich people. That will raise taxes on poor people. That will raise taxes on poor people. That while he was trying to pass, multiple Republican politicians said out loud, if we don't pass this tax cut, my donors told me their wallets are shut.

That's at Chris Collins, who was arrested for insider trading. From the White House lawn, by the way. Was caught saying, my donors are basically saying, get it done or don't ever call me again. So they get it done. They pass the tax cut.

It goes to all these rich people. And then what do they do? They pour it back into these ads to keep control of the Republican Congress, but they don't advertise the tax cuts in the ads. In the ads, they talk about how brown people are going to come and kill your family. They talk about MS-13. They talk about immigration. They talk about all the other things. They don't talk about tax cuts because that's not what the base wants. It's a three-step process. Step one, massive unpopular debt finance tax cuts for the rich and deregulation.

Step two, the rich take a tiny portion of it. They fund dishonest campaigns to get Republican voters to go along with the program by using immigrants, black athletes, China and Democrats with the help of a propaganda network. Step three, slashing of public goods like education, health care, transit, roads, and unleashing of private ills by rewriting rules around pollution, worker safety, corporate transparency, and all the rest. And, you know, I was very angry reading it. And, you know, we talk a lot about the sort of ultimately the bargain between nationalism and capitalism. And the consequence is a kind of like inequality and unfairness. It's an oligarchy. It saps.

It is. It's an oligarchy. It saps the bonds of society. I really I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that in this election, we're trying to prove that this bargain didn't pay off for them and that saving the country depends on that being true. You know what step doesn't occur in the process you outlined is investment in the economy or wage increases or job creation. I mean, what happened is stock buybacks are up to $1 trillion or expected

to be $1 trillion this year. That's up 80% from this period last year. So these are not investing at all. They're not creating new jobs. They're buying shares in the company that the CEOs mostly own, that the workers don't own. So they make money and they can flip the stock. And the way you keep it running is with a giant propaganda machine.

That is the key, right? And so part of that propaganda are these super PACs and the super PAC ads and all the political stuff they're doing. The other part is Fox News and the media machine that they all run and Breitbart and all that stuff. And it's very instructive that the story the propaganda machine tells is not how free market capitalism will cure all the ills in the world. The story they tell is that liberal elites are letting in all kinds of immigrants and refugees to destroy the country. China's the fault. That's why we need a trade war. Yeah.

But I do think that Democrats need to tell that story and expose that truth and just sort of be honest about what's going on. And not worry about having to be called classed warfare because it's being waged on us all day every day. Right, right. The Times also had another piece that we should just mention before we move on that connects to this. The Times piece dives into how the man who has led the EPA's Clean Air Office since the fall, William Wareham, is also an attorney who represented a coal-burning trade association

that's been pushing for these changes. The administration is taking advantage of a failing in ethics rules that basically allows someone who was an attorney for carbon polluters to draft policy at the EPA from the inside. So that doesn't sound so great. No, it's not. I mean, there are a whole bunch of rules put in place that prevented you from working in an agency that you had just recently lobbied. But there is essentially a loophole here for someone who is an attorney for these provisions. But this guy is the ultimate fox in the henhouse. He knows all the things that need to be dismantled for the industry. And essentially, it sounds like he's been going through their wish list during his tenure there. So again, it's like good for the times for

finding the story and for covering in great detail. But all these massive, you know, decades long problems are being caused for us in terms of the environment and all these other places while we're focused on the other distractions of the day. So the example it is it is reading the news. It really was some of the most outrageous stories I think we have seen since Trump was president. And it is so much more destructive and so much more damaging than the kind of Trump show. So what this is about is the fact that when coal plants make changes, they are supposed to make sure that they adhere to rules around pollution, to make sure that when they modify or renovate or expand at a plant, that these plants will abide by rules to keep the air safe that go along with regulations that have changed or been expanded since the plant came online, what have you.

And basically, this guy in representing this plant is saying, you have to take our word for it in terms of the protections against pollution we put in place, that the EPA doesn't get to approve it, that the EPA doesn't get to revise it. And it's incredibly dangerous because it's basically a license to pollute. And it's something that the EPA's own regulators were against. It's something that the Obama administration was against. There is no justification for it, except if you don't give a shit about the damage it does to people, the years off of people's lives that happen because of coal pollution. If all you care about is rewarding corporate donors and corporate interests that fund your campaign and protect you while you're in office. So the final thing that Republicans are doing here,

you while you're in office. So the final thing that Republicans are doing here, aside from all the corruption and the super PAC stuff and the propaganda that they're doing to sort of maintain power has to do with voting and voter suppression. And so there was some news about that this week. Republicans are moving a plan in Georgia to close two thirds of the polling places in a majority African-American county. Officials in Randolph County, which is about two and a half hours south of Atlanta, are moving on a plan to shutter seven of the nine polling sites there, a rural county with limited access to public transportation. The ACLU is fighting the effort, and voting rights activists are getting a petition drive off the ground to fight back.

So this is so blatant what they're trying to do here um and also this is keep in mind you have stacy abrams uh who could be the first african-american governor of georgia on the ballot i mean it's as direct as could possibly be yeah and brian camp her opponent who spent eight years of secretary as secretary of state in georgia removing hundreds of thousands of voters from the role yeah he's the top election official in the state running for governor making it as easy for himself as possible to run for governor it is disgusting yeah and again this is happening specifically in states like Georgia, like Texas, like North Carolina, where the demographics are such that the, you know, more people of color or people of color make up a higher percentage of the voting

population or an increasing percentage of the voting population. And so in order to hold on to power, Republicans are trying in every way they can to suppress the vote and make it harder for people to vote. Yeah. It's, you know, when you want to pursue massively unpopular policies that only benefit a tiny subset of the population, you have to convince a bunch of people to vote against their interests and then stop a bunch of other people from voting who would try to stop you. This all goes back to a god awful Supreme Court decision in 2013 that gutted the Voting Rights Act. And this would have been prevented. But instead, all these southern states that had a history of doing these kinds of things, these voter suppression tactics like voter ID laws or gerrymandering are now allowed to enact these proposals without federal approval. And it's another reason why Democrats need to vote and be motivated by Supreme Court nominations, because these are decisions that will be screwing us over for decades. The case was so crazy. This was a 2013 case. And basically what happened is part of the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, Southern states with a history of segregation. Anytime you changed

the voting laws, you had to seek approval from the federal government. And so therefore, it prevented a lot of these southern states from instituting Jim Crow-like voting laws. Which they immediately put back in place the second the thing was repealed. Right. And as part of the repeal, John Roberts, writing for the majority in the case said, well, the country has changed since 1965. for the majority in the case said, well, the country has changed since 1965. You know, there's not as much racism. Things are fine. And so we don't need these special provisions anymore. It's all good. Everything's fine. And the second that they announced the case,

all these other states are putting in place these voters. The logic was so obscene. The logic was the Voting Rights Act has finally stopped the very pernicious and harmful policies that the Voting Rights Act has stopped. And therefore, we no longer need the Voting Rights Act. Just one other point about this. It's a good example of how racism can foster oppression of everybody because they are getting away with this because it plays into the racial animus that they have been using to goad their base and to maintain power. But it is ultimately an effort to suppress Democratic votes to prevent a Democratic governor who would do things like expand Medicaid and hold, you know, the powerful interest in that

state accountable. And the only way they can stop this is by using the oldest playbook in American politics, which is stopping black people from voting. Yeah. And again, I mean, it is, this connects directly to the Kavanaugh nomination too, because one of the ways in which Anthony Kennedy was slightly more moderate than some of the other conservatives on the bench was in the voting rights area. And it is clear that Kavanaugh has views that are much more, that are much closer to Thomas and Roberts in this case and a lot of the other conservatives than he did Kennedy and the liberals on the court. And these, you know, a Supreme Court hands down a decision like that, that's a big deal because basically what we're left with now is

states with Democratic governors and Democratic legislatures can institute things like automatic voter registration and early voting and all the things that make voting easier. But a lot of these Republican states, if they decide to do what Georgia did, there's not a lot of recourse with the Supreme Court hand, you know, gutting the Voting Rights Act as they did. Yeah, you can really, you know, we talk about how important the midterms are. We talk about how important it is, in part because a lot of these state officials will help determine the representation in Congress in the years ahead. There is this, you talk about these stories, whether it's the EPA story and then turning over the EPA to industry or the tax story or this voting rights story. And you really do feel like we're at a tipping point where we really are running out of time because I think people at a certain point will give up. because I think people at a certain point will give up. They will give up if they see the fact that no matter what they do, that this democracy doesn't work for them,

that the rules don't apply to them, that their vote won't matter, they won't have a chance to vote, that they'll be stripped of their right to vote, that these powerful interests will win in the government no matter what they do. And you just, we have to stop them. There's just no other, I was really, the collection of horrendous news coming out about what these people are doing really clarified that for me.

Not that it wasn't clear before, but there's only so many chances we'll get to stop this. That's a bummer. It is a bummer, but we should be honest about it because I think for a long time, we weren't honest about just how bad things had gotten. And that's what, to me, this was a reminder of. Well, the ACLU is fighting the effort.

They can get a petition drive. They might be able to stop it, which is good. Oh, absolutely. This one, of course. We should fight to stop this. Of course. I'm just saying that, like, this. We get you.

That's all. We get you. And we didn't even mention the White House firing the white nationalist conference attending speechwriter on Friday, in case you don't think that there's enough stories about racial animus. Yeah, the only white nationalist conference white house employees are allowed to attend are in the East Room. But once again, one way to stop this in this election and to take over not just Congress, but state houses across the country is to vote, vote, vote. And, you know, going back to Vote Save America, one of the best parts of this is you can check your voter registration. Some people were already checking it and saying, oh, I thought I was registered. But apparently I was taken off the voter rolls for some reason, which many states are doing all across the country.

So it's important to check your registration, make sure your friends check their registration. And yeah, and then make sure to register as many people to vote as you can. When we come back, we will have Tommy's interview with Johanna Hayes. On the pod today is Johanna Hayes. She is the Democratic nominee in Connecticut's 5th Congressional District. If she wins the general election, she will be the first African-American Democrat to ever represent Connecticut in Congress. Johanna, welcome to Pod Save America. Hi, thanks so much for having me. Thank you for being here. You were the National Teacher of the Year in 2016.

So first of all, congratulations to you. That is a remarkable achievement. My question to you is, if you had President Trump's undivided attention in your classroom for a day, what course would you teach him? I think probably the same thing I teach my students, to be of service, you know, to treat people, you know, invest in your community and treat people, you know, with dignity and respect. It's one of the things that I always put at the forefront of every lesson, you know, to develop deeper understandings of each other, you know, so that collectively we could be better.

And I don't see that happening a lot. Yeah. Another thing I read that you used to teach was kindness and compassion in your classroom. And I love that. And I think it's so important. Do you think that kindness is teachable in other places outside the classroom? Like, could you teach it in Washington? Because it feels like political policies and debate are really suffering because of a lack of empathy. And that's certainly a problem that predates Donald Trump. Could you bring that lesson plan with you down to D.C. if you win? I think Washington needs that. You know, we are at a critically important time where I think government needs to be reminded that

your job is to represent people. You know, at the bottom line, you really need to understand how policies that are drafted affect the people in our communities. And what I learned as a teacher, I went in as a history and civics teacher, never thinking that this was necessary. And I realized very quickly, it doesn't matter how much students learn if they don't know what to do with that information. If they have no desire to help other people, you know, then all of that information is useless. And it worked. You know, my students started to thrive when they realized that this is so much bigger than me. And I think government could use that. Yeah, I agree with you. It seems like your students have really taken that lesson and put into action because I was reading about how many of your former students supported you and volunteered for you. What did that mean for you as a teacher

to see a kid who you used to have in the classroom in your campaign office, you know, making calls? And what do you think it says about a generation of kids that are sometimes dismissed as, you know, not paying attention to the world and just on their phones? Like, what does it say about them? I mean, my young people were unbelievable. They were the game changers in this campaign. You know, from the time between the primary and the day I announced, it was just a short 102 days. I had no money. I had no network. You know, I had no call list. I had no political clout. But I had all of these young people who came in for very different reasons, you know, and demonstrated what we had practiced in class so many times. You know, my staff was very small. I had six paid staff and about 70 young people who came every day.

And I laugh because people say young kids are not engaged. They're not involved. They don't vote. young kids are not engaged, they're not involved, they don't vote. And my response is give them a reason. Because they, I mean, use social media in a way that really changed the narrative of my campaign, really helped me to open the door to young people, came in and said, I've never done this before, but teach me how to engage. And pretty much, I think what the difference was, I let them be involved in a meaningful and purposeful way. Whatever their gift was, I said, let's figure out how to work and use that on this campaign. They weren't seen as subordinates or aides. They were in leadership roles. One of the frustrating things about the Trump era is that policy debates seem to take a backseat to all the other stuff

that happened during the day, you know, 50 Trump tweets, whatever it might be. Given your experience teaching, what changes would you make to federal education policy that you'd like to see implemented if you get elected? Well, I think education is very important to me. You know, we really need to see it as an investment in our future. You know, when I say that, it doesn't just mean more money. It means, you know, looking at it as important. One of the things that I notice from being in my classroom, you know, so much of education is geared towards post-secondary education and test scores. And I have so many students who are not interested

in going to college. We really have to meet the needs of our changing economy and make sure that students are career ready, you know, offer different choices and multiple pathways to success. You know, there's this conversation now that school prepares you for college and that's the only way to be successful. And there are so many young, we have more students graduating high school and less entering college, you know, and that type of work needs to be seen as valuable. I think another thing that is very important is, you know, to make sure we cover the entire spectrum. We need to make sure that children are getting early childhood education.

You know, you can definitely tell the difference when you have a student who was exposed later to education formally, you know, who didn't have, you know, those social skills and those phonemic skills. They come in and it's almost like they never catch up. And when we talk about the spectrum, I think what this administration is failing to do is really recognize that we have to meet students where they are. You know, I teach public education. You get students, no matter who they are, they come in with all of their needs, all of their challenges, all of their gifts. And we have to be prepared to receive them, whether that is special education, whether that is talented and gifted education, whether that is regular education, bilingual education. But we have to have, you know, make sure we're servicing the needs of all students

and make sure that teachers are prepared for that, you know, that our teacher preparation programs are adequately training teachers to meet the challenges that they're going to face in the classrooms. I would be remiss if I didn't say community colleges. I'm a person who started in a community college. It was almost baby steps for me to get to where I was, and I think so many of our young people would benefit from programs in community colleges. Yeah, agreed.

You've talked about a lot of the life experiences you bring to this job. You talked about your experience in community college. You've talked about living in this job. You talked about, you know, your experience in community college. You've talked about living in public housing. You've experienced homelessness. You've been a single mom. Do you think, you know, you can bring those experiences to bear to help Connecticut voters, to help you connect? And do you think that the Democratic Party has been hurt because it hasn't been better connected with people affected by those issues and by the policies you're discussing? I absolutely believe that my life experience can help me to connect, but it's not just that. The totality of those experiences

frame my decision-making. I know what it was to experience all of those different phases in my life. And what I've learned and what I think was evident when you look at the communities where I won in the primary, so many other people are experiencing these same things. You know, just because I grew up in an urban center, you know, in poverty, doesn't mean that I had the monopoly on poverty. We have some rural communities where people are experiencing the exact same thing. You know, we have many working families who are living paycheck to paycheck. And I really want to make sure that all of their voices are included in the conversation. And I think that as a party,

we've fallen short of that. Now we have this huge gap where it's almost like there's this emergence of all these new groups of people. And what I'm saying is they've always been there, you know, and shame on us for not engaging them sooner and hearing them and listening to them and making sure they felt included because now we wouldn't have, you know, these abrupt shifts that are happening now. Right, right. Hopefully one of the big stories out of the 2018 midterms will be that there are more women and people of color serving in Congress and in state level elected offices across the country. You had never run for office before you decided to run this time. What made you take the plunge and what advice do you have for other people who might be listening who are thinking about throwing their hat in the ring?

Well, for me, you know, I looked at my students, I looked around me, and I've always helped in the community. I've always done things incrementally and tried to touch people one at a time. And I realized, you know, over the last couple years, I don't want to use the term frustrated because I'm not doing this because I'm frustrated. I'm doing it because I think when regular people, if I want my voice to be represented and I don't see it being represented, then I need to be the one to do it. You know, be the change you wish to see. And I was always telling my students, be part of the solution. If you don't like what's happening, figure out a way to be a part of the solution. And I think I'm at a point where I have to take my own advice. And one of the things in my campaign, you know, in my ad, there's this line where I say, if Congress starts to look like us, no one can stop us.

And just what you said, if this is a representative democracy and it is truly representative, people should be able to find everybody represented. You know, mothers, teachers, farmers, working class people, old, young, veterans, conservative, you know, progressive. The only way to have true solutions and problem solving is for all of those voices to be represented at the table so that when we finally come up with an answer, we can say we've considered all of the people in this community and this is something that everybody can agree on. That can't happen if people aren't even at the table, you know, and we really have to do a better job of that, making sure everyone feels like this government includes them. That is a great message. Now, one last question for you. There has been a contentious debate here at Crooked Media about Connecticut pizza. John Lovett had some very harsh words for Connecticut pizza.

I was wondering if you have a message for John and other Connecticut pizza haters out there that you want to leave us with. You're not going to like my answer. Please. First of all, Connecticut is the best pizza, but there's a family-owned pizza shop in Waterbury called Dominic and Pia.

It's like the best. They've been there for 50 years, and it's no slight to Sally's or Pepe's, but if you're from Waterbury, it's Dominic and Pia's. Okay. One other question for you. Why does every town in Connecticut end with Barry? There's Waterbury, Danbury, Canterbury, Middlebury. I mean, the list literally goes on and on.

Did you guys just run out of names? Like, what happened here? I think so. Let's keep it let's keep it simple keep it simple we had other things to do like we had other things to do like um come up with the compromise on the constitution so we didn't waste our time you know naming towns all right a concise honest answer that's a great place to leave it Johanna thank you so much for doing the show. If people want to learn more about your campaign, where should they go? I have a website, JohannaHayes.com, and on social media, JohannaHayesCT. And again, I have this tremendous social media team that saturates digital with all of our information, everything our campaign does. We do a lot of voter education. I do civics chats and teach people, you know,

how to register, how to get involved, how to fill out an absentee ballot. And I think that really propelled my campaign because I taught people how to engage, you know, and that really translated on election day. People were turned away from the primaries and they knew, go to the registrar, ask for the moderator, you know, ask for a provisional ballot. So education was a huge part of my campaign, and we try to do that digitally as much as we can. So I encourage people to go check us out on johannahayes.com or johannahayesct on social media. All right. Everyone follow at johannahayesct on Twitter right now. And I just got verified today.

Oh, right on. Congrats on the blue checkmark. That means I'm a real person. Jonna, thank you so much for doing it. I'm going to follow you right now. Thank you. And I'm excited about your campaign. I can't wait until you're a representative.

I'm excited too. It's unbelievable to see that, you know, when people come together and elevate their voices, that it matters and it means something. I think that's such a valuable lesson for all of these young students who invested in this campaign to see it come to fruition. I think these will be engaged voters for life as a result of this experience. That's awesome. Also, everyone should watch the YouTube of your teacher of the year award event with President Obama because it was just a half hour of pure joy. Still makes me smile just thinking about it.

I think it made him smile, too. All right. Well, thank you so much for doing the show. And best of luck. Thank you. Thank you. Have a great day. Thanks again to Johanna Hayes for joining us today.

And, you know, we'll talk to you guys on Thursday. Do you think I was too negative? No, no. I think people got to get out there and vote or else that is the outcome that will happen. Yeah, I think it's okay to leave people with it on their stomach sometimes. I think Johanna that we just heard was very inspiring.

All right, so I sent them to the interview feeling down. Then we came out and now you brought them back down again. I'm not bringing them down again. I'm just commenting. And, you know, hopefully between now and Thursday, maybe there'll be a Manafort verdict. It could be happening rightfort verdict It could be happening Right now

It could be happening While you're listening Right now We just don't know Come on Alright everyone Come on Jerry Bye